The Case of the Vampire Vacuum Sweeper Page 3

  I mean, we dogs are very sensitive animals. We can be screeched at and yelled at so many times, and then something terrible happens to our . . . whatever.

  He limped a few more steps. “I guess it’ll be all right. I wonder what that thing was that I stepped on.”

  My ears jumped. My gaze slid over in his direction. Stepped on? Had he stepped on something? I, uh, had no idea what it might have been. Probably some irregularity in the, uh, floorboarding. The floor was pretty old.

  He hopped and limped over to the scene of the accident and peered down into the jumble of papers and so forth. His brows jumped. Uh-oh. He reached down with his hand and came up holding the . . . uh . . . that is, holding some sort of white, irregular-shaped object, perhaps a bone. He turned it around in his fingers, then I felt his gaze moving across the room and . . . well, searching for me, perhaps, although . . .

  His eyes locked on me. I found it hard to meet his gaze, so to speak, and began studying the holes, nails, and paint splatters on the north wall.

  “Hank.” I jumped at the sound of his voice. “What is this?”

  I turned my eyes in his direction. I was feeling very uncomfortable about this. He was holding some­thing in his fingers, it appeared.

  “What is this?”

  I, uh, thumped my tail on the floor and squeezed up my most sincere smile.

  His eyes came at me like drill bits. I could feel them drilling holes in me. “Where’d this turkey bone come from?”

  Turkey bone? Oh yes, the, uh, thing in his fingers. Well, turkey bones came from . . . turkeys, so to speak, and maybe a lost turkey had wandered into the house and . . . couldn’t find its way out and just died.

  Yes, that was it. The turkey had died in the house and . . . its bones had gotten scattered to the four winds, as they say, and one of the neck bones had . . . well, suddenly turned up on the, uh, living room floor.

  But the important point was that it had been pretty muchly a natural occurrence and we dogs knew nothing about it, almost nothing at all. No kidding.

  I swept my tail across the threadbare carpet floor and concentrated extra hard on putting sincerity into my, uh, expression.

  “You bozo. You were chewing a turkey bone in my living room, weren’t you?”

  Well, I . . .

  “And I stepped on it and almost broke my leg.”

  Well, you see . . . oh boy. All at once I felt that the facts had overwhelmed my ability to explain them. I switched over to Slow Mournful Wags on the tail section and gave him my most sincere look of tragedy.

  Okay. Yes. The cat was out of the sandbag. I could no longer deny the awful truth. I stood before him, accused and convicted of terrible crimes, and now all that was left for me was to throw myself at his feet and hope for mercy.

  I lowered my head and assumed the pose of a beaten dog, a humbled dog; a dog who had fallen to the very depths of despair and heartbreak; who had hoped and wanted all his life to be a good dog, but who was now feeling the terrible stinging lash of conscience.

  I lowered myself to the very depths of the floor and crawled, yes, crawled, to his towering, angry presence. And licked his big toe.

  Sometimes that works, you know.

  He continued to glare down at me, but I noticed a few cracks in his icy expression. Maybe it was working. I rolled my eyes up to him and wiggled the very tip end of my tail. Yes, the ice was melting. The stone was showing a few cracks.

  He shook his head and compressed his lips. “Hank, you’re such a birdbrain. You’re just dumb. Do you know that?”

  Well, I . . . I wasn’t in a position to, uh, argue that.

  “You’re dumb and you’re pretty close to worthless, and I could have broke my neck, as well as my leg, on your dadgum turkey bone.” He sighed and glanced around the room. “But I didn’t, so I guess I’ll start cleaning up this . . . good honk, this place looks awful!”

  There it was. I was saved, oh happy day! I went to Joyous Bounds and Leaps, wrapped my front paws around his leg, and gave him a big hug.

  He reached down and scratched me behind the ears. “I get myself into the derndest messes, and I don’t know whether it’s because I’m too nice or too dumb. Probably dumb. I remember now how that turkey bone got in here. I bought that ten-pound package of turkey necks on sale and ate boiled necks for two weeks, and I was chewing on a bone one night and forgot to throw it in the trash. Sorry, Hankie. I got what I deserved. You’re cleared of all charges.”

  See? Didn’t I tell you? But the important thing was that we were friends again. Now all we had to do was get his house shaped up.

  At first he just wandered from room to room like a lost child, muttering and shaking his head. Like a good, loyal dog, I followed him every step of the way. If I couldn’t actually help him with the cleaning, at least I could be with him in his hour of greatest need and show him, through wags and solemn expressions, that I shared his pain and felt his sorrow.

  This Sharing of Pain has always been a very important part of a cowdog’s job. Even dogs who do poorly in other departments can keep their jobs by scoring well in the Sharing of Pain.

  “Where do I start, with a match and a can of gasoline? Why did I answer that phone!”

  He took a big gulp of air and plunged into the work. He attacked the newspapers first, scooping them up with both hands and stuffing them into grocery sacks. After he’d filled five sacks, we began to see that there was a floor and a carpet on the next level.

  Well, that was progress. The job didn’t seem as hopeless as it had before. Slim’s mood began to improve and the dark shadows that had covered his face went away. Before long, he was even whistling.

  At that point, we could see the entire floor of the living room, which was quite an accomplishment. The only problem was that the floor and the carpet needed to be swept. Even I could see that. I mean, we’re talking about sand, gravel, dirt, pieces of grass and hay, and even a few muddy tracks that might have been there for years.

  Slim got his broom and made a few swipes with it, but his heart wasn’t in it. Then his eyes brightened. “Say, I’ve got an old vacuum sweeper in the hall closet. Sally May gave it to me a year ago and I forgot all about it. Stand by for action, Hankie, I’m going for the sweeper.”

  He ran for the sweeper, dragged it out, and plugged it in. All at once, the house was filled with the sounds of its screaming motor.

  Slim yelled, “Kinda noisy, ain’t it?”

  Yes, it certainly was, and it hurt my ears so much that I found it necessary to turn my back on the awful thing. That was a mistake. I should have known better. Never turn your back on a cowboy who’s armed with a vacuum sweeper.

  You know what he did? I was shocked. I mean, there we were in the midst of an Emergency Clean­up, right? Miss Viola was due to arrive in twenty minutes and Slim didn’t want her to see what a filthy pit he lived in, right? In other words, even if we worked like demons and never looked up, we had our hands cut out for us, right?

  So what did Slim do? You won’t believe this.

  See, I was just sitting there, looking the other direction, minding my own business, trying to ignore the whining scream of the sweeper, when all of a sudden . . .

  YIKES!

  Some mysterious something got hold of my tail and began . . .

  It was a very strange sensation, and I mean very strange. It didn’t exactly hurt but it scared the bejeebers out of me. I mean, all at once I felt that my tail was being pulled by some kind of wind or magnetic force into a . . . I don’t know, into a black hole or a whirlpool.

  Well, you know me. When confronted with some­­thing strange and terrifying, I don’t just sit there. I bark. Yes sir, I barked and whirled and leaped into the air and . . .

  And looked straight into Slim’s grinning face. I mean, he was grinning like some kind of devil monster, a childish devil monster, and would
you care to guess what he was grinning about?

  I should have known he couldn’t stick with a job for more than thirty seconds, that his idle childish cowboy mind . . .

  Just skip it. I’m not going to tell you the rest of it.

  Chapter Five: Okay, Maybe It Was the Vacuum Sweeper

  We’ve discussed cowboys and their pranks, right? Give them a simple job of work and before you know it, they’re goofing off and thinking of jokes to pull on helpless bystanders—such as their loyal dogs.

  Okay, I was sitting there in the middle of the living room, minding my own business and the next thing I knew, Slim was coming after me with the vacuum sweeper. Can you believe a grown man would do such a thing? I couldn’t. But he sure did, and before I caught on to his foolish, childish, infantile foolishness, he had managed to suck most of my tail into the sweeper pipe.

  What did I do? I ran, of course. I snatched my tail out of the Bottomless Sweeper Pipe, tucked it between my legs (my tail, that is), and made a dash for the nearest corner, where I sat down on my tail—just to make sure he couldn’t get it again.

  Oh, and I also beamed him Looks of Wounded Pride and Complete Astonishment.

  Did that help? Did he take the hint that I didn’t enjoy this? Oh no! Here he came again, grinning like a . . . I don’t know what. Like a vampire, a crazed vampire who ate dog tails, and of course he had that screaming hissing sweeper pipe out in front of him, and in spite of all my hints and facial messages that this wasn’t funny, he went after my tail again.

  That did it. A dog can only take so much. I scrambled out of the corner, ducked under the coffee table, scrambled out the other side, and made a dash down the hall. Would you believe it? He followed me! I mean, he ran down that hall, limping on his bad foot and dragging the sweeper behind him and attacking my tail section with the hissing pipe!

  I was shocked. Astonished. Outraged. Who did this guy think he was and what kind of zoo was he running? Didn’t he realize that it’s very undignified for Heads of Ranch Security to flee from vacuum sweepers and take refuge under beds?

  And what about cleaning the house? Just moments before, he had been in a panic that Miss Viola would see that he lived in a junkyard and know the awful truth—that he was nothing but a dirty bachelor whose habits would shame a hog.

  It’s impossible to explain the behavior of abnormal people and cowboys, and I gave up trying. I scrambled under the bed and found myself looking into Drover’s moon-shaped eyes.

  “Hi, Hank. Did you hear a funny sound?”

  “I heard a sound, Drover, but it wasn’t funny. I don’t want to alarm you, but there’s a crazy man out there, and he’s armed with a tail-eating vacuum sweeper.”

  “Oh my gosh, I don’t have much tail left!”

  “Well, you’d better hang on to it, pal, because . . .”

  My words were buried under the scream and hiss of the Vampire Vacuum Sweeper, as the dreaded hissing pipe invaded our sanctuary and began searching for our tails. Drover screeched. So did I, and we both banged our heads against the bottom of the bed as we scrambled to save our tails from that awful hissing Thing.

  Do you know what saved us? Slim ran out of cord and jerked the plug out of the wall. Otherwise . . .there’s no telling what might have happened. We might have been sucked into some terrible black hole or we might have lost our tails or we might have . . . I don’t even want to think about it.

  But the important thing is that our courageous behavior and stern barking caused the plug to pop out of the socket, and our lives and tails were saved just in the nickering of time. The scream of the motor and the hiss of the pipe died away. An eerie silence moved over us.

  I glanced at Drover. “How you doing, pal?”

  “Terrible. I can’t feel my left front leg. I think it’s cut off.”

  “Holy smokes, do you see any blood?”

  “Well . . . I see dirt and lint and three dirty socks.”

  “I know, but blood, do you see any blood? If your leg had been torn off, you would notice some blood.”

  “How much?”

  “I’m not sure. A quart, a gallon?”

  “I don’t see that much.”

  “Okay, how about a pint?”

  “Nope.”

  “All right, how about a cup?”

  There was a moment of silence. Then “Oh my gosh, Hank, there’s a cup!”

  “This is worse than I thought, Drover. It appears that you’ve been maimed by the Vampire Vacuum Sweeper. Your life will never be the same again.”

  “Yeah, and it was never the same to start with.”

  “What?”

  “Every day’s always been different. Now it’ll be even worse.”

  “Hmmm, yes, of course. You’ll have to make many adjustments, Drover. Life without a leg is leg­less in many ways.”

  “Oh my gosh, I won’t be able to limp any more!”

  “That’s true. You know the old saying: A threelegged dog never limps.”

  “I’ve never heard that one.”

  “Actually, I just made it up, but it’s true. Think about it, Drover. How could a three-dogged leg limp? I think it’s impossible.”

  “Yeah, and any leg that had three dogs would sure get tired.”

  “Exactly. The sheer mathematics of it . . . hmmm, I seem to have lost my train of thought.”

  “Railroad tracks?”

  “What?”

  “You were talking about trains and trains always leave tracks.”

  I glared at the runt. “We were not talking about trains. I said I had lost my train of thought.”

  “You mean you lost track of what you were saying?”

  “Yes, that’s another way of putting it. I suppose.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “That is NOT what you said.”

  “I’ll be derned. What did I say?”

  “I don’t know what you said! I’ve lost my track of trainless thought and . . . shut up, Drover, and let me think.” It took me a minute to unscramble my brains. “Oh yes, we were discussing your former leg. You had just lost it to a vacuum sweeper.”

  “Oh yeah, good old leg. I’ll sure miss that limp. We’ve been together all these years.”

  “Like losing an old friend, I suppose.”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of sad. I even had a name for it. I called it George.”

  “You called your limp George?”

  “Yeah, I named it after Abraham Lincoln.”

  “He was a great American.”

  “Yeah. He was the best limp I ever had.”

  At that very moment my gaze fell upon a strange object beneath the bed. I narrowed my eyes and studied it. It appeared to be a cup, a coffee cup. Closer inspection revealed that it was a coffee cup with Ace Reid cartoons printed on the sides.

  “Drover, at some point in this conversation, we were talking about blood from your severed leg. I asked if you could see a cup, and what did you say?”

  “Let’s see here. I don’t remember.”

  “You said yes. Now, can you show me that cup of blood?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t a cup of blood. It was just a cup. See, there it is over there, and it’s an Ace Reid cup.”

  I gave him a withering glare. “Count your legs, Drover, and you’ll find that all four of them are still attached.”

  “One. Two. Three. Four. Oh my gosh, Hank, I’ve got my leg back, and my limp too! Thanks, Hank, I don’t know how you did it, but I sure am grateful.”

  I stared at the little mutt. He was so happy. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he might be insane. Oh well. I didn’t have time to think about it anyway, because at that very moment a face appeared between the floor and the bed.

  It was upside-down. The face, that is. It suddenly appeared out of thinned air and it was upside­-down an
d the sight of it sent a shock out to the end of my tail.

  My ears shot up. My eyes popped open. The hair on my back went to Automatic Lift-Up and a ferocious growl began to form in the dark deepness of my throat.

  Drover noticed all of this. “Is something wrong?”

  “Drover, I don’t want to alarm you, but a disembodied face has just appeared to our left. At this very moment, it’s looking under the bed.”

  “Oh my gosh, that’s where we are.”

  “That’s correct. I’m afraid we’re trapped.”

  “Oh my leg!”

  “Wait, hold it, halt. Cancel everything. It’s Slim. What a relief.”

  “Boy, what a relief.”

  “I just said that.”

  “Thanks, so did you.”

  “What?”

  I didn’t have time to make sense of Drover’s nonsense, because at that very moment he spoke. Slim spoke, that is. I don’t know what Drover did, nor did I care. That last five-minute conversation with him had almost destroyed my mind.

  Anyway, Slim was standing beside the bed and had bent himself into a U-shape, so that all we could see of him were his bare feet and his face. The rest of him was invisible. It was an odd sight, to say the least, and a lot of dogs would have been alarmed. Not me. I saw right away . . .

  Okay, I was alarmed for just a second or two, not for long. It’s hard to fool a true Head of Ranch Security.

  “Hi, puppies. What you doing under my bed?”

  I held my head at a proud angle and gave him Graveyard Glares. We were under the bed to escape an infantile maniac and his runaway vacuum sweeper. Thank you and good-bye.

  “Don’t you want to come out?”

  No. He’d had his chance to enjoy our company in a mature adult manner, but he had chosen to goof off and play silly, childish games. My dignity had suffered a terrible blow, and it would take days or weeks for me to get over it.

  And I had no intention of coming out—ever. He would just have to finish his life without a loyal dog.

  Too bad for him.