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Without a doubt
someone at three o'clock in the morning was tapping at their door. It was
a soft gentle, but constant, knock. Samantha rolled over and groaned at
the thought of having to get out of bed at this hour. She glanced over to
her husband's side of the bed. He was sleeping so soundly it would have
been thoughtless to disturb him.
She couldn't imagine who was at the door at this time of the morning.
They were living in an apartment on the back of their parent's home at
the time which made it necessary to answer the door in case something was
wrong with her aging father. He was just starting to have the hemorrhages
from his nose which were steadily growing worse.
When Samantha
looked out she could see no one. She glanced down to the bottom of the
storm door and there was her parent's honey colored Cocker Spaniel. Honey
was an outdoor kind of dog. He was a free spirit and could not be kept in
the house for any length of time. The birds in the yard, a passing cat,
the mail man, the enemy squirrels or whatever happened to be going on in
the yard was always just of too much interest for him. Inside the house
was boring and bland in comparison. Long ago her mother had given up
trying to keep him confined. They owned a big yard, actually two lots, so
Honey had plenty of space to guard with his, fearless, but friendly
ways.
He did have one
fear though and it was of storms. The dog hated the lighting and thunder
with a passion. However, tonight was warm and still. There didn't seem to
be a storm of any kind brewing. She looked to the sky. No lighting was
visible.
“Honey!” Samantha
spoke to the dog. “What is wrong that you have been tapping at my door?”
She then pushed
the door open just to a little over a crack. Honey forced his head through
the door, pried it open with his body and was in the house in an instant.
Now this was uncharacteristic of the dog which told Samantha something was
amiss.
The young woman
stepped to the television sitting close to the door to turn it on for an
all night station coming out of Oklahoma City which was a little over one
hundred miles away. This was the days before cable when they only picked
up a few stations with the antenna on the roof of the house. No sooner had
the station come in clearly when the announcer was heard to say. “Well,
we've been knocked off the air.” At this, the television went blank.
Samantha turned to
look at the dog who was huddled in a corner of the room. His big Cocker
Spaniel eyes were watching her closely. After all he wasn't her pet.
Probably he had tried to awaken the people in his home but since they were
elderly they may not have heard him. Dad was very deaf. Her mother worked
at a demanding job. She generally was sensitive to any noise but could
have been just very tired. Was this dog now wondering if the woman was
going to put him out.
“No need to worry
about having to go out, Honey.” There is no way I would even make the
attempt.” She knew when the dog did not want to move it was almost
impossible to do so. He could all at once become as flat to the floor as a
rug while seeming to have a suction to it. Nothing could budge him.
The dog sighed one
of his customary sighs as if to say, “I'm not bothering anyone here, but I
am definitely not going outdoors either.”
“I cannot believe
you can sense a storm one hundred miles away but then I have a lot to
learn about the goings on in this world don't I?”
The next morning
she and her parents laughingly discussed the quirk in Honey's personality
to make his fearful of a storm.
As it turned out,
the storm never even reached their town, although it did some major damage
at Oklahoma City. The television station being knocked off the air was
only one of the things to have happened as winds tore and wrecked havoc
over many homes.
Samantha's mother
recounted the advise Native people gave about dogs being able to feel the
difference in the vibrations of any person's footsteps, be it friend or
foe. Her Dad laughed and started to
tell a story about a wild coyote and how sensitive they are but then this
is another story. |
