Rise

It starts with a little squeeze, the road needing to tuck to the right, pushed by the lack of room between river and rising foothills. But the squeeze lets off quickly, pouring asphalt out into a pair of sweeping valleys. Willows choke the ditches while shiny black cattle stand, belly deep, in thick grass. 

But this broadening does not last, in a couple miles the two lane dives into a canyon, the road perched perilously over the twisting river. Guard rails offer a suggestion of protection but in reality are unlikely to stop anything larger than a Honda Civic from a roll into the river. 

Imperceptibly at first, the road begins to rise, the distance between river and tires growing slightly until, just past a spot wide enough for a parking area, the road begins to climb in earnest. The orange red bodies of flicker pecked ponderosas flash past as the engine thrums to the elevation gain. Glimpses of meadows through the trees prompt a slowing and quick look. More often than not, there are elk grazing where the grass meets the trees. Retain a constant awareness for deer, something about infrequent engines prompt them to cross the road.

In the winter, shady corners mean ice. Two years ago, everything was frozen and glassy, keeping speed low enough, I saw first the tracks of a herd of elk along the shoulder, saw where they crossed and dove into deep timber. Then while stopped to admire the cut of hooves in fresh snow, I saw the unmistakable pad and claw of wolves, layering in, and knew the game was a foot. 

In spring and early summer, the bright golden yellow of arrow leaf balsam root bursts from wide frosted leaves while the rods of larkspur reach their purpled blue skyward. The road rises, dips, flattens and arches through meadows, past faded barns and abandoned farm houses. Cattle appear and disappear in the rearview frequently, but cars are few and far between. 

There is a stop sign and a right turn before the last pull uphill and the road breaks over the summit into the sagebrush steppe of Central Oregon. The valley below stretches to base of the Strawberry mountains, so tall, savage and avalanche stripped, I wonder how driving west from the edge of Oregon, I have suddenly arrived back in Montana. 

I have lost track of how many rotations my tires have made on this section of blacktop, how many times I have leaned into the corners, pushing the edge of safe speeds while the wind whipped through open windows. But I remember the first. 

I had been further south on the Oregon-Idaho border, hunting mule deer along the tail waters of the Owyhee dam at Leslie Gulch. In the bright sun of early October, forearm sized brown trout lay, finning, in the gin clear waters at every turn. That morning had found me cleaning a little forked horn buck, no trophy but as much as my freezer could hold. Once loaded up, I took the interstate north and stood in wonderment in a backyard with a pile of birddog puppies rolling around my feet. 

He was black with a splash of white across his nose and a round full belly. His ears were the softest thing I had ever known. He whimpered and squirmed to be let down to wrestle, his comically oversized feet pressing against my chest. 

And he was mine. 

It wasn’t that late in the afternoon when we left, but the October sun doesn’t linger as winter approaches. Cradling my first birddog in my arms, we traveled what would become one of my favorite stretches of highway for the first time. I remember being overwhelmed with the feeling of being on the cusp. One hand on the wheel, the other on the small sleeping body, leaving the shine of his fur to shift gears, quickly returning to cup the rise and fall of his chest, I knew everything was about to change.

“He was a birddog, consumed by pursuit, eyes to the horizon, feet in constant motion. He was loving and kind, but would not compromise on desire. He would not be broken. He was to be accepted for himself or not at all. ”

We stopped at the wide spot offered just before the climb began. The recently consumed de-wormer had an upsetting effect on his stomach, so I wiped and cleaned him before we returned to the Tacoma and continued on. I had thought to call him Jake, but it would be over a week before I landed on his name and that only lasted a couple of years before his nickname became all anyone knew him by, Birddog. He lived his life in complete, unapologetic wholeness. He was a birddog, consumed by pursuit, eyes to the horizon, feet in constant motion. He was loving and kind, but would not compromise on desire. He would not be broken. He was to be accepted for himself or not at all. 

I swore he would be crate trained and live like a proper birddog, tucked in the bed of the truck but the front seat quickly became his perch. Together we traveled close to 200,000 miles, rambling across the West. BD became the keeper of all my secrets, knowing all my crushes, loves and desires. The silk of his ear between my finger and thumb as I cried, worried and fretted. I put my fears on his shoulders and he ran them into the ground. 

My family quickly came to understand if the hotel, Air B and B or vacation would not accommodate my dog, I would not attend. He was in family pictures, at my graduations and sat through my sister’s baby shower. He was lost and found. And lost again. His nose pulling him away from me, but his feet always finding their way back. In the nearly fifteen years of our friendship, I doubt there were more than 150 days I woke without him. Outside of breathing, he was the most constant force in my life. 

We were six days shy of BD’s fifteenth birthday this last August when we loaded up to cross the mountains, east to west along our beloved highway. We were heading back to the place he knew as home for all but this last year. As we leaned to the familiar curves, the memory of his small body in my arms came flooding back. I listened to the uneasy cadence of his breath, the ragged quality of the inhale, the resignation in his exhale. His back was pressed to mine as he curled in the back seat, his arthritis no longer tolerant of the squeeze of riding shotgun. I could feel him trembling through the seat. I turned the radio off and let memory roll easy as mile markers past side mirrors. 

Six years ago we wandered, my mind a dark cavern of disappointments, destination-less. When I locked the door of the house behind me, I thought I would disappear forever and nodded goodbye to its contents. It was unseasonably warm that September and autumn was late in arriving. We never topped 55 mph and never touched interstate. The truck silent save for the vibration of the tires and the flap of his ears out the window. 

We stopped at trailheads I can’t remember the names of, and I wandered, heavy on the trail while he careened through trees, splashing across creeks and treeing chipmunks. His bright eyes and lolling tongue would meet me at bends in the trail, and he would disappear, hell bent on drawing me up one more mile and in doing so, he saved me. Drew me out of a flame snuffing melancholy and pulled me back to the land of the living. 

As we did on our first drive, we stopped at the wide spot before the climb and again along the edges of the mountain meadows. His age weakened bowels betrayed him. His eyes a mix of pain and embarrassment as I cleaned him and lifted his gaunt frame back onto the truck, resting him behind my seat. 

For forty-five minutes I drove, acutely aware of the call I needed to make. My phone lay useless, disconnected in these sparse mountains. I knew the exact mile marker service would return and dreaded it. I could just stop. And let us continue to exist in this window of memory and time. 

But I didn’t. I scarcely had my name across my lips when the tears came with such fierceness I couldn’t breath. Through diaphragm wracking sobs, I gasped out, 

“It’s Katie Willis and I need to bring BD in for his last appointment.” 

I don’t remember the rest of the drive, blinking my tear fogged eyes clear for the last hundred and sixty miles.  

In the past year I have been asked often about loneliness. 

It was there, but fleeting, something about miles on the highway soothed it away.  

Until the odometer began ticking without him. 

I am lonely now. 

But I don’t mind it. 

The deeper into grief I descend, the more I feel the rise of gratitude. 

I love my life. I am the fullness I have hungered for. 

Dreams, passions and ideas I have long guarded are kindled and lit.  

And it all started with a small black pup, a splash of white across his nose.