GOLD DUCK
10-11-2010, 01:15 PM
QWAK,To try to use the energy flowing threw me -- in some sort of a positive way I decided to wright and SHARE a very special part of my adventure here at the DUCK NEST.
I hope this works as it is realy very tender and WONDERFULL in ways even today I find hard to properly describe --some BEAUTY is beyond description especialy LOVE! :alberteinstein:
BUCK and LONSOME GIRL a tragic LOVE story.
Buck and Lonsome Girl is a LOVE STORY and I get included in this unusual paring of two young lovers who lived long enough to love each other and amaze all that saw them together and seeing them together actualy saved MY LIFE to be totaly honist about it.
It is also an ADVENTURE story with REAL OUTLAWS old and NEW and REAL TREASURE too -- WAGON LOADS of SILVER DOLLARS -- literaly!!
When I came here from Chicago I came with a white cat and old black dog named Farfel she was about 14 years old, almost toothless and her idea of exercise was a walk to the mail box and then back to just laying around the cabin. I had rased her from a pup abandoned at a bus stop in Chicago and she realy did just follow me home as she had no ware to go and I could not just leave her there and I was just on lunch and runing to the bank. She was black and looked like PAL the dog I had in Viet Nam that had proteced me and I had to leave behind. I had to take her in for PAL I promesed him I would as he was chacing the duce and a half I was in the back of down that dusty road -- KNOWNING his future was to either be shot with a 12 gage shot gun and double "OO" buck or to be BUTCHERED by the Vietnamease and EATEN. I had stayed behind to finish BURNING and DESTROYING what was left of my RADAR site and had gone up on a sand doon with PAL -- doug him a grave in the sand and was going to shoot him with myM16 as we watched the fire burn in the pit below us that was part of what housed th office at the site. Pal lay beside me in the fire light I cried like a baby there with my PAL -- I just could not shoot him --I killed people not DOGS. she so much looked like him that when she was grown pictures of both look like the same dog. She was with me when ever I was not working never had a leash on her and she learned how to cross busey streets by watching the lights just by walking every ware with me.
One day farfal disapeared -- I searched every ware but never found her and she was fairly decrepit and could hardly walk. Turned out and I found out years later that there was a man down the road in to DOG FIGHTING and also making METH to sell to the kids and use on his dogs to get them KILLING MEAN for fights to the death on his property. Aparently it was a local thing most people knew of but being an out sider no one realy talks to me. Been here 22 years and I am still just TOLERATED -- perhaps because I got some GUNS and let it be KNOWN I am or was a combat vet and would defend what is mine -- I had been ROBED before I even got all my stuff move down from Chicago!
I had stoped and talked to the man my self and asked if he had seem MY lost old black dog and he said he had not seen her! He was a fat greesey looking man, waring a dirty white "T" shirt, bib overalls with one side off -- thourly nasty looking disgusting fellow.
This SOB was giving local kids DRUGS for DOGS they snached off the road and HE used the dogs -- peoples PETS as TRAINERS for his PIT BULLS to litterly RIP APART!
I was told years later by one of the locals WHO as it turns out was the bigist criminal around and who all the lessor criminals around payed homage to him and he helped plan and organise there crimes. The guy who ROBED my cabin befor I could get fully moved in had at the time -- LIVED in one of the houses this man owned -- the guy who ROBED me was called "TATER BUG" by all the locals.
That man told me that he had seen "the FAT MAN" as he was localy known, SHOOT old FARFEL in the hind quorter so his dogs would SMELL and taist the BLOOD then she was literly torn to pieces in a minute or so what was left got thrown in his LIME PIT ware the loser from his DOG FIGHTS end up!
IF I had known I would have KILLED the FAT MAN on the SPOT -- no question in my MIND -- at that TIME I was HURT and ANGRY and I would have HURT him BAD and FEAD him to his DOGS!
Just as well I did not know what had realy happen untill years later and AFTER one of the local kids from the small town HAD killed HIM! Shot him in the GUT with a 357 magnum and after a wile in the HEAD to finish him off. The KID (22 yeas old) and Robin (the local who was the local "GOD FATHER, so to speak" -- told me that they put his FAT SLIMEY body wraped in a plastic tarp and dumped it in the river down by Fort Smith 25 or 30 miles south of here. Robin had destroid and dumped the pieces of the gun down a well (or so he said?) and Robin got his METH lab and what ever else he wanted befor they burned the small wood frame house.
The kid that killed him got two years I supose because he had actualy done a SERVICE to the comunity by killing the FAT MAN but some one has to go to jail for the crime and so he was a TRUSTIE in the county jail for two years meaning he got special privlages and worked around the jail doing chores.
GOOD thing realy that I did not kill the FAT MAN because IF I had been locked up even as a TRUSTEED -- no question in my mind -- even to day, I WOULD likely GO -- CRAZY INSAINE and do harm to self and any one around me!!
That is what happened to FARFULL my closest and only companion for much of the 14 previous years -- ladies came and went but FARFULL was always there at my side rain or shine and when I got down to 1 hot dog a day from 7/11 because there was no $$$ Farf got the LAST BITE always! It was our agreement -- just as it was with PAL he got some of what ever I was eating! It was hard eating alone after Farf was gone -- what to do with my last BITE -- of every thing -- that was always for FARF! :(
It was a LONG cold winter that year with out FARF , I had taken to leting Farf sleep on my bed she helped keep me warm at night between geting up every fiew hours to put logs on the fire.
Come spring time it may have been June ? my next door neabor about a quorter mile down the road came buy and aparently some one had DUMPED A BEGAL PUPPY off out on the road BACK then it hapened a lot people just took them for a ride and droped them off out in the country -- wilderness realy, not many survive long and the pup still had sharp puppy teath -- it would get eaten -- she had been following him around and he had enough dogs wanted to know IF I wanted her. I realy did not, but could not turn her away eather and I had a 50 lb bag of dog food from Farf SOooooooooo I said I would take her provided the CAT I had brought down with me and Farf would accept her.
The VA had me highly medicated at that time 3 or 4 diferent drugs for PTSD ones to help me sleep (did not help but I took them) others for STRESS they did not help much eather and asorted ANTIDEPRESENTS -- I often went two days or more with out sleeping and was having extream PANIC ATACKS frequently I often had to pull in to the rest stop on my way in to town to PULL my self together and colect my FOCUS so I could get in to town for groceries or to a Dr. apointment at the VA. I had NIGHT SEWATS and would wake up solked from head to toe as if I had been sleeping in the rain -- then I would feel chilled and have to get DRY covers or a sleeping bag so I could feel warm and try to sleep. THAT was my first 7 years at the DUCK NEST as I now call it.
I did not know what to call the pup BUT had been PRAYING to GOD to send me a "LONSOME GIRL" to LOVE me and the begal pup showed up so I called HER "Lonsome Girl" -- I got to figure GOD has a wicked sence of HUMOR because up in Chicago I prayed for some "PUSSEY" a sexey lady to play with and not soon after that WHITE CAT was at my front door and I was living in a 3rd floor walk up of an old sand stone building from befor the Chicago fire. I called her KITTY and she was OK with Farf and she got the new pup in line with no problem -- she even tought Lonsome how to catch mice like a cat! :)
I did not know what to do with the pup -- I had been going almost 3 days with out sleep the day Lonsome showe up . I had an old babby play pen I had scrounged up JUNKING in allies in Chicago after I got crushed under my truck and could not work -- SO I decided to set it up and put the pup in it so I could finely CRASH and disapear in to drug induced sleep.
I put the pup in the babby play pen got in to bed and there was the pup in bed with me . I got up and put her back in the play pen, got my self back in bed and befor I could pull up the covers the pup was in bed AGEN! I tried once more and gave up -- from that day on she slept in my bed and was a GREAT FOOT warmer all the time she was with me. :)
She had to be with me I supose because I was her PROTECTION from the WILD OUT SIDE as a pup and it gave her sence of security after being abandoned -- somthing would have eaten her for shure had I not taken her in. She would even climb a 12 foot step ladder and sit on top when I was working building the roof over what is NOW my green house bath and hot tub room "WE call it my HEATED DUCK POND" (We is ME MYSELF and I) it is now heated with a small wood fired boiler,the original I built my self from a barrel and about 100' of 9/16 copper tubing wraped around the burn barrel.
Lonsome was incredably smart could open and close doors -- even open the fridge to get her treats then close the door to the fridge to keep in the cold air! :)
When I would cut my arm or hand as I often did, I would wake up with Lonsome licking my wounds -- a bit strange at first but they never got infected and it some how felt special that this little dog was licking my wounds and caring for me in her special way. I shure LOVED that DOG -- she was the only bit of HAPPYNESS I had in my life for about 8 or 9 years!
one October after noon I had decided I had had ENOUGH -- I had "IT"-- it had just been TOO hard for TOO LONG -- the total ISOLATION even with Lonsome Girl. The VA and the pills that did not help but just seemed to make it worse -- I think NOW looking back it must have been the ANTIDEPRESENTS that made me WANT to KILL MY SELF! The drug cocktails they had me on made me want to die or angry enough to hurt some one else and luckely I was all by my self so no one else got hurt.
I had made up my mind that Lonsome girl and me were going for a walk in the woods and WE were NOT coming back. There is a big old OAK tree with a nice tree limb that was/is perfect for a SWING -- I built a nice oak swing for it and I used to imagin some lady I LOVED on my swing --- some how she never came only Lonsom Girl and she never got the hang of swinging, she would just jump off. :) I had taken a pick and shovel out there days befor and started diging OUR HOLE -- I was REALY READY to GO and did NOT want to BE ANY MORE -- I just wanted to be GONE! OVER -- NO MORE!! -- I should not have come home from Nan -- there was nothing realy to come back to -- the only reason I did is I realy had no other place to go.
THIS is ware the most AMASING thing happened -- lonsome was out back and started YODELING or BAYING -- she had a wonderfull voice and would bay as she chaced a rabit or when she found a RATTLE SNAKE she would go CRAZY!!
She had been biten by a rattle snake on the face as a pup and in fact THAT SNAKE which I had cought and put in to a 5 gallon aquarium tank -- had KILLED it self with a little HELP from Lonsome pestering it -- It had tried to strike her AGEN and broken it's own NECK hiting the glass. Not wanting to waist the creacher -- I dressed it out put the flesh in a bagie in the freezer and SALT TANED it's skin on a piece of 2"x 12" -- it's head I dried inside a small plastic PIRIMED I had built. That RATTLE SNAKE skin is NOW the HAT BAND on what I call MY "SHAMEN HAT" :)
That day I went out side the cabin and about 20 feet from the back door Lonsome was Baying at a small spike buck DEER -- the deer was not frightened of her and let her aproch him and they sniffed each other with out any problem -- it was obviously some ones tame deer that had got loose -- it had a red dog collar and red EAR tags, one in each ear, like big plastic EARINGS, the tags they use for cows.
I did not know what to do with or about this little buck deer -- IF I did not catch him and pen him up one of the locals would shoot him for shure. I had half a loaf of stale bread and not much more in the cabin we were living TIGHT -- close to the BELT. Lonsome and me had to eat RATTLE SNAKES the previous winter -- never did learn to cook them -- they come out rubbery like eating rubber bands when I tried cooking two frozen ones I had in my freezer. I thought using a pressure cooker on the wood stove would make them TENDER it did not and even Lonsome did not want to eat them and she would catch box turtles and eat them.
I got the bread and a long rope and offered a slice to the deer and he liked my stale bread. :) I tied the rope to the deers collar and lead it around to the front poarch ware I had a dog feeder box and an automatic water bowl for Lonsome. The deer had a drink ate some dry dog food and went to sleep on my front porch! :)
IF it had NOT been for that little buck deer I would NOT be wrighting THIS because I had a PLAN -- my plans always work and I was WORKING my PLAN -- untill -- "Little Buck" joined our family of MISFITS -- after that it was like a paraid when I walked to the mail box to pick up my JUNK mail and what ever bills would be in my box. Lonsome always lead the way watching for rattle snakes I always thought ;) then ME and then KITTY and cauciously -- little buck folowwing -- he did not need to be on a teather as long as I could be there to protect him he could play with Lonsome and me -- the cat just ignored him.
I found out in early December that the deer had been raise on a babby bottle and goat milk after its mother had been killed and the baby fawn raised with a hond dog that bayed -- the deer grew up believing IT was a DOG!
It never learned to JUMP barbed wire fences althow it could EASALY clear an 8' chain link fence -- it would carfully step threw the strands of BARBED WIRE as carfully as it could often causing wounds and scratches which Lonsom Girl would LICK and KISS and HEAL for him.
One day the following year I heard BUCK stomping on the front poarch -- I went out and he had cut him self bad above his eyes and the blood was coagulating on his HUGE eye lashes and sticking the top and bottom together and he could bairly see and was TERIFIED so came to ME and with a OR towel and a pan of warm water cleaned his wound and dressed it -- this one was beyond Lonsones abilities so I helped Buck. After I finished he just droped down for a nap and put his head with that one big antler in my lap. It was AMASING his big deer eyes looking up at me and with eye lashes to match there size. Buck took a nap for a wile and I was just happy he was there so I pealed much of the velvet off his antler and tryed to LOCK in the MEMORY as if it it were some kind of MASTER piece immage that I could save.
The DOG, BUCK was raise with got shot in a hunting accident and BUCK was searching the woods to find him. Ware he had been living was about 5 miles away as the crow flys from my cabin. The deer was atracted to Lonsome girls SINGING/baying and that is why it came to my cabin! It was a wonder to see the two of them play -- truely is was somthing that touched me deeply and I admit I cried a bit when the people who rased him came with a cattle trailor to take him home on that snowey December day -- having him here literly SAVED my LIFE!
It was another long cold winter that year too -- they always seem so long and cold to me.
That winter we had a big ICE STORM we had no electricity for almost two full weaks and a huge limb came down partly on my green house from all the ice, I was luckey and it did almost no damage BUT wile cleaning up the mess of broken branches I descovered an abandoned WELL about 30 foot from the green house right next to the tree that had droped the huge branch.
As I was picking up small branches and twigs I noticed an unusual sound from the patch of rocks ware I was picking up the twigs . I heard sort of a -- tinkel tinkel as I picked up the twigs. HUMmmmmmmmm that seemed strange so I picked up some loose rocks and started moving them and as I dit I noticed that there was about a 6 foot dimater hole going down right in to the sand stone bed rock.
I started chucking rocks out of the hole trying to see what might be there and in about an hour I was passed my knees and it just kept going deeper. I did not know what it was but it was on my property and seeing as I had nothing better to do I decided to check it out perhaps some one had buried somthing of great value -- who knows I could have a change of LUCK -- stranger things have happened to me -- usualy not good things, but STRANGER.
I mentioned what I found to the neabor that had droped off Lonsome to me and he told others. A fiew days later this man I had never seen shows up and introduces him self and asked if he could look at my HOLE in the GROUND -- it seemed like a strange request but what the heck ? it was some one to talk to and HE told me the story of the "LOST SILVER MINE" that is out here some ware but no one knows just ware it is! :)
When the first WHITE settelers came to this aeria the native indians had a SILVER MINE they had been working with primitive tools for many generations and it produced SILVER so PURE the ORE could be smelted just using a wood fire! That mine had been owned by members of his family (the Ridenours) and produced much of the SILVER use by the CONFEDERATS during the cival war! When the NORTH over ran this aeria during the cival wat they had hidden the mine from the YANKIES! After the war some of his family formed a GANG and robed STAGE COACHES on the BUTTERFIELD STAGE ROAD -- the road that my cabin is on today!:)
One day the RIDEOUR GANG robed a stage headed for DENVER and part of there booty was the MINT BLOCKS being sent to the NEW DENVER MINT for making new SILVER DOLLARS! The family got out of the stage robing business and in to COUNTERFITING SILVER DOLLARS! He told me that the only problem they had was that there SILVER DOLLARS had too much SILVER in them so they dented and bent too easaly but other than that they could and DID mint US SILVER DOLLARS right here -- or at least some ware around my property.
For about 50 years they had been making counterfit SILVER DOLLARS of equal quality just more silver then GENUIN US SILVER DOLLARS!
Some time in the mid 1910 years the SECRET SERVICE was closing in on the sorce of counterfit coins so as he told me -- they blew up the entrance to the mine and all of the counterfiters took off so they would not get cought. They changed there names and lived some ware else till things cooled down. By the mid 30 and the depression the survivors CHILDREN got together and decided they would make SILVER DOLLARS agen BUT there was only one map and there was a huge famly FIGHT over how they would do it and who was BOSS and there was lots of WISKEY and people pulled KNIVES and one got shot and killed and some how the MAP disapeared -- no one knows how but with out the map the SILVER MINE could not be found. Since he was a kid and heard the story he has been looking for the entrence to the SILVER MINE that his family owned and THAT is why he wanted to see MY HOLE in the GROUND! :)
After hearing the story I had to keep going diging out all the loose rock and trash that had been dumped in the hole. I got down 16 feet befor I stoped. I would drop 5 gal buckets down the hole then climb down the hole and fill them with rocks and muck -- climb back out and pull up the buckets. I sliped and fell and hurt my self a bunch of times and being all alone out here IF I get hurt I am DEAD MEAT for the crows and turket vulchers, that is why I stoped at just about 20 foot. THAT and -- I had a VISITOR -- BUCK had come back that spring -- looking for Lonsome and ME. :)
One after noon I am at the bottom of that hole up to my knees in muck trying to get rocks loose from the mud and MUCK -- some pebels and dirt fall on me -- I look up and there is "Little Buck" looking down at me. :)
BTW: Little buck only had one antler he had got one of his SPIKS cought in an old sattelight dish antena the huge old ones made of expanded steel mesh and it did so much damage that antler did not grow after that but he had a fine 4 point antler in velvet wehen he came to viset HIS GIRLFRIEND -- LONSOME GIRL! :)
I called the people who rased him and they said he could stay -- that he was too big to control now any way. That summer we would walk the woods all 3 of us and some times lay down --- Buck was like a big couch with legs I could lean on. I figure he must have been 140 to 160 lbs. and he loved dry dog food and dog biskets -- he would get up and dance on his hind legs for a bisket or some bread.
It was a wonderfull summer that year -- buck stayed on the front porch and some times came in to the cabin looking to play,one time I was washing my hear in the kitchen sink and felt a poke in my back and there was Buck poking at me wanting me to come out and play with him and Lonsome. :)
I had always hoped some lady would come here so I started rasing an asortment of long stem roses -- they were nice to see and I just might be able to give a lady visitor a ROSE and perhaps it would impress her. :) I had 3 kinds of yellow roses 4 or 5 red kinds and a pink and almost BLACK rose plant -- all in big 5 gal black plastic pots. One after noon I was working on somthing and befor I noticed or could stop him -- BUCK ate all my rose plants down to dead stubs except one I seved from his munching -- aparently deer don't mind the thorns at all and the big roses were a TREET to him. :)
When bow hunting season came I decided Buck had to be protected so I put him on a teather and that caused him to get terably hurt when a neabors Chinease fighting dog atacked him and started riping him up. Almost tore one ear off and riped open a big gash in his chest and another on a front leg -- I chased the dog off but Buck was hurt BAD. I got him calmed down and covered his face and eyes with my shirt and got out my suture kit and Buck just relaxed and let me put his flesh back to gether as best I could -- it took almost 2 hours to pull all the skin back to almost ware it had been -- the DOG was on him for less than a minuite and Buck was chained to a small tree with a 15 foot chain and could not get away from the dog.
Bucks ear never fully healed and he would let Lonsome Girl lick his wounds just as she had done mine often when I was sleeping -- she would find my scratches and cuts and lick them and now was doing the same for HER BUCK -- they were definitly an ITEM -- and would go off with each other for hours in the woods and even visiting neabors -- the two of them would just walk up there drive way and be almost like people introducing them selves -- Lonsome would sit up and just hold the poses for minuits at a time with me when she wanted a treet and BUCK would get up and DANCE for his! LOL I was told that one ladies grand kids 5 and 6 years old kept feeding them there GRAM CRACKERS!:)
Some people I am told drove 30 miles from Fayetteville to see the DOG and DEER and it was so SWEET when LONSOME would stand on her hind legs and Buck lower his head gently becasuse NOW that antler it was a very real weapon that could hurt -- I know because he poked me all the time but NOT the Lonsome Girl -- he was SO much biger than her yet so gental and carfull not to harm her. I have a fiew pictures of Buck and Lonsome together and one of her standing -- her front paws on his sholder and licking his wounded flopey ear to clean away the slight infection that never fully healed. It was somthing SPECIAL to SEE because there was REAL OBVIOUS LOVE between them -- it got REALY OBVIOUS when Buck came in to RUT! :)
He was probably about 200LB that fall -- his chest had filled out and his NECK had grown heavy and strong READY fot the RUT and to make LOVE to the LOVED ONE he had coarted all summer -- LONSOME GIRL -- LOL he shure did his best and never stoped trying :) His hoves hurt her and she would get mad -- open the front door -- close it behind her then get up on my bed by the window and BUCK would try to KISS HER by licking the glass and then lie down under the window just to be as close to her as he could. He slept out there every night.
I riged up a 50 foot steel cable with a trolly on it across the front of the cabin about 20 foot in the air between two trees. I made buck a new colar out of salvaged car seat belts and made him a brass bell and ingraved on it --"IF I get LOST call this phone number -- My friend will come and get me". I stiched a bunch of old seat belts together for a 25 foot tether to the trolley giving him as much tether and motion as I could and him not get hung up on thing.
AS the season got colder BUCK got BOLDER about having sex with Lonsome Girl SOooooooo to calm him down a bit -- I had all thease little red "THORAZEAN" PILLS the doctors had given ME and I had stoped taking and I figured what worked on ME would work on a very HORNEY not so little BUCK. I took dog biskets and drilled holes in them and hid the "THORZEAN" tablets in them -- he would not let me poke them down his throat and NOW he was so BIG that when we would SQUARE OFF agenst each other like DEER IN RUT do -- it was all I could do to wrastel him down -- he was starting to WIN too often! ;)
I would get him to dance for his "DRUG LACED BISKET" and medicate him! I had a PLAN! HE HE HE It worked ok for 10 or 12 days but he figured out the pills were in the biskets and he would spit them out! ROTFL
But tether or NOT druged or not -- he slept under that window by the bed so he could see and be close to the one he LOVED -- she would viset him BUT if he tried to jump her bones SHE went in the house and up on the bed ware he could SEE and lick the window but NOT hurt her. SHE loved him TOO, but LOVE with him just HURT TOO MUCH!
One early December morining I woke up and looked out the window next to the bed and NO BUCK ---- I looked out side and his tether was unhooked from his collar and he was gone, I think some one may have come up my drive way and unhooked him but no way to know realy -- any way BUCK was GONE. My place on the mountan is a little WIERD, we frequently get ICE FOG -- the crazy hihgway department built "I540" just a 100 yards or so from my drive way and it frequently causes accidents -- at 70 mph it is totaly blinding ,day or night. There was just a slight ICE FOG that morning and I could see down to the dirt road in front of my property and this old white pick up truck is going way too slow on the road -- it stops and I hear the REPORT of a high power DEER RIFEL from the road -- I grabed my 50 cal BP Hawkens and put a round OVER there heads and started SCREAMING -- thretining MURDER and MAHEM and the truck took off.
I searched for Buck bet never found him and he never came back.
Lonsome Girl went out searching day after day I could here her BAYING calling he BUCK -- AROOOUuuu AROOOUuuu ArOOUuuu -- it realy was quite HAUNTING hering her call to him. She was never the same after she lost her BUCK -- for over two years she searched for him out in the woods chacing other bucks that just ran away from her. She would come back SAD and lay on the bed -- she did not want to play with her toys they just sat in the basket -- I still have her toys in her basket -- I could not throw them away even after all thease years.
About two years after BUCK disapeared, I got up in the middle of the night to put some logs on the fire in the stove in the kitchen and when I tried to put a log in -- MY BACK shifted -- I made a bad jump down at Ft. Benning back in 73 -- my first and last parachute jump -- I did not role to one side as I should have an sat down at about 30+ mph -- I could hear and feel my vertabray CRUNCH together -- IT felt like I had my ass up around my head HEAD it hurt bad but you don't tell special forces guys you hurt your ass or you never live it down. When my back goes out it is like having an ICE PICK jamed in my SPINE -- paralising PAIN -- the kind that makes me see flashes of light and to throw up violently. ALL I could do was FREEZE in position then as slowly as posable get down on my hands and knees and try not to move, excepy extreamly slowly. Lonsome came to me trying to help and all I could do is CRY -- she was the only help or hapyness I had for many years and I remember saying to her right there out loud as I cried in excruciating pain -- What would I do with out you GIRL -- what would I ever DO -- you are all I got to feel good about! It took me almost an hour to crawl from the kitchen and in to my bed -- the cabin is only 15'x30'. I took a muscle relaxent a and tried not to move -- Lonsome snugeled close to my back like a hot water bottle with legs trying to help me. MY back was out for several days and tending the fire so we did no freeze was an adventure in PAIN every time I had to put logs in the fire. After that it just hurt and eventualy 7 or 8 days I was what ever MY normal is.
perhaps 10 days later LONSOM disapeared -- she knew every inch of ground for a mile or more around -- I searched for her daily for almost a month never found her. What I did find out is that there had been an old green truck going around buying DOGS for LAB ANIMALS -- and BEGALS got $50.00 -- for DRUG MONEY! Most likely that is what happened to Lonsome Girl :(
Now and then I hear a hound out in the woods baying and just for a moment it sounds like LONSOM GIRL out ther serching for her BUCK AROOUuuuuuu AROUuuuuu AROOUuuuu to her BUCK --- both are gone from me for ever yet will always be a part of me for ever too.
AROOuuuuuuuu AROOOUuuuuuuuu AROOUuuuuuu -- that is how I call my new dog when I want him to come to me -- in memory of both Buck and LONSOME GIRL.:(
AROOUuuuuuuuuuu AROOUuuuuuuuuu AROOUuuuuuuuu that is how Lonsome Girl called to her LOST LOVER when she searched for him and never did stop untill she was gone too. :(
This is REAL LIFE and there is both BEAUTY and PAIN -- sadness and lonelyness and yet thre was also LOVE -- real LOVE -- people could see even for a DOG and a DEER -- the most UNPERFECT match in the WORLD -- THEY made it work and found ways to LOVE and show real tenderness and afection to and for each other.
I told you it was a LOVE story and an adventure too and I got my LIFE saved by a DEER and a DOG! :)
That is the LOVE STORY of BUCK and LOSOME GIRL -- it aint a DISNEY story it IS and was REAL and in LIFE it is not like farey tails BUT there is BEAUTY and LOVE -- cruality and even forgivness -- in time all wounds heal -- if they don't kill you first! :)
I hope you injoyed the story -- sharing the good things some how lessens the bad -- don't know WHY - it just DOES.
PS: This is for my broken ANGLE -- I thought that you were MY "Lonsome Girl" -- the dog just got here FIRST -- so that is what I called HER, but I needed an ANGLE and that the pup is what showed up -- GOD shure has a WICKED sence of HUMOR -- and very strange timing too.
Just BE HAPPY -- it is all I want for you.
DUCK EGG
Don the DUCK
I hope this works as it is realy very tender and WONDERFULL in ways even today I find hard to properly describe --some BEAUTY is beyond description especialy LOVE! :alberteinstein:
BUCK and LONSOME GIRL a tragic LOVE story.
Buck and Lonsome Girl is a LOVE STORY and I get included in this unusual paring of two young lovers who lived long enough to love each other and amaze all that saw them together and seeing them together actualy saved MY LIFE to be totaly honist about it.
It is also an ADVENTURE story with REAL OUTLAWS old and NEW and REAL TREASURE too -- WAGON LOADS of SILVER DOLLARS -- literaly!!
When I came here from Chicago I came with a white cat and old black dog named Farfel she was about 14 years old, almost toothless and her idea of exercise was a walk to the mail box and then back to just laying around the cabin. I had rased her from a pup abandoned at a bus stop in Chicago and she realy did just follow me home as she had no ware to go and I could not just leave her there and I was just on lunch and runing to the bank. She was black and looked like PAL the dog I had in Viet Nam that had proteced me and I had to leave behind. I had to take her in for PAL I promesed him I would as he was chacing the duce and a half I was in the back of down that dusty road -- KNOWNING his future was to either be shot with a 12 gage shot gun and double "OO" buck or to be BUTCHERED by the Vietnamease and EATEN. I had stayed behind to finish BURNING and DESTROYING what was left of my RADAR site and had gone up on a sand doon with PAL -- doug him a grave in the sand and was going to shoot him with myM16 as we watched the fire burn in the pit below us that was part of what housed th office at the site. Pal lay beside me in the fire light I cried like a baby there with my PAL -- I just could not shoot him --I killed people not DOGS. she so much looked like him that when she was grown pictures of both look like the same dog. She was with me when ever I was not working never had a leash on her and she learned how to cross busey streets by watching the lights just by walking every ware with me.
One day farfal disapeared -- I searched every ware but never found her and she was fairly decrepit and could hardly walk. Turned out and I found out years later that there was a man down the road in to DOG FIGHTING and also making METH to sell to the kids and use on his dogs to get them KILLING MEAN for fights to the death on his property. Aparently it was a local thing most people knew of but being an out sider no one realy talks to me. Been here 22 years and I am still just TOLERATED -- perhaps because I got some GUNS and let it be KNOWN I am or was a combat vet and would defend what is mine -- I had been ROBED before I even got all my stuff move down from Chicago!
I had stoped and talked to the man my self and asked if he had seem MY lost old black dog and he said he had not seen her! He was a fat greesey looking man, waring a dirty white "T" shirt, bib overalls with one side off -- thourly nasty looking disgusting fellow.
This SOB was giving local kids DRUGS for DOGS they snached off the road and HE used the dogs -- peoples PETS as TRAINERS for his PIT BULLS to litterly RIP APART!
I was told years later by one of the locals WHO as it turns out was the bigist criminal around and who all the lessor criminals around payed homage to him and he helped plan and organise there crimes. The guy who ROBED my cabin befor I could get fully moved in had at the time -- LIVED in one of the houses this man owned -- the guy who ROBED me was called "TATER BUG" by all the locals.
That man told me that he had seen "the FAT MAN" as he was localy known, SHOOT old FARFEL in the hind quorter so his dogs would SMELL and taist the BLOOD then she was literly torn to pieces in a minute or so what was left got thrown in his LIME PIT ware the loser from his DOG FIGHTS end up!
IF I had known I would have KILLED the FAT MAN on the SPOT -- no question in my MIND -- at that TIME I was HURT and ANGRY and I would have HURT him BAD and FEAD him to his DOGS!
Just as well I did not know what had realy happen untill years later and AFTER one of the local kids from the small town HAD killed HIM! Shot him in the GUT with a 357 magnum and after a wile in the HEAD to finish him off. The KID (22 yeas old) and Robin (the local who was the local "GOD FATHER, so to speak" -- told me that they put his FAT SLIMEY body wraped in a plastic tarp and dumped it in the river down by Fort Smith 25 or 30 miles south of here. Robin had destroid and dumped the pieces of the gun down a well (or so he said?) and Robin got his METH lab and what ever else he wanted befor they burned the small wood frame house.
The kid that killed him got two years I supose because he had actualy done a SERVICE to the comunity by killing the FAT MAN but some one has to go to jail for the crime and so he was a TRUSTIE in the county jail for two years meaning he got special privlages and worked around the jail doing chores.
GOOD thing realy that I did not kill the FAT MAN because IF I had been locked up even as a TRUSTEED -- no question in my mind -- even to day, I WOULD likely GO -- CRAZY INSAINE and do harm to self and any one around me!!
That is what happened to FARFULL my closest and only companion for much of the 14 previous years -- ladies came and went but FARFULL was always there at my side rain or shine and when I got down to 1 hot dog a day from 7/11 because there was no $$$ Farf got the LAST BITE always! It was our agreement -- just as it was with PAL he got some of what ever I was eating! It was hard eating alone after Farf was gone -- what to do with my last BITE -- of every thing -- that was always for FARF! :(
It was a LONG cold winter that year with out FARF , I had taken to leting Farf sleep on my bed she helped keep me warm at night between geting up every fiew hours to put logs on the fire.
Come spring time it may have been June ? my next door neabor about a quorter mile down the road came buy and aparently some one had DUMPED A BEGAL PUPPY off out on the road BACK then it hapened a lot people just took them for a ride and droped them off out in the country -- wilderness realy, not many survive long and the pup still had sharp puppy teath -- it would get eaten -- she had been following him around and he had enough dogs wanted to know IF I wanted her. I realy did not, but could not turn her away eather and I had a 50 lb bag of dog food from Farf SOooooooooo I said I would take her provided the CAT I had brought down with me and Farf would accept her.
The VA had me highly medicated at that time 3 or 4 diferent drugs for PTSD ones to help me sleep (did not help but I took them) others for STRESS they did not help much eather and asorted ANTIDEPRESENTS -- I often went two days or more with out sleeping and was having extream PANIC ATACKS frequently I often had to pull in to the rest stop on my way in to town to PULL my self together and colect my FOCUS so I could get in to town for groceries or to a Dr. apointment at the VA. I had NIGHT SEWATS and would wake up solked from head to toe as if I had been sleeping in the rain -- then I would feel chilled and have to get DRY covers or a sleeping bag so I could feel warm and try to sleep. THAT was my first 7 years at the DUCK NEST as I now call it.
I did not know what to call the pup BUT had been PRAYING to GOD to send me a "LONSOME GIRL" to LOVE me and the begal pup showed up so I called HER "Lonsome Girl" -- I got to figure GOD has a wicked sence of HUMOR because up in Chicago I prayed for some "PUSSEY" a sexey lady to play with and not soon after that WHITE CAT was at my front door and I was living in a 3rd floor walk up of an old sand stone building from befor the Chicago fire. I called her KITTY and she was OK with Farf and she got the new pup in line with no problem -- she even tought Lonsome how to catch mice like a cat! :)
I did not know what to do with the pup -- I had been going almost 3 days with out sleep the day Lonsome showe up . I had an old babby play pen I had scrounged up JUNKING in allies in Chicago after I got crushed under my truck and could not work -- SO I decided to set it up and put the pup in it so I could finely CRASH and disapear in to drug induced sleep.
I put the pup in the babby play pen got in to bed and there was the pup in bed with me . I got up and put her back in the play pen, got my self back in bed and befor I could pull up the covers the pup was in bed AGEN! I tried once more and gave up -- from that day on she slept in my bed and was a GREAT FOOT warmer all the time she was with me. :)
She had to be with me I supose because I was her PROTECTION from the WILD OUT SIDE as a pup and it gave her sence of security after being abandoned -- somthing would have eaten her for shure had I not taken her in. She would even climb a 12 foot step ladder and sit on top when I was working building the roof over what is NOW my green house bath and hot tub room "WE call it my HEATED DUCK POND" (We is ME MYSELF and I) it is now heated with a small wood fired boiler,the original I built my self from a barrel and about 100' of 9/16 copper tubing wraped around the burn barrel.
Lonsome was incredably smart could open and close doors -- even open the fridge to get her treats then close the door to the fridge to keep in the cold air! :)
When I would cut my arm or hand as I often did, I would wake up with Lonsome licking my wounds -- a bit strange at first but they never got infected and it some how felt special that this little dog was licking my wounds and caring for me in her special way. I shure LOVED that DOG -- she was the only bit of HAPPYNESS I had in my life for about 8 or 9 years!
one October after noon I had decided I had had ENOUGH -- I had "IT"-- it had just been TOO hard for TOO LONG -- the total ISOLATION even with Lonsome Girl. The VA and the pills that did not help but just seemed to make it worse -- I think NOW looking back it must have been the ANTIDEPRESENTS that made me WANT to KILL MY SELF! The drug cocktails they had me on made me want to die or angry enough to hurt some one else and luckely I was all by my self so no one else got hurt.
I had made up my mind that Lonsome girl and me were going for a walk in the woods and WE were NOT coming back. There is a big old OAK tree with a nice tree limb that was/is perfect for a SWING -- I built a nice oak swing for it and I used to imagin some lady I LOVED on my swing --- some how she never came only Lonsom Girl and she never got the hang of swinging, she would just jump off. :) I had taken a pick and shovel out there days befor and started diging OUR HOLE -- I was REALY READY to GO and did NOT want to BE ANY MORE -- I just wanted to be GONE! OVER -- NO MORE!! -- I should not have come home from Nan -- there was nothing realy to come back to -- the only reason I did is I realy had no other place to go.
THIS is ware the most AMASING thing happened -- lonsome was out back and started YODELING or BAYING -- she had a wonderfull voice and would bay as she chaced a rabit or when she found a RATTLE SNAKE she would go CRAZY!!
She had been biten by a rattle snake on the face as a pup and in fact THAT SNAKE which I had cought and put in to a 5 gallon aquarium tank -- had KILLED it self with a little HELP from Lonsome pestering it -- It had tried to strike her AGEN and broken it's own NECK hiting the glass. Not wanting to waist the creacher -- I dressed it out put the flesh in a bagie in the freezer and SALT TANED it's skin on a piece of 2"x 12" -- it's head I dried inside a small plastic PIRIMED I had built. That RATTLE SNAKE skin is NOW the HAT BAND on what I call MY "SHAMEN HAT" :)
That day I went out side the cabin and about 20 feet from the back door Lonsome was Baying at a small spike buck DEER -- the deer was not frightened of her and let her aproch him and they sniffed each other with out any problem -- it was obviously some ones tame deer that had got loose -- it had a red dog collar and red EAR tags, one in each ear, like big plastic EARINGS, the tags they use for cows.
I did not know what to do with or about this little buck deer -- IF I did not catch him and pen him up one of the locals would shoot him for shure. I had half a loaf of stale bread and not much more in the cabin we were living TIGHT -- close to the BELT. Lonsome and me had to eat RATTLE SNAKES the previous winter -- never did learn to cook them -- they come out rubbery like eating rubber bands when I tried cooking two frozen ones I had in my freezer. I thought using a pressure cooker on the wood stove would make them TENDER it did not and even Lonsome did not want to eat them and she would catch box turtles and eat them.
I got the bread and a long rope and offered a slice to the deer and he liked my stale bread. :) I tied the rope to the deers collar and lead it around to the front poarch ware I had a dog feeder box and an automatic water bowl for Lonsome. The deer had a drink ate some dry dog food and went to sleep on my front porch! :)
IF it had NOT been for that little buck deer I would NOT be wrighting THIS because I had a PLAN -- my plans always work and I was WORKING my PLAN -- untill -- "Little Buck" joined our family of MISFITS -- after that it was like a paraid when I walked to the mail box to pick up my JUNK mail and what ever bills would be in my box. Lonsome always lead the way watching for rattle snakes I always thought ;) then ME and then KITTY and cauciously -- little buck folowwing -- he did not need to be on a teather as long as I could be there to protect him he could play with Lonsome and me -- the cat just ignored him.
I found out in early December that the deer had been raise on a babby bottle and goat milk after its mother had been killed and the baby fawn raised with a hond dog that bayed -- the deer grew up believing IT was a DOG!
It never learned to JUMP barbed wire fences althow it could EASALY clear an 8' chain link fence -- it would carfully step threw the strands of BARBED WIRE as carfully as it could often causing wounds and scratches which Lonsom Girl would LICK and KISS and HEAL for him.
One day the following year I heard BUCK stomping on the front poarch -- I went out and he had cut him self bad above his eyes and the blood was coagulating on his HUGE eye lashes and sticking the top and bottom together and he could bairly see and was TERIFIED so came to ME and with a OR towel and a pan of warm water cleaned his wound and dressed it -- this one was beyond Lonsones abilities so I helped Buck. After I finished he just droped down for a nap and put his head with that one big antler in my lap. It was AMASING his big deer eyes looking up at me and with eye lashes to match there size. Buck took a nap for a wile and I was just happy he was there so I pealed much of the velvet off his antler and tryed to LOCK in the MEMORY as if it it were some kind of MASTER piece immage that I could save.
The DOG, BUCK was raise with got shot in a hunting accident and BUCK was searching the woods to find him. Ware he had been living was about 5 miles away as the crow flys from my cabin. The deer was atracted to Lonsome girls SINGING/baying and that is why it came to my cabin! It was a wonder to see the two of them play -- truely is was somthing that touched me deeply and I admit I cried a bit when the people who rased him came with a cattle trailor to take him home on that snowey December day -- having him here literly SAVED my LIFE!
It was another long cold winter that year too -- they always seem so long and cold to me.
That winter we had a big ICE STORM we had no electricity for almost two full weaks and a huge limb came down partly on my green house from all the ice, I was luckey and it did almost no damage BUT wile cleaning up the mess of broken branches I descovered an abandoned WELL about 30 foot from the green house right next to the tree that had droped the huge branch.
As I was picking up small branches and twigs I noticed an unusual sound from the patch of rocks ware I was picking up the twigs . I heard sort of a -- tinkel tinkel as I picked up the twigs. HUMmmmmmmmm that seemed strange so I picked up some loose rocks and started moving them and as I dit I noticed that there was about a 6 foot dimater hole going down right in to the sand stone bed rock.
I started chucking rocks out of the hole trying to see what might be there and in about an hour I was passed my knees and it just kept going deeper. I did not know what it was but it was on my property and seeing as I had nothing better to do I decided to check it out perhaps some one had buried somthing of great value -- who knows I could have a change of LUCK -- stranger things have happened to me -- usualy not good things, but STRANGER.
I mentioned what I found to the neabor that had droped off Lonsome to me and he told others. A fiew days later this man I had never seen shows up and introduces him self and asked if he could look at my HOLE in the GROUND -- it seemed like a strange request but what the heck ? it was some one to talk to and HE told me the story of the "LOST SILVER MINE" that is out here some ware but no one knows just ware it is! :)
When the first WHITE settelers came to this aeria the native indians had a SILVER MINE they had been working with primitive tools for many generations and it produced SILVER so PURE the ORE could be smelted just using a wood fire! That mine had been owned by members of his family (the Ridenours) and produced much of the SILVER use by the CONFEDERATS during the cival war! When the NORTH over ran this aeria during the cival wat they had hidden the mine from the YANKIES! After the war some of his family formed a GANG and robed STAGE COACHES on the BUTTERFIELD STAGE ROAD -- the road that my cabin is on today!:)
One day the RIDEOUR GANG robed a stage headed for DENVER and part of there booty was the MINT BLOCKS being sent to the NEW DENVER MINT for making new SILVER DOLLARS! The family got out of the stage robing business and in to COUNTERFITING SILVER DOLLARS! He told me that the only problem they had was that there SILVER DOLLARS had too much SILVER in them so they dented and bent too easaly but other than that they could and DID mint US SILVER DOLLARS right here -- or at least some ware around my property.
For about 50 years they had been making counterfit SILVER DOLLARS of equal quality just more silver then GENUIN US SILVER DOLLARS!
Some time in the mid 1910 years the SECRET SERVICE was closing in on the sorce of counterfit coins so as he told me -- they blew up the entrance to the mine and all of the counterfiters took off so they would not get cought. They changed there names and lived some ware else till things cooled down. By the mid 30 and the depression the survivors CHILDREN got together and decided they would make SILVER DOLLARS agen BUT there was only one map and there was a huge famly FIGHT over how they would do it and who was BOSS and there was lots of WISKEY and people pulled KNIVES and one got shot and killed and some how the MAP disapeared -- no one knows how but with out the map the SILVER MINE could not be found. Since he was a kid and heard the story he has been looking for the entrence to the SILVER MINE that his family owned and THAT is why he wanted to see MY HOLE in the GROUND! :)
After hearing the story I had to keep going diging out all the loose rock and trash that had been dumped in the hole. I got down 16 feet befor I stoped. I would drop 5 gal buckets down the hole then climb down the hole and fill them with rocks and muck -- climb back out and pull up the buckets. I sliped and fell and hurt my self a bunch of times and being all alone out here IF I get hurt I am DEAD MEAT for the crows and turket vulchers, that is why I stoped at just about 20 foot. THAT and -- I had a VISITOR -- BUCK had come back that spring -- looking for Lonsome and ME. :)
One after noon I am at the bottom of that hole up to my knees in muck trying to get rocks loose from the mud and MUCK -- some pebels and dirt fall on me -- I look up and there is "Little Buck" looking down at me. :)
BTW: Little buck only had one antler he had got one of his SPIKS cought in an old sattelight dish antena the huge old ones made of expanded steel mesh and it did so much damage that antler did not grow after that but he had a fine 4 point antler in velvet wehen he came to viset HIS GIRLFRIEND -- LONSOME GIRL! :)
I called the people who rased him and they said he could stay -- that he was too big to control now any way. That summer we would walk the woods all 3 of us and some times lay down --- Buck was like a big couch with legs I could lean on. I figure he must have been 140 to 160 lbs. and he loved dry dog food and dog biskets -- he would get up and dance on his hind legs for a bisket or some bread.
It was a wonderfull summer that year -- buck stayed on the front porch and some times came in to the cabin looking to play,one time I was washing my hear in the kitchen sink and felt a poke in my back and there was Buck poking at me wanting me to come out and play with him and Lonsome. :)
I had always hoped some lady would come here so I started rasing an asortment of long stem roses -- they were nice to see and I just might be able to give a lady visitor a ROSE and perhaps it would impress her. :) I had 3 kinds of yellow roses 4 or 5 red kinds and a pink and almost BLACK rose plant -- all in big 5 gal black plastic pots. One after noon I was working on somthing and befor I noticed or could stop him -- BUCK ate all my rose plants down to dead stubs except one I seved from his munching -- aparently deer don't mind the thorns at all and the big roses were a TREET to him. :)
When bow hunting season came I decided Buck had to be protected so I put him on a teather and that caused him to get terably hurt when a neabors Chinease fighting dog atacked him and started riping him up. Almost tore one ear off and riped open a big gash in his chest and another on a front leg -- I chased the dog off but Buck was hurt BAD. I got him calmed down and covered his face and eyes with my shirt and got out my suture kit and Buck just relaxed and let me put his flesh back to gether as best I could -- it took almost 2 hours to pull all the skin back to almost ware it had been -- the DOG was on him for less than a minuite and Buck was chained to a small tree with a 15 foot chain and could not get away from the dog.
Bucks ear never fully healed and he would let Lonsome Girl lick his wounds just as she had done mine often when I was sleeping -- she would find my scratches and cuts and lick them and now was doing the same for HER BUCK -- they were definitly an ITEM -- and would go off with each other for hours in the woods and even visiting neabors -- the two of them would just walk up there drive way and be almost like people introducing them selves -- Lonsome would sit up and just hold the poses for minuits at a time with me when she wanted a treet and BUCK would get up and DANCE for his! LOL I was told that one ladies grand kids 5 and 6 years old kept feeding them there GRAM CRACKERS!:)
Some people I am told drove 30 miles from Fayetteville to see the DOG and DEER and it was so SWEET when LONSOME would stand on her hind legs and Buck lower his head gently becasuse NOW that antler it was a very real weapon that could hurt -- I know because he poked me all the time but NOT the Lonsome Girl -- he was SO much biger than her yet so gental and carfull not to harm her. I have a fiew pictures of Buck and Lonsome together and one of her standing -- her front paws on his sholder and licking his wounded flopey ear to clean away the slight infection that never fully healed. It was somthing SPECIAL to SEE because there was REAL OBVIOUS LOVE between them -- it got REALY OBVIOUS when Buck came in to RUT! :)
He was probably about 200LB that fall -- his chest had filled out and his NECK had grown heavy and strong READY fot the RUT and to make LOVE to the LOVED ONE he had coarted all summer -- LONSOME GIRL -- LOL he shure did his best and never stoped trying :) His hoves hurt her and she would get mad -- open the front door -- close it behind her then get up on my bed by the window and BUCK would try to KISS HER by licking the glass and then lie down under the window just to be as close to her as he could. He slept out there every night.
I riged up a 50 foot steel cable with a trolly on it across the front of the cabin about 20 foot in the air between two trees. I made buck a new colar out of salvaged car seat belts and made him a brass bell and ingraved on it --"IF I get LOST call this phone number -- My friend will come and get me". I stiched a bunch of old seat belts together for a 25 foot tether to the trolley giving him as much tether and motion as I could and him not get hung up on thing.
AS the season got colder BUCK got BOLDER about having sex with Lonsome Girl SOooooooo to calm him down a bit -- I had all thease little red "THORAZEAN" PILLS the doctors had given ME and I had stoped taking and I figured what worked on ME would work on a very HORNEY not so little BUCK. I took dog biskets and drilled holes in them and hid the "THORZEAN" tablets in them -- he would not let me poke them down his throat and NOW he was so BIG that when we would SQUARE OFF agenst each other like DEER IN RUT do -- it was all I could do to wrastel him down -- he was starting to WIN too often! ;)
I would get him to dance for his "DRUG LACED BISKET" and medicate him! I had a PLAN! HE HE HE It worked ok for 10 or 12 days but he figured out the pills were in the biskets and he would spit them out! ROTFL
But tether or NOT druged or not -- he slept under that window by the bed so he could see and be close to the one he LOVED -- she would viset him BUT if he tried to jump her bones SHE went in the house and up on the bed ware he could SEE and lick the window but NOT hurt her. SHE loved him TOO, but LOVE with him just HURT TOO MUCH!
One early December morining I woke up and looked out the window next to the bed and NO BUCK ---- I looked out side and his tether was unhooked from his collar and he was gone, I think some one may have come up my drive way and unhooked him but no way to know realy -- any way BUCK was GONE. My place on the mountan is a little WIERD, we frequently get ICE FOG -- the crazy hihgway department built "I540" just a 100 yards or so from my drive way and it frequently causes accidents -- at 70 mph it is totaly blinding ,day or night. There was just a slight ICE FOG that morning and I could see down to the dirt road in front of my property and this old white pick up truck is going way too slow on the road -- it stops and I hear the REPORT of a high power DEER RIFEL from the road -- I grabed my 50 cal BP Hawkens and put a round OVER there heads and started SCREAMING -- thretining MURDER and MAHEM and the truck took off.
I searched for Buck bet never found him and he never came back.
Lonsome Girl went out searching day after day I could here her BAYING calling he BUCK -- AROOOUuuu AROOOUuuu ArOOUuuu -- it realy was quite HAUNTING hering her call to him. She was never the same after she lost her BUCK -- for over two years she searched for him out in the woods chacing other bucks that just ran away from her. She would come back SAD and lay on the bed -- she did not want to play with her toys they just sat in the basket -- I still have her toys in her basket -- I could not throw them away even after all thease years.
About two years after BUCK disapeared, I got up in the middle of the night to put some logs on the fire in the stove in the kitchen and when I tried to put a log in -- MY BACK shifted -- I made a bad jump down at Ft. Benning back in 73 -- my first and last parachute jump -- I did not role to one side as I should have an sat down at about 30+ mph -- I could hear and feel my vertabray CRUNCH together -- IT felt like I had my ass up around my head HEAD it hurt bad but you don't tell special forces guys you hurt your ass or you never live it down. When my back goes out it is like having an ICE PICK jamed in my SPINE -- paralising PAIN -- the kind that makes me see flashes of light and to throw up violently. ALL I could do was FREEZE in position then as slowly as posable get down on my hands and knees and try not to move, excepy extreamly slowly. Lonsome came to me trying to help and all I could do is CRY -- she was the only help or hapyness I had for many years and I remember saying to her right there out loud as I cried in excruciating pain -- What would I do with out you GIRL -- what would I ever DO -- you are all I got to feel good about! It took me almost an hour to crawl from the kitchen and in to my bed -- the cabin is only 15'x30'. I took a muscle relaxent a and tried not to move -- Lonsome snugeled close to my back like a hot water bottle with legs trying to help me. MY back was out for several days and tending the fire so we did no freeze was an adventure in PAIN every time I had to put logs in the fire. After that it just hurt and eventualy 7 or 8 days I was what ever MY normal is.
perhaps 10 days later LONSOM disapeared -- she knew every inch of ground for a mile or more around -- I searched for her daily for almost a month never found her. What I did find out is that there had been an old green truck going around buying DOGS for LAB ANIMALS -- and BEGALS got $50.00 -- for DRUG MONEY! Most likely that is what happened to Lonsome Girl :(
Now and then I hear a hound out in the woods baying and just for a moment it sounds like LONSOM GIRL out ther serching for her BUCK AROOUuuuuuu AROUuuuuu AROOUuuuu to her BUCK --- both are gone from me for ever yet will always be a part of me for ever too.
AROOuuuuuuuu AROOOUuuuuuuuu AROOUuuuuuu -- that is how I call my new dog when I want him to come to me -- in memory of both Buck and LONSOME GIRL.:(
AROOUuuuuuuuuuu AROOUuuuuuuuuu AROOUuuuuuuuu that is how Lonsome Girl called to her LOST LOVER when she searched for him and never did stop untill she was gone too. :(
This is REAL LIFE and there is both BEAUTY and PAIN -- sadness and lonelyness and yet thre was also LOVE -- real LOVE -- people could see even for a DOG and a DEER -- the most UNPERFECT match in the WORLD -- THEY made it work and found ways to LOVE and show real tenderness and afection to and for each other.
I told you it was a LOVE story and an adventure too and I got my LIFE saved by a DEER and a DOG! :)
That is the LOVE STORY of BUCK and LOSOME GIRL -- it aint a DISNEY story it IS and was REAL and in LIFE it is not like farey tails BUT there is BEAUTY and LOVE -- cruality and even forgivness -- in time all wounds heal -- if they don't kill you first! :)
I hope you injoyed the story -- sharing the good things some how lessens the bad -- don't know WHY - it just DOES.
PS: This is for my broken ANGLE -- I thought that you were MY "Lonsome Girl" -- the dog just got here FIRST -- so that is what I called HER, but I needed an ANGLE and that the pup is what showed up -- GOD shure has a WICKED sence of HUMOR -- and very strange timing too.
Just BE HAPPY -- it is all I want for you.
DUCK EGG
Don the DUCK