A (dog) short story of sorts by Sha'Tara, local writer and friend...

Silent Sam

 [a short story - by Sha'Tara]

Seems as if those events happened in a different era, on another world.  But they happened just less than 60 years ago, in this country.  Certainly, those were different times.

I was a child then, just five.  It was early summer and while my father-never dad-was busy with chores and mother-never mom-was preparing the usual breakfast, I wandered off alone to climb over the small hill where the garden grew, already lush.  I had this thing in my mind, that I would see the then already rare dance of the  prairie chicken. (Known to birders as tympanuchus cupido - for the sound the male makes during mating.)

I knew I wasn't allowed past the garden.  I'd been warned that bears would
regularly cross the field beyond the garden because there were no fences
there yet, but that particular morning I wasn't thinking about that.  It was a beautiful morning, already warm as the sun had been up since five o'clock. I followed the path into the hayfield.  The alfalfa wasn't very high yet so I could see quite well, way out to the tree line which to me seemed very far away.  There was another small rise that had a bare patch on top and that's
where I thought the prairie chicken would be dancing.

The warm drying mud (or gumbo as people of the prairies call it) felt good on my bare feet as I walked on, listening to the flickers drumming on dead snags and sometimes looking up to watch hawks already rising up and circling over the fields.  I was to learn, much later, those were mostly buteos and marsh hawks, very common in the north.

I thought I heard something in the stillness of that morning.  I stopped to listen, hoping it was the prairie chickens beginning their dance.  A large form suddenly blocked the morning sun: it was a bear.  To a child of five, any bear would seem huge.  This one, reared on its hind legs, loomed over me like a veritable moving mountain.  I froze, transfixed by the oldest fear
known to man.  The bear eyed me, leaned its head forward and took one step towards me.  I couldn't even scream.

Suddenly a silent explosion of dark brown dark fur hurled itself from the ground beside me, leaping into the bear's face, clawing and biting.
Snarling, the bear turned from me to confront its unexpected assailant.  It was Silent Sam, the neighbor's mid-sized mongrel dog.  Sam had no vocal chords and although we'd seen him many times making the motions of barking
or howling, only a wheeze came out of his mouth.  He kept on attacking that
bear and the fight, though mismatched in size, had surprise and rage on Sam's side.  The bear finally sideswiped Sam and sent him rolling through the alfalfa.  But it had had enough, forgot about its potential breakfast of
a human child and lumbered off into the brush at the edge of the field.

Sam came limping and bleeding back to me to ascertain that I was all right. Together we walked back to the house.  When I told the story, the
predictable happened.  I got a severe spanking for disobeying strict orders and Sam was put back on his chain to lick his non life-threatening wounds.

Now get this.  The police weren't called.  No wildlife officer came to trap
the bear and "relocate" it, or to destroy it.  The event barely caused a
ripple in the movement of a life focused on basic survival.  What was
important was that the "normal" flow wasn't disrupted.  The chores were
done, the crops tended, and those who had part-time construction or railroad
jobs wherever in that slowly opening area, left for work on time.  And I was
to remember a very important lesson: that nature has a way that demands
respect, and her way isn't man's way .

You live in a different world now.  A world filled with instant news media
and human interest stories; trauma specialists and shrinks; political
correctness and all the rest of that bureaucratic claptrap.  A much more
"civilized" world, of course.  So you may not understand the denouement of
this event.  But you be the judge as to whether your "modern" society's way
of handling such a situation is better now.

There is another aspect to this story, one that interests me particularly.
Silent Sam recovered quite well from his lacerations and had a good summer.
But that fall, he just died.  I know it wasn't from any trauma-dogs aren't
made that way.  But Sam knew what he had been given life for and he realized
that his purpose had been fulfilled.  He had done what he was supposed to
and there was no point going on-it wouldn't happen again.

Angels, whether guardians or of any other kind, exist and manifest
themselves in many forms.  Would that we were evolved enough spiritually to
recognize them when we encounter them.  Alas, this is hardly a time to be
talking about angels.  It won't be angels who will rescue this society from
its self-chosen path to hell.

So thank you, Silent Sam.  Thanks for saving my life, and thank you also for
having the courage to act upon your convictions: twice.