A soft thud against the kitchen window interrupted our cheerful breakfast that August morning. Outside, a small, stunned bird panted in the sun on the deck.
As I carried it in my cupped hands to a shady area to recover, I remembered a childhood folk tale. A bird that flew into a closed window was an ominous sign, a warning of danger yet to come.
I don’t consider myself superstitious, but the hairs on my neck rose like a dog’s hackles.
That sense of foreboding stayed with me while my husband, Pat, and I put our hiking gear in the car and drove to the top of Hoosier Pass. We parked near the Crystal Lake trailhead, shrugged on backpacks, lathered faces and arms with sunscreen, and grabbed hiking sticks. We glanced at the posted trail restrictions: no motorized vehicles; dogs on leashes. We had neither.
Maintaining a brisk pace even at an elevation of 11,500 feet, we passed Crystal Lake and tramped up the steep slope, stopping at several abandoned mine shafts to examine heaps of oxidized and leached rocks. Higher on the mountainside, the scattered shafts looked like the abandoned burrows of giant prehistoric creatures, complete with remnant stone piles. We picked our way across these leavings, pausing here and there to look for tiny mineral treasures overlooked by other rock hounds.
As we headed back down the trail, the silence was broken by excited barking, followed by howls. With a loud crackling of broken twigs, two medium-sized dogs burst through the underbrush ahead of us. With eyes intently focused on something afar, and working as a team, they disappeared around a curve. I felt uneasy, and we quickened our pace to put distance between ourselves and the dogs.
A man with two children appeared on the trail coming toward us, the boy yelling for the dogs to return, the girl standing behind the man. Relieved that the dogs belonged to this family, we waved as we approached and stopped to talk with the man while the boy still whistled for the dogs. Suddenly, I sensed shadowy movement to my left.
And then, it happened.
Crashing out of the brush, one of the dogs lunged and bit me hard on the abdomen. I gasped in pain and sank to my knees. The man grabbed the dog’s collar and dragged it away while Pat shouted and stepped in front of me. My only thought was that this was no way to die, gutted by a dog.
My hand tightened on the hiking stick. Feeling unleashed and dangerous myself, I seethed, “If you don’t leash that dog, I’ll kill it.” And I would have, unless Pat had restrained me. However, the man had snapped leashes on both dogs’ collars, while apologizing over and over. “These dogs have never done anything like this before, I swear,” he said, but not looking me in the eye. I didn’t believe him.
“You’re a fool,” I hissed at him, furious. Pat helped me to my feet and then checked both dogs’ rabies tags, which were up to date. I looked down at the large patch of dog saliva that marked the spot of the bite. At least there was no blood.
Pent-up words from long-ago encounters with out-of-control dogs and clueless owners on public trails and streets spewed from my mouth without restraint. What a poor example he was to these kids, I told him, a man who blatantly broke the law by allowing his dogs to run loose. What right did he have to endanger others? It was just a matter of time before something more terrible happened, perhaps to a child.
Then, it was over.
The now-leashed dogs, the kids, and the man moved up the trail without a backward glance. I had been fortunate, not seriously hurt. Although the attack was unprovoked, I did not feel the dogs were vicious – just unruly and high- strung. My one hope was that this incident had impacted the man and his children enough to change his behavior.
And so, we began our long walk back to the parking area, moving slowly, talking softly. I pressed one arm to my now-swollen and bruised abdomen and curled the other around Pat for support. Far worse than a bird flying into a window, those dogs had raised a fear that neither of us was going to live with. On the way home, Pat stopped to do some shopping – for pepper spray to carry on our next hike.
Marilyn Flanigan (marilyn.flanigan@gmail.com) is a geologist and author of “Antarctica: Exploring the Extreme.”
