Four shots rang out in the mid-morning stillness. Percussive staccato across the mirror surface of Lake of the Woods. The sound followed itself with repeated echoes in the thin air atop Union Pass in Wyoming's Wind River Range.

"Eddieeeee!" the kids yelled.

"Where is he? Does anyone know?" I asked.

"I saw him get up and run along the trail to the other side of the lake a while ago, " said Wylie. "I'm going to go find him."

"It's best to stay here," I told him. "Eddie will come back to us if he wants. If he's supposed to."

"Oh, he'll be back," Shelby and Annie said. "And you'll be taking him home to your ranch."

"Let's howl for him; that'll bring him back. That's what I did yesterday on the way up the Pass," said Wylie. "Whew, that climb was a killer!"

Our group of cycling kids was 9600' high in the Rockies, at mile 300 and week two of an Educational Safaris mountain biking circuit of the Wind River Range in Northwest Wyoming. The previous three days had been difficult; first, in the heat of the lower valley from Lander to Dubois across the Wind River Reservation, and then the 4000' climb up Union Pass to our camp here where the topography forms a triple Great Divide, with waters flowing to the Columbia, Mississippi and Colorado River drainages.

"He was gone sometimes and I thought I wouldn't see him again," continued Wylie, staring out across the lake down through the pines. "But I just kept pedaling and howling up the mountain and he'd show up from out of the woods. I thought he was a wolf."

The dog had joined us halfway up the mountain. He'd sauntered over towards our group from across a field as the kids sat resting: silver-grey and black, muscular and sinewy, epicanthic eyes defined in blackline, looking like a wolf with thinned Malamute features. He didn't beg for handouts from the snacks the kids were eating, just visited and sniffed each cyclist, all 25 of the kids as they arrived breathless in groups of two or three, resting for the second half of the climb up the mountain. The wolf dog had sniffed, sat down, and begun to howl, long musical intonations of shifting tone and tenor, a song of mountains, timberline and mid-summer meadows where Grizzly, Lion and Wolf still live. And the kids howled with him.

Two hunters in a truck stopped by to talk to the kids and see what we were doing, where we were going and why we were doing it, standard conversational fare all along our journey. I'd asked them about this dog having a visit and a conversation with our group, and they quietly let me know that we could take him if we wanted: he'd been abandoned a few months earlier here on the Union Pass road.

Three hours later when Wylie summited the pass with wolf-dog trotting along happily next to him, I thought, uh oh, we've been adopted.

And in the evening when we were all in camp by the lake sitting around the fire, in various stages of well-earned pride and overwhelming fatigue, wolf-dog sat with us, politely off to the side. Not begging for food, just sitting in the green grass and wildflowers, watching us, and howling when bidden.

He patrolled the camp that night. I watched him in the moonlight shifting his resting spots amongst the trees and tents. We were in serious Grizzly territory, and it did feel assuring to know he'd sense any visitors far before I did, and would probably warn a bear off. He visited my camp spot under the aspens several times, lying down by my head just before dawn.

Annie and Shelby were up early, and, to the chagrin of other kids still trying to sleep, having long howling conversations with wolf dog at sunrise.

"We think Eddie's a good name for him. Short for Educational Safaris; Ed. Safaris is too long and weird, but Eddie's good. You'll call him Eddie."

They preened him, he seemed to actually smile and squint his alert intelligent eyes in appreciation and understanding, and then would lie down for a rest next to the girls as they played cards and ate breakfast.

"Yeah. Eddie. Eddie's a good name. Come here, Eddie. Owooooooo!"

We'd carried a joke with us through our mountain journey that Educational Safaris would take care of everything. Pizza night in Pinedale for 25 famished kids who'd mountain biked for days carrying all their supplies? No problem. Ed Safaris will take care of it. Ice Cream afterwards? It's on Ed. Support vehicle has broken down 20 miles back along the dirt road mountain pass and we're up at Fiddler's Lake with not much food? No worries. Ed will figure it out.

I began to really like Eddie the dog, even his improbable name. A dog somehow surviving on it's own in the mountains. A dog with a very strong presence and personality, a dog balancing the call of the wild with the answer of social companionship. But the call was stronger, I thought. Every hour or so Eddie would sit straight up, rotate his ears and cock his head to the side, sniff with nostrils flared wide, squint his eyes and seem to think about what he'd sensed, and lay back down. Around ten that morning he'd walked off after such a sensing session, and Wylie had seen him trotting off across the lake. To where another group was camped. From where the rifle shots had come.

I figured Eddie was not welcome around a hunting camp, and hoped they'd just fired across his bow to warn him off. Sure enough, Eddie got the message and loped back into our camp at midday. He sat down next to me, giving me a nuzzle, and stayed by me for two hours while I wrote my daily journal entry.

I watched him with a sense of closeness, familiarity, comfort, man's best friendliness. Take him home? Not really a good idea. There remained forty miles to the end of our trail, then three days in the support truck back across Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California. Would he even get in the truck or take to a leash? How would our seven dogs at home on the cattle ranch take to him? If he's been surviving in the mountains on his own, has he become a hunter? If so, and if he chased cattle, we'd have to get rid of him. Wasn't he just better off here in the mountains?

I made a small rope loop under Eddie's watchful gaze, and when it was finished he sat up and walked a few paces away. I hung the rope on a tree branch, and he sat down. I picked it up again, and he stood up and took a step back. I hung it back in the tree and walked towards him, empty handed and he approached me with wagging tail and reproachful glare.

We took a stroll down to the lake's edge and I found myself talking to him, explaining about the rope, the truck, the journey, the ranch, the cattle and the dogs, and, maybe, the new home. A while later I looked up from my journal and he was staring at me. I got up and went over to the tree branch, took the rope in hand and walked to him, loop exposed, and gently placed it around his neck. He never took his eyes off mine.

We walked together just ten paces or so back towards the lake, rope hanging loosely from his neck to my hand. I stopped, he sat down, and I took the rope off, giving him a good rub under his neck.

Our group spent the rest of the afternoon in a state of somnambulance between relaxation and preparation; recovering from our grueling ride the day before with food, sleep and wash-ups in the lake, while organizing equipment and fixing bikes in anticipation of tomorrow's ride down the pass to the Green River. A timeless day in the mountains, dreaming and sleeping, hiking, exploring terrain of the mind and topography.

The temperature dropped in the late afternoon, and by evening a summer thunderstorm was brewing. Lake and sky changed from blue to silver, and the telltale smell of ozone was in the air. Rain began in earnest as we prepared dinner, with thunder and lightening and strong wind gusts for an hour or so. As the storm passed and the kids washed dishes and prepared the evening's fire, I surveyed the camp. Tents and rainflies looked good, not much gear had been left out to get soaked, and Eddie was nowhere to be seen. Not by Wylie's or Annie and Shelby's tent, neither down by the lake nor near the warming fire. Gone.

He'll be back, I thought. Maybe. Or not, which is probably the best for all.

At the evening fire we sat in a circle and talked of the day and the journey, the inner and outer passes of the mind and mountains, and of Eddie, our wolf dog guest. We talked of who our teachers are on these journeys, how teachers come from unexpected places in unpredictable times. We figured Eddie had arrived to teach us something, and maybe we'd know what it was sometime.

A week earlier, while approaching South Pass along Big Sandy Creek, I'd asked the kids to try a Buddhist mile: ride for one mile with a clear mind seeing things only as they really are. Ride in silence for one mile. Be who you are, where you are. Still the conversation where we tell ourselves about how nice it would be if the road were smoother, if the flies weren't biting, if the sun wasn't so intense, if I had some ice cream. Be in the moment. See it as it is: a rough dirt road, with insects and burning sun under infinitely blue sky. See the patterns on the road and the road's graceful arc up over a hill; see fish feeding on insects down in the creek, and Osprey feeding on fish in the ponds. See the clouds begin building their cumulus patterns for the afternoon storm.
I'd told the kids about a saying I'd learned: Esse Quam Videri, "To Be Rather Than to Seem." So they'd given it a try.

As is our nighttime tradition, before going off to our tents, we each spoke names into the fire with gratitude. I thanked Eddie for helping us up the mountain and showing us how to truly be in the moment, to listen and see and smell; to truly be.

I asked for a moment of silence so we could each think of our friend Eddie. The fire crackled, the wind blew gently through the pines showering residual raindrops, and from far off in the woods came a mournful, timeless sound, a wolf howl, long and arcing.

Jim Brady
August 2002