Katherine and Jim had spent most of their 15 years together dreaming of owning a small farm in beautiful, vast and isolated Northern Idaho, where Jim was born. When Jim’s father died, he left the couple enough money to pursue their dream. They left their bio-tech jobs in Cambridge, Mass. – they met at MIT –  and bought a small farm.

The day after they moved into their farmhouse, a starving, straggly puppy showed up at the back door and decided to rescue Jim. The two were inseparable. They spent every moment together, he called the dog Buck, he turned out be huge – part Lab, part Newfoundland, maybe part wolf, said the vet.

Buck  was a very powerful dog and he had a wild streak, he would disappear for days at a time, roaming and hunting in the woods, sometimes coming home with blood on  his coat, but he always returned to Jim. He was almost always at his side, working in the fields, walking in the woods, hunting on the hillside,  or riding in his truck.

He will never be just a pet, Jim told Katherine, he is something more, something wild. He is where dogs came from.

Katherine and Jim loved their new lives, they had a child, a daughter.

Bea, on their farm, grew vegetables and planted corn and alfalfa in their large fields. They loved the mountains, the mist, the deer roaming in herds, they became close friends with several of their neighbors, and the memories of their former lives faded in the passion they felt for their new life. “We have everything we need,” Katherine often told Jim.

As great dogs will do, Buck became their partner in life, guarding Jim, Bea and Katherine, driving off stray dogs and animals, warning of intruders, curling up by the wood stove on winter nights.   Sometimes, even in awful storms, he would just vanish, no one ever knew where he went or what he did. Katherine suggested building a kennel for him, the mountains were  unsafe, she said there were bears and wolves out there, but Jim said no. He has to live his life, said Jim, leave him be. He will always come back if he can. I don’t want to destroy his nature.

Buck loved Bea almost as much as he loved Jim, he always watched over her, and sometimes let her sleep with her head on his back.

Buck was a huge dog, frightening to many people,  a one-family dog.  He had long, black hair, often matted and full of burrs and thorns. He had no interest in  other people, did not  play with dogs or toys or care to be cuddled. He did not do trucks or offer his paw for handshakes. His work was watching over his family.

Buck has my back, Jim said of him, and over time, he came to see and believe that Buck was, in part,  part wolf. He heard the call of the wild, it was in his blood.  He’s your shadow, said Katherine, a part of you now. The only thing tethering him to humans is you, you and Bea.

On day, Jim was chopping firewood far from the farmhouse and three city kids from downstate on a hike started taunting him, demanding some money. One pulled a knife on Jim. The three were later found hiding in a cave where Buck had chased them and penned them up. One – the one with the knife – needed 30 stitches to close up his leg wounds. He nearly bled to death, said the sheriff.

But mostly, their life was peaceful and meaningful. They were deeply in love with one another, and their new life did nothing but enrich that connection.

“We are so lucky,” Jim told Katherine almost every morning, as he and Buck set off for the hard work of the farm..

One day, life intruded on their dreams, as it has a habit of doing. Jim went out cut some trees for firewood, they lined the stream that raged down the hill from their home. When Jim didn’t come back all day and into the night, Katherine called the sheriff. They found Jim’s body floating well down stream, pulled along by the current. It looked, said the sheriff, as if a tree fell on  him, knocking him into the water, perhaps unconscious. He didn’t suffer, he said.

But where is the dog?, Katherine asked suddenly. “Where’s Buck?” The sheriff was puzzled. No sign of a dog,  he said, no trace of one. Buck was never found or seen again. Sometimes Katherine assumed that he had drowned trying to save Jim, his body washed downriver or eaten by scavengers. Sometimes, she thought he had returned to the wild, unable to comprehend his own failure to protect Jim.

Katherine grieved for Jim, at times she thought she would not survive. But there was Bea, and Katherine did not wish to spend the rest of her life in grief, she wasn’t ready to date again but she wasn’t ready to stop living either. Life went on, slowly and painfully, she stayed on the farm with Bea, hired a helper, immersed herself in finding ways to help others, became a much loved and admire part of their world. She couldn’t bear to get another dog yet, in a way she expected Buck to turn up at the farm any minute.

One day, years after Jim’s death, she agreed to take Bea camping. Katherine was still a city girl in some ways, she didn’t love the rugged outdoor life, but she graciously went along.  Bea had been pestering her all year to go.

They hauled a tent and pegs and a small stove and some food out several miles to the top of a wooded hillside. It was cold, and Katherine was upset to see the garbage and the remains of some sloppy campers who had come before them. It was too late to move, she tried to clean up and then she and Bea set up their tent, cooked some chicken. She read Bea some stories and then they both fell asleep under a breathtakingly beautiful sky full of shining stars and a backdrop of majestic mountains. In the middle of the night, Bea said she had to go to the bathroom and Katherine pulled the tent aside and waited for her to come back.

In a couple of minutes, Katherine heard Bea’s screams, she sounded  terrified, it seemed as if she was running or being chased. Then Katherine heard the roaring. She scrambled out of the tent and ran outside, she was horrified to see Bea running up a hill, a enormous grizzly bear in pursuit. Lord, thought Katherine, he was drawn by the garbage, she never should have camped there. She shouted to Bea to stay still and stop but Bea, only nine years old, had understandably  panicked. The bear was enormous, roaring and running and frothing at the mouth. It was a terrifying sight to her. She dialed 911, sent out a signal for help. Then she started running. No help could reach them in time.

Bea was too far away now, Katherine couldn’t get to her, she kept running and stumbling in the dark, but it was hopeless. Her screams seemed to fade, and Katherine thought she would go mad with fear. Bea was well up the hill. Katherine stumbled, hit her head against a rock and blacked out.

***

It took a few minutes for Katherine’s head to clear, she had a dream of something nuzzling her, licking at her face, and then a surge of terror coursed through her body, she sat up straight. “Bea!,” she shouted, “Bea!” It was so quiet. At first, that horrified her. Then she heard a voice.

“Mommy, mommy,” she heard a soft and frightened voice say, as Bea came running to her. She was close. She was alive, Katherine could see, before she fell back again, she was okay. The bear was gone.

The helicopter came over the mountain before dawn, the noise woke Katherine up. Bea was in her arms, asleep, the two tightly wrapped around one another. The search and rescue team rappelled down to them, the ranger came down to the hill puzzled. “Damnedest thing,” he said, “there was a big fight up there, looks like a fight between the bear and a wolf or something. We tracked the bear up the hill, he’s alive but bloody and beat up, something tore him up a bit, he’s heading for his den. We can’t figure out what might have done that, there are no other tracks up there.”

The ranger shook  his head and called for Bea and Katherine to be lifted up in the chopper and taken to a hospital to be checked out. As the helicopter moved away from the mountain, Katherine turned to Bea. “What happened, honey? What happened up there?”

Buck, whispered Bea to her mother. Buck came and jumped on the bear’s back and fought with him until I could run away. They roared at each other, she whispered. “He followed me down to the camp and sniffed me and licked me. He came over to wake you up. He seemed so glad to see me. I think he saved me. It was Buck.”

Poor kid, thought Katherine, she was so traumatized she thought that Buck had come to save her. No harm, she thought, in  her believing that. But maybe she shouldn’t tell anyone else that story, she thought.

Bea and Katherine fell asleep in the arms of one another. When Katherine woke up, the helicopter had landed and nurses were preparing to move the two of them onto cots so they could be brought into the hospital. “Let’s clean you up,” one nurse said to Katherine, picking something off of her jacket. “What’s that?,” asked Katherine. “Dog hair,” said the nurse “big long black hair. Was there a dog down there with you on the mountain? What happened to him?”

Katherine didn’t know how to answer. The nurse seemed to sense it wasn’t something to be pursued, she went on cleaning Katherine and Bea up.  “It’s okay,” said Bea, smiling, “I have some on my jacket too.”