Chase Lizards, Bark at Donkeys

One day someone saved my life. It occurred like one of those weird, out-of-body experiences that once they start happening you feel like you've stepped into a dream. The day started like any day should start for someone thirteen years old and out of school for the summer; it ended dramatically different and with a gunshot in the night.

Coyotes are rampant where I call home. I live in the country and far away from any town or any neighbor. As a precaution, we lock our dogs up every night for fear of them getting injured by any hungry animals. We put them up around dusk and feed them. Our dogs have always been Jack Russell Terriers. These little dogs are German Shepards in a little dog's body. They are what I aspire to be. They have the most courage and tenacity of any breed of dog that exsists. Just don't tell them they're small. Our Jack, named Rascal, was the most energetic bundle of compacted muscle I had ever seen. Rascal stayed my friend through the worst of weather. He solidified himself as a best friend of mine from the very beginning without leaving my side. But above all he was a hunter.

On a regular summer night my mom began the nightly routine with a scream. She screams at lizards so I didn't take notice. Rascal, however, did not scream so often, and when he did he had two distinct barks. One of them meant it was nothing but a lizard, and meant danger. I didn't have to hear it twice to know that something had gone terribly wrong. I ran to the back of the house and saw a coiled rattlesnake hissing at Rascal, who was not backing down. I hate snakes, I'm scared to death of them, Rascal wasn't. I saw it strike at him and land a bite twice before my dad got to a gun to kill it. Rascal had been bitten twice in the neck by a poisonous rattlesnake the size of the large end of a baseball bat, six feet long, twice and in the neck. He still managed to drag it off and shake it before the poison started to wear on him like a drug.

I don't remember much about the ride to vet. It had happened on a Sunday night and they were closed. I do, however, remember watching my dog Rascal, my best friend, draw his last painful breaths in the back of our truck in my crying mom's arms. Two small red holes dotted his heaving throat. It seemed like a lifetime before the vet showed up. The next day we got the call and went to pick his body up and bring him home.

One of the most heroic images that I have had in my insignificant life has been that of my crying mother through our kitchen window, burying the dog that had saved all our lives from a poisonous snake. Sometimes, I walk to the back of our yard where his rock epitaph has faded over eight years of weather. Rascal didn't back down so I shouldn't either. I just don't know if I can be that brave.