Fear and salvation at the river

May 30, 2002

Dear Pat,

The distance from the Castor River up the hill to DC's family's cabin is at least 200 and maybe 300 heavily wooded yards. Her father has rigged a car horn, activated by flicking a light switch in the kitchen, to summon bathers or fishermen from the river for lunch or any other reason. But no one at the cabin had any trouble hearing DC's screams for help Sunday.

The river was still bulging from a big spring flood that had washed a good distance up the hill and transformed the normally placid bend where DC's father chains his johnboat and catches minnows into a powerful, dark green torrent littered with uprooted trees.

It was Alvie the wandering little beagle's second-ever encounter with the river that prompted DC's screams. He and Lucy had gone to the cabin with DC's parents a day earlier than we went. On our arrival, DC's mother reported that Alvie didn't swim when she took him to the river. While Lucy made like Janet Evans, he just put his paws in the water and lapped a bit.

The next morning, I was 45 miles away in Piedmont playing golf when DC took the dogs to the river, including Hank. She kept Alvie on his leash because he tends to go wherever his nose leads him and quickly leaves us behind if we don't keep up. The cabin journal that faithfully records the wonders and misadventures of each visit now includes the following account by DC of Alvie versus the river:

"I had set up my lawn chair in the water to read when Alvie started walking straight into the water, nose down. I was surprised but thought, 'Guess mom was wrong,' as he started to paddle into the deeper water. I expected him to turn around but instead he kept going, into the green water and then the current caught him. He kept steering toward the opposite bank, reached it, but it had sheered off in the flooding and there was no shore to climb onto. He didn't panic but kept paddling with his front paws trying to get out his head barely above the current. I was yelling "innertube" because the current was so swift that I didn't dare get out into it. Lucy realized that something was wrong and jumped in and went to paddle by Alvie's side as the current swept them along. Hank jumped in after her.

I was concentrating on watching Alvie's head and realized he was getting fatigued. All this time, I was yelling "Help!" as I ran down the river bank. I'd sink to my knees and fall in the loose gravel the river had deposited during the flooding.

The leash was trailing along behind Alvie. The current pulled him under a fallen tree and I kept waiting to see him bob up to the surface but feared the leash would be caught on a limb under water, and he would be trapped submerged. Hank and Lucy paddled on the surface.

Finally I saw Alvie's head pop up on the other side of the tree, and he floated toward a shallower area where I could run in to grab him."

The river is filled with adventures, some harrowing. How easily this sickly little dog who appeared in our lives last October and stolen our hearts with his insistence on surviving could have slipped away beneath the powerful current, could have floated downstream into oblivion. The jagged scar that runs down Alvie's side, the piece missing from one ear and the congested heart that struggles to keep him breathing are all signs of a fierceness in this peaceful Munchkin of a dog that awes us most every day.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian