The man got out of the ancient truck piled high with the detritus of living along with wife and kids in the high desert country of Eastern Oregon.
My father had a band of sheep he was probably driving to a new range.
"Would you be able to give us a small lamb?" asked the man.
Dad started looking for a lamb though he didn't see how the old truck would hold a pet lamb comfortably. But it wasn't Dad that would have to figure that out.
"Just a small little lamb," pleaded the man.
Dad nodded.
"The kids haven't eaten any meat for many weeks," said the man.
The family dined very well that night though not on a small little lamb.
Dad told that story over and over until the day he died many long years later. He said that was the first news he had that something terrible was about to happen to the country.
Don't get much news in sheep camp. At least they didn't used to. Are there still sheep camps and sheepherders anyplace in this land driving sheep to new ranges?
It's a time long past I think. I read even my Saami kin use snowmobiles to herd reindeer.
Communications have changed the globe too.
First time Dad heard the national news again, he learned President Hoover was taking another vacation in Florida and announcing everything was getting better.
The crisis was over like it is now.
Homeless camps were springing up and unemployment was getting worse but things were looking up. They were always looking up as more and more people lost everything.
The way it is now.
If you have never seen a coyote, it looks like a big yellow dog:
Coyotes look like dogs and wolves but they are not. They are a lot smarter. They hunt large game and small and they do it alone. Coyotes were all around me when I was young and I heard them howling on a cold night.
But I never saw a single coyote until I was full grown and coyotes were starving because game was scarce. Game has to be very scarce for coyotes to starve.
Coyotes are like lobbyists. You do not see them but they know how to hunt and kill far better than other predators.
Coyotes are very smart.
The rest of us are mostly sheep.
We always think things will get better.
Our president is telling us so now.
Just like Hoover did. Just the way the lobbyists told him.
Best, Terry