The Case of the Prowling Bear Page 4

  I had been sitting nearby, and by the time I figured out what had happened, it was too late to run for cover. Drover, on the other hand, had somehow…I don’t know how the little slacker always disappears when it’s time for the cowboys to wipe a dipstick or clean their hands, but he does, and we’re talking about POOF, gone without a trace.

  So, once again, I had been called up for service to the ranch. I squared my shoulders and moved closer to the boss, and soon became his grease rag. He mopped his hands on my back and sides, then scrubbed his fingernails on my ears.

  What did I get out of it? A pat on the ribs and, “Thanks, pooch, you do good work.”

  Yeah, right, and for the next thirty minutes, I would have to do Dives in the Grass to get rid of the stench.

  Loper started back to the house. “Oh, and feed the cat. I’ll call you tonight to check on things. Good luck.”

  “Don’t call me tonight. You won’t have anything to say and neither will I. Everything’s going to be fine. I know you think this ranch falls apart every time you leave, but you’d be surprised how well things work when we get you off the place.” Just as Loper went through the yard gate, Slim cupped a hand around his mouth and yelled, “Oh, by the way, yesterday morning, I saw a bear in the road.”

  Over his shoulder, Loper yelled back, “Don’t drink on company time,” and went into the house.

  Slim grinned and shook his head. “Boy, that man’s got a thick skull, and I think he needs a hearing aid too.”

  He seemed to be speaking to me, as though I might have had some interest in their conversation. I didn’t. I was still preoccupied with rubbing the gasoline stench off my coat.

  Slim drifted down to the corrals and began his morning chores. He fed the horses, checked some yearlings in the sick pen, and threw out some grain for the wild turkeys. Loper and Sally May finally got their luggage and children loaded in the car, and left in a cloud of dust.

  When they’d gone, Slim and I walked down to the house. Before going inside to make sure Sally May had turned off all the appliances and hadn’t left any water running, Slim put out a bowl of Kitty Krumbles for Sally May’s little sneak of a cat. He set the bowl on the porch and went inside to do his walk-around of the house.

  When the door closed behind him, I realized that…well, Sally May and her broom were on their way to Glorieta, and nobody was watching the yard, the cat, or me.

  Guess what naughty thoughts entered my mind. Hee hee.

  I dived over the fence and went creeping toward the porch. Pete was already there, of course, gobbling and slobbering over the Kitty Krumbles—a brand of cat food that was about five-times better than he deserved. In fact, it was the most expensive brand on the market.

  You think this world isn’t in sad shape? The cat does nothing around here and gets high-dollar, tuna-flavored tidbits shaped like stars and donuts. We dogs put in eighteen hours a day and work ourselves into the ground, and we get Co-op dog food, hard lumps of something that has the flavor of wood shavings.

  Do you know why they give the cat high-dollar food? Because he won’t eat the cheap stuff, and apparently somebody cares. If I’d been in charge, I would have bought the cheapest ration money could buy, and told him to eat it or go hungry. But nobody around here listens to the dogs.

  Anyway, kitty was “dining,” shall we say, when I rolled up to the porch. He lifted his gaze and gave me his usual insolent smirk. “My goodness, it’s Hankie the Wonderdog. Let me guess: you’re here to ask if I saw the bear.”

  I stared into his scheming little eyes. “What bear?”

  “Slim saw a bear on the road.”

  “Oh, that. Yes, I know all about it. He didn’t see a bear, he saw a burro, a donkey. We don’t have bears on this ranch.”

  Pete rolled his eyes around. “What would you say if I told you I saw him too?”

  “I would say that you’re up to your usual tricks. I would laugh in your face.”

  “I saw the bear, Hankie. He walked through headquarters at daylight this morning.”

  “No kidding? In that case,” I stuck my nose right in his face and pressed the Ha Ha Button. “Ha ha ha ha ha!”

  Pete hated that. He flatted his ears and beamed me a smoldering glare. “Very well, Hankie, you’ve been warned.”

  “Thanks for the warning, and here’s one for you. Back away from the bowl. I need to run some tests on your food.”

  The cat glared and twitched the end of his tail. “Hankie, if you want a bite, I’m willing to share.”

  “Share? Ha ha. Sorry, Pete, but sharing with cats isn’t something we do on this outfit. Go chase your tail.”

  He backed away from the bowl. “It’s not as good as you think.”

  “It’ll be better than I think, and do you know why? Because I’m stealing it from you. Buzz off.”

  Heh heh. I got him told, didn’t I? You bet, and it was true, every word of it. The best food in this world is what you can conflagrate from a greedy little ranch cat. Confiscate.

  Pete vanished and I went to work on his Kitty Krumbles. Great stuff, nice and crunchy, with the delicate flavor of broiled tuna. I had crunched my way through several mouthfuls when I heard a voice behind me: Drover. He was standing at the yard gate.

  “Oh, hi. Can I have some cat food?”

  “No.”

  “Drat. Is it pretty good?”

  “It’s excellent, delicious. It’s a crime to waste it on a cat.”

  “I’ll be derned. That’s what Pete said about our dog food.”

  My head came up and I stopped chewing. “He’s eating our dog food?”

  “Yep, he’s up at the machine shed right now.”

  “Good. Nobody deserves Co-op more than Pete.”

  “Yeah, but he loves it. He says it’s too good to waste on dogs.”

  I marched over to the gate. “Let me get this straight. Pete is eating our food, and loves it, and you stood there and watched him eat?”

  “I didn’t figure you’d care.”

  “What ever gave you that idea?”

  “Well, you’re always complaining about it.”

  “Drover, food isn’t the issue here. We’re talking about Ranch Rules. Cats are not allowed to mooch our dog food, period.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  I leaped over the fence. “Never mind, I’ll handle it.”

  “Can I have some cat food?”

  “Sure, help yourself. It tastes like dead fish.”

  Drover hopped over the fence and scampered to the bowl of cat food on the porch. I stormed up the hill and rumbled over to the cat. “Okay, Pete, this has gone far enough. Hands up, back away from the bowl.”

  “But Hankie…”

  “Move!”

  He backed away from the bowl. “Hankie, I’m confused. First, you wanted my cat food, and now you want your dog food.”

  “Well, you got one thing right, kitty: you’re confused.”

  “Shall I go back to my cat food? Will that make you happy?”

  “When you vanish, I’ll be happy.”

  Pete heaved a loud sigh. “Well, I guess I’ll go back to my pitiful bowl of cat food.”

  “You do that, and the next time I catch you stealing dog food, you won’t get off so easy. Scram.”

  Kitty scrammed and I took a bite of good honest American dog food, which had no hint of fishy taste. Okay, sometimes it reminded me of wood shavings and sawdust, but give me sawdust any day over dead fish. Co-op isn’t dainty, just solid and honest, like the dogs who eat it.

  I was crunching a delicious bite of Co-op when Drover came up the hill, huffing and puffing. “Hank, you said I could eat the cat food, right? Well, Pete came back and said it was his, and wouldn’t let me eat any more.”

  “So what? Let the little crook have all he wants. The important thing is that he would r
ather be eating our dog food, but he can’t. It’s forbidden.”

  “You know, I think he got what he wanted.”

  That grabbed my attention. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, he’s laughing his head off, ‘cause he tricked you into eating your own food.”

  I went nose-to-nose with the runt. “He didn’t trick me. I tricked him.”

  “What was the trick?”

  “The trick was…” I turned my gaze toward the house. Pete was sitting on the porch, gobbling cat food. He saw me, grinned, and waved a paw. I spit the last of the Co-op out of my mouth. “This stuff tastes like peanut shells.”

  “Yeah, that’s what he said.”

  “Stop telling me what he said. Drover, it’s becoming clear that we’ve been conned by the cat.”

  “You were.”

  “What?”

  “I said…what a crooked little cat.”

  “Exactly my point. He used slimy, underhanded tricks to…to do something.” I rose to my full height and rolled the muscles in my massive shoulders. “And he’s fixing to get a painful education. Let’s go down there and teach him some manners.”

  “Oh, I think I’ll stay here. I’m kind of hungry.”

  I gave him a scorching glare. “The Security Division has been sandbagged by the cat…and you’re hungry? What kind of dog are you?”

  “Oh, the kind that gets hungry, I guess.”

  “Fine. Stay here and eat slop, but I’m warning you, this will go into my report.”

  “Works for me.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said…go git ‘im, Hankie, beat him up!”

  “Thanks. That’s exactly what I have in mind.”

  I turned my nose toward the house and hit the ignition button on Engines One and Two. Moments later, I was roaring down the hill. The cat would pay a terrible price for his treachery.

  I didn’t even pause at the fence, but went flying over…BAM…okay, our instruments gave us a faulty reading about the height of the fence, but those things happen in the heat of combat.

  The important thing is that I’m no quitter. I picked myself off the ground, went soaring over the fence, and rushed to the porch, where I had every intention of wrecking the…hmmm, the cat had vanished, which was fine. Wrecking the cat would have been fun, but my main objective was to recapture his…huh?

  The cat food was gone!

  Chapter Seven: Slim Gets Stopped By the Police

  The little creep had gobbled down every morsel of the Kitty Krumbles, leaving nothing but the lingering fragrance of tuna. I rushed back to the machine shed.

  “Drover, we’ve had a change of plans. Scoot over, we’re going to share the Co-op.” I shoved the runt out of the way and prepared to…the hub cap was empty, and Drover was licking crumbs off his chops. “Greedy pig, you ate it all!”

  “Well, you said it was slop.”

  “Of course it’s slop, but it’s our slop. I’m surrounded by thieves and gluttons.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Go to your room…immediately!”

  Drover went slinking away and I roared back down to the yard to settle accounts with the cat. I found him, perched on a limb of a big hackberry tree. I rushed to the base of the tree and blasted him with Barks of Outrage. “Pete, you’re despicable!”

  He licked his paw and smirked down at me. “I know, Hankie, and sometimes it really bothers me. But the question is, did you learn anything from this experience?”

  “Of course I did. Cats cheat.”

  He smirked and fluttered his eyelids. “Well, yes, Hankie, sometimes we’re forced to bend the rules, but that’s not the lesson I’m talking about.”

  “I don’t care about your so-called lessons. I don’t take lessons from cats.”

  “I know you don’t, but listen anyway.” He leaned out on the limb and lowered his voice. “Be content with what you have. Stop wanting what isn’t yours. Oh, and you’d better watch out for that bear.”

  Here’s the good part. The little fraud had gotten so caught up in giving me his silly advice, he leaned too far out on the limb and fell out of the tree. Ho! As you can imagine, I pounced on this opportunity, chased him around the yard, and ran him up another tree.

  Glaring up at him, I beamed a triumphant smile. “That’s what I think of your lessons, you little hickocrip, and now I’m going to teach you a lesson. Since you hogged all the food, I’m going to chew up your food bowl!”

  His eyes widened. “Really! You’d actually do that?”

  “You bet your boots I would. When I get done, your food bowl will be smithereens.”

  He chirped a little laugh. “Hankie, you’re a piece of work.”

  “You’d better believe it, kitty. The mind of a dog is an awesome thing.”

  Heh heh. Did I get him told or what?

  I marched over to the porch and swept up the plastic bowl in my enormous jaws. Then, while the scheming little cat watched with horror-stricken eyes, I proceeded to crunch up his food bowl. I had every intention of reducing it to tiny splinters and particles, only…

  Huh? The door opened and out stepped Slim. He saw me there on the porch and seemed…well, surprised.

  “What are you doing?”

  I was…see, the cat had tricked me into…and then Drover…all at once, I was overwhelmed by the thought that this looked…fairly ridiculous.

  Slim snatched the bowl out of my mouth. He examined what was left of it and gave his head a shake. “Meathead. You’re supposed to eat the food, not the bowl.”

  Yes, but…

  “Quit eating plastic bowls and get out of the yard. Scat!”

  Yes sir.

  “Try to act your age, not your IQ.”

  Boy, that hurt. Make one little mistake around here and they hang it around your neck and let you wear it for the next six…although I wouldn’t say that it was exactly a mistake. Don’t forget that in the Larger Scheme of Things, I had won a moral victory over the cat.

  He got the food, but I wrecked his bowl. It was a huge moral victory.

  Anyway, Slim drove to the feed barn and loaded twenty sacks of feed into the bed of the pickup. He whistled for us dogs to load up and off we went to feed cattle. I probably should have insisted that Drover spend the rest of the day, standing with his nose in the corner, but…oh well.

  Off we went, driving down the county road, a cowboy and his two loyal dogs, when, suddenly, out of nowhere, we heard the shriek of…what was that? It was a high-pitched, shrill sound, louder than the squeal of a loose fan belt. Slim scowled and glanced at me, so I…well, I barked. That’s what we do when we’re not sure what’s going on. We bark first and ask questions later.

  Slim glanced in his rear-view mirror and saw flashing lights. We had been overtaken by a police cruiser—on an empty dirt road, twenty-five miles out in the country.

  He pulled over to the side of the road and growled, “Don’t they have any crooks to chase?”

  An officer walked up to Slim’s open window. I recognized him and so did Slim: Chief Deputy Bobby Kile. Slim began to relax. “Oh, it’s you. Morning, Bobby.”

  “Morning, Slim.” He was writing on his ticket book and he looked pretty serious about it. “I clocked you at seventy-five miles an hour.”

  Slim snorted a laugh. “This thing wouldn’t go seventy-five if it was falling off a cliff.”

  “Driver’s license?”

  “I don’t carry it when I’m working on the ranch.”

  The deputy nodded and wrote that down. He glanced at the safety inspection sticker on the windshield. “That expired two years ago.”

  “This is the feed truck. We don’t drive it off the ranch.”

  “Uh huh.” The deputy looked inside the cab. “No infant seat for the little dog, no seat belt for the bi
g dog, and you’re not wearing a safety helmet.” He wrote it down and looked under the pickup. “Unsafe exhaust system.”

  “Bobby, you ain’t funny.”

  The deputy wrote some more. “Mouthing off to an officer of the law. Where do you want your mail sent while you’re in prison?”

  I was stunned. Prison! Holy smokes, who would feed the dogs while he was…

  Wait, hold everything. Never mind. It was all a big joke and they broke out laughing.

  “Bobby, you’re giving the sheriff’s department a bad name. What are you doing out here in the Wild West?”

  “Investigating an accident, happened yesterday morning. A pickup pulling a stock trailer went into the ditch and landed on its side. The driver swerved to miss a deer.”

  “Good honk. Was anybody hurt?”

  “Nope. He walked to the Barnett place and they gave him a ride into town.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “He was hauling a bear. It took off and we can’t find it.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Then Slim said, “Did you say he was hauling a bear?”

  “Ten-four, a black bear, half-grown.”

  Slim whistled under his breath and pushed his hat to the back of his head. “I saw him yesterday morning, only I thought I was losing my mind. But why would a man be driving through this country, hauling a bear?”

  “He’s a game ranger from New Mexico. The bear was hanging around a ranch north of Clayton, so they trapped him. The ranger was taking him to a zoo in Oklahoma City.”

  “The bear was ‘hanging around a ranch?’ What does that mean?”

  “He tore the door off the saddle shed and ate a hundred pounds of sweet feed. The rancher was a little concerned that he might come into the house for breakfast.” The deputy looked up at the sky. “We’ve got a problem.”

  “I guess we do. What do you suggest?”

  The deputy shrugged. “Keep your eyes open. Use common sense, if you’ve got any. Pay attention to your dogs. They’ll be the first to know if the bear’s around.”

  Slim chuckled and glanced at…why was he looking at ME? “I’m glad you have so much faith in my dogs. They woke me up at four o’clock this morning, barking at their own shadows.”