Grandpa, the Great

My grandpa is my dad’s dad, on my dad’s side. He lives in a cabin up on a mountain, surrounded by great pines and tall, dry grass. In the early morning, before the sun has risen up over the deck and turned the sky above a soft, creamy blue, the deer come to lick the salt block he sets out. If you watch them through the window, they look at you with sad, wondering eyes, almost like they could talk if they wanted to.

Grandpa told me once he’d come face-to-face with a black bear. The bear was walking up alongside the house, and so was Grandpa. The meeting was a little bit of a surprise. He says if you talk to them, real slow and gentle, it calms ‘em down.

Grandpa built that cabin all by himself, with help from his sons and his granddaughter. It stretches high up into the sky, two stories of yellow wood and sweat and effort. The air smells like crushed pine needles and sweet tree sap, and the house is always cool. He calls it Pine Haven.

We go there every summer, just for a week. It’s a long drive across the hot plains, but the mountains are like grey giants of the sky, and the world stretches on forever and ever, in both directions. Somehow, somehow, the soul is freer there, than anywhere I’ve ever been. The mountains protect and guard and challenge, and there they will always stand. And that is a comforting thought.

When we get to Pine Haven, Grandpa takes us up on the trail, zig-zagging its way up alongside the mountain. When you reach the end, there is a meadow of flowers that spreads out forever, and a sky that never ends. I’ve never been to the top, but I know.

Back at the house, tired and sore and sweaty, we sink into the chairs around the table, ready to play Rook. Grandma always wins. She is soft and gentle, with puffy white wisps of hair around her head, but she can play a mean card game.

The best part of the trip, during summer vacation, is Grandpa’s stories. Grandpa had worked on a farm for most of his childhood, and still he builds and gardens and weeds. His arms are strong and gentle and scarred. His blue eyes light up from behind his glasses and, when he talks, his voice is soft and low. Grandpa only wears grey jumpsuits, but I like him that way.

When I was little, Grandpa would sit me on his knee and whisper stories. His past is a fabric of knots and cloth, woven together into adventures and lifetimes. Mom once told me that every person ties a pattern of their own cloth, stories and stories and stories, woven together like spider webs of gossamer strands, every day that they live. There is one story that I remember most of all, though. It is the story of the day Grandpa and his dog met the rabid coyote. This is the way Grandpa tells it.

“It was the spring of 1933, and I was just eleven years old. Dad had taken me out of school early that year, as it was my turn to herd the sheep. I’d just brought them to Lookout Pass, and then we would travel onward to Hill Springs. The sheep had just been shorn, so they were cold and pink and funny-looking.

Up in the hills, the shepherd is all alone. It is important that somebody guide the sheep to food because sheep aren’t incredibly intelligent and could be very easily eaten. I’d sat for days with my dog, Patch, and my riding horse, reading while the sheep milled about around me. But now it was getting colder, so when I woke up in the middle of that chilly April night, the wind was blowing fiercely.

But I hadn’t woken up because of the wind. Far off in the distance, long past the bed ground, sheep bells tinkled.

I don’t know if you know, hon’, but a sheep bell is pretty much the worst sound a shepherd can possibly hear in the middle of the night. It means that the sheep are lost and wandering, and no shepherd wants their sheep to be lost. I’d heard stories of sheep being so scared that they just ran until they fell over, dead from the exhaustion.

My family was very poor. We’d worked hard for these few sheep that we had and, before I left, my mother had entrusted me to take care of our little flock.

I tore out of that camp so fast, I forgot to saddle my horse and bring him with me. But Patch, good and old and reliable, ran alongside me, keeping my pace.

We sprinted across those hills for what seemed like forever, dog and boy. The night stretched on and on, and I began to realize that I was all alone in the dark.

Suddenly, from somewhere close by, a coyote howled. My blood froze. I hadn’t brought my gun. But I continued onward, consciously running away from the coyote, toward where I knew the sheep would be.

Another coyote howled in the distance, an answering cry. But I was gaining on the sheep.

There they were, in the distance, about a hundred yards off.

And then… I felt it more than heard it… the sound I’d been waiting for, the sound that I knew would come, the fear that had filled my heart. A coyote was running up behind me, slightly over to my left. And he was rabid.

Now, coyotes don’t usually attack humans; but rabid coyotes will bite anything that moves. The coyote, frothing at the mouth and his breathing heavy, was closing in. Suddenly, I was faced with the realization that I would soon die. Once the coyote caught up, there would be no way of escape. Patch would be able to outrun the coyote, larger and faster, though.

But then… but then,” Grandpa stops for a little. “But then, Patch turned around and faced the coyote. He hit him full on. The fight was ferocious. Somehow, some animal was going to die, and I was pretty sure it was not going to be Patch. He was strong and brave. He’d known he’d have been able to outrun the coyote, but he’d turned around to save me. I watched in awe as they bit and wrestled each other. The coyote was clever, but Patch was stronger. He was going to win.

And then it hit me. It didn’t matter if Patch would win. The coyote had bitten him right under the neck, and he was bleeding terribly. No matter who won, Patch would soon have rabies as well.

Fighting back tears, I realized that Patch had given his life for me. I think that that was the moment that I grew up. I ran to the sheep and, with pain and anguish, pulled them back into the bedding ground.

As I ran back towards the camp, I noticed that Patch had made his way from the now-won battle with the coyote, back to his bed of brush. He was bleeding terribly, but I pulled him up, as he whimpered, into my arms. His blood soaked through my clothes, but I held him close, sobbing into his tangled fur.

Patch was in terrible pain. He would soon show the signs of rabies. I knew what I had to do. I laid him back down gently, and went back to the tent, stumbling over my feet, to get my gun. I returned to Patch, and as I looked down at him, with him looking up at me, I knew that he knew what I had to do. With tears in my eyes, I pulled the trigger. And then the night was silent.”

Grandpa looks down at me and smiles softly, as I huddle into his strong arms for warmth. He has long since recovered from the pain of his loss, but I can see that his eyes are watery. And, somehow, somehow now I realize that, without the love of one faithful dog, I wouldn’t be able to put my arms around my Grandpa today, and reach up, to whisper in his ear, that I love him.

An explanation... This is a story that I wrote for the Southern Bell, my school newspaper. I joined just last year, and have recently been one of three to put monthly short stories into said paper. Before this time, I'd never actually finished a short story. Somehow, somehow, stream of consciousness just works better. I agree with Marissa. Because it's easy. Anyway, this is a little bit stream of consciousness, but it's actually a story about my Grandpa Olson, a wonderful, wonderful person whom I love. I hope that stories of other such loved grandparents will follow, but I probably will save the people of South from my full family history. This story is actually partly a combination of my grandpa's experience, at 4, and the experience of his uncle Dewey, at 12. I hoped you enjoyed it.