The Case of the Perfect Dog Page 2

  No sale. He ordered me out of the garden and headed back to the house with his empty bucket. (Here’s an important detail: he forgot to close the garden gate. That will come up later, so remember it).

  At that very moment, I heard a vehicle pulling into ranch headquarters, and, well, you know me. Even when my heart is aching for breakfast scraps and cookies that never appear, I’m still Head of the ranch’s Security Division, and I have to work Traffic.

  Who else would do it? Drover? Pete? That’s a laugh. Rain or shine, day or night, happy or sad, they can be counted on to do nothing. I have to rise to the occasion and monitor the comings and goings of all vehicles that enter my territory, and that’s what I did. I went to Turbo Four on all engines and met the UV (Unidentified Vehicle) as it was coming down that little hill in front of the house.

  Okay, false alarm. It was one of our ranch pickups, and it was pulling a sixteen-foot stock trailer. The driver was Slim Chance, the hired hand on this outfit. In other words, I didn’t need to check his papers or run his license plate number through Data Control. I waved him through Security and gave him an escort down to the corrals. (When they’re pulling a trailer, we know their destination: the corrals).

  Loper had just turned the horses out into the pasture and made his appearance as Slim was backing the trailer up to the loading chute. When Slim stepped out of the pickup, Loper said, “You couldn’t load the bull?”

  “Of course I loaded the bull. When you send a man to do a man’s job, he gets it done.”

  Loper pointed to the trailer. “Where’s the bull?”

  Slim looked toward the trailer and saw that it was empty. His eyes grew wide. “Loper, when I left the east pasture pens, that bull was in the trailer. What in the world?”

  They walked to the trailer and gave it an inspection. Loper pointed to the trailer gate. “There’s your answer. The sliding gate came open and you unloaded a bull somewhere on the county road.”

  Slim smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Good honk. I never use that sliding gate and I didn’t check to see if it was latched.”

  “I can tell you: it wasn’t latched. On that bumpy road, it worked itself open. How fast were you driving?”

  “Not fast, twenty or thirty miles an hour.”

  “Well, if he didn’t break a leg, he’ll be out on the road somewhere between here and the east pasture.”

  “We’d better saddle the horses.”

  Loper shook his head. “I just turned ‘em out, and we won’t need horses anyway. That bull’s as gentle as a pup. We’ll take three corral panels and make a wing, and load him afoot.”

  “I think we ought to take horses.”

  “It would take too long. I’ve got a meeting at church at four o’clock and there’s only so much time in my schedule to clean up your messes. The next time we need to move a bull, I’ll send Alfred to do it.”

  Slim shook his head and rolled his eyes up to the sky. “Loper, you are the most…”

  They were still arguing when they got into the pickup. Loper started the motor and pulled away from the corrals. I didn’t do Escort this time because…well, to be real honest, I didn’t want to call attention to the fact that they had left me behind.

  See, most of the time, a loyal cowdog wants to go along on every adventure and, you know, be right there in the middle of things, but when the adventure involves a bull…uh, that changes things. Bulls are huge and they don’t like dogs. We don’t like them either, so any time we can solve a bull problem without putting the Security Division at risk, we consider it a good deal all the way around.

  I had every confidence that they could handle the situation without my help. I mean, two grown men ought to be able to…huh? The pickup slid to a stop and…you know, I had a bad feeling about this, and just in case they had come up with some crazy idea, I tucked my tail and began creeping toward…

  “Hank, come here!”

  Chapter Three: I Volunteer For a Dangerous Mission

  I began creeping toward the hay shed. If you recall, the door of the shed was warped at the bottom and it was no problem for a dog to slip inside.

  “Hank!”

  I didn’t hear anything, did you? Good.

  Anyway, as I was saying, it had been weeks since I’d done an inspection of the hay shed and, well, this seemed a good time for me to check things out. You never know what you might find. If the roof has been leaking, the hay can start to mold, and…

  “Hank, come here!”

  …and who needs moldy hay? Horses won’t eat it, so it’s very, very important that we monitor the condition of our…huh? Holy smokes, inside the gloomy darkness of the shed, I came face to face with some kind of animal, a carbon-based life form that was staring at me with two eyes. Or was it three?

  It spoke. “Oh hi. What are you doing in here?”

  I almost fainted with relief when I recognized the voice. “Drover? I thought you were in the machine shed.”

  “Well, I was, but I saw a black widow spider, so I came here.”

  “Hank!”

  Drover perked one ear. “I think they’re calling you.”

  “They’re not calling me. You’re mistaken.”

  “Hank, come here!”

  I cut my eyes from side to side. “Okay, they’re calling me. The problem is, I don’t want to be called.”

  “Gosh, how come?”

  “That’s none of your business. Here’s the plan. I’m going to hide. If someone comes to the door, tell them I’m not here.”

  “Yeah, but you are here.”

  “Drover, sometimes in the line of duty…” Suddenly an idea popped into my head. “Wait. Why don’t you go with them?”

  “Where are they going?”

  “Well, that’s the good part. They’re going to town to buy ice cream cones.”

  His eyes lit up. “No fooling? Boy, I love ice cream.”

  “There you go. That will be your reward for being a good little doggie.”

  “I thought you were mad at me.”

  “Mad? Me? Ha ha. Where’d you ever get an idea like that?” I heard footsteps approaching. “Well, have a nice trip and enjoy that ice cream. And remember, I’m not here.”

  “Got it.”

  I slithered myself behind a bale of prairie hay and pressed my entire body against the floor. In the half-darkness, I became an invisible dog. Pretty clever, huh? You bet, I mean, things had turned out for the best. Drover would get a chance to go for a ride with the boys, and I would get a chance to, uh, catch up on some paperwork.

  In the silence, I heard the door hinges squeak, then Slim’s voice. “Hello, Stub Tail. Where’s Bozo?”

  Who? Oh yes, that was one of Slim’s names for me: Bozo. I’d never figured out what it meant, but it didn’t matter, as long as Drover kept his trap shut.

  “Where’s Hank? I know he’s in here. Oh-h-h, so he’s trying to hide, huh? Behind that bale of hay?” The next thing I knew, Slim was towering over me like a telephone pole with a sly grin on his face. “Hi, puppy. We might need your help on a little job.”

  I lifted my head and began tapping out a message with my tail. It said, “There’s no way you could have found me. I’m not here. Go away. I refuse to be bullied into…”

  I tried to escape, but he caught me by the tail and swept me up in his arms. In other words, I got shanghaied and pressed into service against my will.

  As we were leaving the shed, I glanced around for Drover, hoping to give him a blast of thunder and to call him just what he was: a traitor, a turncoat, a rat, a little squealer, and tattletale. But I didn’t get the chance. The little mutter-mumble had vanished like a puff of smoke in a hurricane.

  How does he do that?

  Slim carried me all the way to the pickup and pitched me into to the cab. That’s an important clue. It tells you that
they didn’t trust me to ride in the back, as though they thought I would jump out.

  That’s sad, isn’t it? What has the world come to when cowboys can’t trust their own dog?

  We drove up to the mailbox, turned right on the county road, and headed east. About a mile down the road, we saw the bull: alive, standing on all four legs, and grazing on the tall grass in the ditch. The only evidence of his tumble out of the trailer was a bald spot on his hind end.

  Loper stopped the pickup and studied the scene. “Looks like he did a cartwheel, but at least you didn’t kill him. I’ll try to remember that when I’m figuring your paycheck.”

  Slim smiled and shook his head. “I’ll swan, Loper, your wife must be a saint. I don’t know how she’s put up with you all these years. What is so hard about admitting that you forgot to latch the sliding gate? We’ve all done it at one time or another. It don’t mean that you’re a terrible person.”

  “Are you through?”

  “Well, not exactly. I had a couple of more things I wanted to say.”

  “Too bad. I’ll park the pickup against the fence and we’ll baling-wire the panels to the left side of the trailer. That’ll give us a funnel. We’ll walk him down the fence and into the trailer.”

  Slim nodded. “Sounds like a plan. What about the dog?”

  “We’ll leave him in the pickup ‘til we see how it goes. If my idea doesn’t work, we may have to use him for bait.”

  BAIT! What was that supposed to mean?

  Loper parked the pickup and trailer in the south ditch, right next to a five-wire barbed wire fence. They got out of the pickup. I tried to slip out behind Loper, but he slammed the door in my face. Okay, it appeared that they wanted me to stay in the cab.

  After they’d set up their wing of panels and opened the trailer gate, they started walking toward the bull. Loper said, “Try not to get him stirred up.”

  Slim stared at him. “Try not to get him stirred up? Golly gee, what a great idea! You know, my first thought was to chase him around and get him mad, so we could have a little fun.”

  “Slim, just hush.”

  They approached the bull in a slow, quiet manner, and got behind him. He was a Hereford bull with big horns. He probably weighed 2,000 pounds and had a neck on him like the trunk of a cottonwood tree. He raised his head and studied the men. He swished his tail and put his head down for another bite of grass.

  Loper nodded. “Looking good. Let’s ease him toward the trailer. Go on, bull, we’re going to give you a ride home.” They moved toward the bull. He turned and started ambling toward the trailer. Loper was looking more relaxed now. “See, when you handle cattle the right way, you don’t need horses.”

  “He ain’t loaded yet.”

  The bull walked straight to the open trailer, and the men followed, keeping pressure on him. The bull sniffed the trailer.

  “Go on, bully, step up, and we’ll be on our way.”

  The bull lifted his left front foot and set it down on the trailer floor. It made a hollow sound. The bull removed his foot and turned around, facing the men. He swished his tail and flicked his ears.

  Slim said, “He didn’t go in. Now what?”

  “He’s all right. We’ll give him a minute to think about it.”

  The bull thought about it, and at the end of his minute, he snorted, lowered his head, and started pawing up dirt. Loper took a step toward him and waved his hands. “Go on, bull, step up in the…”

  I don’t think Loper expected the bull to come after him like something that had been shot out of a cannon, but that’s what he did, and we’re talking about two thousand pounds of meat that was moving on. Loper turned tail and ran towards the pickup, but the bull cut him off, so he headed for the nearest tree, grabbed a limb, and swung out of danger, just as the bull arrived and started butting the trunk.

  Slim was standing behind the panel wing and started laughing. The bull heard him, whirled around, and charged. Slim’s eyes popped wide open and he made a dash for the pickup, and hopped into the back end just in time. Crunch. The bull bashed the side of the pickup, bellered, shook his head, and glared up at Slim with a pair of flaming eyes.

  While this was going on, Loper decided he would climb down out of the tree and…I don’t know what he had in mind, but the bull heard him, swapped ends, and made another run at the tree. Loper scrambled back to the limb where he’d been before.

  Slim yelled, “Well, I’m sure glad we didn’t bring horses.”

  And Loper yelled back, “Dry up! What did you expect? After you unloaded him at thirty-five miles an hour, he’s in a bad mood.”

  “I think you could say that, yes, but I was only going twenty.” For several long minutes, nobody said a word. Birds chirped and a locust hummed in the distance. Slim broke the silence. “Loper, I hate to ask this, but do you have a Plan B?”

  “Turn out the dog. He can’t mess things up any worse than they already are.”

  HUH? Turn out the dog? Hey, unless I was badly mistaken, they were talking about ME! And you know what? That struck me as a real bad idea.

  Chapter Four: This Gets Pretty Scary

  Slim crept out of the pickup bed and eased toward the door on the passenger side. The bull heard him, and here he came!

  I needed to hide, but where do you hide in the cab of a pickup? I dashed back and forth across the seat and tried to dive out the half-opened window. Gulk. No luck there, so I hit the floor-board on the driver’s side and pressed myself against the door.

  Maybe Slim wouldn’t notice me.

  He came flying into the cab and slammed the door behind him, just as the bull arrived, snorting and roaring. Oh, and he started butting the right front tire, which caused the whole pickup to rock back and forth.

  Slim mopped the sweat off his forehead and swung his gaze down to me. “Hankie, have you ever dreamed of being a hero?”

  No.

  “I’m sure you have, so you’ll be thrilled to hear this. We need a volunteer.”

  Forget that.

  “The boss is up a tree and I’m trapped in here, and we’re about ready to launch Plan B. We think you might be able to help.”

  Ha.

  “Here’s the deal. I’m going to chunk you out the window…”

  No way, buddy!

  “…and we’ll see what you can do. We’d be real proud if you could lure the bull into the trailer. Get that done and I’ll promise you Double Dog Food.”

  Oh brother!

  “Or just keep the bull busy, so we can get the boss-man out of the tree. You ready?”

  Absolutely not! No!

  He wasn’t kidding. He grabbed me by a hind leg and pulled me out of my hiding place, rolled down the window, and pitched me outside. “Go get ‘im, Hankie! This one is for the ranch.”

  Yeah, right.

  The bull was standing about ten feet away from where I landed. He’d been whamming his head against the tire, and when he heard me hit the ground, he turned in my direction.

  Those eyes! They sent electrical shivers up and down my spine. I mean, you talk about UGLY! Those were the ugliest, meanest eyes I’d ever seen. I swallowed hard and tried to control the shaking of my legs.

  “Hi, Mr. Bull. You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here, so let me explain. My employers have asked me to talk to you about…well, about your attitude. Everybody understands that you took a nasty spill this afternoon, but…why are you shaking your horns? Everybody understands…why are you looking at me in that tone of voice? Anyway, we were hoping that…”

  Talking to a bull is a tee-total waste of time. You might as well try to reason with a tree. No, bulls are worse than trees, because they hate dogs and will sometimes try to destroy them. That’s what this one had in mind when he lowered his head and came after me. I mean, we’re talking about a freight train, a serious freight t
rain.

  At that point, I did what any normal, healthy American dog would have done. I delivered one stern bark and ran like a striped ape. I don’t know how many times we ran back and forth in front of the pickup and trailer. I lost count on three.

  Whilst the big galoot was trying to skin me alive, Loper saw his opportunity to climb down out of the tree. Once on the ground, he yelled, “Lead him into the trailer, Hank! The trailer!”

  The trailer? Was he joking? Hey, I was just trying to stay alive. But Loper’s yelling had one good effect: it alerted the bull that he had another target on the ground, so he went after Loper again. You never saw a cowboy shinny up a tree so fast. I mean, it was pretty funny.

  At that point, Slim had worked up enough courage to venture out of the pickup. He found an empty feed sack and started shaking it and making his cattle call: “Woooo, bull, wooo! Come on, bully, come to feed.” Sometimes that works, you know. When you can’t drive an animal, sometimes you can coax him to come to a feed sack.

  The bull came, all right, but not the way Slim had hoped. He came at about twenty-five miles an hour—head down, horns out, brush snapping, and clumps of dirt and grass flying off his hooves. Slim gave him the sack and went flying into the bed of the pickup. I, uh, seized the opportunity to squirt under the trailer.

  So there we were: Loper up a tree, Slim in the back of the pickup, and me under the trailer, with the bull storming from one location to another, threatening to stomp the everlasting snot out of the first one that showed himself.

  Slim found a shovel in the back of the pickup and whammed the bull between the horns several times. Loper pulled a dead limb off the tree and gave him a few whacks. Me? I barked, of course, and we’re talking about deep manly barks.

  How much good did it do? Zero. This went on for ten minutes, and with each passing minute, we became more and more aware of the fact that...well, we looked pretty ridiculous. Slim was really disgusted.