Summer of the Monkeys (35 page)

Although the old hound had no way of knowing it, he had stirred memories, and what priceless treasures they were. Memories of my boyhood days, an old K. C. Baking Powder can, and two little red hounds. Memories of a wonderful love, unselfish devotion, and death in its saddest form.

As I turned to enter my yard I started to lock the gate, and then I thought, “No, I’ll leave it open. He might come back.”

I was about halfway to the house when a cool breeze drifted down from the rugged Tetons. It had a bite in it and goose-pimples jumped out on my skin. I stopped at the woodshed and picked up several sticks of wood.

I didn’t turn on any lights on entering the house. The dark, quiet atmosphere was a perfect setting for the mood I was in. I built a fire in the fireplace and pulled up my favorite rocker.

As I sat there in the silence, the fire grew larger. It crackled and popped. Firelight shadows began to shimmer and dance around the room. The warm, comfortable heat felt good.

I struck a match to light my pipe. As I did, two beautiful cups gleamed from the mantel. I held the match up so I could get a better look. There they were, sitting side by side. One was large
with long, upright handles that stood out like wings on a mourning dove. The highly polished surface gleamed and glistened with a golden sheen. The other was smaller and made of silver. It was neat and trim, and sparkled like a white star in the heavens.

I got up and took them down. There was a story in those cups—a story that went back more than a half century.

As I caressed the smooth surfaces, my mind drifted back through the years, back to my boyhood days. How wonderful the memories were. Piece by piece the story unfolded.

W
ILSON
R
AWLS
was born on a small farm in the Ozarks. He spent his youth in the heart of the Cherokee nation, prowling the hills and river bottoms with his old bluetick hound—his only companion. His first writing was done with his fingers in the dust of the country roads and the sands along the river. He told his first stories to his dog, and it was not until his family moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma, and he could attend high school that he had access to real books.