A Boy’s Best Friend Has A Secret Past

The Secret Past of a Boy’s Best Friend

A Boy’s Best Friend Has A Secret Past

Years’ after his hunting dogs disappeared, the author learns the truth about his companion’s fate.

As a wannabe Forest Ranger, I take jobs as a counselor at the Neighborhood Youth Center, named B’klyn Heights Youth Center and we’d go to Upstate NY to camp-out during school hiatus; winter, spring and summer vacations. One of the senior counselors had a home and farm there, in addition to privat campgrounds.

Much of my childhood visits to Woodstock NY, was excruciatingly lonely. Family troubles, devastating shyness, to the point of withdrawal and a complete and utter lack of any social skills ensured a life of solitude, which was just fine by me. I’d spend most of my time drawing and painting. Hunting and fishing also, was not only my opening into the world of wonder; it was my salvation. From the age of 12 or younger as far back I can remember in the wilds of Africa where I was born. I lived, breathed, existed to draw, hunt and fish. On school days I would hunt in the morning and again in the evening. On Fridays I would head into the woods by myself, often for the entire weekend. Still, I had not learned to just love solitude, but crave it as I do now. I would see something beautiful – the sunset or sunrise through the leaves, a deer moving through the dappled light – and I would want to point that out and say to someone, “Look!” But there’s no one there.

Then I met Ike, Tina and Ace.

It was the beginning of duck season. I got up at around 3 AM and walked from our house some four or five blocks to the rail yard, the across the covered street bridge. Then I dropped to the Hudson Riverbank and started walking along the water to the woods.

In the darkness it was hard going, I remembered. After a mile and a half or so, I was wading in swamp muck and went to pull myself up the bank to harder ground.

The mud was thick and slick as grease. I fell, then scrambled and scrabbled up the bank again and again, shot gun in one hand and grabbing at roots and twigs with the other. I had to just gained the top when a part of the naked darkness detached itself, leaned close to my face, and went “woof.”

No, not “arf” or “ruff” or a growl. But “woof.”

I got scared for ½ a second, and I froze. Then I let go of the fistful of scrub or shrub I was holding and clinging to and fell backward down the incline. On the way down the though hit me: bear. I clawed at my pocketknife and pockets for shells and inserted one into my shotgun. I was aiming when something about the dark shape in silhouette stopped me.

Whatever it was had remained sitting at the top of the bank, looking down at silly, me. There was just enough dawn light by this time to show a silhouette, it was a dog or two. Two big dogs, big black dogs. But dogs.

I immediately lowered my gun and wiped the mud out of mine eyes. “Who owns you, boys?” I asked. The dogs didn’t move and climbed the bank again. “Hello!” I called into the dark woods. “I have your dogs here!”

There was nobody.

“So you’re a stray.” But strays were shy like me and usually starved and skinny; this dogs was a Lab – Labrador, was well fed and healthy and his coat was shiny and thick. He stayed near me on my right-side.

“Well”, I said. “What do I do with you?” On impulse, I added, “You want to hunt?”

He knew the word, it would seem. His tail hammered the ground; he wiggled and then moved off along the river.

Just then a Falcon named Ace showed up and decided it wanted to hunt to.

I had never hunted with a bird of prey and dogs before but I started to follow them. It was light enough now to shoot, so I kept the gun ready. We had not gone 50 yards when four mallards exploded out of the thicket and thick grass near the bank and started across the Hudson River.

I raised my gun, cocked it, aimed just about above the right-hand duck, and squeezed the trigger. There was a loud bang and a crash, and the duck fell into the water. Just then the Falcon snatched, in midair a second duck. He grabbed the duck with his talons.

When I’d shot ducks over the water or river before, I had to wait for the current to bring the bodies over to shore. This time however, it was different. With the smell of the powder still in the air, the dogs was off the bank in a great leap forward. He hit the water swimming, his shoulders pumping as he churned the water surface in a straight line to the dead duck. He took it gently in his mouth, turned and swam back. Climbing the bank, he put the duck by my right foot, next to where the falcon dropped the other duck, then moved off a couple of feet and sat under a tree where the falcon had roosted. The falcon flew down to me and landed on my shoulder.

It was fully light now, and I would and could see that the dogs and falcon had a collar and a tag. I petted both – they let me, in a reserved way – and pulled the tags to the side to read it.

“My name is Ace,” said the Falcon’s tag.

“My name is Ike,” said the dog’s tag.

“My name is Tina,” said the other dog’s tag.

That’s all it said in all cases. No address or phone number. No owner’s name, even.

“Well!,” I said – the dog’s tails wagged -- “I’d like to thank you for bringing my duck back to me.”

And that’s how it started, we were a great team together.

Pando, One of the Oldest and Largest Organisms

On a cold, sunny October day, I travel with Paul Rogers, an ecologist at Utah State University, to see the largest known living organism on Earth. The creature resides in the high mountains of southern Utah on public land. It’s a 106-acre aspen stand named Pando — literally, “I spread,” in Latin. Linked by a single root system, Pando consists of tens of thousands of genetically identical trees, cloned from a sprout that emerged after the last glaciation in southern Utah, roughly 13,000 years ago. At some point since then — we don’t know exactly when, because we don’t know how old Pando is — this enormous being germinated from a seed the size of a pepper grain.

Pando is dying, and Rogers has been trying to figure out why. The 55-year-old has studied quaking aspen for more than two decades. Disease, blight, climate change and wildfire suppression have all taken their toll on Pando, but the root cause of decline is a surprising one: too many herbivores, namely mule deer. The deer feast on the aspen, literally eating away the young before they can mature.

Pando is now made up almost solely of old and deteriorating trees. “A whole society, this huge clone, and it’s all senior citizens,” Rogers says as we walk through the clone. “There are no children, no young trees, no middle-aged. So what comes next? Where are the babies? It’s a system out of whack.”

We wend toward an experimental section of the clone that has been fenced off from the hungry ungulates since 2013 and will remain fenced indefinitely. Funded by an alliance of nonprofit conservationists in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service, scientists hope to see what happens when Pando is freed from the pressure of herbivores. “Stop the herbivory, and this is what happens,” Rogers says as he runs his fingers on a new aspen sprout. Safe behind the fencing, the year-old plant is slender and smooth, about as tall as an infant first learning to stand. “There’s been a remarkable return of the young.”

The Quaking Tree

Pando is like any other aspen grove — except that it’s the largest known to humans. With their glowing white bark and yellow autumn color, aspen forests are iconic in the American West. Aspen leaves move in a curious manner when touched by the wind, due to the way the leaf attaches to the stem. This produces the quaking light of the typical aspen forest, a romantic effect that gives the species its name. This feature also happens to benefit the understory: More light filters through the leaves to produce more diversity of grasses, mosses and lichens. Aspens are also the region’s single most biodiverse woodland ecosystem. Their bark is soft, offering easy habitat for scores of species of cavity-nesting birds.

I spend several hours walking in the woods with Rogers as he recounts the importance of his favorite tree. He tells me the Ute Indian tribal legend, about the branch scars that are common on aspen trunks and how they resemble eyes. The eyes watch humankind. They watch the young hunter in the forest to ensure he is respectful, reverent. His kill is observed, judged. The forest of eyes, the legend says, is one big eye.

We had not gone 50 yards when four deer exploded out of the thicket and thick bramble near the bank and started across the river.

I raised my gun, cocked it, aimed just about above the right-hand deer, and squeezed the trigger. There was a loud bang and a crash, and the deer fell onto the grassy knoll. Just then the Falcon snatched, in midair a duck. He grabbed the duck with his talons.

With the smell of the gun powder still in the air, I went over to collect my deer.

We had not gone another 100 yards when four elks exploded out of the thicket and thick grass near the bank and started across the river. I thought, "At what altitude does a moose become an elk?"

I raised my gun, cocked it, aimed just about above the right-hand elk, and squeezed the trigger. There was a loud bang and a crash, and the elk fell onto the grassy knoll. Just then the Falcon snatched, in midair another duck. He grabbed the duck with his talons.

With the smell of the gun powder still in the air, I went over to collect my elk.

A breeze blows, and the trees that still wear their leaves — most have shed them by October — shake in the light of the sun. Rogers pauses. “That light, that sound, registering the wind,” he says. “Walking into an aspen grove is a peculiar experience. It’s a place of contemplation. And you begin to think: What’s an individual? This whole forest is an individual, and the so-called individuals we see are separate trees that are one. We’re not used to thinking about living beings in the way that Pando makes us think.”

Rogers says scientists have never found a clone even half the size of Pando, but no one’s really gone looking. He sees the fencing as a proving ground for restoration of other clones across the West. Because overbrowsing, he warns, is now afflicting hundreds of thousands of acres of aspen.

Foliage Feast

Under federal law, state wildlife agencies have almost total control over the management of deer and elk populations on public lands, including the national forests. The agencies want to maximize revenue from hunting fees. Hence, they have overseen increases in ungulates, including mule deer and elk, the two most sought-after species for trophy and meat hunters. The agencies could manage for lower populations, but this runs against “sustained yield” — which means sustained income for the agencies over time.

Elk populations across the West are higher than at any time in recorded history. In Utah, where there were few elk prior to European settlement, the introduced population tops 77,000. The current population estimate of deer in Utah is well over 300,000.

“States manage wildlife, particularly large game species, under an agricultural model, as a crop,” Rogers says. “This does not always track well for long-term forest resilience. Elk today are frequenting habitat where they never existed, like on desert plateaus. It’s extremely problematic for the ecosystems that never evolved with that kind of browsing pressure.”

Justin Shannon, the big game program coordinator at the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, disagrees with this claim of overabundance. “Deer and elk populations in Utah are below the statewide management objectives, and the elk population in Utah has decreased three years in a row,” Shannon said in an email.

Elk browsing may be more harmful to aspen than deer because of their larger appetites.

“In many areas of the West, aspen is doomed unless something is done to control abundant elk that eat the young aspen sprouts,” says Bill Ripple, an ecologist at Oregon State University who has pioneered the study of herbivory in ecosystems. Richard Lindroth, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, agrees. He says that if we don’t reduce the impact of ungulates on aspen, it will inevitably lead to losing many of these trees across the West.

I had never hunted big game with a bird of prey and dogs before but I started to follow them. It was light enough now to shoot, so I kept the gun ready. We had not gone 50 yards when four mallards exploded out of the thicket and thick grass near the bank and started across the river.

I raised my gun, cocked it, aimed just about above the right-hand duck, and squeezed the trigger. There was a loud bang and a crash, and the duck fell into the water. Just then the Falcon snatched, in midair a second duck. He grabbed the duck with his talons.

With the smell of the gun powder still in the air, the dogs was off the bank in a great leap forward. He hit the water swimming, his shoulders pumping as he churned the water surface in a straight line to the dead duck. He took it gently in his mouth, turned and swam back. Climbing the bank, he put the duck by my right foot, next to where the falcon dropped the other duck, then moved off a couple of feet and sat under a tree where the falcon had roosted. The falcon flew down to me and landed on my shoulder.

One answer to overbrowsing is to let nature go to work on the landscape, with more predators eating more ungulates. In a natural predator-prey cycle, cougars and wolves generally keep deer and elk populations in check, as has happened in many of the West’s national parks. And predators, especially pack hunters like wolves, create an “ecology of fear,” affecting ungulate behavior in ways that ultimately benefit aspen. Constantly looking over their shoulders and forced to keep on the move, elk don’t linger in the same feeding areas. This distributes the damage from their browsing, and aspen are better able to regenerate.

A small number of wolves now roam in New Mexico and Arizona. But wolves were extirpated from Utah at the behest of powerful ranching interests more than a century ago. When I asked the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources about the possibility of a wolf reintroduction into the state, a spokeswoman there told me, “Utah has no intention of reintroducing wolves.”

For now, Pando will have to keep hiding behind its protective fencing.

It was light enough now to shoot, so I kept the gun ready. We had not gone 150 yards when four grouse exploded out of the thicket and thick grass and sagebrush near the bank and started across the river

I raised my gun, cocked it, aimed just about above the right-hand grouse, and squeezed the trigger. There was a loud bang and a crash, and the grouse fell into the water. 

With the smell of the gun powder still in the air, I went over to collect my grouse.

We had not gone another 50 yards.  Just then the Falcon snatched, in midair a second grouse. He grabbed the grouse with his talons and placed itat my feet.

Saving Grouse

The sun rises in Wyoming on male sage grouse strutting their stuff, chests puffed, tails splayed. Their courting arenas, or leks, are clearings in the sagebrush.

“The sage is all things to these birds of the plains,” Rachel Carson wrote. Sage grouse feed on the tough, drought-resistant shrub in winter, and in spring they return to the same leks to court and mate and nest under the sheltering branches. As sagebrush has retreated across the West, so have the grouse: Their population has declined by an estimated 90 percent.

At the Barney Ranch near Big Piney, Wyoming, ranch hands corral and brand young calves. Listing sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act—as some conservationists have urged—would place severe limits on ranching, oil and gas development, and other economic activities on western lands, both government owned and private.

To contain a wild blaze, a firefighter sets a backfire near Boise, Idaho, in August 2017. In parts of the West, overgrazing by sheep and cattle in the late 19th century greatly decreased native grasses and forbs that grow around sagebrush. That cleared the way for invasive cheatgrass and other species that are more prone to fire—and less palatable for young grouse.

The undulating, high-desert “sagebrush sea,” the only place where sage grouse can survive, sprawls across 173 million acres of the American West. But the unbroken expanses the birds require are now fragmented by roads, fences, drill pads, transmission lines, and subdivisions. “There’s just not enough habitat anymore,” says Brian Rutledge of the Audubon Society.

Well before dawn, near the Little Snake River in southern Wyoming, Pat and Sharon O’Toole’s pickup bounces up a broad, sage-covered valley, where the family has run livestock for five generations. Pat turns off the headlights and rolls toward a clearing. Under a moon that’s just past full, we make out dozens of white dots, hopping up and down on the dark plain. The sage grouse have been dancing all night. As the morning light grows over the eastern mountains, the outlandish mating ritual comes into view. The knee-high males strut around, puffing their white-feathered chests and splaying their tails. They chase one another and spar in a flurry of beating wings, heaving chests, and loud thunking. Meanwhile the females—smaller birds with brindled gray feathers that blend with sage and soil—stand around looking bored. It’s a ridiculous spectacle, and the human analogies are inescapable: singles bar, Venice Beach boardwalk, Senate hearing.

A prairie dog scans for predators in the Jonah Field in western Wyoming. The gas field was once prime habitat for sage grouse—as well as for prairie dogs, pronghorn, burrowing owls, and other animals that depend on sagebrush. Saving grouse habitat would help them all.

The greater sage grouse is “unquestionably the most comical-looking bird I have ever seen,” ornithologist Charles Bendire noted in 1877. Back then there were millions of sage grouse across the American West. Native peoples and Anglo settlers alike hunted them for feathers and food. Camping in one Wyoming valley in the 1880s, naturalist George Bird Grinnell found it so crammed with grouse that it became a “moving mass of gray.” Such scenes are hard to find today. Less than 10 percent of the bird’s original population remains, about half a million birds scattered across 11 western states and two Canadian provinces. Sage grouse need undisturbed sagebrush; the tough, drought-resistant shrub feeds the birds, especially in winter, and shelters them and their nests. But sagebrush is in retreat everywhere. Massive overgrazing a century ago cleared the way for invasive grasses that now fuel devastating fires in the western part of the bird’s range. Roads and subdivisions, transmission lines, farms, gas fields, and wind turbines—all disrupt what was once an unbroken sea of sage. Preserving sagebrush for grouse would help other animals that depend on the same habitat, such as pronghorn, mule deer, pygmy rabbits, and burrowing owls. But it might prove costly to ranchers, miners, oil and gas developers, and real estate brokers. In 2015 then President Barack Obama’s administration brokered what it hailed as a historic collaboration among those competing interests. Now President Donald Trump’s administration is weakening provisions that steered oil and gas drilling away from areas that had been reserved for sage grouse.

It’s the age-old battle between those who want to preserve western lands and those who want to extract a living from them—only in this case, the burden falls on a comical, knee-high bird. As the sage grouse goes, so goes the West.

ONE OF THE BIGGEST FACTORS in the grouse’s decline these days may be the astonishing increase in natural gas production in places such as the Green River Basin, south of Pinedale, Wyoming. In 1984, when biologist John Dahlke first visited, the basin contained sagebrush, a few fence posts, some two-track roads, and not much else—except the largest known winter concentration of sage grouse. They would lift from the sage in lumbering waves, Dahlke recalls: “The sky was full of them, bumping into each other, falling down.”

That basin is now home to one of the most productive gas fields in the region. Called the Jonah Field, it’s crisscrossed with roads and cluttered with chugging, groaning infrastructure: gas wells, drill rigs, pipelines, sage-camouflaged service huts. Nearly all of that is on federal land.

“It happened stunningly fast,” says Dahlke, who works as a wildlife consultant in Pinedale. “From absolutely silent, just the wind or the hiss of snowfall hitting the ground, to an industrialized landscape.” The breakneck change has proved particularly hard on sage grouse because of their fidelity to ancestral mating and nesting grounds. Males return each spring to the same leks—clearings where they do their mating dances. Females usually nest within 500 yards or so of the previous year’s nest. Their chicks settle nearby.

“Sage grouse are very poor pioneers,” Dahlke says. Rather than set off for better habitat—which is more and more limited—they dance doggedly on and nest among the bulldozers and flaring gas wells. Most birds survive in the short term, Dahlke says, but “incremental impacts” take their toll. The number of leks has dwindled. “The enormous winter flocks are now gone from the Jonah Field,” Dahlke says. “They are gone.”

ONLY IN THE EARLY 1990S did scientists start to realize the extent of the sage grouse’s decline across the West. In 1999 conservation groups filed the first petition requesting that the bird be protected under the Endangered Species Act. But for years the federal government, hamstrung by tight budgets and pressure from business interests, put off a reckoning. Listing sage grouse as endangered would sharply limit economic activity on the 173 million acres of public, state, and private land where sage grouse live.

But the threat of a listing motivated states to take action. In 2007 Wyoming, which houses more than a third of the remaining sage grouse and has an economy that depends on fossil fuel extraction, brought together a broad coalition—ranchers, industry representatives, conservation groups, land managers, and politicians—to create a policy to halt the bird’s decline.

“We battled it out mightily,” says Paul Ulrich, director of government affairs at Jonah Energy, which operates on the Jonah Field. “And then we put our interests aside and asked, ‘What is best for Wyoming?’” The group ultimately agreed to limit any development and restore disturbed areas within “core” grouse habitat—not including the Jonah Field, where the grouse population was already diminished—while allowing more intensive development elsewhere.

The Obama administration’s $60 million federal plan was modeled on Wyoming’s. No faction got everything it wanted. But, Ulrich says, “it’s demonstrably working.” Industry got certainty: The administration promised it wouldn’t list sage grouse as endangered. Conservationists, says Brian Rutledge of the Audubon Society, got limits on development in important habitat. “Do we have issues?” Rutledge asks. “Of course. But we set standards and are measuring impacts. To me this is the future of conservation.”

Not everyone agreed. Groups on left and right filed suit, arguing, respectively, that the plan would not adequately protect grouse or that the restrictions were “draconian.” “The certainty of not being able to develop is not the kind of certainty we want,” says Kathleen Sgamma of Western Energy Alliance, an industry group.

The Trump administration agrees: For the sake of energy independence and not “destroying local communities,” as Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke put it, the Bureau of Land Management has proposed lifting some restrictions on development in key sage grouse habitat. Under another proposed policy, which could affect many species, the administration would allow regulators to consider not only the science but also the economic impact of listing species as endangered.

ON THE O’TOOLE RANCH, the sage grouse dance ends without romance. The females lurking on the edge of the lek finally choose. Most mate with the same male. A female turns and arches her wings, and the deed is done in a matter of seconds. The sun climbs higher, and the birds scatter back into the brush.

Before the endangered species petitions, Pat O’Toole says, “we never paid much attention to sage grouse. They were just part of the landscape, like deer.” He participated in the state and federal negotiations and is generally happy with the results. The federal plan made funds available to maintain habitat both for the grouse and for his livestock. This particular area, which will serve as a lambing ground later in the spring, is home to six grouse leks and countless other creatures—pronghorn, mule deer, bald and golden eagles. “It’s an intact system,” Pat says.

The sagebrush steppe--the only habitat where sage grouse can survive--is one of the largest and most imperiled ecosystems in North America. It's increasingly fragmented by development of all kinds (including for oil and gas); degraded by livestock overgrazing, and by non-native grasses that are more susceptible to wildfire. We also have the non-native introduction of other species, that may or may not have predators.

There are species—such as ravens, which now use oil rigs as perches to prey on sage grouse—that manage to flourish when their environment shifts. Sage grouse are not among them. They are supremely evolved to live in the harsh, silent American steppe, but they are birds of little brain. “They’re not smart at all,” Sharon O’Toole says. They run into fences, stand in the middle of busy roads.

Humans, like ravens, are more adaptable. We can learn to do things differently. That’s what Audubon’s Rutledge believes: That we can alter the behaviors that trap us in time-worn conflict and chest-puffing displays of political dominance in the West. He hopes that collaboration on sage grouse, if allowed to work, will provide a template for other conservation efforts.

“Everyone says you can’t change this,” he says. “And if I’m rational, probably not. But I don’t think it’s any excuse not to try.”

Charlie Hamilton James specializes in images of wildlife but admits the low-angle shot of the sage grouse was the hardest photo he’s ever taken. “It took five weeks, a lot of coffee, and a pile of gear.”

Back from my trip to the midwest, an awesome trip it was, learned a heck of a lot.

For the rest of the season, I hunted the Hudson River or one of it's tributaries, early morning. I’d cross the bridge and stat down the river, and Ike, Tina and Ace would be there. By the middle of the second week, I felt as if we’d been hunting with each other, all our lives, forever.

When the hunting was done, they’d trot back to with me until we arrive at the bridge. There they would sit and the falcon would perch on the nearest tree limb and nothing I did would make them advance further.

I tried waiting to see where they would go, but when it was obvious I wasn’t going to leave, they merely lay down and went to sleep. Once I left then, they crossed the bridge and then hid in back of a building to watch. They stayed until I was out of sight, then turned and trotted north along the Hudson River and into the woods and the falcon followed as well.

If the rest of his life was a mystery, when we were together we became fast friends. I’s cook and extra egg sandwich for them, and when there were no ducks, we would talk. That is I would talk; Ike and Tina would sit as would Ace perch, his and hers enormous head would rest on my knees, his and hers huge brown eyes looking up at me I then notice she had one off colored eye, it was baby-blue, while I petted them and regaled them with my stories, told them my life’s troubles and tribulations.

On the weekends when I stayed out, I would construct a lean-to or erect a tent for two or more and make a fire. Ike and Tina would curl up on the edge of my blanket and/or sleeping bag. Ace would be perched in a tree nearby. Many mornings I’d awaken to find then under the frost-covered blanket and/or sleeping bag with me, sound asleep, my arm thrown over them, his and her breath rumbling against mine in unison, against mine side. The Falcon would be overhead standing guard over us all night.

It seemed Ace, Ike and Tina had always been in my life. Then one morning they wasn’t there. I would wait in the mornings by the bridge, but (sigh) they never showed again. I thought they might have been hit by a car or plane or something or their owners might have moved away or passed away. But I could not learn more of them. I mourned them and missed them.

I grew up and went into the crazy parts of my life, the mistakes a young brash young man could make. Later I got back into dogs – sled dogs – Huskies --- took a job as a Systems Engineer at Elmendorf AFB, Anchorage AK and/ or as ISSO - Information Systems Security Officer in Alaska at Ft. Greely 90 miles South of Fairbanks and ran the Iditarod dog races across Alaska and their tundra.

Ice Fishing - Winter - Alaska Fishing Guide | Fishtale River Guides

Alaska ice fishing trips include ice fishing tackle, bait, and instructions for catching winter landlocked salmon, rainbow trout, Dolly Varden, Arctic Char in Mat-Su Valley lakes near Anchorage, Wasilla, and Palmer, Alaska.

The Seward, Alaska, mushers brought their dogs off the frozen Bering Sea and onto Front Street in the Gold Rush town of Nome after crossing nearly 1,000 miles of Alaska wilderness. The fastest mushers in the world.
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After my first run, I came back to NY with slides of the race. A outdoor/ sporting—goods business in Woodstock NY had been one of my sponsors, and one evening I gave a public slide show and talk at one of his store.

There was an older dude a mountain-man sitting in a wheel chair, and I saw that when I told how Cookies, my lead dog, had saved my life, his eyes teared up, and he nodded .

When the event was over, he wheeled up and shook my hand. “I had a dog or two like your Cookie – a dog that saved my life.”

“Oh, did you run the sled, too?”

He shook his head.

“No, not like that. I lived up the river in Woodstock NY when I was drafted to serve in the Korean War. I had a Labrador retriever and I raised and hunted with him and his mate. When I was wounded – lost the use of my legs. When I came back from the TMC – Hospital. He was waiting. He spent the rest of his life by my side.

“I would have gone crazy without him. I’d sit for hours and talk to him…” He trailed off, and his eyes were moist, again. “I still miss him.”

I looked at him, then out the store window. It was spring, and the snow was melting outside, but I was seeing a 13 yo and a Lab or two with his Falcon, sitting in a duck blind in the fall.

“Your dog(s),” I said. Was he named Ike?”

The man smiled and nodded. “Why, yes. But how… Did you know him?”

That was why Ike and his mate and falcon friend ...had not come back. He had another job, taking care of the old man his sick owner.

“Yes,” I said, turning to him. “He was my best friend.”