By Gary Lee Stuber
He’s a mutt. Maybe some yellow lab, mixed with only the Lord knows what. He is a gentle dog. Overall he is a needy dog. He wants more than anything: companionship and attention. And he gets it in shovelfuls. A little more than a year ago he was dropped off, most believe, at the old Leatherwood ballfield. Shortly thereafter he made his way over to where he saw people. That was the main gate there at the mining operations at Fola. It was there he immediately met Lisa Kirby, a guard hired by Range at the front gate. He was gangly, starved, with ribs showing on a frame that looked like he survived a number of dog fights. He did accept what she fed him, her own lunches at first. But it wasn’t what he wanted most. He wanted companionship.
For a number of weeks as he built strength and muscle, Lisa, Jessie, John, and others at various shifts at the main gate tried to talk people into taking him home. “You need a dog.” They would say. Truth is most people coming in and out of here already have a dog. Many have several. He wintered there. Lisa called him Tweety Bird, as he would flit about, somedays there, some days down the hollow. They keep food there at the main gate, and treats, and he certainly didn’t miss meals. And then, one day he was just gone. Well. Not really.
One day he just showed up at Tony Mace’s lot, also known as Webster Trucking further in on the strip where a number of Western Star coal trucks are parked. There were operators, mechanics and of course Lloyd Rapp himself the main honcho and perpetual fixture there. And since the mutt wasn’t invasive, simply followed them about and observed them, they fed him there too. Joe Woods took to him especially. Some there began to call him Duke. They built him a doghouse. And of course he has a water bowl and food there. He wags his tail anytime anybody looks atover at him.They had a ‘pet”.
But as I said, the mutt is needy. So when Lloyd was busy and operators were out at work, or when the workday ended and everyone went home, he would simply go downhill; about a hundred yards to the Weldshop. More operators, more mechanics and of course shop operator Jerry Kirk also set him out a bowl. They also keep dog biscuits and treats for him too.
But there are times when the strip gets very quiet, like week nights and weekends. Then you will find only security guards at the gates or at the weldshop. These tend to stay mostly inside watching monitors.
So what does a dog do when its motivation isn’t food but company? He either goes down the road, or across the mountains, back out to the main gate guardshack where someone is always on duty twenty-four hours. If he follows the road that is five and a half miles. If he crosses the mountains and down through the woods it is shorter, but a lot more rugged. So, through the week you will find him at any of these locations. But weekends for sure he is spending at the main gate.
“I never see him come down the road,” Lisa explains, “Always out of the woods. And sometimes he is very dirty, muddy or wet.”
As I said, this mutt is needy. He wants attention and companionship more than he ever wants food or comfort. And he is gentle. But make no mistake, he is fearless. In a site that has big black bear, deer, coyote, bobcat, turkey, fox, and more, this dog is fearless. As a security guard myself, I have watched him one night, run off a black bear four times his size as it approached the weldshop by ferociously standing his ground and barking at him from a short distance from which he did not move. Even now he protects this place from deer, rabbits, and even bobcats that used to wander in here and do that no more.
For a mutt that has many names, and well, no name as well, and no real permanent home he sure is a good dog who deserves all he gets. And while most think of miners and operators here as tough masculine men (and they are) they are softies when it comes to this mutt. Monday mornings for sure, and sometimes throughout the week, Joe Woods or Clinton will stop in the dark at the main gate and take Duke up to Webster Trucking for the day. Guards tell me that if Joe stops, always Duke’s favorite, all he has to do is open his truck door and the dog hops in like he is going to work. Perhaps he is.
