Excerpt from Stanley Yokell’s Book Dog Stories

A Dangerous Dog

As part of the deal when I sold my heat-exchanger business to a mini-conglomerate, I was to have a twelve-week vacation period. I chose to use part of it for a bike ride on a route that my son Mike recommended. At the time, he had completed a year as an Associate Professor of Economics at Washington State University in Pullman Washington and was leaving for a new assignment as a Visiting Professor at the University of California in Berkeley before returning to his home in Boulder, Colorado.

He advised me, “Dad, fly out to Spokane in the apple growing region. Ride up to Sand Point, then to Lake Pend Oreille. Ride across the bridge to where the Clark Fork River feeds the lake. The ride alongside the Clark Fork is magnificent. Then you can follow the Flathead into Missoula, overnight at my friend’s house and tune up the bike. You might take a side trip to visit with Cedrin Jones and Sara Taubman. Sara is working as a Ranger for Montana. I don’t know what Cedrin is up to. Come down along the Snake and through Wyoming. Then stay with us a while before you fly home.”

It sounded wonderful and I enjoyed every moment of it, especially watching trout jump and fishermen gracefully casting their flies. I found the Montanans to be friendly and courteous and enjoyed occasional conversations with them. Eventually, I got to the road leading to Sara and Cedrin’s house in the wilderness. Mike had told me that it was deep in the woods and that Cedrin had built not only the house but also a studio for Sara to make her ceramics in. But try as I could I could not find the way to their place.

I carried my bike loaded with its panniers and handlebar pack over my shoulder, trudging through the path that I had been told would lead to Sara and Cedrin’s. But there was no house or studio structure in sight. Finally I came across a large wood home with a front porch from which an open door led into a living room. My recollection is that there was a carved name on a piece of split wood — McCormick. I put down the bike, went up onto the porch and called through the open door, “Hello.”

There was no answer.

I called out louder, “Hello. Is anyone home?”

No answer. I stepped into the house a step or so. A very large German Shepherd lay on a rug in front of a stone fireplace.

I called out again, “Hello. Is anyone home? I’m looking for directions to Cedrin Jones’ place.”

“What the hell are you doing in my house?” a large man with a beard and beer belly shouted at me,“See that dog? He’ll tear you to pieces if I just give him the word.”

I answered, “I’m sorry sir. I have been walking on this trail in the hot sun carrying my bike for more than an hour trying to find Cedrin Jones’ house and I thought that you might be able to direct me. Your dog is certainly handsome and well groomed.”

“Damn dog. I’m surprised he didn’t take a leg off. He goes after anybody in sight”, he said.

I spoke to the dog, “Here boy. Come on over and give me a kiss.”

The giant got up wagging his tail. He came over and licked my hand, then put his paws on my chest and licked my face.

“Well I’ll be a son of a bitch!“ the dog’s companion said, ”What did you do to my dog to make him do that?”

I answered, “I think I speak dog. But in any case dogs and I get along — all kinds of dogs. Maybe I smell good to them. But I almost never meet a dog that doesn’t like me or one that I don’t like.”

McCormick was no longer hostile. He invited me, “Well sit down and have a cup of coffee with me and I’ll tell you how to get to where those goddamn hippies live. Got to say this for them. He’s a damn good carpenter. Built the whole place himself. And she knows here way around the woods — works for the Montana Parks. How do you know them?”

I told him, “They’re friends of my son. Cedrin was on the track to a PhD in physics but never turned in his thesis. Decided to live in the Montana woods as simply as he could. I’ll bet he gets by on hardly any income at all.”

“Takes all kinds.” McCormick responded,

The dog came over for a little patting and scritching as we sipped our coffee,

“Never seen the like of that with anyone else,” his human said.

It was a nice visit with Sara. Cedrin was off hiking somewhere. She enjoyed my tale of the vicious dog.