by Tim White
Our neighbors were sheepherding refugees from the Basque region of Spain, and in this new land they grazed their herds in the high Wallowa Mountains of Eastern Oregon. These shepherds brought a collection of prize herding dogs from the mountains of Spain and France. They had many Great Pyrenees, which were skilled at protecting the herds. But it was another shepherding dog that interested WWI veteran Ephraim Sundown: The Beauceron, a mighty dog used extensively in the great war, almost to the point of wiping out the breed. This war dog, which he received from Basque friends, was one hundred thirty-five pounds of solid muscle, thirty inches tall with coloring similar to that of a Rottweiler. They have double coats that keep them warm in ice water or winter storms. They are affectionate to their owner’s family and shy with others, but love small animals; it is not uncommon to see a kitten sleeping on top of one on a cold night. They play with squirrels as if they are small dogs. And they think they are the sheriffs at all times. Parents cannot spank their kids in their presence. Other dogs cannot fight without the mighty Beauceron breaking up the scrape. They have a head that looks more like a Lab than a Rottweiler. Their cute floppy ears and Great Dane-sized, puppy-like appearance is irresistibly cute until they are ready for war; then they are a fearsome black dog. They are incredibly athletic and can outrun a bear or jump a six-foot fence without thinking about it. Their agility is renowned and the reasons they have been a favorite war dog for centuries. Some say they descended from Roman war dogs. Their lineage dates back as a breed in France to the emperor Charlemagne, who was buried with two of these fiercely brave and loyal dogs.
The Basque refugees from the Spanish Civil War who settled in Eastern Oregon brought the war dogs with them. Ephraim named this dog guarding his grandsons and the other boys ‘Argos.’ He was the alpha puppy of the pack. This fierce protection dog slept on the bed with one of the boys each night, cuddling as if the boys were fellow puppies. Now Argos growled a low growl to sound the alert and let the boys become aware. The boys trusted Argos; they knew what he was bred for and that he was ready to die to protect them.
The parents of the seven boys trusted the dog for the protection they would need in the high mountains. This had been the way of primitives since the dawn of time in their symbiotic relationship of humanity and these wolf offspring. Moments of testing were not new to these native boys. The boys froze motionless when they sensed danger, prey or predators, just as their father, uncles, and grandfather had taught them.
Fifteen-year-old Achilles Joseph Sundown was the eldest of the boys. He had dark brown skin and was very muscular for fifteen. He was as handsome as any native warrior had ever been. He was athletic and an agile leader in every way. His brothers called him Joey. His parents Caleb and Elizabeth both loved Greek mythology since they had met in tiny State College at LaGrande Oregon and fallen in love, so they named their boys after Homeric heroes and Nez Perce chiefs from the time of Chief Joseph.
Joey gave the command for his brothers to move silently and quickly upwind through the swamp toward the river. He stopped and smelled for the predator while his brothers looked for signs. As they moved through the swamp that they called city water, they avoided the quicksand, as they knew this section so well; it was near their favorite deep blue-green fishing holes lined with monstrous slabs of granite, looking like a concrete swimming pool. Huckleberries and mushrooms covered the ground in the timbered swamp. The ferns and old growth cedar gave the landscape a feel of the Mesozoic era. No other human knew of this secret fishing hole protected by quicksand, swamp, mosquitoes, ticks, and an impenetrable wall of poison ivy and oak. They did not even bushwhack their trail because they did not want to leave a trail for any competitors to find this hidden dream of every fisherman.
The little brothers kept eating berries instead of staying focused. After no more than five minutes, Joey figured out the mystery: they were being stalked. The squirrels told him. If you listened to their sounds they would shout a warning to you when a dangerous predator arrived.
The boys followed Joey without reservation. It seems it was always that way. His Nez Perce father, Caleb Joseph, and his Irish/Scottish mom, Elizabeth Cundiff Saunders, had noticed the heroism in their firstborn the day they brought him home. He had a mind of his own. Now Joey was six feet, taller than his dad. His brothers felt safe with him, as they could see why Joey was named after the ancient warrior Chief Joseph and the Homeric hero Achilles. Achilles Joseph Sundown–their big brother Joey. All of Caleb’s biological sons were named after Greek heroes and Nez Perce chiefs from the days of Chief Joseph.
As they stood on the west side of the river with their band of brothers, Joey and his thirteen-year-old brother Ulysses “Looking Glass” Sundown whispered their plans. “Ulee,” as he was called, was always competing with Joey, and being smaller and younger, he never quite measured up.
Joey had dark skin, which contrasted with the light-skinned Nez Perce tribe. He was Ulee’s hero, his nemesis, his friend. Ulee was thirteen and had the skin and hair of his mother’s Scottish Irish ancestors. Without the braids or the deerskin loincloth, no one would guess he was native. Ulee’s claim to fame among the brothers was that he was fast. As he and Joey whispered, they presumed that whatever it was that was stalking them was moving against the wind. It had their scent, and it knew how to hunt, as it was moving silently towards its prey . . . the boys.
Joey gave the orders: Ulee would stay behind and climb one of the ponderosa pines to see what they were up against. Joey was confident because Ulee was fast—the fastest boy the brothers had ever seen. The whole family would bet on Ulee’s speed. His uncles would set up matches in the state campground with full-grown men so they could bet money on him. His brothers would arrange races against older kids all to brag on the freakish speed of their white-skinned brother.
Their brother, Patty, twelve-year-old Petrocolas “Crazy Horse” Sundown, walked up to hear Joey’s plan. His middle name “Crazy Horse” was not wasted on him. Petrocolas was nicknamed Patty, and he had beautiful brown skin like Achilles and black hair and eyes that every native boy wished for. He was stocky—strong, even as a boy. The girls always loved his looks. He was not particularly tall, but what he lost in height he made up in strength and fierce courage. Patty could relate to anybody and was fiercely loyal to his brothers. Joey’s plan was for Patty to stay with Ulee to find out what was following them.
One of the rules of the mountains for them was the buddy system. “Always stay with a buddy,” their grandfather Ephraim would stress. It was a law of survival. Jackson John Sundown, age eleven, was disappointed that he could not join his two older cousins. Jackson was the son of Joey and Patty’s Uncle John who had died saving the life of his brother Caleb in the Korean War. Jacky was being raised by his African mother in Florida. He was named after their great grandfather, nephew of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce Rodeo hero Jackson Sundown.
Their uncle John had met a devout Pentecostal African-American woman whose home was Florida, and that was where she raised her son, their cousin. But Jacky was always in trouble and spent a lot of his time being raised by the Sundown family in the Pacific Northwest. Their grandfather, Ephraim, and their grandmother, Quanah, had raised six biological boys in addition to two adopted African-American boys and an adopted Navajo boy. You can imagine what a party it was when all their grandchildren got together.
Joey’s parents, Caleb and Elizabeth, were devout Christ followers. Like Ephraim, they adopted extra boys. They adopted Donnie Pielstick, whose parents died in a car crash. The boy’s father was German and his mom was mostly African-American.
Their youngest biological son, Whitey, named Hector “Whitebird” Sundown, brought home his best friend, Heath Duncan Sundown, also aged five, who was being raised by his aunt, but they called him brother, and his unknown heritage didn’t stop him from fitting in with the native boys as a member of the family. He was nicknamed Dunk. This pack of boys was a gaggle of blood brothers, adoptive brothers, and cousins once removed. Re
gardless of lineage, they were a tribe, practicing ancient traditions in a modern world.
They were seven boys running together, confronting danger. The oldest was fifteen, the two youngest were five. At dawn each day they ran ten miles, a regimen that they were growing acquainted with to prepare them to be the warriors they were meant to be.
The oldest four boys all had eagle feathers in their hair. It was the sign of a man who had completed the vision quest. They had spent several nights in these mountains alone waiting for their life vision. They had also danced the sun dance and had their pectorals pierced with elk bone and tethered until they could dance and pull out, leaving the scarring that would show their tribe that they were warriors who would protect their people with their lives. These four boys all carried self-made recurve bows with forty-pound tension on the string, and their big brothers, Joey, Ulee and Patty, had recurves that carried sixty pounds of tension. All the boys carried bone-handled bowie knives around their waist that were made by their grandfather, and they had carried them since the age of five. It wasn’t safe in the mountains without something like this. Predators could smell fear on a man, so the protection helped the young boys in their daily treks in the wilderness.
As Ulee waited in the branches of the red ponderosa pine, he had an intuition of what was hunting the brothers. This was not the first time they had been stalked. They had been stalked by cougars more than once. They had been stalked by a bad man, a felon who was working as a sheepherder, watching a herd grazing in the high mountains. Man was by far the most dangerous predator to be feared in the high mountains. The predator that stalked them now was not a man; it moved through the thick forest in a different way. In fact, this predator moved like something he remembered: the last of the Wallowa Mountain grizzlies. He was a man killer, but no hunter had been able to corner him. Many a hunter had left to finish the last of the grizzly in these parts but had ended up being the prey. All the other grizzlies had been hunted down by ranchers to protect their herds. The rumors were that this bear was descended from the ice-age bear that no longer existed. His nickname was Big Foot. And the native rumor was that he was as much spirit as animal. The boys had encountered this man-eater before on the Grand Ronde River where it flows into the Snake River by Troy, Oregon, in Hells Canyon.
That was a memory, but now as Ulee waited in the ponderosa for the apex predator, he had a feeling that the same grizzly was their present stalker. He believed this was that bear and it had come for Joey, his beloved older brother. Bears are smart. If you are not used to them, their intelligence is often more than a match for a man. Ulee was terrified, as he saw and heard the crunch of birch trees breaking as a giant was moving fast his way. He jumped down from the tree and called to his younger brother, Patty.
“Let’s run!” Ulee spoke with fear. Patty whispered, “Did you see it?” Ulee said, “No, but I know what it is.” They ran, leaping over fallen trees and moving with a speed that would surprise you unless you knew these boys. It did not take them long to catch their brothers, who were moving downriver towards the rapids and, eventually, the ninety-foot falls before their cabin.
“Joey, I think it is Big Foot,” said Ulee.
“How do you know?” Joey asked.
“You know me brother. I know—I can sense it in my bones.”
They both knew without saying that he had come for Joey. Joey looked afraid in front of his younger brothers. It didn’t matter—all the brothers still looked up to him. Joey stopped and said, “We need a new plan; he will catch us before we get to the falls as the canyon narrows.” They paused, waiting for their older brother to give them a plan. Argos looked like a war dog and began a low growl with the hair on the back of his neck standing up. Normally if you are trying to outrun a bear, your chances of going downhill are better than uphill. They have short legs but are so strong that running up hill doesn’t seem to bother them. On a steep incline, boys can jump and slide under control down a mountain. But he was going to catch them if they continued running for home, so Joey made a leadership decision.
“Come on,” said Joey. “We’re going to make it to the ridge, to the Matterhorn. Bigfoot can’t climb the granite mountain like we can.”
So, they ran uphill towards Ice Lake. The trail was steep. A mountain goat would have had trouble. Ulee and Patty acted as a rear guard, and when they needed to, they tracked the boys as they changed course. Finally, they reached Joey.
“What is wrong?” asked Ulee. Joey was slow and weak. He was sweating too hard.
“I am feeling sick,” Joey said.
The older boys knew that Joey had leukemia. It was a poorly-kept family secret that no one talked about but they all knew. All the boys knew wild predators would instinctively pursue the sick and the weak. It was a law of nature.
“I think it is a white man’s disease,” said Joey. “They say I am going to die from it someday. Mom and Dad won’t say it, but I can see it in the doctor’s eyes. Maybe the spirit of the bear has come to give me the death of a warrior.”
“We are a pack of wolves,” Ulee said. “No grizzly can take us if we fight together. This is just a test by the Great Spirit.”
Joey formed a plan.
“The war dog Argos, Jacky, and Ulee will slow down Big Foot,” Joey said.
“This is what Chief Joseph did when he led the Wallowa band on their retreat, remember?” Jacky said.
“I’m staying too.” Patty said. “You are too slow.”
“Yeah but I can fight,” said Jacky.
Ulee looked at his older brother, out of breath, and then turned to Jacky to whisper. “Okay, but you will learn to run today.”
Joey, Stick, Heath, and Hector all took off as fast as they could. Hector and Heath could really run for five year olds. Off and on, their big brother would carry one or the other.
Ulee stood on a huge granite bolder, maybe forty tons, with Patty and Jacky at his side. This rock was a fortress in itself. Argos stood next to Ulee and leaned over on him to calm his nerves. This was a common trait of Beauceron. The pause was terrifying. And then there it was. It was more than nine feet tall.
The grizzly stood to its full height and roared. The entire forest was filled with sickening hopelessness. The behemoth huffed as he pounded the ground with his front paws, threatening a charge. The three boys let out war cries just as they had been taught, burying their fear. The second growl of the grizzly was even louder, making the hair on the back of their necks stand up and petrifying them with primordial panic learned by humans over thousands of years. Even their running brothers stopped when they heard the roar of the bear echo throughout the mountainside. Then they smiled and started to run again when they heard their brother’s brave war cries.
“Just like Chief Joseph’s retreat,” said Hector, speaking in Nez Perce. He was referring to the retreat of Chief Joseph with the Wallowa Band made up of 750 Nez Perce and only 200 warriors who retreated 1170 miles trying to find freedom in Canada while defeating three armies of US troops time and time again until they surrendered forty miles from Canada on October 5, 1877.
When the bear was thirty feet below them, they began to fire their arrows. They did not miss. They had grown up shooting these bows—hunting with them and practicing with them. But the arrows didn’t seem to slow the grizzly. The boys’ arrows barely pierced its hide. The predator pursued the three boys who climbed the side of the hill, as the bear closed in, it was met by Argos, their canine protector.
The dog surprised the bear and turned its attention from the boys. Argos bit and tore at the bear and then spun to get out of his way. This was the fighting technique of the Beauceron. They were bred to fight bear, wolves, and wild boar. This intrepid battle stalled the mighty bear, giving the boys time to rejoin their brothers.
“We are a band of brothers,” Jacky yelled.
“That bear doesn’t know what he is messing with.” Patty said.
Argos battled the bear until the boys were clear. His bites tore at the
bear’s flesh. And the 135-pound dog spun around and dodged to avoid the bear’s reprisals.
The boys could hear the bellow of the grizzly, the growl of their dog, and finally the death howl of their family pet.
Dunk yelled out, “Argos!” This was the dog who slept at his feet every night; he was family within the family. When five-year-old Heath had a terrifying dream, feeling all alone from the death of his parents, Argos would wake him with a lick and some snuggling.
“Quiet,” Joey commanded. “Argos gave his life to buy us time. Don’t give away our position.”
Meanwhile, Ulee, Patty, and Jacky made it to Ice Lake, where their brothers were standing out on an iceberg in the middle of the lake. They swam to meet them. Joey was shivering more than the rest, but he had picked some huckleberries, mushrooms, pine nuts, grubs, and wild onions when he was on the shoreline. They huddled together on the iceberg to warm their older brother. This blissful picture didn’t last long before the bear appeared.