Annie the Texas Ranch Dog - Injured Hero

By Patty Shafer

When Annie accompanies Park Ranger Jake Pitchett to Bastrop State Park to help in fighting the Texas wildfires, disaster turns Annie into an injured hero.  As she is honored by her Utopia fans for her heroism, her family learns that Annie is facing a life-threatening illness.  Supported by family and friends, Annie faces the toughest challenge of her life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Smooth Sailing Press
• Release date: Apr 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781618990365

Book preview

Annie the Texas Ranch Dog

Injured Hero

by Patty Shafer

Annie the Texas Ranch Dog

Injured Hero

Copyright © 2014 Smooth Sailing Press, LLC

Written by Patty Shafer

Illustrated by Shay Retzlaff

Printed in the USA

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced

or transmitted in any form or by any means,

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without permission in writing from Smooth Sailing Press.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to the following address:

Smooth Sailing Press, LLC

20519 Sunshine Ln. Suite B

Spring, Texas 77388

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ISBN: 978-1-61899-008-2 Soft Cover

ISBN:  978-1-61899-036-5 eBook

An Imprint of Smooth Sailing Press, LLC

An Imprint of Smooth Sailing Press, LLC

A Publishing Division of Smooth Sailing Press, LLC

A Publishing Division of Smooth Sailing Press, LLC

An Imprint of Smooth Sailing Press, LLC

An Imprint of Smooth Sailing Press, LLC

Dedication

To my husband Cecil,

who has supported me in my dreams

and schemes year after year after year…

Chapter 1

Wildfires in Bastrop

This stifling heat is worse than high noon on the hottest summer day in the driest desert in Texas. I think I’m melting!! Scorching waves fed by the winds driving these wildfires make every breath a necessary torture.

In my dog role of helper and supporter, I can and DO seek the coolest spot I can find in the shade but breathing is still a struggle with the smoke billowing and coiling up from the trees and underbrush on fire. The sound is deafening as the fire roars like a tornado through the trees. While I sit here watching apprehensively, my buddy Jake and the other park rangers are pushing their bodies to the limit trying to clear a firebreak between the burning woods and some old buildings they’re trying to save.

I’m not sure why those old rock buildings are so important that they’re willing to risk their lives to save them.  But, they’re scrambling to clear a swatch of land from brush, trees, and anything that will burn so that they can interrupt the path of the fire.  If the cleared firebreak is wide enough, the fire may not be able to jump over to the other side where the buildings are.

Texas is suffering under the worst drought in decades.  Grasses and trees have dried out, and water sources such as creeks, rivers, stock tanks, and lakes have gone down significantly or even dried up completely. Conditions were ripe for fires when winds picked up in early fall.  Small fires set accidentally or intentionally have quickly gotten out of hand, and roaring fires have burned hundreds of homes and thousands of acres of land, devastating parts of Texas. 

Bastrop State Park in central Texas with its fragrant, majestic Loblolly Pine trees and historic Depression-era stone structures is in the grips of a gigantic wildfire. The rock cabins that Annie doesn’t fully appreciate were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps when the park was built in the 1930s. The Civilian Conservation Corps was a federal program designed to provide jobs and salaries to unemployed workers during the Great Depression.  They created many of the Bastrop State Park facilities using sandstone