Paying respects to a good dog

There are places I’ll go this fall that I never see any other time of year ‑- small, intimate spots hidden from view, hard to reach, with little reason to be there unless you’re hunting or gathering cows.

Some are places I’ve killed a bird or two. Others are places I always water the dogs, where the steep banks along the creek have sloughed off providing easy access to the slow-moving flow.

There are a couple of ancient automobiles, abandoned on the prairie decades ago, that I always visit in the fall. The fenders make a good seat, one of the few places out there to sit and take a load off without worrying about getting a butt-full of prickly pear spines.

From the gravel road that parallels the creek a mile away the land looks featureless, a board swath of short-grass, sagebrush and hardpan dirt. Again, if you’re not a hunter or a cowboy you have little reason to be there. It’s not the kind of country that folks typically choose for casual hikes. There are no trails other than those made by cattle or deer, and those lead nowhere and always run out quickly.

There is a Ford on the creek a couple of miles from where I park the truck. The creek is wide and shallow there with a gravel bottom. I can usually tip-toe across without getting water over the top of my boots. On the other side is a sagebrush flat where I shot a few sage grouse years ago, and expect them to be there still. They never are, but I hold out hope.

Same with the burrowing owls I saw a couple of bends upstream from there five years ago. I haven’t seen them since, but every September I still check the place out.

A handful of miles downstream there are actually scattered trees growing along the bank. In one of them hangs a dog collar. It marks the general area where I buried a good dog last fall.

Along with the sage grouse, Ford and the old cars, Jem’s grave has become a place of intimacy, another star on the map of places that matter only to me.

I was there last week to pay my respects, and hopefully find a few of the sharptails I’d seen the previous fall when I was digging the grave. They weren’t there. The ghost of an old dog had probably already flushed them.