The thin morning fog, hanging over the sage and bluestem, obscures the trucks and trailers around the pens at Peek Trap. The sun, edging above the horizon, draws the eye from modernity toward something more durable. A whinny in the distance sharpens your focus on a band of shadow cast by a low bluff. The first few horses run into the new light, and the rest of the remuda emerges, strung out along the base of the bluff, nine dozen geldings running parallel to the horizon a quarter mile out.
Having been reared in a rural environment on the League ranch in Knox County, dogs were a must around our house with a list of jobs for the mutts being endless. Coyotes and skunks in the chicken house, opossums venturing into the yard on a muggy summer night, rattlesnakes in the garage, and the obligatory job of venturing into the brush with my brother and I in search of pack rat middens , all in a days work for the mixed breed mutts who lived on the ranch with us some half a century ago. Even though there were several dogs that passed our way during those years, I recall each one with fondness.
