Jodyâs.
She keeps them in a holding pen for one week, puts a note on the blackboard in front of the Mercantile, and calls the vet in Libby, which is due southwest, sixty miles across the snowdrift-covered pass. If no one claims the dog after that week, she does a very odd thing: she hikes to the top of Hensley Mountain with the dog and sits down with it.
You can see the whole valley from the top of Hensley. Itâs above the tree line, just barely, and the wind whips and gusts, blows your hair into your eyes. Jody must feel a little like God when sheâs there surveying things.
And she watches that dog too, watches the way it pants, and the way it looks out at the valley and off toward Canada. Jody knows dogs so well that she can tell, up in that blowing wind, if the dog can survive on its own or not. If it can, sheâll unclip the dogâs leash, take the collar off, and let it go down the mountain into the deep woods that cross over into Canadaâsheâll let the dog have its wish. But if Jody doesnât find what sheâs looking for, sheâll lead it back to her cabin. Later in the day sheâll drive it to the pound, where, almost always, it will be the end of the line for that runaway dog. There is a man in the valley, never mind his name, who for a dollar will take unwanted dogs up the road a ways and gas them or shoot them. Needless to say, Jody does not employ his services.
I am like those stray dogs, and I think Jody is too. Those dogs have run a long way to get here.
Â
No one has money in the valley. No one has money even in the little town of Libby. Some of the people who have sled teams rely on road kills to feed their dogsâsuch large, hungry dogsâand for a fact, you never see a road-killed deer or elk up here. Whenever one of us does strike a deer, instead of leaving it, we load it into the truck (if the truck is still drivable), and head for the Dirty Shame Saloon.
The Dirty Shame sits at the base of Hensley Mountain, which, back in the forties, got a radar dish put on top of it, one of a whole chain of dishes the Air Force had set up along the Northwestâs peaks to detect bombers flying over from Russia, the theory being that as we werenât far awayâthe Russian planes would only have to zip across Alaska, the Yukon, and British Columbiaâit would be an easy matter to dive-bomb the valley, riddle the Dirty Shame (which has been here forever) with bullets, and strafe the Mercantile. The radar dish is still there, abandoned, and the lonely dirt road to the top, which seems to lead into the clouds, has long been grown over, crisscrossed with windfall timber and young aspen trees.
One thing from those days did not fall into disrepair, however: the warning siren that was supposed to sound whenever a Russian plane was detected. Handy with tools and electronics, Joe, the owner of the Dirty Shame, decided to hike up there one day and disassemble the siren. He brought it down to the saloon and mounted it on the front porch. Now, every time someone hits a deer and brings it in for barbecuing, Joe shorts the sirenâs wires with the blade of his pocketknife. Wolves, coyotes, and dogs go crazy when he does that. The siren is so loud that some people in Idaho and Washington can hear it, but because the roads into the valley are in such bad shape, outsiders have no hope of getting here in time for the evening barbecue. Everyone who hears the siren knows what it means.
If its summertime when the wail goes up, we gather at the saloon around six or six-thirty. Jody comes in her little wagon, pulled by huskies and malamutes. There are nearly as many children as there are registered voters, and after the barbecue the whole group of us will dance until the sunlight leaves, which isnât until around midnight. We bring lettuce from our gardens for the barbecue, and fresh-baked bread. Doug, who is not a veterinarian but is good with animalsâhe sews them
She keeps them in a holding pen for one week, puts a note on the blackboard in front of the Mercantile, and calls the vet in Libby, which is due southwest, sixty miles across the snowdrift-covered pass. If no one claims the dog after that week, she does a very odd thing: she hikes to the top of Hensley Mountain with the dog and sits down with it.
You can see the whole valley from the top of Hensley. Itâs above the tree line, just barely, and the wind whips and gusts, blows your hair into your eyes. Jody must feel a little like God when sheâs there surveying things.
And she watches that dog too, watches the way it pants, and the way it looks out at the valley and off toward Canada. Jody knows dogs so well that she can tell, up in that blowing wind, if the dog can survive on its own or not. If it can, sheâll unclip the dogâs leash, take the collar off, and let it go down the mountain into the deep woods that cross over into Canadaâsheâll let the dog have its wish. But if Jody doesnât find what sheâs looking for, sheâll lead it back to her cabin. Later in the day sheâll drive it to the pound, where, almost always, it will be the end of the line for that runaway dog. There is a man in the valley, never mind his name, who for a dollar will take unwanted dogs up the road a ways and gas them or shoot them. Needless to say, Jody does not employ his services.
I am like those stray dogs, and I think Jody is too. Those dogs have run a long way to get here.
Â
No one has money in the valley. No one has money even in the little town of Libby. Some of the people who have sled teams rely on road kills to feed their dogsâsuch large, hungry dogsâand for a fact, you never see a road-killed deer or elk up here. Whenever one of us does strike a deer, instead of leaving it, we load it into the truck (if the truck is still drivable), and head for the Dirty Shame Saloon.
The Dirty Shame sits at the base of Hensley Mountain, which, back in the forties, got a radar dish put on top of it, one of a whole chain of dishes the Air Force had set up along the Northwestâs peaks to detect bombers flying over from Russia, the theory being that as we werenât far awayâthe Russian planes would only have to zip across Alaska, the Yukon, and British Columbiaâit would be an easy matter to dive-bomb the valley, riddle the Dirty Shame (which has been here forever) with bullets, and strafe the Mercantile. The radar dish is still there, abandoned, and the lonely dirt road to the top, which seems to lead into the clouds, has long been grown over, crisscrossed with windfall timber and young aspen trees.
One thing from those days did not fall into disrepair, however: the warning siren that was supposed to sound whenever a Russian plane was detected. Handy with tools and electronics, Joe, the owner of the Dirty Shame, decided to hike up there one day and disassemble the siren. He brought it down to the saloon and mounted it on the front porch. Now, every time someone hits a deer and brings it in for barbecuing, Joe shorts the sirenâs wires with the blade of his pocketknife. Wolves, coyotes, and dogs go crazy when he does that. The siren is so loud that some people in Idaho and Washington can hear it, but because the roads into the valley are in such bad shape, outsiders have no hope of getting here in time for the evening barbecue. Everyone who hears the siren knows what it means.
If its summertime when the wail goes up, we gather at the saloon around six or six-thirty. Jody comes in her little wagon, pulled by huskies and malamutes. There are nearly as many children as there are registered voters, and after the barbecue the whole group of us will dance until the sunlight leaves, which isnât until around midnight. We bring lettuce from our gardens for the barbecue, and fresh-baked bread. Doug, who is not a veterinarian but is good with animalsâhe sews them
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