Ben's desert trek with Rex

Ben's desert trek with Rex is a journey shaped by a reversal: Ben had set out expecting to die, but his injured dog gives him urgent work that carries him through the wilderness and into human help. The trek tests his failing body and practical ingenuity while bringing his identity as a physician back into action—not as a doctor in control of an operating room, but as a field caregiver working with whatever he has.

Purpose and Circumstances

Ben knows his metastatic cancer is incurable and anticipates a future of severe suffering. His medical experience makes the prognosis, and the course he expects the disease to take, difficult for him to dismiss. He has considered the arguments for gradual dying: that love and ordinary life can become more vivid, and that time can allow for reflection. Yet those consolations seem inadequate beside the pain he has witnessed. Avoiding that anticipated suffering has become central to his thinking.

The journey is bound up with this intention to die in the sage country. But the circumstances change when Ben discovers Rex badly wounded and realizes the dog cannot simply be left behind. The immediate task of caring for Rex interrupts the plan: Ben must assess what has happened, use his medical equipment, and find a way to get the dog out. The trek’s direction is therefore practical even while its larger context remains a suicidal crisis.

Field Care and Loss

Ben has spent years serving informally as a doctor on climbing expeditions. His kit includes medicines, dressings, a scalpel, and sutures, and he has treated human injuries in the field. He has never stitched a dog before. Now, with Rex facing a difficult journey, he cleans and closes the wounds as best he can under improvised conditions. Working one-handed, he uses a continuous pattern of stitches. Rex initially struggles, then settles and endures the procedure with a patience Ben had not expected of him.

Afterward, Ben examines the stitches and takes satisfaction in having done work that is at least serviceable under the circumstances. He tends the fire, prepares chukar meat, and reserves water for Rex. These small acts of care have a practical sequence: close the wounds, feed the dog, and keep him alive for the journey ahead. Ben’s attention to Rex also displaces the inward preoccupation with his own death, without removing the illness or the pain that accompany him.

Ben searches for Tristan and finds the older dog dead beneath a willow. Tristan had been with him for ten years, brought home as a puppy for companionship rather than hunting. Ben had watched the dog’s health and stamina decline with age, and had brought Rex home partly in the hope that the younger dog could learn from him. Now Ben gives Tristan a rough grave in the sageland. He kneels beside it, closes the dog’s eyes, and covers him with sand. The burial is hurried because Ben has little strength left, but he insists on doing at least this much for a companion who deserves it.

The Improvised Crossing

Ben first attempts to carry Rex in a blanket sling over his shoulder. The dog’s weight strains him, and he collapses after only a short effort. Rather than abandon the attempt, Ben makes a travois from two willow poles, shaping them into a V and securing Rex’s sling to the frame. He attaches the arrangement to his Italian carabiner and pulls the dog across the sand. The device is makeshift, but its lashings hold, turning the carabiner and climbing equipment into tools for transporting an injured companion.

Rain catches them as Ben hauls Rex onward. He is exhausted, and the wet cold and the repeated need to stop make progress slow. He tries to detach his mind from bodily effort, as he has done on climbs and in wartime, but the technique brings little relief. The desert crossing becomes a succession of pauses and renewed efforts, with Ben’s attention repeatedly brought back to the immediate demands of the journey.

The landscape changes as they leave the sage country and cross fallow ground toward irrigated farmland. Ben passes farm roads, canals, orchards, and fields, moving through a landscape marked by agricultural development rather than open desert. At a branch canal, he fills his bottles with water he would ordinarily avoid, treats it with iodine, and drinks. He lets Rex drink from his hand and gives him the remaining chukar meat. Rex then manages to stand and hobble on three legs. Ben dismantles the travois, and the two continue on foot, both limping.

Arrival and Renewed Medical Work

Ben and Rex reach a section road and follow it through farm country toward George, Washington. Their route passes irrigation works, scattered farm buildings, and signs of settled life. In town, Ben asks a boy working on machinery whether there is a veterinarian, but the boy does not know. Ben then goes into the Colonial Market for dog food, spring water, and food for himself. The purchases mark a modest but important change: after crossing the desert with limited supplies, he can obtain provisions in town.

The trek’s next consequence is not simply that Ben reaches other people, but that his medical skill becomes useful again. At the veterinary clinic, he removes his field jacket and prepares to assist with Rex’s treatment. It has been nineteen months since his last surgery on a human heart, and he had expected to be dead in the sage country rather than scrubbing up to help a veterinarian. Dr. Peterson administers anesthesia and evaluates Rex; she says Ben’s stitches kept most of the dirt out and praises their quality. Ben explains that he had to place them one-handed. The scene connects the improvised care on the trail to professional veterinary treatment, while showing Ben accepting a supporting role in a medical procedure.

The crossing does not resolve Ben’s cancer or erase his fear of death. It does, however, redirect his actions. In the wilderness, care for Rex requires decisions, endurance, and adaptation; in town, it leads Ben back into a working medical space. The trek’s decisive movement is from an intention to die alone toward the immediate responsibilities of helping a living companion, with the dog’s survival and treatment still unfinished at the point reached here.