Screen Saver

Rene Compean had hiked the park near his home in Southern California numerous times. But after venturing (敢于去) along a new path last April, the 45-year-old mechanic was lost.

As the day faded into dusk, following several hours of aimless wandering, his concern turned to fear. With no flashlight, only a liter of water and a power bar in his backpack, and less than ten percent battery remaining on his cell phone, Compean was unprepared for anything more than the two-hour journey he’d planned.

Compean climbed to a spot, some 7,000 feet above sea level, where he found at least one bar of signal. “SOS. My phone is going to die. I’m lost,” he texted a friend, attaching a photo showing where he was. The shot showed his legs hanging over rocks.

All Compean could do then was wait and hope. The temperature was dropping fast, and the winds were blowing. And he wouldn’t sleep. After spotting two mountain lions and a hear, he spent the night on high alert, keeping a big stick and some sharp rocks beside him in case an animal came close.

Sixty miles away in Ventura County, Ben Kuo was working at home when he read a tweet from the police station, showing a blurry   (模糊的) image of a man’s legs. The police search-and-rescue teams had spent the previous night unsuccessfully looking for Compean, so they released the photo to the public, hoping someone might know the location,

Kuo has an unusual hobby. “I have always loved looking for where photos are taken,” he says. He frequently tries to identify where movie scenes, television shows, or commercials were filmed. He’s often successful.

Seeing the blurry image, Kuo pulled up a satellite map on his laptop.

The police of Ventura County arrived on the spot immediately.

Brady was a recently retired search and rescue dog. He was not happy and missed his owner Al because Al had gone out on a rescue mission without him. Al’s nephew Steve took Brady along when he and his friend Zach went on an overnight hike. But suddenly Steve and Zach smelled something burning and they realized that the lightning had set the woods on fire. Wind-blown flame had leaped from the top of one tree to another. The long dry summer had turned the forest into a tinderbox（火绒盒）, and the thunderstorm wasn’t helping much. It had more wind and lightning than rain. Zach pulled Steve’s arm. “Let’s go! We can make it back to the river we crossed today.” Steve snapped Brady’s leash to his collar, and their heads down against the strong fire-wind, they hurried down the trail they had followed earlier. The air was full of smoke, and pine branches snapped from burning trees with a cannon-like sound. Steven kept his eyes fixed on the trail. All they had to do was to make it down to the river.

Brady barked a sharp warning. Ahead of them lay a dense curtain of smoke across the trail. They’d never make it through, so they’d have to find another escape route. The dog was pulling at his leash, trying to draw them away from the smoke. This was what Brady was trained to do, and yet Steve was uneasy. It seemed to him they were moving away from the river.

Brady lifted his head and smelled the smoke-laden wind. Next moment, the dog ran away and disappeared. The boys yelled and shouted for him, but he didn’t come back.

They had no choice but to leave him behind. They went up a slope（斜坡）. They couldn’t blame Brady for panicking and escaping. They themselves wanted to run even though they didn’t have a clue which way. They hadn’t gone far when there was a familiar back, and Brady came running toward them.

She was the prettiest puppy we had ever seen, and the whole family immediately fell in love with her. We named her Onyx because of her black, shiny black coat. She spent her first vacation with us when she was only ten weeks old and had her first bath and swim in the St. Lawrence River. We had no clue that this amazing little ball of fur would end up being our hero.

As she grew older, Onyx became more and more involved in our family activities. On hot summer days, Onyx enjoyed floating on the river with us in her own rubber tube (橡皮圈). Amazingly standing on the top of the tube, she smiled while showing off her perfect balance. Resting her front legs and paws over the edge of the rubber tube, she kept her eyes shut as she floated until she’d had enough of the warm sun on her black coat.

One day, our eighteen-year-old daughter, Margie, announced she was going to swim across the bay. No one in the family was free to go swimming with her. The unwritten rules, regardless of swimming ability, was to have a companion in the water with you, especially when swimming the width of the bay. I was not a good swimmer, so I said to Margie, “Take Onyx with you.” Having heard her name, Onyx woke up from a nap and was ready for action. Margie signed the dog to follow her. Onyx ran to the water next to her. They entered the freezing river together and swam side by side across the bay.

I watched from the bank as they reached the sandbar (沙洲) on the far shore. They rested a few minutes before diving into the water for the return trip. I felt uneasy for some reason and continued to watch the pair swim side by side.

Suddenly I heard Margie calling out, “I have a cram (痉挛) in the leg! ”

Seeing the pair approaching the riverbank, I breathed a sigh of relief.