Column: Local author details dog attack, struggle for justice

Editor’s Note — Local author and artist, Yvonne Pepin-Wakefield offers some insight into her experiences with the justice system in this excerpt about an altercation with a neighbor and his dogs near her cabin in Grant County, Oregon. This writing and others are available in her award-winning Babe in the Woods, three-book series.

Hey Google…

Photos and Column by Yvonne Pepin-Wakefield

Yvonne Pepin-Wakefield

The Dobermans lunge at my truck with outstretched claws and bared fangs.  A live-action scene from the horror movie Cujo, I never imagined would air on this channel of dirt road leading to my wilderness log cabin. 

Their owner, a pistol belted to his right hip, walks directly in front of the hood forcing me to stop.  The dogs do not.  Pouncing to the height of the driver’s side window, their open muzzles trailing drooling slime.  The man stares, then steps from around to the drivers’ window and starts yelling.

I’ve driven this road to my cabin for nearly half a century.  The place remains the same as I built it at age 18, off-the-grid, a place of peace and quiet, beauty and repose beside a mountain stream.  Until now, my ingress has never been threatened by more than friendly neighbors with friendly tail wagging dogs, an escaped Belgium draft horse, six strayed cows, a dive-bombing goshawk and roving wild turkeys.  Now, I’m being violently challenged by a man who wasn’t old enough to sprout a chin whisker when I signed the deed that included this easement.

  “You don’t belong here!” spittle forming in the corner of his mouth, “You don’t belong here!”  The man bares his teeth alongside the dogs leaping up between him and the window.  

I drive past his recently purchased property to get to my own. His dogs had charged my truck in the past but the man had called them off.  Now, he intentionally encourages their attack.

I punch 911 on a new phone connected to Verizon, a cell service yet tested in these remote parts.  The screen said I could only make emergency calls.  “911 what is your emergency?” a woman asks in an even toned voice I did not reflect.

  “There is a man with dogs who are chasing and jumping at my truck.  He is yelling on the other side of the window.”  My own dogs, Henry and Zachary were barking back at the attacking dogs.  It was difficult to hear what I should do.  “Stay on the line,” dispatch says.

 “I’ve never experienced anything like this.  I’m really scared.”  Scared, a word rarely plucked from my interpersonal thesaurus.

Seeing me talking into the phone the man backs off.  Walks twenty yards up the road and stands pointing something at me.  

Dispatch is still talking to me when the man ducks behind a pole barn. “You are not coming in clear,” then connection is lost.

I switch into four wheel and drive faster than caution up the mountain, keeping my eyes on the rear-view mirror, instead of the axel bending, tire shearing, rutted road.

Pepin-Wakefield’s vehicle parked near her cabin in Grant County.

Twenty minutes later, at the cabin I’m still trembling.  Almost zombie route like, I complete chores: wire bar bait under the porch, roll up hoses, empty the gas out of power tools, fill kerosene lamps, haul buckets of water from the creek and stack enough wood on the porch to keep the fire banked until dawn. 

 By 5:30 this northern draw is dark.  I decide against leaving before nightfall to stay in a motel downtown where I would be out of danger should he decide to visit me up here.  Wild animals had never scared me away.  Neither will that guy.  

An hour later head lights bounce up the road.  

Crouched below the window I watch a rig park below the cabin. There is only one way out of here; the door I open to welcome in two uniformed officers.

They have come to take a report.

“I’m freaked out (also not in my usual vocabulary).  I’ve dealt with bears, cougars, wildfire but nothing has ever shaken me as bad as what happened with that guy.  This is the first time police have ever been in the cabin,” I add, their uniform badges reflecting kerosene lamp glow. 

That night I sleep in my clothes, sitting upright. Repeating scenes of the man and his snarling dogs keep me awake.  In the morning, I decide to leave a day early instead of fearing what could blindside me.

Before driving away, I photograph the scratches on my truck, the paw prints and opaque patches of dried drool on the driver side widow.  Still visibly shuddering I work to calm myself behind the wheel.  

The back of the truck serves as an outdoor studio for Pepin-Wakefield who paints on location.

Hours later I open the door to my house in The Dalles. That’s when the physiological and psychological effects of trauma take hold.  An unease like any I’ve felt before and I needed to air with a trained ear, right now. 

“Hey Google give me some names of crisis lines,” I say into the new mobile.  The only listings are for children and victims of domestic violence.  I would just have to write out this crisis.

 I type an email to the sheriff’s office, listing in chronological order the events of the road encounter.  Unlike the night before when I struggled to record with a pen, my quaking hands were able to punch a key board.

 Again, that night images of the man and his dogs keep me from sleeping or wake me up.  In the morning, I force myself to eat food that runs quickly through my body defining what it is like to be scared shitless.

The sheriff’s office replies that I should get in touch with the county victims advocacy to get a protection order against the guy.  This snowballs into a series of communications that only aggravate my trauma.  Re-telling is re-traumatizing. 

 “No, you cannot get a restraining order or protective order,” says the advocate:  Because 1. I haven’t had sex with the guy. 2. He is not a relative.  She adds I might be able to get a stalking order but he has to confront me again.  

“But that’s why I’m contacting you.  So he can’t do it again!  I don’t feel safe going to my cabin.”

“Sorry.  It’s Oregon law,” replies the advocate.

A little research revealed the guy has been charged multiple times, and arrested for assault, domestic violence and contempt of court.  I bring his history to the attention of the victim’s advocate and receive what will become a familiar disappointing reply.

The sheriff’s office files a harassment charge.  A week later the district attorney’s office drops the charge because the guy didn’t use abusive language or gestures to provoke a violent response.

The office might consider filing criminal mischief charges if I send photos of my truck and an estimate.

I send pictures of my Ford Ranger XLT with the Saber paint job I fastidiously try to maintain as showroom shiny.  I even bought a baby chainsaw with a six-inch blade to use on the road to the cabin, sawing off patina poking branches reaching into the roadway.  

The estimator found damage I’d missed photographing.  Claw marks on the bumper and gash on the coppery hood.  Total costs of repairs, $2,614.05

Two weeks after the incident I am still shaking, not sleeping and am so hypervigilant I feel as if a car is going to hit me every time I’m out driving.

“Hey Google what are the symptoms of trauma.  A list of 15 signs pops up.  I recognize 12 of them apply to me.  Including feeling dizzy, heart palpitations, jittery and hypervigilant all the time.

I call a friend who asks “Are you okay,” as soon as he hears my voice.  I tell the story and add, “I shouldn’t be feeling this way.  I mean the people in Gaza are experiencing worse trauma.”

“Trauma is not to be compared,” said my medical professional friend adding, “Maybe you should talk to a counselor.”

The earliest an appointment that can be made is two months after the incident.   “But I need tools now to help me,” I explain at the counseling agency.  

“Sorry it is the process,” I am told.  

The process can put my trauma on hold, but I can’t. 

I contact three other victims’ advocacy groups and am told by two there is nothing I can do about getting a protective order against the guy.  I list his criminal past.  It doesn’t matter.  Maybe it would if I had had sex with him or he was a relative.  Maybe I can get a stalking order if he does it again.  This reply is getting old.

The third advocate flatly tells me “You need a lawyer.”

Every time I retell the story, I am re-traumatized.

Over two months after that Cujo encounter I am still shaken.  Not only by the incident but by formal support networks that are designed and advertised to help people in crisis that instead perpetuate negatively impacting events.

Instead of accountability I get unanswered emails, phone calls not returned.

“Hey Google,” I talk into the mobile “When victims are victimized by the judicial system.”  

The connection is clear.