Lost in the Blinded Blizzard Read online

  Your mailmen and your UPS drivers are the very worst about doing this, I mean, they seem to think they’ve got a right to enter the ranch without permission and start banging on doors.

  But once they reach the porch and hear that barking, they begin to realize that there’s a dog on duty, and you’ll see an amazing change in their behavior.

  At that point they might tap on the door, or they might call out, “Is anyone home?” But you won’t see ’em banging on any doors, no siree, because . . .

  HUH?

  Someone was banging on Slim’s front door, and I mean banging loud.

  “Open up, in the name of the law! We know you robbed the stagecoach, Slim Chance, and we know you’re in there. Now come out with your hands up or we’ll burn this place to the ground!”

  The, uh, deep roar of a bark that had been gathering momentum in my throat changed pitch all of a sudden, as my, uh, throat seemed to contract, so to speak, in response to the, uh, sound of an angry mob on the front porch.

  I hadn’t exactly prepared myself for an angry mob, don’t you see, and while angry mobs of mobsters have never struck fear in my heart, they have never struck courage in my heart either.

  After retreating a few steps . . . several steps . . . halfway across the room, I turned to my assistant. “Drover, I’m almost sure they’re bluffing, but just in case . . .”

  He had vanished.

  I caught a glimpse of him, trying to crawl under Slim’s chair, but just then the angry mob broke down the door and hundreds of wild-eyed mobsters carrying torches and bloody swords streamed into the house, screaming horrible things and waving their bloody torches and burning swords.

  Well, hey, if I’d known they wanted in that bad, I would have . . . I could see that this was going to be a fight to the finish, and it seemed reasonable and honorable that I should postpone the finish as long as . . .

  Fellers, I ran!

  Chapter Three: The Swirling Killer Tornado

  Getting traction on a linoleum floor is a very difficult thing to do, especially when your paws are turning several thousand RPMs per second.

  After running in place for a moment, I finally got traction on the stupid linoleum floor in the hallway and moved my line of defense, so to speak, a bit deeper into the house.

  Into the living room.

  Under the coffee table.

  Not far from Slim.

  Hmmm. That was odd. The angry mob had busted into the house to get Slim, right? So why wasn’t he running for his gun or doing anything to defend himself? And how come he was laughing . . . and pointing at, well, ME?

  It didn’t make any sense. I mean, if those mobsters really . . .

  Have we discussed childish cowboy pranks? There seems to be something about cowboys that draws them to silly, childish acts of behavior. Perhaps there are some people in this world who would consider these outrageous acts funny, but you will find very few dogs who do.

  I mean, we try to run our ranches in a businesslike manner. We try to be serious about things and we don’t appreciate . . .

  Okay, Billy, our neighbor down the creek, turned out to be one of those jokers, a guy who never passed up a chance to goof off and pull a childish prank.

  He’d pulled up in front of Slim’s place and banged on the door and yelled all that . . . hey, he hadn’t fooled me for a minute with that stuff about how Slim had robbed a so-called . . . I mean, we don’t have stagecoaches around here, right?

  But on the other hand, a guy never knows for sure . . . see, he was banging on the door, and I mean really BANGING and YELLING, sounded like a whole mob of . . .

  Well, this guy not only took fiendish delight in making noise and scaring people, but he seemed even prouder of himself for scaring the liver out of me and Drover—primarily Drover.

  Don’t forget who was the first to run and hide. It wasn’t me.

  Okay, maybe I ran too, but not as fast as Drover.

  Billy was very proud of himself for making all that childish noise and violating the privacy of Slim’s home, and there for a second or two, I thought he might get a hernia from laughing so hard at . . . well, at me and Drover, but mainly Drover, who had tried his best to crawl under Slim’s easy chair.

  Remember that I had crawled under the coffee table, not under an easy chair, and it’s common knowledge that in serious and disastrous situations, such as earthquakes and tornadoes, citizens should take refuge under the nearest coffee table.

  So there you are. I had done nothing to be ashamed of. Drover, on the other hand, had walked right into their foolish trick and had become the butt of their laughingstock.

  Okay. Billy went down to his knees, he was laughing so hard, and Slim was getting more than a few chuckles out of it too.

  You might recall that this was the same Slim who, only moments before, had been running around his house, half-naked, and chasing a poor little mouse with a pool cue.

  Right. And the same guy who had destroyed the light fixture on the ceiling.

  You’ll notice that Slim hadn’t been nearly as amused by HIS foolish display as he now was by mine . . . ours . . . Drover’s, actually, which just goes to prove that small minds take delight in the misfortunes of others.

  It really hurt me to see him laughing at Drover that way.

  “Call off your dogs, Slim, before they hurt somebody!”

  That was Billy. Very funny. Ho, ho, ho.

  “Whatever you do, Billy,” said Slim between spasms of infantile laughter, “whatever you do, don’t try to crawl under that coffee table with Hank! He’s a trained killer, and I ain’t sure I can hold him back.”

  Oh, they got a big chuckle out of that! I glared daggers at them. Also snarled at Billy, just to let him know that sticks and stones might break my bones, but his words might get him bitten on the leg, if he ever turned his back on me.

  By this time, Drover had poked his head out from under Slim’s chair. “Hi, Hank, what you doing under the coffee table?”

  “Don’t speak to me, you little weasel.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You know very well what’s wrong. Under combat conditions, you ran and left me to defend the house by myself.”

  “Well, I thought I saw a mouse and I chased him under the chair.”

  I gave him a withering glare. “Drover, that is a lie, and you know it.”

  He hung his head. “I know, but it sounds a lot better than the truth. I don’t think I can face the truth.”

  “Go ahead and face it. You’ll feel much better.”

  “No I won’t. I’ll feel ten times worse.”

  “Telling the truth is good for the soul.”

  “Yeah, but telling a lie is good for everything else.”

  “Try it, Drover, you might be surprised.”

  “Well . . . all right.” He squinted one eye and appeared to be in deep concentration. “Let’s see. I ran away and hid under the chair because . . .”

  “Yes, yes?”

  “I can’t say it, Hank, it just hurts too much.”

  “Take the plunge and say it.”

  “Oh rats. I ran away and hid under the chair because . . . I was scared. There! Now everybody knows.”

  “But that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “I guess not.”

  “And don’t you feel better now?”

  He thought about it for a moment, then gave me his patented silly grin. “You know, I do feel better.”

  “See what I mean? I’ll bet you feel ten times better.”

  “Oh yeah, ten or maybe even eleven. All at once I feel like a terrible burden has been lifted from my shoulders. I feel wonderful!”

  I crawled out from under the table, pushed myself up on all fours, and glared down at the runt.

  “Well, you have absolutely no right to feel wonderful.
Not only did you behave in a cowardly and chickenhearted manner in a combat situation, but you had the gall, the nerve, the stupidity to admit it!”

  “Yeah but . . .”

  “Now, you put that burden right back on your shoulders and carry it around for the next 24 hours. That’s your punishment for being a chicken­hearted little mutt. And shame on you!”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have told the truth! Now I feel ten times worse!”

  “Yes, but you deserve it, and that should make you feel better about feeling worse. Now, get out from under that chair and stop showing your true colors.”

  He crawled out and wiped a tear from the end of his nose. “Hank, what were you doing under that coffee table?”

  “I, uh, what coffee table?”

  “The one you were under.”

  “Oh, that one. Yes, it’s a coffee table.”

  “I know, but what were you doing under it?”

  “What makes you think I was . . . oh yes, I remember now. Drover, because you were cowering under the chair, you missed hearing why Billy came bursting into the house.”

  “Yeah, I sure did.”

  “Good. I mean, yes, of course. He came bursting into the house to announce that a tornado had been sighted nearby—a deadly swirling killer tornado.”

  “No fooling?”

  “That’s correct. And as you might know, in the event of a tornado, one should take refuge under the nearest coffee table.”

  His face brightened. “Gosh, then maybe I did the right thing after all, hiding under Slim’s chair.”

  “I’m afraid not, Drover.” I placed a paw on his shoulder and looked into his eyes. “There’s a huge difference between a coffee table and a chair.”

  “There is?”

  “Yes. You never sit on a coffee table and you never put coffee on a chair.”

  “Rats. Then I have to go on carrying my burden around?”

  “I’m afraid so, Drover, but because of the tornado, we’ll shorten your time to twelve hours.”

  “Gosh, thanks, Hank!”

  One of the nice things about this job is that, every now and then, you get the opportunity to involve yourself in the lives of others, to help them understand themselves and life’s many twists and turns.

  And that makes it all worthwhile.

  Chapter Four: A Few Pointers on Marking Tires

  It took Billy and Slim a while to get all the childish laughter out of their systems.

  Slim boiled up a pot of coffee and they sat down beside the stove, drinking coffee and recounting every detail of Billy’s entrance into the house.

  I noticed that my name came up fairly often in this conversation. They would say something about “old Hank,” then glance at me and laugh some more.

  Seemed to me that they were trying to milk a dead horse. I mean, I hadn’t cared much for the experience the first time around, and it didn’t get any better the second or third time.

  I continued glaring daggers at them, and more than once, when Billy was pointing his big hairy finger at me (he had black hairs growing between the joints of his fingers), I growled at him. (Oh, and he had black hairs growing on the back of his hand, too.)

  I never trust a guy with hairy hands.

  The best part of this conversation between Slim and Billy came when Billy took a big swig of coffee and found a drowned cricket in the bottom of his cup.

  He stared at it for a second, then said, “Slim, I think the protein’s running a little high on this coffee of yours.”

  Slim leaned out in his chair and frowned. “By gollies, it sure is, but it was the same price as the regular.”

  Billy went to the sink and poured out the last of his coffee. If he had tossed a glance in my direction, he would have noticed a big cowdog smile on my face. The cause of justice had been served.

  Well, after the Cricket Incident I began to feel restless and bored. I felt a cold draft blowing across the floor and suspected that Billy had left the door open a crack. I gave Drover the signal to move out, and we went into the hallway to investigate.

  Sure enough, the door was open just a crack. I managed to hook a front paw around the door and pulled it open a little wider, and we stepped outside into the storm. I took several deep breaths and gave myself a good shake.

  “Drover, a ranch dog has no business spending time inside a house. That stuffy air can ruin a dog quicker than anything.”

  He was shivering. “Yeah, but that’s the kind of ruin I’ve always wanted to be.”

  “I’ll try to forget you said that, son. Has it occurred to you that Billy’s pickup is sitting right in front of us and we haven’t marked his tires?”

  “Not really. I was thinking about how cold I am.”

  I shook my head. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and mark the back tires. I’ll take the front.”

  “But I’m so cold! And this old leg of mine . . .”

  “Never mind the leg, Drover. Do your job. I’ll meet you back on the porch in two minutes.”

  I nudged him off the porch with my nose and went right to work. I sniffed out the left front tire and ran a field analysis of the various scents and chemical compounds it contained. My analysis turned up a powerful showing of . . . rubber?

  No big surprise there. After all, most tires are made of . . .

  I hurried around to the right side and gave it the same careful laboratory analysis. This one proved more interesting. It tested positive for snow, caliche dust, ragweed, sagebrush, and another scent I couldn’t quite identify.

  It might very well have come from another dog, so I wasted no time in erasing his phony mark and adding one of my own.

  In case you haven’t already guessed, I take great pride in my ability to lay a good strong mark on a set of tires. When a vehicle leaves my ranch, I want the world to know where it’s been.

  Well, it didn’t take me long to mark those two front tires. I mean, I’m the same dog who’s accustomed to knocking out an entire pickup and stock trailer all by myself, and then rushing to the yard gate to bark at the driver.

  That’s an eight-tire job. A lot of dogs wouldn’t even attempt a job that big, but it’s nothing special to me. On your bigger assignments, like the eight-tire deals, a dog’s overall physical condition and endurance become a major factory.

  Factor, I should say. A major factor.

  So I knocked out my tires in record time and went to the porch to wait for Drover. He didn’t come. And he didn’t come. I looked toward the rear of the pickup and didn’t see him.

  What was the little mutt doing back there? What was taking him so long?

  I hate to wait, so after waiting and hating every second of it and getting bored, I pushed myself up and swaggered to the rear of the pickup. I figgered I’d end up having to mark his tires for him.

  I passed the right rear tire and noticed his mark. Well, at least he’d done something. I continued around the back end of the pickup, and there I found him—sitting down and gazing up at the swirling snow, or something in that general direction.

  “Drover, if I’d known it was going to take you five minutes to perform a simple procedure, I would have done it myself. What’s the deal?”

  “Well, I got distracted, Hank.”

  “I see. In that case, let’s talk about distractions. Distractions are one of your problems. You shouldn’t allow yourself to be distracted by distractions.”

  “What about girls?”

  “They shouldn’t be distracted either. Distrac­tions are a problem for everyone, regardless of age, gender, breed, or national origin.”

  “Yeah, but what if I got distracted by a girl instead of a distraction?”

  “That’s no excuse. In our line of work . . . why do you ask?”

  “Oh, I just wondered.”

  “I see. No, when we’re on
a job, Drover, we’ve got no time for . . . you’re not listening to me.”

  His gaze seemed to be directed up toward the pickup bed.

  “What?”

  “I said, you’re not listening to me.”

  “I can’t hear you, Hank, I’m being distracted.”

  “Drover, this is the very problem I’m trying to help you with, but I can’t help you if you continue to be distracted.”

  “I know, but I can’t help it.”

  “In that case, I have no choice but to . . .” I swung my gaze around and in an upward direction and locked in on . . .

  HUH?

  Holy smokes, my heart raced, my head swimmed, swammed, swummed, swum, whatever the fool word is. My legs grew weak, my entire body began to tremble and shake and quiver and quake.

  My pulse shot up, my breaths came in short bursts, I felt hot and cold at the same time, and little pins and needles of excitement moved down my backbone and out to the end of my tail.

  I was losing control of my own destiny. My eyes crossed and I began speaking in tongues.

  Fellers, all of a sudden I forgot about giving Drover a lecture on distractions, because all of a sudden I had stumbled onto one of the biggest distractions in the entire world.

  I found myself looking up into the big brown eyes and the adoring gaze of MISS BEULAH THE COLLIE!

  She was standing at the rear of the pickup bed, looking down at me. Even though it was pretty dark and snowing hard, I could see the light of love shining in her eyes.

  “Hello, Hank. Hello, Drover.”

  At the mention of his name, Drover lost control of himself. He began rolling around on the ground and kicking his legs in the air.

  “Oh my gosh, it’s Beulah, I heard her voice with my own ears, and there she is in the back of the pickup!”

  These strange spasms that Drover has from time to time never fail to embarrass me. I mean, a guy should make every attempt to keep his feelings under control, especially if his feelings reveal emotions that are basically chilly and stylish.

  Silly and childish, I should say.