Memories are strange things. They have sensory triggers, or are sometimes triggered by other memories. Some have definite beginnings–I clearly remember meeting my childhood best friend, Heather–but have no memory whatsoever of my younger sister’s birth. And the more time that elapses between memories and the here and now, the fuzzier they get. They play out in my mind like a silent movie–blurred around the edges, dimly lit and comical, full of overly-dramatic cast members.
Duke was one of those overly-dramatic cast members of my childhood. My earliest recollection of him was being toppled over by his wildly wagging tail. I must have been no more than three or four at the time, since Duke was only about 30 inches high at the shoulder. I plopped squarely on my bottom in the grass, unsure if I should cry. My mother laughed and helped me up as she warded off the imperviously affectionate mutt.
To be fair, Duke was less of a mutt than the droves of other dogs that passed through our yard, most of which eventually fell victim to what my parents, in a typical display of morbid humor, dubbed “road cancer.” The American Kennel Club is almost certainly oblivious to all members of Duke’s ancestry, but my father acquired him as a puppy under the impression that he was half border collie and half Australian shepherd–perfect for a cowdog. Duke quickly confirmed the timeless adage “If something seems to good to be true, it probably is,” although my dad probably should have anticipated this based on Duke’s appearance alone.
He had the overall look of a giant wad of dryer lint, and closer inspection proved him to be uglier than from a distance. His bulky coat was of a nebulous hue, somewhere between the color of mud and the shale-dust that perpetually covered our vehicles from miles of dirt road. A filthy, freckled triangle of white splotched its way across his nose, and small, unintelligent eyes–one blue and one brown–peered out of a broad, flat skull. He panted incessantly; I cannot remember ever seeing him with his mouth closed. His limp ears seldom perked up, except when one of the other dogs threatened to enter his domain (the garage where the generic dog food was stored).
Mere weeks after Duke–as a puppy–usurped the role of Alpha male, he had his first brush with death. Most trainers of stock dogs will tell you that pups should not be exposed to cattle or horses until they are at least a year old–it makes them more unpredictable and disobedient as they mature. This expert counsel fell on deaf ears when it came to my father. My mom and I often joke that the Y chromosome of the Harrington DNA must contain a gene which makes the carrier a helpless indulger of the pitiful appeals of the canine species. My grandfather, father, and older brother all sheepishly exhibit this trait whenever they are faced the tragic eyes and whining pleas of any dog, no matter how pathetic or annoying. Because of this acquiescing tendency, my dad allowed Duke to go around the ranch with him from the day he brought him home. This turned out to cause a nearly fatal experience for the young pup.
The barn where we caught and saddled our horses was about thirty yards away from our house, right across Ten Mile Road–the same road whose speeding vehicles inflicted “road cancer” on so many of our pets. My dad was always careful with puppies when crossing the road, but once they were safely on the other side, they were free to aggravate the resident horses or cows to their hearts’ content. Duke took full advantage of this new-found liberty, and quickly overcame any apprehension he felt towards animals weighing hundreds and sometimes thousands of pounds more than he.
There were several corrals behind the barn of varying size, intended to make apprehending one’s steed an easier undertaking. However, few of our saddle horses, even the most well-broke, could be caught without first careening headlong around the corrals. So for efficiency’s sake, my dad generally carried a rope with him when he went to capture an unsuspecting equine. The moment he began to swing the rope, the horses would hug the fence and wildly jostle the each other in an attempt to avoid my dad’s well-placed loop.
Most puppies have the sense to retain some degree of caution around wild eyes and churning hooves, but what Duke lacked in sense he tried to make up for in audacity. Surely thinking he was helping my father, blundered into the the herd of horses and disappeared into the cloud of dust stirred up by their feet. There was a yelp, and my dad herded the horses away to find Duke nursing some sort of injury to his paw.
My dad brought Duke back to the house and didn’t let him tag along for a while. Duke eventually got well enough to go back out and cause more trouble, although he limped badly for the rest of his life.
Many may wonder why Duke was never taken to a veterinarian, and this is something I must establish so that I go on without causing confusion or indignation in my readers: ranchers seldom take their pets to the vet. Vets are expensive, and ranchers are either poor or tightwads. If a problem looks serious on a horse or cow, it may warrant a trip to the vet because cows are financial assets and horses have utility; a puppy, on the other hand, especially one who had done nothing but get in the way, would either get better on his own or find himself staring down the barrel of my dad’s .22. There is neither time nor money on a ranch to be overly compassionate.
Duke’s second brush with death came about seven years later. My dad and a few of the hired cowboys were trailing cows down the highway to our summer range in the mountains. The panorama is breathtaking, but the highway is steep and winding, and visibility is low for traffic. Dad made the decision to leave Duke at home because he had trouble keeping up on such a long drive. He locked him in the garage and instructed my mom to let Duke out around noon. Duke howled and barked until lunchtime, and once free took off up the road.
About two hours later, my dad was surprised by the sight of Duke half-limping, half-loping down the highway. He shrugged and turned back to the cows; if Duke wanted to come badly enough to run miles up the road, he could stay.
At the sound of a semi approaching around the bend, Dad began herding the cows off the pavement, when suddenly, one of the cowboys yelled “Duke!” My dad turned around just in time to see Duke, who was practically straddling the center-line, get hit by the semi’s grill.
The semi-driver pulled off onto the narrow shoulder and jumped out. “I tried to hit the breaks but I was goin’ too fast and I didn’t wanna jack-knife!” He apologized profusely as he and my dad rushed over to where Duke lay on the pavement. “I don’t think I ran all the way over him; I think I just whacked the side of his head…” Duke stirred and began howling, then flopped around on the ground uncontrollably.
“Well, I don’t have my gun with me,” Dad said, assuming he would have to shoot the pathetic animal. “I guess we’ll just have to pack him off the road for now.” They carried the writhing dog off and laid him in the shade under a giant sagebrush. The semi-driver apologized again before climbing in his truck and coasting back down the highway. My dad got on his horse and rode back to the cows, a little sad and dreading having to put Duke out of his misery. Hours passed, and they were just about to reach the summer pastures when my dad heard a familiar bark. He turned around with a sense of deja vu to see Duke limping up the road once again. Relieved that he wouldn’t need his .22 after all, he turned back to the cows once again and rode on.
Duke’s final brush with death was less of a brush and more of a head-on collision. Pun intended, I suppose. My dad had hired a seasonal worker named Tony to help during hay season. It turned out Tony was not just interested in Timothy grass, but also in grass that rolls easily into a joint. Tony quickly became notorious for taking out gateposts on the tractor because of his addiction, or what he referred to as “bad depth perception.”
Duke’s vision wasn’t very good at this point either; he’d aged considerably and was getting more and more eccentric. On day he wandered over to the gas tanks as Tony weaved over in the John Deere to gas up. Tony either didn’t see him or wasn’t able to swerve in time, and Duke was killed instantly.
I can’t honestly say that I missed him, even for a moment–he was far from the ideal pet–but it’s always sad when an animal dies that way. The other dogs were relieved that his tyrannical rule had come to an end, and we all moved on with our lives before the day was out. However, Duke did incur one honor upon himself, an honor seldom bestowed upon any animal on the Harrington Ranch: rather than dumping his carcass in the pit full of decaying horses and cows, Dad buried him in Mom’s fallow vegetable garden .
