In a week's time I pissed out a kidney stone, took my shirt off for a blistering rendition of Everybody's Working for The Weekend and managed to almost kill myself on a 14 mile, 5,000 foot vertical climb to Desolation Peak in the Ross National Forest. I'm not just a writer, I'm a glutton for punishment and embarrassing self-depreciation.
My little buddy Kubs suffered similar embarrassment. When on the descent of the most bad ass hike I've ever done in my life, his little 91 year old pit bull legs gave out on him. My loyal companion just quit. He couldn't move and we were about 3 miles from the camp site. The Mayor and I contemplated making a make shift gurney. We let him rest and gave it another go, and another one, and another one. No dice. The toughest mutt in the world was looking like a charity case for the first ever Rascal for dogs.
I was trying to melt snow in my water bottle to make sure Little Lord Fauntleroy the Fancy Lad was hydrated. He wasn't looking good.
Superbeasts abide by a code. You never leave another beast behind. Never. As I watched my pint sized pal suffer, I knew there was only one thing to do. I threw that sack of stink over my shoulder and carried him out of the backcountry, one step at a time. All 70 lbs of him. It was cinematic in a Willem Dafoe Sgt. Elias death scene from Platoon kind of way.
3 days later he's still pretty stiff, but his paws are healing up nicely and he's managed an elaborate scheme where I wait on him like a doting mother. He has yet to thank me. Little shit.
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