Lost Dogs of Alaska

A piece of a longer piece of fiction I'm working on, based on some true stuff.

Lost Dogs of Alaska

In the morning I leave the shed and sneak into the main house for coffee, being careful not to wake the old man. I pour a big cup and take it down by the river to sit a spell. The sun is up, orange and beaming over the huge swirling river like a signal calling urgently. This is where to get the best view of the gray mountains rising up on the other side of the village. I’m still too concerned about my dogs disappearing to enjoy myself. In a day, after getting more supplies, it’ll be time to head out again. I have to.

     I take the last gulp and shake the cup upside down once to get the drops out. Then I carry it back to the house, thinking. I can’t give up on them, even though Maria is home waiting for me, missing me. I’ve been gone a long time, but still she waits. They being dogs doesn’t matter. I’d search the same for a human friend. Well, maybe more for a dog friend, especially these dogs. They’re very dear to me.

     I wipe my boots, tap lightly on the door, and slip back inside. The old man is awake in the kitchen fumbling around making breakfast. He’s cursing at the microwave. He sees me and brings it down a notch. “Coffee time,” he says to my raised empty cup.

     “Already had some, but I’ll take another sir,” I say, if you can spare it.

     “You got it,” he says. He holds out the pot and refills my cup. He talks while preparing breakfast. “I never had all these gadgets before,” he says. “We lived in the bush and didn’t need any of this crap,” waving his hand in sort of contempt at the various utensils and appliances. “We had a simple life, a good life.”

     “Would of liked that,” I say.

     “I did like it. I miss it.” He opens the refrigerator to get butter. “Are you going out looking for your dogs again?”

     “Yes sir, probably leave tomorrow, buy some food today. I got to find them.” He looks at me.

     “You want bacon and eggs?”

     “That would be great, thank you.” He holds up an affirming hand while turning back to the stove.

     “It’s a damn good thing what you’re doing, looking for them. Most people would of not even bothered, but you, you’re loyal to your dogs.” He flips the eggs.

     “Well sir, they’ve been loyal to me. I can’t let them down by not searching for them, by not finding them. I got to find them. They’re probably scared wondering what happened to me, petrified actually.”

     “That’s likely. You should keep looking. Stay here whenever you’re in town.”

     “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

     He gives me a huge breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, and a hunk of salmon his son caught that he plops down on my plate. “Weather’ll be turning cold soon. That’d be hard on dogs like yours,” he says. “Not much fur.”

     “They’re big Airedales,” I say, “the old school hunting version. They got some fur, but not like a husky. They might starve first.”

    “They might, or wolves could get them, but dogs got a way a surviving. They can handle some really difficult times, stuff that’d surely kill a man.”

     “It’s been a week already. Were your dogs ever starving and cold?” I say.

     “Don’t have any more but when I was a young man like you I used them to hunt and trap. That’s how we survived. There weren’t any jobs, just living off the land, long before this place was a village, and long before goddamn snow machines. Once me and my partner were out two months and got low on food. We didn’t have enough to keep the dogs going. They were in real sorry shape the poor things.”

     I sit, waiting for more of his story. He says, “If the dogs got too weak we wouldn’t of been able to get back. It was too far. My wife and kids were waiting for me. They needed me, depended on me.”

     “What did you do to keep from starving?” I say.

     “Well, we had to stop and hunt,” he says bluntly. “There was no other choice. It was forty below, hard to sneak up on a moose in that kind of cold. But we got lucky and came across one, though, far across a valley. We didn’t think we could get close enough for a shot. He was so far away.” He pauses. “You want more eggs?”

     “Sure, I never turn down food.” He gets up and scoops some out of the pan on the stove and onto my plate. “Thank you.”

     “Yep.”

     “What did you do?” I say.

     “Oh yeah, well, my partner, my brother, who was older’n me and calling the shots told me to go around the valley and come up the ridge from the other side. We had no other choice, so that’s what I did, hiked around to the head of that creek. Well hell, it took me four and a half hours, but I made it. When I came up to look the moose was still there, hunkered down in the snow. I raised my rifle right then and fired before he spooked. Well, we got the moose, and fed the dogs, and here I am to tell about it. I’m eighty now. That was a different time back then. If I was young I’d come with you, help you find your dogs.”

     Well, I’d accept the help,” I say.

     After eating I start washing my dish. “Just leave that there, I’ll get it,” he says. I set it on the counter next to the sink along with a bunch of others.

     “Thank you for breakfast. It’s the best food I’ve had in a long time. I didn’t realize how much I missed it after eating lentils and oats for so long.”

     “Well, you’re welcome young man. It’s great how you’re looking for adventure. Life goes so fast and then you realize you didn’t use it enough and realize your body doesn’t work as good as it used to and never will again. You would think that when you got old you’d be more accepting of death, but you’re not. You’re even more scared of it than when you were twenty.”

     “Jeeze, really? I didn’t know that.”

     “That’s a sad fact, a twist on the expected,” he says. I get up to stretch before leaving, pulling my arms behind my back.

     “I’ll be heading down to the store now. I can’t stop worrying. I want to leave now but my legs are so sore,” I say.

     “You need to rest a day or two. A trip like that, the body might not feel it until awhile,” he says. “Sometimes it takes a couple days before it catches up with you.”

     “I know, but I got to be going in the morning. I got to find those dogs. I can’t afford to wait around.”

     “Maybe they back tracked,” he says. He pours some soap in the sink and runs the water.

     “What do you mean?”

     “Maybe they got on your trail going the way you came like they thought that was the way you were going.”

     “I thought a that. I’ll head back to the Coleen if I don’t find them up on Crow Mountain.”

     “Maybe they joined a wolf pack.” I raised my eyebrows.

     “What, does that happen?”

     “Not likely. More likely wolves would kill them, unless it was a lone wolf. Sometimes a lone wolf needs a friend, and sometimes on rare occasions they try to befriend dogs, or even a young solitary bear. I seen one come in hanging around the dogs who was tied to stakes, wagging his tale and acting all friendly, few years back.”

    “Huh, that’s something.”

    “Sure is, you never know what goes on out there in the bush. It’s a better world than we’ve made. Most of us can’t even begin to understand it.”    

      “I raised my dogs from pups, drove down to California and picked them out myself. We just hiked across the Brooks Range together. Damn, I should have been watching them better, but it was our very last day, up in these mountains right here. I figured it was a done deal making it here. I let my guard down, just once, after all those weeks. Then they got on a moose scent and took off. I figured they’d be right back. I waited a long time, but couldn’t stay without any food. I was a walking skeleton from our trek. After two days I had to leave.” He wipes his hands on a dish towel and walks me to the door.

     “How long you going to look for them?” I ponder the question for a few seconds.

     “A year,” I say. “I’ll give it a year. That’s what I’m going to do if I have to.”

     “No kidding. That’s some real conviction,” he says.

     “Yes sir. My mind is made up. I’ll spend one year searching my heart out for those dogs.” He looks at me.

     “You know, I think you would. I think you will really do that. Being in the wilds got a way of making a man do the right thing. Without it we’re always doing the wrong thing, always wrecking things. Best of luck to you.” He shakes my hand.

     Then he opens the door, stands aside, and I step out, prepared to search for my dogs in the rolling hills and untrammeled wilderness.