Small Town America

Welcome to Buffalo Gap, nestled at the foot of the Black Hills and once home to the largest herds of buffalo in this country. Currently, however, it seems to be the home of lots of drunk, weird people....let me explain.

Last night our neighbor (the one that collects junk to sell as swap meets ) drove over to see if we knew who owned a speckled dog - we didn't. We know the mutt who comes and visits George when his owner is out 'walking' him on his bicycle (he's the neighbor that has long hair and has a small metal basket attached to the handlebars to hold his beer). We also know the German shepherd puppy who annoyingly comes and jumps in our pool and then Monica has to take him home and tie him up. But we didn't know who the speckled dog belonged to. He then told us that he had just seen the dog chase after a cat and, although he tried, he couldn't stop the dog from killing the cat=(

Then, lo and behold, down the road comes the very dog with his owner, this guy was 'walking' his dog while riding his motorcycle. He stopped two blocks from us so Matthew went down to talk to him while the rest of us watched from our front yard. I saw them go off into the backyard of some of our other neighbors (the ones that build a wigwam in the backyard in the winter and use it as a sweat lodge.....), that is where they found the very lifeless black kitty. After a while Matthew came back and gave me some more details....The young man was the owner of the pit bull who was at the moment wagging his tail and panting happily. The guy, 20 something, was drunk and stumbling all over the place. As Matthew had approached him he noticed that, strapped to his back, was a semi-automatic rifle (possibly an SKS?). When they found the cat this guy pulled a clip of bullets from his pocket and was trying to load his gun to shoot the dog right then and there. Matthew persuaded him not to and that's when the guy's mother showed up - Matthew 'encouraged' her to take the gun and take it home! The guy then proceeded to finish walking his dog, racing his bike up and down our gravel road at about 60 mph. At this point we were making a certain telephone call....

After the dust settled we set out to try and find the cats owner. We finally figured it belonged to another neighbor (the one whose front door has a direct line of view to his toilet and don't ask me how I know this....let's just say Matthew is scarred for life by certain mental images!) He has about a dozen cats and when Matthew went to talk to him last night he had passed out in his living room chair with a bottle of something looking a lot like whiskey close by. His comment was "Well, these cats come and go and I knew something would happen sooner or later. But I figure they've got as much of a right to go out and face the dangers as the rest of us."
Now, this happened on the corner of Third and Fairburn - so later that evening we got a phone call from a sheriff who claimed to be on Third Street but couldn't locate us, come to find out the dispatcher had sent him to the town of Fairburn. It gives me great faith in the emergency 9-1-1 system should we ever need to call!! The police eventually found us and it turns out this guy is on parole after serving time for drunk driving....surprise, surprise!

The saga continued this morning when our neighbor (the one who wasn't really that concerned last night) called us and said, "I don't remember what happened last night - can you tell me?" He then went, found his cat, and his tone changed. With tears in his eyes the 3oo+ pound man (he told Matthew how much he weighed...!?) said he was going to kill that dog. I won't give you a direct quote this time since he used certain words I don't!

Anyway....life in Buffalo Gap - always exciting=) We did thank the Lord that very night for His protection in what could have turned into a very volatile situation. The Lord took care of us all, especially Matthew, dealing with a drunk and armed man - not a good mix!

PS - Just as I was finishing this post the sheriff called and told me he'd made an arrest last night, he found the guy in violation of his parole on several counts....