Page 17 - Ninety Miles From Nowhere

in Railroad Canyon. All the women and children — Diana with her three daughters, Dixie with Barbara, Mrs. Moore and I, rode over to pick them. Mrs. Moore and the younger children stayed on the ground, and Dixie, Mamie, Diana, and I swarmed all over the cliffs, with an ever-watchful eye for rattlesnakes hidden in the vines. Each one of us carried a stick and no one attempted to pick a bunch of grapes without first beating the vine with the stick.
We picked three large wash tubs full of the most wonderful, succulent wild grapes I’ve ever seen. Usually wild grapes are small — about the size of the end of my little finger — but these were fully as large as the end of my thumb. Also they were exceptionally sweet for wild grapes — in fact Mrs. Moore had to add apples to the juice in order to make jelly. (We couldn’t buy pectin at the corner grocery store as we can now.) And what delicious jam and preserves they made!
One week-end Riley rode horseback over to Horse Springs to visit another of his sisters. On the way back he came across a beautiful purebred German Shepherd dog wandering around on the plain and brought him home with him. The dog was very friendly and all the members of the family petted him, even little two-year-old Edwina. Someone commented that the dog’s eyes looked strange but we decided it was because of his wandering around in the sun.
All of us thought it was funny when Ed’s dog, old Lobo, tried to push us away from the new dog, or get between the dog and any member of the family. Everybody said, “Look at Lobo. He’s jealous!” And we all had a good laugh.
A few days later the dog had a convulsion in the frame house where Ed’s family lived. When I saw the family they were all white and trembling after their ordeal and Edwina was crying. The dog had left foam (slobbers, they called it) scattered all over the place with his tumbling about. There was an argument about whether or not the convulsion could have been caused by worms.
Then one evening as we were sitting in the living room at Dad Moore’s, we saw a flickering light coming up the lane from Ed’s place. As it continued its approach we could see it was a lantern carried by Riley and Guinn — as pale as ghosts. The two frightened men told us the new dog had been sleeping in the bunk house with them when suddenly it began attacking them. It was frothing at the mouth, snarling, growling, and trying to bite the men. They climbed up on the bed but the dog tried to get up there with them. Finally Riley fought the dog off while Guinn managed to slip out the door. He came back with a hoe and stunned the dog with a blow from the handle so both of them could get out.
They had walked up to Dad’s cabin to borrow a rifle with which to shoot the dog. Jeff gave them the rifle, they shot the dog through a hole which they sawed in the door, and sent his head to Santa Fe for testing.
The only telephone in the entire area was at the ranger station. Jewell Wyche, the ranger, drove about thirty miles to give the Moore’s the report: “Rabies present in the animal.”