Where the Red Fern Grows

By Wilson Rawls

When I left my office that beautiful spring day, I had no idea what was in store for me. It seemed as if nothing could go wrong because of how nice the weather was and how good I felt. The sun was gleaming, the snow on the mountains shined like the stars at night, and the warm seventy two degrees weather made me feel invincible. This was probably one of the best days I could ever wake up to and hopefully go to sleep to.

As I walked into the door of my fantastic cabin house, I was met at the door my pet dog buddy. Buddy is a golden retriever that keeps me company at home; he is also the only company I have at my home. See my wife died when we had only been married for a year, she was in a car accident on the way to town to buy some groceries. After her passing, I became lonely so I went to the pet store and that when I met buddy. He is only one year old, but thinks he is a big, strong, guard dog.  Such as the time we went for a walk in the mountains and saw a bear, buddy tried to chase the bear before I grabbed him and very sneakily walked back to my home. Thought buddy can be a handful sometimes he is the most important thing in my life and would do anything for him and I know he would do the same for me.

Towards the evening, I poured buddy some dog food for dinner, made me a bologna, cheese, and mayonnaise sandwich, grabbed me a beer, sat on my couch, and relaxed with buddy. A couple hours later, buddy and I got tired so we went upstairs to my room, lie down on my bed and thankfully nothing went wrong and fell asleep. I awoke and my face was drenching wet and as I opened my eyes it was buddy licking and slobbering all over my face, eager for me to take him outside to do his business. So, I got up, stretched, and walked with buddy down the stairs and let him outside. I fried up some eggs and bacon for breakfast and a little extra for buddy too, because I knew without a doubt if I just made some for me buddy would be crying and begging for some. After I got done cooking I made some coffee and went outside to enjoy the new morning. After breakfast I got put some jeans on, a flannel shirt, my hiking boots and decided to take buddy for a walk through the mountains since it was such a nice day. A couple hours later we heard a noise that mad buddy bark, but I didn’t think much of it because were in the forest so it could be anything.  Then I heard a loud BOOM! Buddy fell over dead, so I started running as fast as I could back home, while tears were streaming down my face like a water hose was coming out of my eye sockets. I finally made it home, went inside locked all my windows and doors, and went upstairs and grabbed my 30-06 rifle. In shock I tried to hold myself together, not really understanding what happened, all I knew was somebody shot and killed the most important thing in my life, buddy.

That night I could not sleep, all that was going through my head was the sound of the gun shot and buddy falling over dead. When the next morning came, I took a shower, got dressed, and sat on the couch plotting my plan of revenge.  So angry I finally had my whole plan plotted out to get my revenge on the person who killed my loving dog.

Very patiently, I got my gun, a rope and my lucky knife that was handed down to me from many generations. I also went to the side of my cabin and grabbed some charcoal. Time for revenge I thought to myself as I was retracing my steps to where I was yesterday when buddy was killed. However, this time I’m going to go towards the direction of where the gun was shot. A few hours later, I was about fifty yards from where buddy was shot, but was in the direction of where the gunman was shooting. I know that the gunman could not have been any farther than fifty yards because I could tell that the shells that pierced through buddy’s body were shotgun shells. Anyways I found a spot on the ground to start my revenge and started setting everything up. I used the rope to tie around to trees close to the ground and covered the rope up with leaves and sticks, then I put the charcoal about five yards in front of the rope. I used the charcoal for a fire. Also I set my knife in the ground from the bottom so the blade would be sticking directly in-between the rope and the fire. After I had finished I sat against a different tree about fifteen yards away from my setup. All I could think about is buddy.

After a couple hours I heard something or someone walking straight towards my setup. I sat very still, so nervous and tensed up that my heartbeat sounded like drums. Watching very carefully, I finally saw the man and shocked to see who it was. It was my father! He got closer and closer to the trap, but before I could get to him, he tripped over the unseen rope and fell directly onto the knife. I cried and yelled at the top of my lungs and ran to my dad. When I reached him I turned him over onto his back and pulled the bloody knife out of his chest. He was still alive, but barely breathing. I yelled to my dad that I was sorry and then he said something that would haunt me forever; he whispered” I just wanted to see you one more time son”. I cried and cried begging him not to go and then he stopped breathing. My dad died and I killed him.