Duke, the old coon dog was the first to see it.

“Duke!” Old Sara yelled from the screen of her squeaky front door.  She opened it just a crack, as if her voice didn’t carry well through the holes.  “Duke!  You come here right now!”

When the dog didn’t appear before her on the porch, she threw open the door and walked to the edge, by the stairs, letting the door slam shut behind her. 

“Duke- you old lazy thing, you!  You come here this instant.  Don’t you dare make me come find you,” she yelled in her old, gravelly voice.  Still, he didn’t come and she moved to the south side of the porch and peered out into the distance, shielding her eyes from the sunset.

There, by the side of a great oak tree he sat, unmoving.  He’d moved his eyes toward her as she called, but his body remained fixed in the spot.  And the more she yelled for him, the more he seemed determined to stay where he was, which made Old Sara more than angry.  She shouted at him more than once that she’d be rationing his steak bones for the next week.

Sara got her work boots on over her slippers and knee highs and trudged down the lane a bit and then marched through the weeds in the field that bordered the little woodlot where the oak tree stood.  Duke sat as sentry, watching her every move.  Somehow he knew he was in for it, but he wouldn’t budge from his spot.

As the old woman approached, he leaned down and laid his head on his front paws, whining softly as he did so.  Sara put her hand on his head, muttering that she really didn’t mean to be so mean to him, but he was to come when she called for him.  An old lady didn’t have the strength or the patience to be coming out to the field to catch him every dadgum time he felt like sitting next to the oak tree.  

Suddenly, Sara’s eye caught sight of something that glittered in the afternoon sun.  She went close to it and bent down, seeing for the first time what it was that Duke felt protective of.  She reached for it, but instantly pulled her hand back, knowing that what she was seeing was the very thing she’d been discussing with her son just the Sunday before.  In front of her eyes was the skeletal hand and blue pin cushion cut engagement ring of not the first wife of her son, but his young fiancee, Lyndee Lee Stafford, who’d abandoned him just days before their planned wedding.  Her leaving was the reason he’d married his second choice. 

Sara hurried back to the house, fearing not only that her discovery would be found out, but also that Papa might make it back to the house before she did.  She hadn’t swept the porch as yet and it was almost time.  What in the world would she tell him about Lyndee Lee and her poor dead hand?