Moonbeam awoke with a start. Something was different, there was a new scent in her area. The dawn was just breaking and she could now see that she was close to the edge of a lake and a man sitting was sitting there on the bank fishing. Her lips curled back over her teeth and her ears went down as she prepared to defend herself. A low growl started way down in her throat and her hackles went up in defiance.

The man turned his head and looked at her for a second or two, said "Good Morning", and then resumed watching the bobber on his line as it danced in the ripples of the water.

Moonbeam could smell no danger in this man, only a slight curiosity seemed to emanate from him. After a while, the man reached into a haversack and pulled something out. He unwrapped it and took a bite. She knew this was food and her hunger was driving her insane but even though he motioned at her with the food, she was too afraid to approach the man.

He turned towards her and broke some pieces off and threw them in her direction, scaring her at first but when she smelled the rich aroma of meat her hunger overcame her fear and she gulped the pieces down.

He threw a few more pieces and then he stood up and with his pole over his shoulder, started walking into the woods. He walked very slowly, limping somewhat and she was able to stay fairly close to him even with her hurt leg. Moonbeam followed him for about 10 minutes and he came to a small clearing where a ramshackle old cabin was located.

The man bustled about building up a fire a few yards in front of the door and as the flames licked at the dry wood and crackled, the warmth of the fire hypnotized her with it's comfort, beckoning her, and she moved over closer to it so the flames could warm her aching body.

She laid there most of the day, and every once in a while the man would come out of the cabin towards the fire but she would growl him off so he would stand back a bit and throw bits of food at her to consume. By the time the sun was setting, the ache was gone in her belly and her bones.

That night she slept better than she had in a long time and in the morning she was awakened by the man's moving around. Slowly, with his hand outstretched, he came over to her and this time she did not growl but only whimpered a little. The man laid some more food by her and she let him scratch her ears.

He gently reached for her battered and burned leg and somehow she knew he was trying to help her. The man very gently washed off the dirt and the grime and put something on the burn and it stopped stinging so much.

He talked to her as he went about his medications. He said his name was George and he lived out here in the woods all by himself and what a great joy it would be to have a friend like me stay with him.

He said he very old and had decided to give up civilization many years ago and just leave the world alone and spend the rest of his days fishing in the river and bothering nobody.

He said that she would be very welcome to stay but if she had other plans then he would understand, but it would be a good idea if she stayed a while at least and let her leg heal.

She didn't know how she understood all this, but she did and her instincts were now telling her that this was a safe place and this man was kind and presented no danger to her.

She decided that she would stay.

The man called her Jenny. Moonbeam didn't mind, it wasn't as if she had any way of telling him her real name and Jenny was as good as any she supposed.

After staying outside for a couple of days, Moonbeam finally decided it would be okay to look around inside the cabin. Here there was a wood stove, some old raggedy furniture and some other odds and ends.

Finding a comfortable place which suited her, she lay down close to the warmth of the stove and snoozed while her strength continues to return to her. Mornings would find her and George at the lake's edge fishing. After catching two or three, they would return to cabin.

The caught fish were put on a stinger line, which was in the shallow water and Moonbeam became their guardian. If one of them flopped around she would instantly be on top of it snapping and growling, warning the fish to stay still or suffer a few indignant bites on the tail. This always made George laugh. She was happy that George was happy, that's all that mattered.

Every few days she would follow George to a few traps that he had set where their bounty would be increased by an occasional rabbit, squirrel or possum. One day there was a change to their diet as George killed one of the noisy tail snakes and they had it for dinner. He impressed upon her the danger that these kinds of snakes presented to her and to leave them alone. In her forays into the woods, she would always steer a wide path whenever she heard one of these snakes announcing it's presence by shaking it's tail and making the buzzing sound.

Spring turned slowly into summer and with the warmer days and nights Moonbeam would stay outside exploring her little domain to uncover it's secrets. There were any number of critters to attack and roll on and when evening came she would get a fine dinner of fish or meat to fill up on.

As her daytime wanderings took her farther and farther from the cabin, she would sometimes come upon signs of other humans in the area. Their scent grew stronger the farther she got from the cabin. Not trusting people in general, she would shy away from these areas as best she could.

Topping a small ridge one day, Moonbeam could see an area of many cabins and many people off in the distance. This was as far as she dared to go.

In the evenings, George would spend hours talking to her. He would tell her stories of his life and how he came to be a hermit living alone here on the north shore of "Big Bass Lake." He didn't much trust people and could see why she didn't either.

Sometimes they would fish from a small wooden boat and whenever they would hear distant voices carried on the wind, she would growl and he would nod knowingly. With people there always seemed to come pain and suffering and they truly were better off staying away from them.

Her leg had healed nicely and a steady food supply had brought her back to her peak physically. She weighed in at a whopping ten pounds.

Bedtime these days would find her snuggled up under the old worn blanket on the bed with George's gentle snoring bringing her relaxation.

She was always on the alert though, that was her job and some nights she would race out the open door barking and snarling at some strange sound she had heard. This never even bothered George, he would just go back to sleep after giving her an ear scratch and a

"Good Girl." This was much better than the beatings the other man used to give her when she barked.

Life was very good for Moonbeam now. These were golden days of Butterfly mornings and Wild Flower afternoons and Moonbeam would have been content to live out her days with George except for two things that happened in late summer.

The first was that two men came boating up from the south end of the lake to talk to George. They said they were surveyors and had been hired to lay out a tract on this end of the lake for resort and marina expansion, and the bottom line was George was going to have to find somewhere else to live. They told him that the resort owners knew he was here and for the most part did not mind as long as he stayed to himself up here on the North end and away from the tourists and vacationers. Now with the expansion needed for the ever-increasing vacation trade, this end of the lake was scheduled for development and the construction would begin in the spring after the last thaw, probably in late March. George had to be gone by then.

George told them that he had no where to go, that he had been living here for over forty years but the men just restated their orders and said that they would have to bring the authorities to run him out if he forced them to.

The second thing was the boat they had motored up the lake in was covered with a very familiar scent.

Moonbeam sniffed at the boat for a long time while the men talked to George. Each sniff brought warm familiar memories of her people flooding back to her. They had been in this boat, and not too long ago as the scent was relatively strong, but Moonbeam had no way to connect their scent to where the boat originated from.

That train of thought was beyond her capacity to think through. It was very confusing to her. If the scent was here, the people should be here, but they were not. To follow the boat when it left was also a concept beyond her limited reasoning skills, so she just lay by the boat with no idea of what to do next.

She dozed and loud voices woke her as George argued with the men. Springing alert she raced to the cabin, snapping and snarling at these men who angered her friend.

As she burst into the cabin area, the men backed up slowly, rather bug eyed as she placed herself between them and George. Her low throaty growl was warning them that they were in imminent danger of being torn to shreds.

Knowing this, the men backed off towards the water with a final warning to George about next spring and the fact that he better keep his dog under control while they were laying out the new resort/marina area.

George was very different now. Something had gone out of him. The lightness and carefree disposition had been replaced by one of sadness and confusion. He didn't fish everyday now, although he did enough to keep them fed. Mostly he just lay around and stayed lost in his own thoughts.

Moonbeam hadn't forgotten about the home scent on the boat but something told her she needed to be here right now. She would still go exploring and foraging on occasion but she wouldn't stay gone long. She was very worried about her friend.

There were a few people in the woods around the cabin area, with lines and levels. Trees were being cut down and hauled off but none of them came close enough to the cabin area to cause her any alarm.

The resort expansion area would be built a couple of hundred yards to the South of the cabin. George had to leave because the owners felt that it just wouldn't look right for an old hermit and his dog to be living so close to their multi-million dollar marina and cabin sites.

Fall was slowly crawling into early winter now. Late one afternoon Moonbeam came back from a short exploration and when she got close to the cabin something seemed very different. There was a strange but familiar scent in the air. She cautiously entered the cabin where the scent was coming from. George lay on the bed on his back, his lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling.

Her hackles up, she approached him slowly and sniffed. She knew this smell from the small cage time, death has it's own peculiar scent and she knew then that there would be no more fishing trips, no more long listening times when George talked to her. His kind and soft voice would comfort her no more.

She knew she was alone again. She stayed by the cabin door for three days, confused and not knowing what to do, until hunger and thirst finally drove her to the lakefront.

She turned her eyes South, the direction that the voices came from carried on the wind. There would be people, and where there were people there would be food.

A great sorrow filled her and with a final yowling lament for her departed friend, she turned her steps Southward along the waters edge.