Slim's Goodbye Read online

  Well, as he was circling Sally May’s ankles, he was also tossing winks and grins in my direction. Oh yes, I saw the whole shabby deal, and I knew exactly what the little sneak was up to. He wanted to get me stirred up, see, right there in front of Sally May.

  Ha! Little did he know that I had already plotted out my response. I had a plan for Pete. I was ready for him this time.

  See, a lot of dogs—and we’re talking here about your lower grades of ranch dogs, the kind that never rise through the ranks to become Heads of Ranch Security—a lot of your ordinary ranch mutts would have fallen for Pete’s sneakiness like a hill of beans.

  The thing you have to remember about cats, and Pete in particular, is that they’re not very smart, but they’re not very smart in a cunning sort of way. There’s a certain cleverness about them, and a guy needs to approach them with caution. You have to guard yourself against overconfidence, is the main thing.

  Just because they’re dumb doesn’t mean they can’t get you into trouble.

  Well, I had gone to school on cats. I had spent hours and days and years studying their tactics, analyzing their schemes and tricks, and preparing defenses against them. You’ve heard of chess? Well, we dogs are chess players. It requires patience and huge reserves of brain power, and when we go one-on-one against a cat in the Chess Game of Life, the poor cat doesn’t have a chance.

  Heh heh. I was ready for the little sneak. Yes sir, I could read his thoughts like a book.

  On the third or fourth trip around Sally May’s ankles, he turned his grinning face in my direction and said, “Hi, Hankie. Are you waiting for someone?”

  I must admit that his whiny voice caught me slightly off guard. My ears leaped to Attack Posi­tion and a growl began to rumble in my throat. But don’t worry. I caught it just in the nickering of time and got everything shut down before any serious damage was done. I don’t think Sally May heard or saw any of it, is how quickly I responded to the crisis.

  Hencely, instead of growling and so forth, I gave him a pleasant smile. “Why Pete, how nice to see you this morning. And yes, we’re waiting for you to come and share the scraps.”

  “What a sweet doggie! I never knew you believed in sharing.”

  “Oh yes, Pete. I enjoy sharing. I love sharing. Sharing is what this old life is all about.”

  “But I know how you hate to . . . wait.” He grinned and wiggled his stupid . . . wiggled his eye­brows, I should say, which didn’t bother me at all. “Waiting has always been hard for you, hasn’t it Hankie?”

  “Oh no, not really. I have my thoughts to keep me occupied.”

  “That fills the first two seconds. Then what?”

  I gave him a wise chuckle. “Pete, you’re losing your touch. I know what you’re trying to do, and it just won’t work. Sorry.”

  At that moment, Sally May interrupted us. “All right, Alfred, now you can give out the scraps, and start with Pete.”

  I beamed her a dark glare. What was the deal? Who’d gotten there first, who’d been waiting patiently for . . . but I didn’t care who got first scraps. I could be a gentleman about it—and hope that Pete choked on his scraps.

  Alfred tweezed a juicy end of bacon between his thumb and . . . why had he picked the biggest, fattiest piece? That didn’t seem right or fair. Who’d been . . . but I didn’t care.

  (See, not caring was an important part of my plan. Maybe you’d already picked that up.)

  Anyway, Alfred held the bacon in front of Pete’s nose. He sniffed at it, stared at it with those big yellowish eyes of his, and finally raised a paw and snagged it with his claws. He laid it on the ground, sniffed it some more, licked it, and then looked up at Alfred.

  And then he said—you won’t believe this—he said, “Is this the best piece, or do you have a better one?”

  My eyes almost bugged out of my head when I heard that. There I was, dying of bacon hunger, roasting on the fires of starvation, waiting in line for him to . . . I caught myself just in time and noticed that Kitty was watching me.

  I beamed up a smile. “Take your time, Pete. Shop around. We want you to have the very best. And if that piece doesn’t suit you, here, let me . . .”

  “Hank!”

  Oops. That was Sally May and, okay, maybe I’d jumped the gun just a tad. Timing is very important in these deals, and just to prove that I was being sincere, I gave Sally May a look that said, “Just trying to help. No kidding.”

  It worked. I know it worked because she said, “That’s better. Nice dog.”

  Heh heh. Little did she know what evil thoughts lurked . . . but then, she wasn’t supposed to know. I had her fooled, that was the important thing.

  I sat down again and watched Kitty-Kitty play with his bacon. Can you believe that? He had this gorgeous, great-smelling piece of bacon fat right there in front of his stupid . . . right in front of his nose, and he played with it! He patted it. He speared it on his claws, held it up, stared at it, sniffed it, licked it, pitched it up, pushed it around, and oh yes, every so often he would cut his eyes in my direction to check my reaction.

  Luckily, he couldn’t see my reaction. It was all happening inside, and there was quite a lot of it. My eyes were bulging, my heart was racing, my breaths were coming in rapid bursts, my mouth was watering, and above it all, I kept hearing this voice that said, “Open outer doors, flood tubes one and three, and plot a solution.”

  Do you know what that means? It means that one part of my inner bean was urging me to attack, pounce on the little sneak, and give him the thrashing he so richly deserved. But I caught myself just in time and kept it all inside.

  Or I tried. This was about to drive me nuts. I turned pleading eyes toward my pal, eyes that said, “Alfred, this is cruel and unfair. Do something.”

  You know what? He did. He checked out his mom, saw that she was looking away, and in a flash he snatched the bacon away from Mister Hateful, flipped it into the air, and . . . heh heh . . . I took care of the rest.

  Old Pete was so shocked, he didn’t know what to say. But then he started getting mad.

  “You stole my bacon, Hankie.”

  That was right. And what did he plan to do about it?

  Chapter Three: Dark Clouds Gather

  You’re probably thinking that I allowed myself to get drawn into a fight with Pete, and that I got into big trouble with Sally May.

  Nope. Iron Discipline prevailed, kept me safe and out of trouble. Pretty impressive, huh?

  Okay, maybe I did feel myself being pulled into a major confrontation with Mister Greedy Scrap Stealer, and maybe it did appear that I might lose control of the situation. I mean, what dog could just sit there and watch Pete hog all the scraps?

  There we were, the cat and I, standing nose-to-nose. He arched his back and began to yowl, and you know what that yowling does to me. It brings all my savage instincts rushing to the surface. I lifted my lips and exposed two rows of deadly, enormous teeth, and a growl began to rumble in the depths of my throat.

  Yes, it appeared that we were rushing toward a major episode, and suddenly I was helpless to pull myself back from the brink of the edge. I glared into the face of the yowling cat and began plotting all the targeting data that would . . .

  You know what saved me? Slim. Just then, he drove up in his pickup, honked his horn, and yelled, “Come on, dogs, let’s go feed those cattle!” He must have noticed that I was . . . well, all bristled up and ready to launch a strike against the cat. He yelled, “Hank, leave the cat alone and come on. We’re burn­ing daylight.”

  I took a step backward and began the Dis­en­gage­ment Procedure. I switched over to Friendly Tail, lowered the strip of hair down the middle of my back, and closed the outer doors of my Tooth Torpedoes.

  “Excuse me, Kitty, but I’ve just been called out on an important mission. Your daily thrashing will have to wait. I have more import
ant things to do.”

  He gave me a sour smile. “Well, just darn the luck. I had you going there for a minute.”

  “Ha! You had nothing, Kitty. Everything was going according to my plan.”

  “Now I’ll have to eat the rest of the scraps myself. Darn.”

  Slim honked his horn again. I began backing away. “Yes, and I hope you choke on them. I wish you nothing but fleas and bedsores and ringworms, Pete. We’ll settle this score another time.”

  And with that, I whirled around and marched away, leaving the cat standing in the rubble of his own shambles. Also playing with MY bacon scraps, the little pest, but . . . oh well.

  The important thing is that Slim needed help feeding the east side of the ranch, and you’ll notice that he invited me, not the cat, to help him. And I did. I made a huge contribution to the feeding process, and by noon we had fed four pastures.

  We returned to ranch headquarters around twelve. I had seen no sign or symptom that Slim was brooding about anything. He seemed his usual carefree self. But when we pulled around to the back of the house and walked up to the gate, Loper was standing there. There was a furrow in his brow. His eyes were tight and pinched, and he was staring off into the distance.

  Slim walked over toward Loper and immediately leaned against the gatepost. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Plenty. I’ve got to go into town and renew my loan at the bank.”

  “Uh-oh. I heard on the radio that the cattle mar­ket fell out of bed again.”

  “No, it didn’t fall out of bed. It fell off the roof and landed in the commode. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. We’re out of grass and I’ve got to buy some hay.”

  Slim scratched his ear. “That puts bankers in a bad humor.”

  Loper nodded. “He wants to look at our numbers, numbers on everything: cows, calves, yearlings; the cost of feed, labor, fuel, pickups; every stinking detail. Sally May’s been working on it all morning.”

  “Well, I thought we were doing pretty well. I mean, we ain’t exactly been goofing off out here. At the end of the day, I feel like I’ve worked pretty hard.”

  Loper shook his head. “That’s not it. We work hard enough, all of us. Heck, if hard work was the answer, we’d be loaning money to the banker. But when you don’t have any control over the price of your product . . . and when you have to operate on borrowed money . . .”

  His voice trailed off into silence.

  Slim shifted his weight to the other leg. “Are we in trouble?”

  “I don’t know. We might be. It all depends on how that banker’s feeling at three o’clock this after­noon. A guy never knows.”

  “Well, I sure don’t want to be a burden to y’all. If my paycheck’s a problem . . .”

  Loper shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll take things one day at a time. That’s all we can do. How about some lunch?”

  “Oh, all at once I ain’t feeling so hungry. I might just drift down to my place and grab a little nap.”

  Loper studied him for a moment. “Now Slim, you’re not going to brood about this, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good. It won’t help one bit.”

  “I ain’t going to brood about it. I promise.” And then he did something odd. He shook hands with Loper and smiled. “I’ll see you around, pardner. Good luck at the bank.”

  And with that, they parted company. At the time, I had no idea . . .

  Well, Slim headed for his pickup in that slow walk of his, and naturally I went with him. I mean, he’d mentioned something about a nap, right? And Slim had been known to let dogs into his house, right? Hey, I’d spent the morning working and slaving on the ranch, and the thought of grabbing a few Zs beside the wood-burning stove sounded pretty good to me.

  Well, guess who joined us near the gas tanks. Mister Sleep Till Noon. Mister Never Sweat. Drover. He heard us coming and came bouncing over to join us.

  “Hi, Hank. Gosh, you’re up early this morning.”

  I gave him a withering glare. “Morning? Ha. Some of us have already put in a day’s work.”

  “Yeah, I hated to miss it, but after I touched base the second time, this old leg was tearing me up. I figured I needed to give it a little rest.”

  “I see. Well, how’s your ‘old leg’ now? I noticed that you were bouncing around like a little kangaroo.”

  “Yeah, sleep does wonders. It’s almost as good as new.”

  “Great. Glad to hear it. Oh, and I hope you don’t feel guilty about leaving me with the total responsibility of running the ranch.”

  “Well, it bothers me sometimes, but I know you can handle it. Where we going?”

  “I don’t know where you’re going. I’m going down to Slim’s place.”

  “Oh good, I think I’ll tag along. I’m all rested now.”

  “We’re going to take a nap, Slim and I.”

  “Oh good, me too. I’m just about worn out.”

  I shot him a sideways glare and . . . oh well. There’s no future in trying to talk sense to a dunce.

  We loaded up in the cab of the pickup. Slim got in behind us and we headed down the creek to his shack. When we reached the county road, Slim started talking to us.

  “You know, boys, for the longest time I’ve had it in my head to go to Alpine, down in the Davis Mountains, but I never quite made it. Pickup went bust and we got busy with the cattle work . . . one thing and another. I always aimed to get there in the springtime when the snow melted off, but I just never got around to it.”

  I had a hard time figuring out what he was talking about, but that wasn’t exactly the biggest shock of the year. I mean, Slim was the kind of guy who thought out loud, and sometimes what he said . . . well, I hate to put it this way, but sometimes what he said didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

  Part of my job as Head of Ranch Security is learning how to respond to the humans around here—when to pay attention and when to . . . well, not pay such close attention. What I’ve learned over the years is that when they’re not yelling, most of what they’re saying can be ignored. Slim wasn’t yelling, so I gave no more thought to his rambling about . . . where was it this time? Alpine?

  See, I’d heard him ramble about Alpine before, how he’d always dreamed of riding his horse through the mountains and working on a ranch so big they’d have to bring sunlight in on pack horses. Then he’d laugh at himself and say, “Now, ain’t that just like a cowboy? Always dreaming about a place that’s bigger and wilder?”

  And as far as I knew, he’d never been to Alpine. He’d just talked about it. And I was pretty sure, knowing Slim as I did, that he would never get around to doing it. Too much trouble.

  When we reached Slim’s shack, we dogs raced to the front door. We always had this little scuffle, don’t you know, to see which one of us would get into the house first. It had to do with which one of us would get the choicest spot in front of the stove and the softest piece of carpet. In other words, this was not small bananas . . . potatoes . . . whatever. It was no small matter, and in fact, it was pretty derned important.

  But Slim was taking his sweet time. He didn’t go straight to the door, but stopped and looked at the shack. “It’s been a pretty good place.”

  Fine, but it was cold outside. Could we hurry this along? Finally he opened the door, and you’ll be proud to know that I beat Drover to the stove and nailed down the very best spot. I circled the spot three times, just as we dogs are supposed to do, and flopped down. It was wonderful.

  I wasted no time pushing my rowboat of sleep out into the vast sea of . . . something. Dreams, I suppose. I launched myself into the warm embrace of sleep and dreams, and the next thing I knew . . .

  Hmmm, that was odd. Something landed on my left ear. I jerked myself out of the warm embrace of so-forth, lifted my head, and cut my eyes from side to . . .
What? Another something landed on the top of my head.

  What was going on here? I ran a quick Data Check on the various parts of my enormous body. My ears were at the Full Alert position. I had a sneaking suspicion that we had a flea running loose, and if that was the case, I had every intention of . . .

  What? A third something smacked me, this time right between my eyes. It was wet. Was the roof leaking? Okay, that did it. I was wide awake now and ready to do some serious . . .

  I looked up. Huh?

  You’ll never guess what had caused those mysterious drips.

  Chapter Four: On the Road Again

  Slim was standing over me. He was holding a cup in his right hand.

  You won’t believe this. I could hardly believe it myself, and I’d had years of experience with Slim’s warped, weird sense of . . .

  He was dripping water on my head! Can you believe that? I couldn’t. I mean, what kind of person dribbles water on the head of a sleeping dog? What kind of twisted mind . . .

  Fine, I could take a hint. If he was so bored that he couldn’t think of anything better to do with his time . . . I moved my freight to another part of the house, is what I did, and then went straight into a Glaring Pattern that we call “I Can’t Believe You Just Did That.”

  He gave me a scowl. “Sleepytime’s over, pooch. It’s time to hit the road.”

  Fine, but did he have to . . . drip on me? I mean, there are ways of waking up a dog without tormenting him. And why didn’t he drip on Drover? Oh well.

  He opened the door and hooked his thumb toward the outside, and we dogs made our exit. Slim lingered a moment and ran his gaze over the living room, then came out, closed the door, and walked to his pickup. Drover and I were already there, waiting beside the door and ready to launch ourselves up onto the seat of his . . .

  It seemed odd that Slim had decided to use his personal pickup instead of the one we always used on the ranch. I couldn’t remember him ever using it except when he went to town on personal business. Was that his plan? Maybe so, and that was fine with me, as long as he took me with him. I had already for­given him for the dribbling incident and I was ready for a little excitement.