I heard this story on a cemetery road, above Cove, about 15 years ago. There were four of us in a Chevy van— me, my son, Clifford, my guru, Dewie Lovelace, and Earl Marshall, who was Dewie’s cohort in 70 years of cowpoke pranks.

Just before we passed through the repurposed bridge trusses that serve as portals for two burial grounds in the Grande Ronde Valley, Dewie pulled the van to a whoa beside a grave that seemed to have spilled from the proper cemetery. Poking out of the cheatgrass and fescue was a wreath of plastic petunias, a white cross fashioned from plaster lath, and a real marble headstone, bearing the inscription “FRED.” Earl launched the tale.

“Yonder lies old Fred, the best friend this town ever had. He came to town with a young feller who was working for the Forest Service over in La Grande but was living here, down behind the drive-in, a block off the school. Fred was a big red dog, kinda like a cross between an Irish setter and a long-haired Labrador, with a big wad of teddy bear tossed in.

“Fred’s owner worked hard and was gone a lot. Guess a firefighter’s supposed show up for work even when there’s two foot of snow on the Fourth of July. Anyway, Fred took to wandering and started walking the kids home from school. First he’d walk a pack of the littlest kids home, then hustle back to school and pick up another bunch, right on up through the high schoolers that didn’t have cars. Fred was plumb gentle and kind. The kids loved him, and the town took him on as Cove’s unofficial mascot.

“Like many townsfolks, Fred hung around the saloon at night. He’d come over to your table and stand there looking at you until you put a dollar bill in his mouth. He was hard to fool. He could tell the difference between a real George Washington and a waitress’ ticket. He’d carry the money over to the bartender, put his paws up on the rail, and trade the money for one of those big old long pepperoni sticks. I watched Fred spend $25 one Saturday night.

“It was a pretty dark day for Cove when his owner got transferred down to northern California and took Fred along. There were 10 people in town who wanted to drive to the shelter in La Grande and find a new town dog. They didn’t have to bother. Fred didn’t do anything down in California but get into trouble. They had a leash law down there and Fred cost $600 in runaway dog fines before the smoke jumper ran into a long-haul trucker who was heading this way and asked him if he’d take Fred home.

“We were all in the cafe that afternoon when this great big shiny red Peterbuilt pulling a reefer pulled into town, something that doesn’t happen too often around here. Driver opened his door, and out poured Fred, smiling and wagging, knowing he was home. Boy, there was some celebrating that night.

“Max, down at the grocery, put a Mason jar by his cash register, unmarked, but everybody in Cove knew it was Fred’s food fund, and that jar always had at least 20 bucks in it. Fred was eating the best dog food they make. He had 15, 20 places in town where he could sleep when he wasn’t playing school crossing guard.

“One Fourth of July morning about five years ago, a couple of kids found Fred curled up and dead at the edge of the schoolyard. Folks took him to the vet’s to see what had happened and she said that Fred had been poisoned. This town’s had a dog poisoner in it for four generations. Nobody’s ever figured out who it is, but I’ll tell you, if you’d got caught with coyote bait in your garage about then, you’d been flogged and hung. As it was, the town kids toilet papered trees in the yards of the two prime suspects, but it is still a mystery as to who actually did the poisoning.

“So the people of Cove took up a collection. Damn near half the residents of this town were for laying Fred to rest right up there in the real cemetery with the humans. Most of the dead folks who are buried there weren’t nearly as loveable as Fred. But the rest of the town figured we’d be starting a dangerous pattern and pretty soon we’d have cats and horses buried up there, and there just plumb isn’t that much room left, so we found this little spot alongside the road.

“This way whoever killed Fred is forced to look at the marker every time one of their ornery family passes away. We had the headstone shipped clear from Boise and there were 60 people at Fred’s funeral. Fred, he was such a good old dog we’ve never been able to find a replacement. Me, soon as we got Fred buried proper, I stopped eating so many pepperoni sticks, just in case.”