The Song of a Man and His Dog

Young Indian Creek Smokey

The Song of a Man and His Dog
The man stood alone on an Ozark hill, listening to the faint bawl of a lone running black and tan hound. The autumn night was bright, the air was still. Far below tall sycamores shadowed Indian creek. The man continued to wait, his head bowed and he smiled and looked down into the gloom of the deep hollow below. The bawl of the hound was that of his own Indian Creek Smokey and he was on the scent of a Wiley raccoon.
“Come on Smokey,” the man sang softly, “bring that coon up the hollow and put him in a Sycamore tree.”
The man turned then and headed toward the southern ridge, ignoring the briars and clutching Ivey vines, for he knew soon the hound would tree. The man reached Indian Creek, jumped across and headed up the ghostly ridge. He ducked below a willow branch and stopped to listen.
“Hey Smokey sing to me,” the man called out and smiled.
The deep resounding bawl of Smokey sent the man hurrying on into the pale moonlight. His anxious eyes searched the wooded slope caught up in the melody of the running hound. After several minutes the man stood resting against a twisted oak tree and waited. The song of the hound grew louder and then he burst from the brush in close pursuit of a large raccoon. The raccoon leaped from afar onto the trunk of a mighty Sycamore and disappeared into the high canopy. Smokey caught up in the moment sat down and sang a treeing song and then began a chewing and fussing around the old tree. The man praised the hound and shined a light up the tall, tall tree. And there he saw a big boar coon peeking out of a hole about as safe as he could be.
The man squinted into the sky and noted the first flush of dawn. “Come on Smokey it’s time to go,” sang out the man. “We’ve had our play. That was a good hunt boy and that old coon will be a waiting for us another time.”
Adios