The Huckleberry Kid
by
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"Take him down by the creek bank and shoot him. You can take the time to place him in one of the empty plastic feed sacks and bury him if you wish." This was an order from my father that I was not sure I could do. Terry, a gold and white border collie had been my friend and right arm for almost eight years. Now he was old with bad hip joints and suffering a lot of pain just to move around. He no longer wagged his tail and that was a sure sign of discomfort. I collected the rifle, the plastic sack, and a digging spade. Terry, in pain tried to follow me to the creek bank, so I sat with him and we recalled many of the adventures we had shared. One of the most interesting men I have ever met. Harry, I guessed, was about seventy-five years old. He as a professor of American History for thirty-six years before he retired and purchased a hobby ranch of about eighty acres in the Mission Valley. He loved to buy and sell things and thus became a livestock wholesaler. Known to be as honest as a used car salesman, ranchers would say buying cattle from Harry was like hand feeding a rattle snake. Could be done, but you better not have your head in a dark warm place. I once asked him why he got up in the morning so early and he explained that he just could not wait to lie to ranchers and cheat them out of their money. Just joking a bit, but just a little bit. To protect the Boy Scouts Bob stood his ground, but when the grizzly got to him he was no match for the bear's front arm that almost removed Bob's head. My 30-30 rifle was no match either. My first shot was to the bear's snout, thinking that if he could no longer smell the scouts he might run away. No, he just snorted his blood all over me and filled the air with his bad breath. I placed two more shots into his mouth which seemed to have little or no effect on him. He did drop down on all four legs which gave me the opportunity to shoot out his elbows on both front legs. This brought him to a stop and gave me time to reload.
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About the Book
The Author's hope is that you will cry, laugh and with an open mind think as you read from chapter to chapter. The ranch was located within the Kootney Indian Reservation. This gave the young boy the blessings to learn much from of the Indian,s culture and their closeness to Mother Nature. The animals on the ranch and the wild animals in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area taught him much about life and how to deal with man and animal. How to live with ease around others and most important at ease with himself. The boys life was not short for he leaned some thing new each day. He had a large box so he did not have to think outside the box. Whither the glass was half full or half empty he leaned that now the glass needed to be washed.
About the Author
He grew up on a large cattle ranch located in the Northwest corner of Montana. All of the events in the fourteen chapter, here in, are the highlights of his youth, embellished some. He learned how to work before he leaned how to play. Living was just life as he knew it on the ranch within a dysfunctional family. His Father was lazy, greedy and drank too much beer. Father's thinking was that man and animal only understood pain and was good at dishing it out. His Mother was very unhappy and came to closet drinking with a Bible in her lap. Fifty years later he drinks too much, work to hard and still has not learned how to play and enjoy his life.