ALONG THE WAY

Sometimes it takes a long spell to recognize an act of love. Somewhere around 55 years in this particular case. In the early '30s, my family lived on a homestead in a remote desert valley between the Maricopa and Sand Tank mountains, about 60 miles southwest of Phoenix. The nearest road was a dusty path called the Vekol Trail. There were no other children for many miles, so Jack, a black Australian sheepdog, was my constant companion. Jack died just before my fifth birthday on the day that the scorpion stung me. I had been playing in a tangle of loose boards at the back of the house. Suddenly, I felt a sharp jab of pain in my hand. When I pulled back, I saw the scorpion, its tail curled over its back, disappearing into the pile of lumber. I started howling, and Jack started barking. In a moment, my mother raced around the corner of the building, scooped me up, and carried me inside. As soon as I described the scorpion, Mother poured some ammonia into a bowl and began soaking the wound. Soon the spread of poison caused my hand, then my entire arm, to tingle. She moved me and the bowl of ammonia to my bed and made me lie down. "You must stay there until your father gets back." Dad had gone into Casa Grande to get some shotgun shells because he and his hunting pal, Doc Gatterdam, were going dove shooting later in the day. I suppose I stayed in bed about an hour before Dad showed up. Shortly after that Doc arrived. The husky physician examined me and said it would be all right if I got up. As I was putting on my shoes, I heard Doc ask my dad, "What's wrong with the dog?" Dad gave him a puzzled look. "Nothing, as far as I know." "He's laying by the porch.Didn't even get up when I came in."

I stood and followed them out with one shoe off and one shoe on. When Doc knelt down, only Jack's eyes moved. "It's strychnine," Doc said. My dad told Doc that he heard that one of the nearby ranchers sometimes put out poisoned meat for the coyotes. "Should we drive him into the vet?" Dad asked. Doc shook his head slowly. "Won't do any good." I stayed with Jack, petting him softly until he died. The next morning, with Jack wrapped in an old blanket, we drove to Phoenix and then out east of the city to a place of wildly tossed red conglomerate rock. Today, the area is known as Papago Park. Dad parked the car on a hill near a pyramid of white stone. While he dug in the red soil, I wandered to the top of the hill and examined the pyramid. It was about 15-feet tall and had a bronze plaque affixed to it. When Dad finished digging, Mother served sandwiches and lemonade. Then we gently lowered Jack into the grave and covered him with dirt. After Dad patted the soil down with the shovel, he turned to me and said, "We'll bury him like the Apaches buried their chiefs." "How did they do that?" I asked. "It's an old Apache trick," he said. "They fixed the ground just like it was before, so no one, especially an enemy, could ever find the grave." He took pebbles and bigger rocks and began spreading them across the disturbed soil. I joined him. Then he retrieved some small plants he had unearthed and replanted them on the grave. When we were done, Iasked my dad about the pyramid a few yards above the place where we had buried Jack. "That's where the first governor of Arizona is buried. Governor George W. P. Hunt." He put his hand on my small shoulder. "Remember the pyramid, and you will always know where Jack is buried." After I grew up and had graduated from the University of Arizona, I left the state for a great many years and only recently returned. Today, I live in Scottsdale, east of Phoenix. Four or five times a week I put my 10speed on the bike path that runs the length of the greenbelt, and I ride south. At the Salt River, the path swings to the west and eventually curves back to join the paths that run through Papago Park. At one point along the way, there is a very steep stretch. Usually, I coast down the other side and stop at the base to drink from my water bottle. About 75 yards directly to the west is the small hill withthe white pyramid on top. Of course, every time I stop, Iam aware that my dog lies buried on that hill. One day recently, while I paused to drink, I asked myself a question I had never considered before. Why, I wondered, did my father drive 60 miles to bury my dog on the governor's hill? I thought of my father's words, spoken to me more than half a century ago. After that, the answer came easy. "Remember the pyramid, and you will always know where Jack is buried." What he did that day was not done out of necessity. He could have buried Jack anywhere in the lonely desert around the homestead. But he chose to put Jack in a place where I could always locate him. He did it as an act of love - to comfort me in my childhood grief. Today, I know where Jack is buried and, now, so do you. But you could not find the exact spot. Neither could I. That's because the old Apache trick is working very well. William Hafford