The Case of the One-Eyed Killer Stud Horse Read online

  “No, I’m mixing business with pleasure. It’s my business to beat you at your own shabby games, and it’s a pleasure to do it. Now, if you’ll just stand back and observe, I’ll begin the procedure. Before your very eyes you’ll see me devour the toast in three bites, then lick up the remaining grease until nothing remains, not even a spot.”

  “You’ll get sick.”

  I laughed in his face. “You’re about to see one of the most experienced pot-lickers in Ochiltree County do his stuff. I mean, what I don’t know about pot-licking hasn’t even been tried yet, so stand back and study your lessons. Ready? Aim! Banzai!”

  I dived into the middle of that piece of toast. The procedure went off without a hitch. Within seconds, I had that piece of toast reduced to mole­cules (those are the basic building blocks of the universe, if you’d care to make a note of it), and true to my prediction, I did it in three bites.

  Pete watched in sheer amazement. I’m sure he had never seen such an exhibition of brute skill.

  I must admit that swallering the molecules of toast turned out to be no ball of wax, for some of the molecules still had the texture of burned toast. In other words, they scraped and scratched on the way down. But a little scraping and scratching has never scared me away from a good meal.

  Upon completion of Step One of the procedure, I entered into Step Two. True to my prediction once again, I completely demolished the glob of bacon grease on the ground, licked it to the bare dirt and even managed to get some of the bare dirt in with the grease, can’t say it tasted so good, I’ve never cared much for dirt, but what the heck, there’s a price for everything.

  The entire procedure, including Steps One and Two, required something less than one minute. I turned to Pete and gave him a smirk.

  “What do you say now, cat? How does it feel to lose a big one?”

  Before he could answer, Little Alfred, age three years and some odd months, came up behind him, grabbed him by the tail and made a wagon of him. Or maybe it was a plow, since Pete had his front claws out and did a pretty impressive job of plowing up the yard as he was being dragged around.

  Little Alfred is hard on cats. That’s one thing I’ve always admired about him. Fine kid, that Alfred.

  Well, this was an unexpected pleasure. It isn’t often that I can take time out of my busy schedule and watch someone else tormenting the cat. I drifted over to the yard gate, where I had a good view, and sat down to watch the show.

  I loved it. You should have seen Pete’s eyes. And his ears, yes, that was delicious too, had ’em pinned down and he was yowling and scowling and . . .

  I burped. It just kind of snuck out.

  Anyways, there was Little Alfred making the sounds of a tractor and pulling his cat-plow across the . . .

  I burped again. Also noticed an unusual feeling in my, well, in the region between my lower ribs and . . . in the vicinity of my stomach, you might say, and . . . you know, all at once I didn’t feet like a million dollars. It was closer to $9.95.

  Anyways, Little Alfred and Pete plowed up the south side of the yard, and all at once I didn’t feel worth a flip. I could hear some kind of strange noise coming from my innards—pretty muchly the sound you’d expect if you’d just eaten a couple of panthers and they’d started fighting. ’Course, I hadn’t eaten any wildcats, only . . .

  All at once the thought of bacon was less exciting than I’d ever thought possible. In fact, I decided that . . . I didn’t want to think about bacon at that particular moment, and maybe never again for the rest of my life.

  I didn’t want to smell bacon either, but the smell of bacon filled my nostrils. Oozy, drippy, greasy, smelly, stinky, oily bacon. Yuck!

  I never did care much for bacon. It’s too greasy for me. And once you get some stinky bacon grease on the hairs around your mouth, the smell stays with you and all you can smell is bacon, and I can’t stand the smell of greasy, oily . . .

  Right then and there, I took a solemn oath never to eat bacon again, nor bacon grease, nor burned toast, nor dirt. In fact, I took a solemn oath never to eat anything again, ever.

  Fellers, I was sick, and I mean SICK. If the Angel of Death had come calling for me at that moment, I would have either jumped into his arms or throwed up, I couldn’t tell which.

  Chapter Five: Was It My Fault That She Tripped over Me and Twisted Her Dadgum Ankle?

  It was a real pity that I got sick at that particular moment, because the show in the back yard got better and better.

  After using Pete for a plow, Little Alfred turned on the water hose and started irrigating him. I guess you know about cats and water. They don’t get along. Old Pete had his ears pinned down, had a disgusted look on his face, and he was making a sound like a police siren.

  On a better day, I would have considered this good wholesome entertainment. On a better day, I would have had something besides bacon on my mind. But this wasn’t a better day.

  I curled up in a ball in front of the yard gate and tried to think of anything but food. I tried it all—birds, rainbows, butterflies, pretty flowers. No luck. They all came out smelling like bacon grease.

  Well, whilst I was there, listening to the cement mixer in my stomach, the back door burst open and Sally May came out, her housecoat flying in the breeze and the west side of her hair up in pink curlers.

  “Alfred, oh Alfred! You’re covered with mud and shame on you for being mean to the cat, and the company’s going to be here any minute and the water pump quit working and we don’t have any water pressure and I can’t clean your daddy’s ring around the bathtub and here you are wasting water and being mean to the cat!”

  She marched over to my little pal and gave him a swat on the behind. He squalled. Then she bent over to rescue her waterlogged pet, and he being your typical dumb, ungrateful cat, hissed and scratched her, so she booted him across the yard and called him a name I’d never heard before.

  Judging by the tone of her voice, I would guess that meant something besides Sweetie Pie.

  It was a good kick too. When she got riled, old Sally May could be dangerous. Not only could she throw a rock, but she made a pretty good hand at booting cats. I was impressed—also glad that I was outside the yard and out of her range.

  Well, she was definitely stirred up about Little Alfred’s muddy clothes and the ring around the bathtub and being late for the relatives, who were coming for the Thanksgiving holiday.

  She stormed over to the hydrant and turned off the water. Then she looked down at Little Alfred. His lower lip stuck out about two inches and he didn’t look too happy about the state of the world.

  “Your grandmother is going to be here any minute now, with two of your cousins, and you pick this time, of all times, to play in the mud. Just look at you!”

  Little Alfred aimed his lip at her and stood on his tip-toes and said, “Dummy.”

  Uh-oh. That was a big mistake. The boy should have kept his mouth shut. Even I could have told him that. For calling his mother a dummy, he got another swat on the behind. He squalled, and we heard no more of that dummy business.

  “Now you take those filthy clothes off right this minute and I’ll have to clean you up all over again and I hope you haven’t run all the water out of the pressure tank and . . .” She glanced at her watch. Her eyebrows flew straight up. “Oh my stars! They’ll be here any minute!”

  While Little Alfred peeled off his muddy clothes, Sally May made a dash to the water well, which was up the hill about ten yards west of the house. To get there, she had to go out the yard gate.

  If you recall, I was curled up on the other side of the gate, hovering between sickness and death.

  She hit that gate with a full head of steam. Maybe she didn’t see me on the other side. Surely, if she’d seen me there, she wouldn’t have opened the gate in such a way that it would hit me in the nose, but that’s what she did.
r />   With a wild look in her eyes, the un-rollered half of her hair flying around on her head, and her housecoat sticking straight out behind her, she stepped in the middle of my back, tripped, stumbled, got up, turned back to me and screamed, “GET OUT OF THE GATE, YOU MORON, MY MOTHER-IN-LAW IS GOING TO BE HERE IN FIVE MINUTES!!”

  HUH?

  Well, you know me. I can take a hint. I jacked my diseased body up off the ground, moved a full six inches to the west, and collapsed again.

  I wouldn’t have done that for just anybody. But for Sally May, it was the least I could do.

  She opened the lid on the well house, said something to the snakes and spiders and waterdogs down at the bottom, hit the reset button on the pump, and came charging back down the hill.

  Halfway down the hill, she looked up and saw Little Alfred. He was standing buck-naked in the flowerbed, painting his tummy with mud and watering her flowers—without the garden hose.

  “ALFRED! GET OUT OF THAT . . .”

  Well, I was just lying there, minding my own business and trying to recover from the bacon poisoning. And, as I’ve pointed out, I had moved out of the gate, as she had requested.

  Or, to put it another way, I had pretty muchly moved out of the gate. I think she could have missed me if she had been paying attention to her business.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’m not criticizing Sally May. Over the years, she and I have had our differences of opinion, so to speak, and our relationship has had its ups and downs—more downs than ups, I would say. But basically I’m a loyal dog. I try not to find fault with my master or his wife.

  What I’m driving at is that Sally May came zooming down the hill, stepped right in the middle of my stomach, stumbled, twisted her ankle, and went crashing into the fence.

  Let’s get something straight before we get into the dark and bloody parts of this story. I had little or no control over the various processes of my body, which had been weakened by the toxic effects of poisoned bacon grease.

  I knew, in the stillness of my heart, that this was the wrong time for my body to purge itself of the deadly poisons, and I would have gladly chosen a different time and place, had I been given a choice.

  But she had stepped right in the middle of my stomach, the very part of my body which was most inflamed and uneasy.

  Before I knew it, I had staggered to my feet. My head hung low and suddenly my entire body was seized by a convulsion that began in the dark pit of my stomach and moved like a wave toward the end of my nose. My head moved up and down, three times, and then . . .

  Exactly how and why I threw up in her shoe, I’ll never know. It wasn’t my idea. As near as I can tell, her shoe had come off when she’d taken that tumble and . . .

  Did I put it there? Did I ask her to stomp on my stomach? Was it my fault that the water well quit working or that Little Alfred had painted himself with mud or that her stupid kinfolks were coming for a visit? If she didn’t like her stupid kinfolks . . .

  No. It wasn’t my fault, but guess who got blamed for everything that had ever gone wrong in the entire ten thousand years of human history.

  Me.

  Okay. There we were. Once I had purged the poisons from my system, I felt much better, and at that point my concern shifted from myself to Sally May. I mean, she was leaning against the fence, moaning and holding her ankle.

  Hey, my master’s wife was injured and what she needed was a loyal dog to lick her in the face and, you know, to give her some encouragement. That’s what I had in mind when I rushed to her side.

  I was in the process of reeling out my tongue to give her a nice, juicy, healing lick on the cheek when, to my complete surprise, she grabbed me around the throat and started strangling me.

  “YOU HORRIBLE DOG, YOU’VE BROKEN MY LEG AND MADE MY CHILD A SAVAGE AND RUINED MY HOLIDAY, AND NOW I’M GOING TO MURDER YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS!!”

  Gulk, gasp, gurgle.

  Hey, she wasn’t kidding. My tongue was hanging out of my mouth and my eyeballs were about to pop out of my head when, thank goodness, her mother-in-law pulled up and saved my life.

  Sally May’s mouth dropped open when the car came to a stop beside us. Her grip around my throat loosened. She glanced around with glazed eyes and saw herself dressed in a housecoat, one shoe on and one shoe off, half her hair up in rollers.

  Her son was running wild and naked through the yard and chasing the cat.

  And her lovely little hands were around the throat of her loyal dog.

  “Oh. Why, Mom, I . . . is it already eleven o’clock?”

  Grandma and the two girls stared at us with big unblinking eyes. Grandma nodded her head.

  Sally May removed her hands from my throat. “I was just . . . I know this must look very . . . I’m not sure I can explain . . .”

  She stood up and tried to walk on her twisted ankle. She couldn’t do it without limping. Her hip quivered. Her eyes filled with tears and she burst out crying.

  “Oh Mom, everything’s gone wrong today! The bathtub’s dirty, the water well doesn’t work, my baby’s running around naked, I think I’ve broken my leg, I’ve ruined the holiday, and most of all, I hate this dog!”

  Grandma came over and put her arms around Sally May. “Now, now, don’t you worry about that, dearie. I’ve been a mother too and you don’t need to explain a thing to me. After all, I was the one who raised that husband of yours.”

  Sally May laughed and cried at the same time and buried her face on Grandma’s shoulder.

  Grandma patted her on the back, then looked down at me. I whapped my tail on the ground, just to let her know that I understood too.

  She kicked me in the ribs. “Get out of here, you nasty thing! See what you’ve done?”

  HUH?

  Well, hey, if that’s the way she felt about it . . . I ran for my life.

  Chapter Six: Drover Passes His Test, but Just Barely

  Instead of running to a far corner of the ranch, as most ordinary dogs would have done once they had worn out their respective welcomes, I hid in some weeds and watched what happened next.

  I mean, Sally May had injured herself, right? Even though my conscience was clear on the matter, even though she had accused me of crimes I didn’t commit, I was still concerned about her. And besides that, a guy never knows when someone is going to pull out some food and leave scraps lying around. Part of my job as Head of Ranch Security is keeping the place clean.

  I’m kind of a fanatic about cleanliness. Nothing trashes up a place quite as badly as trash, and if that happens to include, oh, scraps of bread, baloney rings, chicken bones, pieces of hot dog—just about any of the food groups except vegetables and things that taste or smell like bacon—then so much the better.

  There’s nothing wrong or selfish about combining a zeal for cleanliness with an interest in food. Without food, where would we be in this old life? We’d all be going around looking for something to eat, which brings us back to my original concern: Sally May had injured her ankle, and I was worried about her.

  Also hungry. I’d lost my breakfast, right? You can’t expect a dog to operate on fresh air and sunshine . . . I don’t want to beat the point to death but . . . okay. Sally May dried her tears and hobbled around on her bum leg, while Grandma went into the yard, scooped up Little Alfred, and hauled him into the house for a session in the bathtub.

  When they came back outside, Alfred had shed most of his mud and was wearing civilized clothes again.

  Grandma shook her finger in the boy’s face and told him to stay the heck out of the mud, then she went over and looked at Sally May’s ankle. She poked and squeezed, squinted her eyes and pooched out her lips, and finally said, “Hon, I think we’d better take you to town and let the doctor look at this.”

  Sally May let out a groan. “But why did it have to happen on the day before Thanksgiving? If I ever see that dog
again . . .”

  She turned around and looked in my direction. I concentrated extra hard on blending into the environment, so to speak, and was prepared to run if she reached for a rock or a gun.

  I didn’t mind taking the blame for crimes I didn’t commit, but my idea of being a nice guy stops short of getting murdered for it.

  Sally May limped inside and changed her clothes, while Grandma herded all the kids into the car. Then Sally May came out again, using a mop for a crutch. Her eyes had a certain pinched quality about them when she looked off to the south, and I had a suspicion that she hadn’t entirely given up the idea of strangling . . . well, ME, you might say.

  “This is so embarrassing!” she said, as she scooted into the car seat, and I didn’t hear the rest because she slammed the door.

  I scrunched down in the weeds and didn’t move a hair until they were gone and I heard the car rumble over the cattle guard. Then I stood up and took a deep breath.

  I guess I shouldn’t let little things bother me, but it kind of hurt me to see Sally May taking out all her sorrows and frustrations on me.

  I know that’s part of my job, but sometimes it’s hard to take, especially when those girls hadn’t left a single food scrap on the ground. I know because I went over the whole area three times. Not even a crumb. Sure was hungry. Sure could have used a crumb or a pound of hamburger.

  Pete the Plow was sitting in the sun, licking his coat and trying to recover his dignity. Just for laughs, I hollered at him, asked how he’d enjoyed babysitting with Sally May’s little monster.

  He didn’t answer, which was fine because I had better things to do than listen to a half-drownded cat.

  I went down to the gas tanks and found Drover, standing with his nose pressed against the northeast angle-iron leg of the gas tanks. He was mumbling something.

  “All right, son, it’s examination time. I presume you’ve been studying your lessons?”