One Man's Dream

Chapter 2

About two a.m. Steve woke. He was wide-awake and very alert. For a second he just lay there and listened. Everything was dead quiet which was probably what woke him. With his right hand he reached for his pistol, found the grip, eased it out of the holster and waited for about five minutes. At first he heard nothing, then over at the end of the cave he heard the slight growl of the dog. A quiet growl that meant he was ready to fight.

He added a couple of dry sticks of wood to the fire and pretty quickly flames shot up. He could barely see the dog against the far wall, half crouched, hair up, and looked like business. He eased out of the blankets, checked the loads in the forty-four magnum, and then added some more dry wood. Then he went over next to the dog. He could see nothing, but trusted the dog that something was surely there. Then as quickly as everything began, the dog stood up straight and acted like everything was fine. "Well Mouse", he said, "you scared the crap out of me, I ought to shoot you for lack of anything better to do right now. It wouldn’t help anything but it would sure make me feel better right now. I"d hate it later, I guess I"ll see what was out there in the morning".

Mouse, what a name for a one hundred and five pound dog. He"d had a lab with pups about a week old when my daughter in law came carrying this little black pup from work. She worked for a local vet and said that an older lady had come carrying him in that morning. She said the puppy was lying beside her car door, so she picked him up and took him to the vet"s office. Must"ve been a first-time mother that had the pup and then left it where it laid. Anyway that"s how it ended up at my place. They fed the puppy at the office that day, and it came to my house. I must have a soft heart because I took the pup out to the barn, lay it with the lab, helped it for a few seconds, and it went to nursing.

The lab had no problems taking the pup, but it was so little compared to the rest of the litter, we started calling it Mouse. We had to mix up a formula for the pup, because the other pups kept pushing him out, but he finally started growing and wouldn"t quit. Near as I could tell he"s part mastiff, and German shepherd. Total guessing, but not far off. A big, powerful, nice-looking dog, and I sure wouldn"t want him mad at me.

By now, it was going on three a.m., so he built up the fire, rolled back up in the blankets and tried to go back to sleep. For the most part though, there wasn’t a lot of sleeping. One eye stayed open, and with Mouse pacing back and forth, didn"t help.