I still don’t really understand how my mind worked at the time, but I looked at the tree on our property line, the hatchet, the neighbor’s road and decided to do something. I don’t recall feeling any emotion, but I thought the loud neighbor was somehow involved in my friend’s distress and that he had chained Tyke to the tree. I had no evidence that he was the culprit, but felt he was responsible.
So, I picked up the hatchet and began chopping away at the trunk of that tree. None of my strikes really dug into the tree, only grazing the trunk and shaving away a bit of bark and some underlying layers. It took a long time, but I eventually figured out how to nick little chips of wood out of the trunk. The work continued for a long time. My memory fails me as to how long the chopping took, but I do know that I continued hacking away at the tree until I wore deep notches into a few places on the tree. The trunk didn’t have a large diameter, but it was tall and straight. I pushed on the trunk a few times, and the tree seemed to bend where I had been cutting. I could hear faint cracking sounds as well, so I alternated between chopping and pushing on the trunk.
Much to my surprise, the trunk eventually cracked and the tree bent and covered the entire width of the nearby dirt road. I was astounded that I had accomplished my task, but also realized I had done something “bad”. At that age, all actions were either good or bad and I was pretty sure cutting down one of our woodlot trees was a bad thing. I dropped the hatchet and ran home with Tyke beside me. I was told later by my Mom that the loud neighbor had come over and yelled at my Dad. No idea what was said, but I do know that Tyke was never tied up again. I suspect that the loud neighbor was upset that a tree had been chopped down and blocked his road. Tyke and I continued to explore, play, have adventures, and do the sort of things friends do on a small piece of land outside of Canora, Saskatchewan. It was a good time.
Tyke did eventually die but I never learned exactly what had happened to him. I was looking for him one morning and found his body in the water at the edge of the marsh, very close to the property line with the loud neighbor. I could tell he had died a traumatic death.
Tyke was my first friend ever. He was my best friend for a long time and while I am now aging day by day, I have not forgotten him. He was my only friend at the time, my first friend, and I miss him greatly.
