Golubića

Her name was Golubića, which on engleski means "Dove."

In those days I worked for a forest products company whose name has long ago slipped into the misty annals of history. Save for the matter that the company was once one of the "Baronies" of east Texas it might be altogether forgotten by now.

In those days the general perception of the forest products industry was that it was a male industry.  You never heard of Jane Pauline Bunyon did you? Nope. When the company set out to entertain its customers the entertainment was male oriented.

One of those entertainments was hunting. We had a hunting lodge. We had a hunting lodge on leased land. The barony owned hundreds of thousands of acres and controlled millions more but we leased land for the hunters. The hunting expedition had to be in a sufficiently exotic location where the deer were a bit larger than the Virgina deer in East Texas forests. There were also quail on the land and lots and lots of dove who enjoyed the open grain fields which were present there part of the year.

Now, if you see me as some macho "great white hunter" type, your vision needs to be corrected. I am not. At least I am not the "great white hunter" sort. The macho part? I like women if that's what you are asking, but "macho?" Ne. I like women too much to be particularly "macho."

I have no problems with hunting for food. None at all. I like a good deer steak or deer and pork sausage. In fact, I will eat most anything. It's the hunting for sport I have a problem with. Gun go bang, something die. Not my cup of tea. 
 

I served in two militaries. I saw guns go bang. I saw dead. Boom, die is not something I like at all. Sorry. Nonetheless it was my duty to escort the mighty hunters and entertain them in such an exercise.

I returned from one such expedition on a Saturday which happened to be an election day. As I left the polling place I was greeted by a "poll watcher" who happened to have a box of kittens with him. One of them hopped out of the box and came to me. She went home with me too. 

I remember thinking that all my companions on the "great hunt" went home with that day were dead birds, but I got a cat for my troubles.  I got a friend.  I came out way ahead of all the others.

For lack of a better name, I called her "Golubića" - "Dove". Golubića took to me completely. There was tension in my house in those days and Golubića sensed all that immediately. She saw to it that I did not sleep alone any more. She perched on top of my head and kept watch when I slept. When anyone at all approached me during the short eighteen years she was with me, she alerted me.

I was gone for a while, we won't say for how long, or where I went, just that Golubića stayed with my parents and alerted them when any one certain person whom she perceived as a danger was approaching. Golubića could distinguish between the sounds of automobile engines from at least a half mile.

When I returned from the final adventure of the sort that took me away, Golubića clung to me closer than ever. That was a problem when I met and married Carole. Golubica wished to perch on my head and hiss at Carole when she wanted to snuggle. There was a contest of wills which Golubića lost. She was exiled to the outside world at night but she continued to keep watch.

I was in school in those days, sixty miles away. One day I was home at an unusual hour. In the middle of the afternoon Golubića began to hiss and growl and carry on in a most dreadful manner. In a few moments I was visited by that certain hostile individual. That's another story which ended in its own way.

I came home another afternoon to find Golubića on the ground in front of the steps to our little house. Hostile fire had been directed at her at point blank range. I dug a 38 bullet out of the ground beneath her head. It was murder clear and simple. The motive? To make me more vulnerable and to let me know just how vulnerable I had become.

There were serious criminal prosecutions already under way already against the perpetrator. Golubića's murder weighed heavily in the outcome of those matters.

Sometime still later I heard that the perpetrator was dead. I felt no sorrow. I still do not.

Golubića was my friend. She loved me.

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac
7  Travanj  2012