than raising a child. He claimed a man who fails to sufficiently and constantly train his dog, to test it, to discipline —from its weaning to its death—is in for a rude awakening. “Boo wasn’t even a month old when I first introduced him to water, to various types of cover, and of course to game birds,” he said and ran a hand across his beard, neatening it. “When it comes to dogs, you got to develop their obedience and hunting desire from the get-go or they won’t grow up right.”
Here he gave me a look full of judgment and love that quite frankly pissed me off, but I pretended not to notice—I kept up my pleasant demeanor—because with him, when things boiled over, it took a lot of time and energy before he would treat you civilly again—and we had a long weekend ahead of us.
He explained how he first coaxed Boo into water. “I took my fly rod, see?” His hand mimicked casting. “And with a pheasant wing dangling from it, I shot it off into the shallow part of the pond and let Boo chase it and sight-point it.”
Then he baited Boo with a dead bird, and then a live lame bird. “At first, my pup got afraid when he felt the bottom disappear under his legs, but I got in the pond with him and showed him how safe it was, and now he can, by God, hardly go by a puddle without wanting to jump in it.” I remembered him shoving me off a dock and demanding I tread water for sixty seconds and laughing much as he laughed now, looking lovingly at his dog.
I admit to feeling something like jealousy.
“No,” he said, as if responding to some conversation I wasn’t a part of, “Boo won’t be much help to us deer hunting, but he’s good company.”
I continued to listen and he continued to speak until the final distance—where the sagebrush gave way to juniper and pine trees—became the near distance and the ground began to steadily rise and the evergreen forest filtered the sun into puddles that splashed across the highway. We turned off the air conditioner and rolled down our windows because here the heat was gone, replaced by a pure cool air that made breathing feel like drinking.
My father was a creature of habit and for as long as my family had been visiting the Ochocos, we made our camp along the South Fork of the John Day River, in the Black Canyon Wilderness. Besides the occasional Forest Service truck grumbling along the nearby logging road, we never saw anyone and my father considered the spot his own.
To remember the exact location, he had blaze-marked a pine with his hatchet. “Keep an eye out,” he said, and then, “There!” indicating the tree with the wound scabbed over by hard orange sap. We parked under its branches and tramped through the bear grass and lupin, seeking the cold spring that bled into the South Fork, and next to it, our old firepit, probably with a few weeds growing through its ashes.
We found something else entirely.
Boo ran ahead of us, popping his teeth at butterflies, barking at a chipmunk that chattered a warning from a nearby tree, and then his body went still. “You see that?” my father said, nodding in Boo’s direction. “He’s sighted something there. Maybe a ptarmigan or a grouse.”
It was another thirty feet to where Boo pointed, his body as black and as rigid as obsidian, his snout indicating something hidden among the knee-high grass. “At ease,” my father said and the dog relaxed his pose and wagged his tail, but kept his eyes focused ahead of him.
Here was the cold spring—the size of a hot tub—surrounded by willows and sun-sparkled stones, and next to it, our firepit, and next to it, a body.
The man had been dead a long time. So long I could only identify him as male by his clothes—his jeans and flannel shirt—and even then I could not be certain. The vultures and the coyotes and the flies and the worms had had their way with him. I imagined the coyotes howling when they did it, fighting over the juiciest cuts of meat.
After a stunned
Here he gave me a look full of judgment and love that quite frankly pissed me off, but I pretended not to notice—I kept up my pleasant demeanor—because with him, when things boiled over, it took a lot of time and energy before he would treat you civilly again—and we had a long weekend ahead of us.
He explained how he first coaxed Boo into water. “I took my fly rod, see?” His hand mimicked casting. “And with a pheasant wing dangling from it, I shot it off into the shallow part of the pond and let Boo chase it and sight-point it.”
Then he baited Boo with a dead bird, and then a live lame bird. “At first, my pup got afraid when he felt the bottom disappear under his legs, but I got in the pond with him and showed him how safe it was, and now he can, by God, hardly go by a puddle without wanting to jump in it.” I remembered him shoving me off a dock and demanding I tread water for sixty seconds and laughing much as he laughed now, looking lovingly at his dog.
I admit to feeling something like jealousy.
“No,” he said, as if responding to some conversation I wasn’t a part of, “Boo won’t be much help to us deer hunting, but he’s good company.”
I continued to listen and he continued to speak until the final distance—where the sagebrush gave way to juniper and pine trees—became the near distance and the ground began to steadily rise and the evergreen forest filtered the sun into puddles that splashed across the highway. We turned off the air conditioner and rolled down our windows because here the heat was gone, replaced by a pure cool air that made breathing feel like drinking.
My father was a creature of habit and for as long as my family had been visiting the Ochocos, we made our camp along the South Fork of the John Day River, in the Black Canyon Wilderness. Besides the occasional Forest Service truck grumbling along the nearby logging road, we never saw anyone and my father considered the spot his own.
To remember the exact location, he had blaze-marked a pine with his hatchet. “Keep an eye out,” he said, and then, “There!” indicating the tree with the wound scabbed over by hard orange sap. We parked under its branches and tramped through the bear grass and lupin, seeking the cold spring that bled into the South Fork, and next to it, our old firepit, probably with a few weeds growing through its ashes.
We found something else entirely.
Boo ran ahead of us, popping his teeth at butterflies, barking at a chipmunk that chattered a warning from a nearby tree, and then his body went still. “You see that?” my father said, nodding in Boo’s direction. “He’s sighted something there. Maybe a ptarmigan or a grouse.”
It was another thirty feet to where Boo pointed, his body as black and as rigid as obsidian, his snout indicating something hidden among the knee-high grass. “At ease,” my father said and the dog relaxed his pose and wagged his tail, but kept his eyes focused ahead of him.
Here was the cold spring—the size of a hot tub—surrounded by willows and sun-sparkled stones, and next to it, our firepit, and next to it, a body.
The man had been dead a long time. So long I could only identify him as male by his clothes—his jeans and flannel shirt—and even then I could not be certain. The vultures and the coyotes and the flies and the worms had had their way with him. I imagined the coyotes howling when they did it, fighting over the juiciest cuts of meat.
After a stunned
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