rattler, he realized that its existence was less pointless than his own: it filled an 
ecological niche, and it probably took more pleasure in life than he had in a long time. 
He began to shake, and the gun kept straying from the target, and he could not find the 
will to fire. He was not a worthy executioner, so he lowered the gun and returned to the 
rock where he had left his backpack.
  The snake was evidently in a peaceable mood, for its head lowered sinuously to the 
stone once more, and it lay still.
  After a while, Travis tore open the package of Oreos, which had been his favorite treat 
when he was young. He had not eaten one in fifteen years.
  They were almost as good as he remembered them. He drank Kool-Aid from the canteen, but 
it wasn't as satisfying as the cookies. To his adult palate, the stuff was far too sweet.
  The innocence, enthusiasms, joys, and voracities of youth can be recalled but perhaps 
never fully regained, he thought.
  Leaving the rattlesnake in communion with the sun, shouldering his backpack once more, 
he went down the southern slope of the ridge into the shadows of the trees at the head of 
the canyon, where the air was freshened by the fragrant spring growth of the evergreens. 
On the west-sloping floor of the canyon, in deep gloom, he turned west and followed a 
deer trail.
  A few minutes later, passing between a pair of large California sycamores that bent 
together to form an archway, he came to a place where sunlight poured into a break in the 
forest. At the far side of the clearing, the deer trail led into another section of woods 
in which spruces, laurels and sycamores grew closer together than elsewhere. Ahead, the 
land dropped steeply as the canyon sought bottom. When he stood at the edge of the 
sunfall with the toes of his boots in shadow, looking down that sloped path, he could see 
only fifteen yards before a surprisingly seamless darkness fell across the trail.
  As Travis was about to step out of the sun and continue, a dog burst from the dry brush 
on his right and ran straight to him, panting and chuffing. It was a golden retriever, 
pure of breed by the look of it. A male. He figured it was little more than a year old, 
for though it had attained the better part of its full growth, it retained some of the 
sprightliness of a puppy. Its thick coat was damp, dirty, tangled, snarled, full of burrs 
and broken bits of weeds and leaves. It stopped in front of him, sat, cocked its head, 
and looked up at him with an undeniably friendly expression.
  Filthy as it was, the animal was nonetheless appealing. Travis stooped, patted its 
head, and scratched behind its ears.
  He half-expected an owner, gasping and perhaps angry at this runaway, to follow the 
retriever out of the brush. Nobody came. When he thought to check for a collar and 
license, he found none.
  "Surely you're not a wild dog-are you boy?"
  The retriever chuffed.
  "No, too friendly for a wild one. Not lost, are you?"
  It nuzzled his hand.
  He noticed that, in addition to its dirty and tangled coat, it had dried blood on its 
right ear. Fresher blood was visible on its front paws, as if it had been running so long 
and so hard over rugged terrain that the pads of its feet had begun to crack.
  "Looks like you've had a difficult journey, boy."
  The dog whined softly, as if agreeing with what Travis had said.
  He continued to stroke its back and scratch its ears, but after a minute or two he 
realized he was seeking something from the dog that it could not Provide: meaning, 
purpose, relief from despair.
  On your way now." He gave the retriever a light slap on its side, rose, and stretched
  The dog remained in front of him.
  He stepped past it, heading for the narrow path that descended into darkness.
  The dog bolted around him and blocked the deer trail.
  "Move along, boy."
  The retriever bared its teeth and growled low in its throat.
  Travis frowned. "Move along. That's a good dog."
  When he tried to step past it, the retriever snarled. It snapped at his legs.
  Travis danced back two steps. "Hey, what's gotten into you?"
  The dog stopped growling and just panted.
  He advanced again, but the dog lunged at him more ferociously than before, still not 
barking but growling even deeper and snapping repeatedly at his legs, driving him 
backward across the clearing. He took eight or ten clumsy steps on a slippery carpet of 
dead spruce and pine needles, stumbled over his own feet, and fell on his butt.
  The moment Travis was down, the dog turned away from him. It padded across the clearing 
to the brink of the sloping path and peered into the gloom below. Its floppy ears had 
pricked up as much as a retriever's ears can.
  "Damn dog," Travis said.
  It ignored him.
  "What the hell's the matter with you, mutt?"
  Standing in the forest's shadow, it continued to stare down the deer trail, into the 
blackness at the bottom of the wooded canyon slope. Its tail was down, almost tucked 
between its legs.
  Travis gathered half a dozen small stones from the ground around him, got up, and threw 
one of the missiles at the retriever. Struck on the backside hard enough to be stung, the 
dog did not yelp but whipped around in surprise.
  Now I've done it, Travis thought. He'll go for my throat.
  But the dog only looked at him accusingly-and continued to block the entrance to the 
deer trail.
  Something in the tattered beast's demeanor-in the wide-set dark eyes or in the tilt of 
its big squarish head-made Travis feel guilty for having stoned it. The sorry damn dog 
looked disappointed in him, and he was ashamed.
  "Hey, listen," he said, "you started it, you know."
  The dog just stared at him.
  Travis dropped the other stones.
  The dog glanced at the relinquished missiles, then raised its eyes once more, and 
Travis swore he saw approval in that canine face.
  Travis could have turned back. Or he could have found another way down the canyon. But 
he was seized by an irrational determination to forge ahead, to go where he wanted to go, 
by God. This day of all days, he was not going to be deterred or even delayed by 
something as trivial as an obstructive dog.
  He got up, shrugged his shoulders to resettle the backpack, took a deep breath of the 
piny air, and walked boldly across the clearing.
  The retriever began to growl again, softly but menacingly. Its lips skinned back from 
its teeth.
  Step by step, Travis's courage faded, and when he was within a few feet of the dog, he 
opted for a different approach. He stopped and shook his head and gently berated the 
animal: "Bad dog. You're being a very bad dog. You know that? What's gotten into you? 
Hmmmm? You don't look as if you were born bad. You look like a good dog."
  As he continued to sweet-talk the retriever, it ceased growling. Its bushy tail wagged 
once, twice, tentatively.