The Swan Creek Monster – Part 2

Heavy rain on the following two days kept Lonnie away from the trails, but a light sprinkle wasn’t enough to keep him away for a third. He parked in his usual spot, the one closest to the trail head, then put on his lightweight jacket. The sun broke through the thin clouds with the promise of a nice hike.

The half-empty jerky package called to him from the bed. Lonnie pulled a piece out and clenched it between his teeth. Then he bent over and picked up his well-worn hiking boots. He had to suck in through his teeth to prevent the jerky juice from dripping.

Lonnie swung open the van’s double side doors. Sunlight poured in through the wide opening as if attempting to tan the van’s faux-leather interior. His work tools gleamed through the construction dust swirling throughout the van.

He sat on the step and took a bite of jerky, holding the rest in his lips while he chewed. He couldn’t help but think of Mister Rogers as he changed out of his steel-toed work boots and into his lightweight hiking boots.

Dog nails clacking on concrete came from the other side of the van. Lonnie was tying the second boot when the blue heeler came to a screeching halt several feet past the back bumper. He collected himself then dawdled over to Lonnie, sniffing the whole time.

Lonnie looked up. “Hello, neighbor.”

The dog jumped up and put his front paws onto Lonnie’s chest. He zeroed in on the source of the jerky scent and licked Lonnie’s lips and chin.

“Wanna go for a walk? Huh, boy? Do ya?”

Lonnie grabbed onto the dog’s front legs and walked him backward. The dog strained forward, trying to get back to within licking distance of Lonnie’s face. A guy walked by with his mountain bike in time to witness a man and his new best friend locked in a battle of wills.

“I’ve created a monster. He loves jerky.”

“I don’t blame him. I ate a bunch on the way here,” the mountain biker said.

“Have you seen this dog before?”

“I’ve seen him around. Almost every time I’m here, in fact.”

“Have you ever seen him with anybody?”

“Not that I recall.”

Lonnie closed and locked the doors. “If you hear somebody’s looking for him, send them my way. If this van is here, I’m here.”

“Sure thing.”

The mountain biker walked toward the bike trail entrance as Lonnie and the dog embarked on the first leg of their first hike together. They rounded the copse of trees and negotiated the switchback, putting them at the beginning of the long, gradual descent down Swan Creek Trail.

The blatant scent of evergreens mingled with other, more subtle scents only the dog could smell. He made it his business to find their sources and give each of them a thorough sniffing. Lonnie kept hiking down the trail and the dog kept coming back to him. He came back with either a muddy nose or moss hanging from his chin, but he always came back.

This continued for a quarter mile until they reached the connecting trail between the firs and the bike trails. The dog started down that trail then stopped. He turned toward Lonnie and barked what Lonnie understood as ‘wait here.’ After seeing Lonnie stop, the dog slipped into a peninsula of trees jutting from the mountain bike forest.

Lonnie stepped to the edge of the trail and crouched, steadying himself with the walking stick. His knees ached from installing plywood underlayment all day. They cracked and popped when they bent.

A light gray squirrel with a white tail spiraled up the trunk of the nearest tree and disappeared. The dog emerged from the woods and rambled back to Lonnie with his muzzle covered in a yellow-green powder. He got up in Lonnie’s face, the dog’s labored breaths showing his age.

Lonnie held the dog’s head between his hands. “What did you get into?”

The dog pushed in to lick his face. Lonnie reacted too late and the dog’s head slipped through his hands. He got a few good licks in as a cloud of the powder billowed from his fur. Some of it clung to the slobber on Lonnie’s face. Most of it drifted into his nostrils or settled on his sweaty hair and clothes, much like the fine drywall dust he learned to live with.

Lonnie peered into the mountain bike forest. He caught flashes of bright clothing between the dark tree trunks and heard knobby tires on hard packed dirt. “Let’s cut this short and get back to the van. I need to get you cleaned up.”

Lonnie got two bottles of water from the refrigerator when they got back. He also grabbed the hand towel off the counter next to the small, plastic sink. He opened one bottle and took a sip before stepping back out to the parking lot.

He leaned backward and poured water over his face, flushing the dust away from his eyes. He bent forward and dried his face, hair, and neck. When he pulled the towel away and opened his eyes, the dog was gone. Crinkling plastic behind Lonnie betrayed the dog’s whereabouts.

He ducked into the van and found the dog lying on the bed with his front paws hanging over the edge and the package of jerky in his mouth. “What are you doing in here, you little rascal? Let me wash your face, then we’ll have a piece.”

Lonnie sat on the step and doused the towel. “The water’s cold, but I doubt you’ll even feel it.”

Lonnie rubbed the towel over the dogs face, being careful around his eyes but rather vigorous everywhere else. “You’re putting up with this like a champ.”

He dropped the towel into a box on the floor full of P-traps and faucet parts, then washed his hands. He dried them on a shirt hanging from a rod over the foot of the bed, the only clean towel in the van now soiled with who knows what. He opened a cabinet next to the sink and dug through the jumbled mess for his cereal bowl. “Are you thirsty, boy? How about some water?”

The dog hopped off the bed, jerky in mouth, and waited for Lonnie in the middle of his tools.

“I need to give you a name,” Lonnie said, “I can’t keep calling you ‘boy,’ or ‘big guy,’ or ‘champ.’”

Lonnie surveyed the tools surrounding the dog, looking for inspiration. The yellow and black cordless drill caught his eye. “DeWalt? Nahh, you you’re too cool to be a DeWalt.”

A circular saw sat next to the cordless drill. Lonnie thought for a few seconds. “Makita sounds too much like Akita.”

Next was a reciprocating saw. “Black & Decker? No, too cumbersome.”

Lonnie felt resigned to go with one of these until his eyes fell upon the box of plumbing parts. “Ferguson. That sounds like a good name for a dog. You like that? Think about it while we eat our treat.”

Lonnie tugged the package out of Ferguson’s slobbery mouth. Much like Lonnie’s face, it could have used a good rinse. Ferguson followed Lonnie out of the van then drank from the bowl of water Lonnie poured.

Lonnie pulled a chunk of jerky apart and gave Ferguson the larger piece. Ferguson laid at Lonnie’s feet and held it between his paws. Both chewed in complete silence, aside from Lonnie’s lip smacking and Ferguson’s gnawing.

After man and dog finished their treats, Lonnie took the water bottles to the recycling station near the trailhead. He drank the last drops of the second bottle then threw them into the ‘plastics’ section. Lonnie got back to the van to find Ferguson gone. He waited for a few minutes, then went home figuring he wouldn’t see him for the rest of the night.

***

Dented pick-ups and immaculate SUVs with bike racks filled the south parking lot of Swan Creek Park and Lonnie had to park in a spot at the far back corner. While he sat on the step changing his boots, he looked up to see Ferguson ambling across the parking lot. He had the yellow-green dust on his face.

Lonnie stopped tying the first boot and spread his arms wide. “Well, look who’s here. I see you got into that stuff again.”

Ferguson took this as his invitation to give Lonnie a big, wet hello. The yellow-green dust swirled toward Lonnie’s nostrils. He shook his head and exhaled through his nose, trying not to inhale the particles. He stuck his arm between his mouth and Ferguson’s lashing tongue. “Okay, settle down. That’s enough.”

Ferguson got the message and sat.

Lonnie swiped the back of his hand across his cheeks and lips. “I’m not cleaning you up if you keep getting into that junk.”

Then he wiped his puckered lips with his palm, wiped his hand on his jeans, and returned to tying his boots. The uproar of a crowd came from the bike trails.

“There must be a race or something going on. I’ve never seen this place so packed. Somebody even took my spot,” Lonnie complained to an uninterested Ferguson.

Lonnie started toward the trailhead. Ferguson hurried past him and stopped beside the Subaru Outback parked in Lonnie’s usual space. He spun three times, circling closer to the Outback’s rear tire with each rotation.

From halfway across the lot, Lonnie saw the audacious dog start to lift his leg. He shouted to get his attention. “Ferguson! Stop!”

Ferguson put his leg down and slunk off to the trailhead looking disappointed. Lonnie caught up with him and they started down the trail together.

“I know he’s in my spot, but it’s not like I own the thing. Did you think I was going to give you a treat for that?”

Ferguson barked a long series of low barks, explaining his position.

“No dog of mine is going to behave like that.”

***

The mountain bike event ended in the duo’s absence. Lonnie sat on the step, took out the last piece of jerky, and threw the empty package onto the floor behind him. Ferguson whimpered.

Lonnie laid back and reached over to Ferguson’s namesake cardboard box and grunted as he sat back up. After a dramatic pause, he produced a counter top display box filled with jerky from behind his back. “Don’t worry, I bought a bunch more today.”

Ferguson spun three times, then sat. Lonnie ripped the jerky in two and gave Ferguson his piece. They sat and ate their treat together in the silence of the otherwise vacant parking lot.

Ferguson finished first then barked twice at Lonnie.

“That’s all you get tonight. You’ll get more tomorrow.”

Ferguson barked three more times. These barks were louder and sharper than the previous two.

“Yes sir.”

Lonnie stood and went into the van. Ferguson walked to the other back corner of the lot and stopped on top of the manhole cover centered in the last space.

Ferguson moved out of the way before the van ran him over. He was waiting outside the doors when Lonnie opened them. He barked three times.

“Yes, I brought it.”

Four additional barks.

“Yes, I brought that too.”

Three more barks.

“That’s always in here.”

Two sharp barks.

“I’m starting right now.”

He jumped back into the van and dug for the carpet knife in his tool bag. Kneeling in the middle of the floor, he cut a large rectangle into the carpet on the passenger side. Then he peeled the carpet up and tossed it onto the bed. Ferguson paced behind the van, as if on guard duty.

Next, Lonnie drilled a half inch hole into each corner of the exposed metal. Then he plunged the blade of the reciprocating saw into the one of the holes and connected the corners of the rectangle, separating it from the rest of the floor. Strips of duct tape prevented it from clattering to the ground after he made the final cut.

He lifted the loose metal from the floor and laid it on top of the carpet cutout. Then he positioned a tripod pot hanger from a campfire cooking setup over the opening. Ferguson came to the doorway, stepped onto the step, and barked his approval when he saw Lonnie’s progress.

Ferguson returned to his lookout position while Lonnie bolted a manual boat winch to the tripod. The last piece of the puzzle was his grandmother’s vintage Longaberger picnic basket. Lonnie secured the winch cable’s slip hook to the baskets hand holes using a length of nylon rope, then held the basket aloft to check the balance.

He set the basket beside the hole in the floor. “Ready sir.”

Ferguson came to the doorway and barked four times. Lonnie stepped around the tripod and got into the driver’s seat. He backed the van up until he saw the manhole cover over the short hood. He armed himself with his seldom-used crowbar and went around to the front of the van. A crowbar wasn’t the ideal tool for the job, but Lonnie managed to wrestle the manhole cover off.

He looked over his right shoulder through the opening in the floor and inched the van forward, centering the tripod over the manhole. Ferguson jumped into the van, looked through the floor opening, and barked a split second before the van stopped.

Lonnie passed between the front seats and stepped around Ferguson. “Ready?”

A single bark.

Ferguson wasted no time jumping into the basket. Lonnie cranked the slack out of the winch cable, then he swung the dog-filled basket over the van hole. With the basket still within arm’s reach, he turned the winch handle with caution. He wanted to be sure this collection of disparate components could support a load.

Ferguson barked orders from between the van floor and the parking lot. He passed the drive line and sank into the dank storm drain. Lonnie tried to switch arms midway, but it was too awkward to operate the winch with his other arm from where he knelt. Repositioning the winch became the first item on the list of upgrades and improvements.

The cable slackened and Lonnie sat back onto his heels to rest. He windmilled his tired arm out the doorway in great circles. Ferguson climbed out of the basket and barked up to Lonnie. He barked again then disappeared down the tunnel, following his own echoes.

Lonnie slid the sheet metal over the floor at an angle to prevent it from falling through to the parking lot. He finished by laying the carpet cutout over the metal lest somebody catch a glimpse of the modifications he made to the floor.

He closed the side doors then sat in the passenger side captain’s chair enjoying an entire piece of jerky to himself. Then he ate his actual dinner in the form of a pre-made convenience store deli sandwich. After the last bite, Lonnie took off his boots and went to bed.

*** End of Part 2 ***

Copyright ~ Terrence Campbell ~ 2022