A week ago Saturday we went to our country place, which the family has just named "Los Piquines" in honor of the many native pepper bushes that grow there. We traveled not to pick peppers, but to meet with the men who will be building a fireplace for the ranch house.
Since we want to use native river rock for the hearth and mantel, my master and the mason drove to Williams Creek to scout stones. Mary and Maverick walked down with me and my big dog buddies, Townes and Chigurh. We especially looked forward to visiting a large fish that lives in a long trench on one side of the creek.
The trip to the creek was uneventful. Us dogs splashed about while the humans looked at rocks. Satisfied with what they found, Lewis and the mason got in their vehicles. But much to my horror, Lewis, who doesn't know the creek as well as we do, drove straight into the trench that is home to the big fish of Williams Creek! Though he desperately sought traction, it was too late: the right side of his car had sunk in.
With dark approaching, I had a dreadful vision of no dinner while we waited for AAA to arrive. But we had failed to take into account the resourcefulness of our mason and the kindliness of a neighbor who Mary flagged down. The neighbor had nylon cords, which the mason attached to his pickup and to the stuck car. After much spinning of tires, the neighbor suggested that if he and Maverick jumped into the truck bed, the pickup might get some traction. To my astonishment, it worked, and the car emerged from the ditch unscathed.
Throughout our ordeal, the big fish sat tight, unperturbed. (I must say he's a cool customer. But I guess when you live as long as he has you’ve seen it all.) Back at the house as I crunched on luscious leftover lamb bones from Mac and Ernie's, a nearby gourmet eatery, I dreamed of lying in front of a nice wood fire, happy as a fish in a trench.
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