Spring came in quietly that year.
The frost melted slow, and Roy could hear the creek again behind the pasture, trickling like it had for generations. Junie’s paw healed with time, though she’d always have a bit of a hitch when she ran. Didn’t slow her down. If anything, it made her smarter.
Roy watched her one morning as she moved through the tall grass, her body low, shoulders twitching, eyes locked on nothing in particular.
“She’s training ghosts,” he muttered, sipping his coffee from a chipped mug. “Damn dog’s got no sheep, no job, and still won’t quit.”
He smiled when he said it.
And it was the truth. Junie worked like there was a flock waiting just over the hill. As if Jasper had passed her some invisible torch and she refused to let it burn out.
—
In April, Roy showed up to the school one Friday afternoon with a folded note in his shirt pocket. Miss Devlin was surprised to see him.
“You okay?” she asked, seeing the lines deeper in his face.
He nodded. “Just tired. My bones are trying to talk louder than my mind.”
She gave him a long look. “You’re not quitting.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m handing it off.”
He reached into his coat and pulled out the old wooden crook. The last one his father had ever shaped.
“I want the school to have this,” he said. “Not to hang on a wall. To use.”
Devlin swallowed. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “It’s been used by better men than me. And I reckon there’s better kids coming.”
That Sunday, the school held a little ceremony out by the ag pen.
They let Roy speak. The kids stood in their dusty jeans and boots, some of them fidgeting, some of them dead still.
“This isn’t just a stick,” he said, voice rasping through the wind. “It’s a promise. You take care of the land, the land takes care of you. Same with animals. Same with folks.”
He paused.
“Problem is, we stopped listening.”
Junie barked once — sharp and bright — like she understood.
Roy laughed. “Except her. She always listens.”
He handed the crook to a quiet boy named Avery, the same one who’d found Junie behind the barn.
“Your turn,” he said.
The boy didn’t speak. Just held the crook like it weighed more than wood.
And maybe it did.
—
Roy didn’t return to the school after that.
He spent his days on the porch, building birdhouses he never hung, sorting old tools that hadn’t touched dirt in years. Junie stayed close, always close.
One morning in May, Roy woke early. The sun barely up. Junie already at the door, tail wagging.
“Alright,” he said. “One more walk.”
They went to the pasture, same as always. But this time Roy carried something with him — a small tin box, wrapped in flannel.
He walked slow, using the cane his daughter had sent from Phoenix. The kind with rubber grips and a folding seat he refused to use.
At the base of the old oak where Jasper lay, Roy dug a shallow hole. Not too deep. Just enough.
He opened the box.
Inside was a single leather collar, worn nearly smooth, the metal tag faded but still legible.
“Figured it’s time you had company, boy,” he said, laying it beside the roots. “You and her — you’re the reason I kept waking up.”
He placed the dirt back gently, then sat down beside it, Junie resting against his leg.
And for a long while, they just sat.
No wind.
No sound.
Just two old things, keeping watch.
—
Three months later, the county fair held its first youth herding trial in over a decade.
Avery entered with a young rescue dog — slick black coat, wild energy, one paw with a slight limp.
The dog’s name was Junie.
She ran like a bullet through fog.
And when the final whistle blew, she trotted back to Avery with the same steady gait she’d used for Roy. Tail high. Mission complete.
Miss Devlin held back tears as she presented the award — not because of the win, but because of the carving Avery had burned into the crook he now carried:
“He Howled for the Tractor, Not the Moon.”
—
Final Line:
Roy never lived to see Junie win, but they say when she ran her last loop, the wind caught just right — and it sounded like someone whistling from the porch.
