The Case of the Double Bumblebee Sting Read online

  Staggering? As I made my way down to the yard gate, I found myself staggering. Walking sideways. That’s one of the main symptoms of a bumblebee sting, makes a guy walk crooked, and that sure checked out. I was walking crooked.

  And foaming at the mouth? Yes, it’s common knowledge that bumblebee stings will cause a dog to, well, foam at the mouth. And that checked out too.

  What we had here was a classic case of Severe Double Bubble . . . Severe Double Bumblebee Sting on the nose, and were you aware that bumblebees often build their nests in old abandoned pipes? Yes, it happens all the time. Very common.

  Sally May had knelt down and was pulling some dandelions out of her yard. Pete lay in the grass beside her, purring like a little chainsaw, twitching the end of his tail, and getting fatter and lazier by the minute.

  He heard me coming and opened his eyes. The longer he looked, the wider they grew. Then a smirk leaped across his mouth. Then he started laughing.

  “Why, Hankie! Have you been chewing on the air hose? I think your face has been inflated. And oooo! Two little puncture wounds on the end of your nose! I told you there was a rattlesnake up there, didn’t I?”

  “Thut up, kett. It wath two bimblebeeth, and I haff nothing to thay to you. My bithnith ith wiff Thally May.”

  Pete shook his head and sighed. “Well, now you’ve done it, Hankie. Next time, maybe you’ll listen to what I tell you. I tried to warn you, but you’re too stubborn to listen.”

  I tried to think of a stinging reply, but all I could think about was the stinging in my nose. It was hurting and throbbing, don’t you see, and all I could manage to say was, “Thut up, kett.”

  I waited for Sally May to notice my condition, which seemed to be growing more serious by the moment. I mean, the thought had even occurred to me that we might need to make a little trip to town to see the veterinarian.

  Double Bumblebee Syndrome can be very serious. Some dogs actually die from it.

  I was no fan of the local vet or any other vet for that matter, and I sure wasn’t the kind of dog who wanted to rush into town over the slightest little wound or sniffle, but hey, this thing was beginning to . . .

  Drooling? Hmmm, it appeared that I was drooling from the, uh, mouth. Couldn’t stop it. It was a little embarrassing, and of course, Drover noticed it right away.

  “Oh my gosh, Hank, are you drooling?”

  I glared at him through my rapidly shrinking eyeholes. “Of coss I’m dwoowing, you dunth! What do you espet fwom a seveeoo case of Dibble Bimble­bee Sting?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I just thought you’d want to know.”

  “I did not went to know, and I’ll think you not to make a mockawee out of my injuwee!”

  At that very moment, I heard footsteps coming up behind me. I turned and saw Slim and Loper approaching from the south. No doubt, they had finished loading their horses and gear, and were ready to leave the ranch.

  My serious medical condition would change all that, of course. I hated to ruin their plans. I knew how much they had been looking forward to this big week of roundups and branding, but what could I do?

  I gave my tail a sorrowful wag and held my rapidly expanding face at an angle where they could . . .

  Chapter Five: Sally May Rushes to My Rescue

  Huh?

  They didn’t even notice! I mean, they walked right past me, and Slim even stepped on my tail!

  “Get out of the road, pooch.”

  I couldn’t believe my . . . how could he . . . I dragged my swollen, suffering body a full eight inches to the north and thus escaped being trampled by my so-called friend.

  Loper leaned an elbow on the gate and spoke to his wife. “Well, I guess we’re ready to leave, hon. I know everything will be fine, but if you have any problems, you can catch us at headquarters around dark. I left the phone number.”

  “Well,” she stood up, “I hope you boys have a good time, and I hope you’ll be careful with those horses. I worry about you.”

  Loper removed his hat and pulled her into a hug. “Bye, sweet. Tell the kids their daddy loves ’em a whole bunch.”

  “I will, and they’ll miss . . .” She froze. Suddenly it appeared that her eyes had locked in on ME, in my miserable, wretched condition.

  Shall we describe my miserable, wretched condition? My nose was throbbing, my entire face and head had swollen up like an inner tube, and it was hanging very low upon my neck. I was staring out at the world with wooden eyes that had almost swelled shut. And I was drooling.

  I couldn’t control the stupid drooling.

  At last, someone had noticed, and it was about time.

  Sally May let out a gasp. “My stars, look at your dog!”

  All eyes turned to me. I whapped my tail and tried to smile, which wasn’t very successful since my face had turned into a balloon. Instead of smiling I drooled a bit more.

  Sally May was the first to find her voice. “What on earth has happened to that dog? He looks . . . deformed. And he’s drooling!”

  Slim and Loper traded glances. Loper rolled his eyes, shook his head, and turned away. “Geemanee crickets! Of all the times to . . . Hank, you dumbbell!”

  Dumbbell! Me? Well, I . . . how . . . what . . .

  Slim shifted a toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “I’d say that Hank found himself a rattle­snake, is what I’d guess. Every ranch mutt finds one sooner or later.”

  No, it was a bumblebee. Two bumblebees, actually.

  Sally May’s eyes went from Slim to Loper to me and back to Slim. “Is it serious? What do people do when their dog gets snakebitten?”

  Slim shrugged. “Well, it depends. It makes ’em pretty sick. Usually an old ranch dog’ll get over it on his own. He’ll lay around in the shade for several days, foam at the mouth, and won’t eat, and he’ll get as gant as a coachwhip, but then he’ll get over it.”

  “You don’t take them to the vet?”

  “Well, some do and some don’t, Sally May. See, a lot of times, you don’t even know the old dog’s been bit. He’ll go off by himself and lay under a tree somewheres and he won’t come back to the house until he’s over it, is what usually happens.”

  Sally May’s eyes returned to me. “But that’s not what Hank did. He came to me.”

  “Yep. I guess he likes you, Sally May.”

  “How could I be so lucky?” She stood there for a moment, shaking her head and moving her lips. “So! You boys are going off to a three-day roundup and your dog picks this very moment to get himself bitten by a rattlesnake.” She turned to Loper. “And what am I supposed to do now? Loper, this is YOUR dog.”

  Loper had been deep in thought. Now he spoke. “Hon, I hope you understand that I didn’t plan it this way.”

  “I understand that, dearest.”

  “We can’t cancel this deal. Jimmy’s planned his whole roundup around us. We’ve got to go, and pretty quick.”

  Her eyes widened. “And leave me here with this . . . this drooling dog?”

  Boy, that hurt. I couldn’t help it that I was drooling.

  Loper nodded. “I’m afraid so. I hate to do it, but when a man gives his word, he has to stand behind it. If we cancelled out over a sick dog . . . we just can’t do that, hon.”

  “Fine. I understand that. I agree. But what am supposed to do with your dog? I don’t even like him!”

  That one hurt too.

  Loper thought it over. “Well, you could just leave him alone and let nature take its course. Just make sure he has plenty of fresh water. Chances are, he’ll get over it.”

  Sally May heaved a sigh. “Yes, and for the next three days, I’ll have to look at the poor beast. And if he died, guess who would feel all the guilt and responsibility.”

  Loper nodded. “Okay. Maybe you’d better load him up and take him to the vet.”

  �
�Load THAT dog into MY clean car, and haul him to town with MY two children?”

  “You can take Slim’s pickup. It already stinks.”

  Slim nodded on that. “You bet, that’ll be fine, Sally May. You won’t hurt that old thang. It’s just right for haulin’ dogs.”

  “And my children?”

  “Oh sure. They won’t hurt it.”

  “Slim, I’m not worried about IT. I’m worried about THEM!”

  “Oh.”

  “The last time I saw the inside of your pickup, I wanted to go get a smallpox booster.”

  “Naw, I’ve cleaned it up since then, Sally May. It ain’t bad, really.”

  “I’ll bet. I’ve seen your cleaning jobs before, Slim Chance. You shovel out the dead rats and call that clean.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  She whirled around and faced Loper. She was wearing a crazy smile on her face. “Well! After ten years of marriage, I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”

  “I know, hon, and I feel bad about it.”

  “This,” she shook a finger in his face, “will cost you. I want the floor fixed in the utility room.” Loper nodded. “I want the screen door patched.” He nodded. “I want a new faucet for the kitchen sink.”

  “I’m putty in your hands, hon.”

  “I want two wheelbarrow-loads of manure spread on my flowerbeds.”

  Loper swallowed hard. “That’s a pretty expensive dog.”

  “And you’ll tend to those jobs the very day you get back, right?”

  “I guess you’ve got us pretty well roped and tied.”

  “All right, I’ll take your dog to town.”

  He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You’re sweet, and you win the Pioneer Mother Award.”

  “I’ll win the Angry Ranch Wife Award if you don’t keep your end of the deal.”

  “It will be done—not joyfully, but it will be done.” Loper turned a glare on me. “Well, I guess we’ve set a market price for you, Hank. You’re worth two loads of manure.”

  Yes, well, two loads were better than . . . uh, one.

  Loper and Slim said their good-byes, tramped down to the pickup, and drove off, pulling the gooseneck trailer with two saddled horses in the back. Sally May watched them and waved until they drove out of sight. Then she looked down at me.

  I, uh, felt very uncomfortable all at once, and found myself looking away from . . . she had a fairly icy expression in her eyes, don’t you see, and . . . well, she and I had this long history of misunderstandings, and now here we were, to­gether and alone, our destinies more or less . . .

  “Why couldn’t you have done this yesterday or last week or any day but today?”

  I, uh, didn’t have an answer to that, and my nose was throbbing, and I felt rotten.

  She looked down at me for a long time. Her eyes began to soften. She came over and knelt down beside me and took my inflated face in her hands. She stroked me on top of the head and rubbed my ears.

  “Poor Hank. How can I be mad at you when you look so pitiful? Let me get the children dressed and we’ll go to town—in Slim’s garbage-can pickup. You stay right here.”

  Yes, ma’am. I sure didn’t have any better plans.

  She went into the house. Moments later, I heard bulldozers and dynamite, an indication that Little Alfred was awake. Somehow, the thought of riding all the way into town with his noise and motion didn’t make me feel better, so I tried to think of a song that would express the misery of my condition. Here’s how it went.

  I Was Bitten on the Nose by a Rattlesnake

  I was searching for a bunny in a joint of rusted pipe.

  I stuck my nose inside it and prepared to take a bite.

  I loosened up my jaws, unleashed a deadly growl . . .

  But something stung me on the nose and caused me to howl.

  At first I thought the cottontail had done this awful thing,

  But bunnies do not have the means to cause a painful sting.

  So common sense prevailed and soon I came to see

  It couldn’t be a bunny but perhaps a bumblebee? No.

  I was bitten on the nose by a rattlesnake,

  A rattlesnake, a rattlesnake.

  I was bitten on the nose by a rattlesnake.

  And now I’m swollen up like a poisoned pup.

  Now, why would a rattlesnake take refuge in a pipe?

  I’ve known these guys forever and they’re really not the type

  To be lurking in a junkyard in the middle of the day,

  But this one hadn’t read the book on where he’s supposed to stay!

  I guess I woke him up in the middle of his nap.

  He didn’t even rattle but gave my nose a snap.

  There’s a moral to this song, in case you’d like to use it!

  Don’t stick your nose into a pipe unless you want to lose it!

  I was bitten on the nose by a rattlesnake,

  A rattlesnake, a rattlesnake.

  I was bitten on the nose by a rattlesnake.

  And now I’m swollen up like a poisoned pup.

  Chapter Six: Okay, Maybe It Was a Rattlesnake

  So there you are. The song had allowed me to work through the trauma of my situation and to admit what was becoming more and more obvious:

  The thing that had attacked my nose was neither a rabbit nor a bumblebee, but rather, a RATTL­E­SNAKE!

  Does that shock you? I’m sorry. Facts are facts, and until something better comes along, we must face the facts and deal with them as though they actually mean something.

  To do otherwise would be to dwell forever in the land of fantasy and dreams . . . which, come to think of it, doesn’t seem all that terrible.

  Hmmm. Maybe it really was a bumblebee and . . .

  Perhaps you thought it was a bumblebee. Or two bumblebees. Yes, there for a minute or two, I’d embraced that theory myself, but on further analysis and deeper inspection, that theory just hadn’t cut bait.

  I mean, we had this huge throbbing nose right in front of us which pointed to the Rattlesnake Skinnerio. That kind of nose couldn’t come from a mere rabbit bite or a bumblebee sting. It was the work of a rattlesnake.

  Once again, I’m sorry for wrecking your theory. The fact that it was a pretty stupid theory shouldn’t discourage you from proposing other stupid theories in the future. Where would we be without stupid theories?

  I don’t know.

  Ask Drover. He’s the expert on stupid theories. In fact, wasn’t it Drover who had raised the Bumblebee Theory in the first place? Yes, of course.

  At last, the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, and I made a mental note to lower Drover’s daily grade by three points for coming up with that nitwit Bumblebee Theory.

  You have to watch him all the time. You never know what kind of bonehead idea he’ll come up with next.

  Where were we?

  Oh yes. The weight of evidence had finally forced you and Drover to admit . . . and we’ve covered that already and I hate to repeat myself.

  And you know how much I hate to repeat myself.

  Rattlesnake bite. And I was one sick puppy, getting sicker by the minute.

  At last Sally May came out of the house. Baby Molly was forked upon her left hip and Little Alfred was making bulldozer sounds with his lips. They came out the yard gate and started down to Slim’s pickup, which he had left parked near the gas tanks.

  Sally May called to me and asked if I could walk. I didn’t know, but I saw no harm in trying. I jacked my hind end off the ground.

  That’s the way a cow gets up, did you know that? It’s true, but a horse gets up front-legs first. Just thought I’d throw that in.

  I jacked my hind end off the ground, pushed hard on my front legs and raised my south end to the same level. It w
as then that I noticed that my head and face now weighed in close to a hundred and fifty pounds (the swelling, don’t you see), which made it difficult to hold my head at its usual proud angle.

  My lower lip was dragging the ground, is where we were, and walking is not easy when your lip has become a road grader blade. But I’m no quitter, and I forced myself to make the long walk down the hill to the pickup.

  I’m sure that small minds would have thought that I looked ridiculous, and would have laughed and poked fun at my condition. It didn’t seem so funny to me.

  At last, I made it to Slim’s pickup. Sally May opened the door on the driver’s side, looked inside, and gasped.

  “How can that man ride in this thing! My trash barrel is cleaner than this!”

  She set Molly on the ground and began pulling out . . . well, things: five-buckle overshoes, hay hooks, a yellow slicker, a coffee can full of fence staples, wire pliers, a nylon catch rope, a box of cow pills, jumper cables, a pair of spurs, two calfpulling chains, and a tuna fish can that had been sitting on the dash.

  I don’t know what was inside the can but it must have been pretty awful. She looked into it and . . . mercy, crossed her eyes, curled her lip, and threw it as far as she could. Then a shiver passed through her entire body and she said, “Ohhh, nasty bachelors!”

  She sprinted back to the house and returned with a roll of paper towels and a spray can of . . . something. She swabbed the seat with paper towels, wiped the dash and steering wheel, and I was beginning to wonder if she might consider hurrying up a bit.

  I mean, we had an emergency snakebite victim waiting to be rushed to the hospital, right?

  She finished the cleaning, picked up the spray can, pointed it inside the cab, held it at arm’s length, turned her head away, and filled the cab with a fog of spray.

  She opened both doors and fanned the fog with a chainsaw manual she had found beneath the seat. When the fog had cleared enough so that we could breathe, she pitched Molly into the seat and tied her down with a seatbelt, and told Alfred to load up.

  Then she looked down at me. Her hair seemed a little mussed and she swept a wisp of it out of her eyes. “Come on, Hank, get into the car . . . pickup . . . truck . . . whatever you call this junk­heap. Get up, come on, boy. Jump!”