Blue Dog, Green River

Blue Dog is a spirited mongrel bitch with one blue eye, one brown. She winds up in the pound in Moab, Utah, after being shot for thieving chickens and is saved from certain death by a Green River raftsman named Paul Nozik. "Wound wasn't healed yet," Paul reports. "Soon as it did, I dropped her off the raft." It was sink or swim, "quit chickens or drown. She had to make a quick choice." Blue Dog responds instinctively to river life, even riding rapids with savvy aplomb. (This is probably attributable to her mixed bloodlines - Labrador, Newfie, and bloodhound among them.) The bond between dog and man grows strong, indeed seems to be unbreakable. And then, one hot desert afternoon, Blue Dog is mistakenly left behind at Cat Lick, abandoned in the middle of Desolation Canyon. Her days and nights are a struggle to beat her way back to the raftsman, down river, past the cliffs and "hoodoos" and other hazards of the deep canyon. Paul is desperately trying to find her as well, against the current of the Green, finally against a flash flood precipitated by a vicious canyon squall. Strangely, a third party materializes among these perils - one of the Old People, out of the distant, mythic past of the Green River itself. Is he nothing more than a piece of "rock art" in a dog's dream - a Kokopelli off a canyon wall - or has Blue Dog, much as the raftsman fears, found herself another master? This remarkable Western tale evokes the majesty and mystery of landscape in the heartland of the American Desert. At the same time, it captures all the suspense and adventure of climbing, rafting, and venturing in that incomparable wilderness. A classic story of a man and his dog, who together must brave the high waters that these canyonlands forever embrace.Brower, Brock is the author of 'Blue Dog, Green River', published 2005 under ISBN 9781567922806 and ISBN 1567922805.