The Case of the Kidnapped Collie Page 4

  “That’s a good one,” she said, but she hardly even looked at me.

  “Okay, this next one will turn your head, Beulah. Watch this. Before your very eyes, I will stand on my back legs, do a complete back flip, and land on my feet again. You ready?”

  Ah ha, at last I had her attention. I pushed up on my hind legs, went into a deep crouch, sprang upward with all my might, negotiated a very difficult backward flip maneuver in midair, and . . .

  BONK!

  . . . more or less landed on my head, you might say. Remember, it was a very difficult trick. Very few dogs could have pulled it off, or would have even attempted it.

  Did it hurt? You bet it did. For a moment there, I saw checkers and stars and red billygoats. As I staggered to my feet, I suddenly realized that (1) my neck was bent and (2) someone was laughing at my misfortune.

  With great difficulty, I turned my crooked neck and injured head toward the sound of the laughter. It appeared to be coming from my Collie Princess, who had thrust a paw over her mouth to hide her amusement, only the paw-covering-up deal hadn’t worked.

  Her laughter came spilling out. “Oh Hank, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh, but sometimes you do the most ridiculous things.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed, and they always seem to happen when you’re around.”

  “Well, maybe you’re trying too hard. Some­times it’s better just to relax and let things happen in their own time.”

  I thought about that. “So what you’re saying is that if I stop trying to impress you, you might be impressed? That doesn’t make sense, Beulah.”

  She smiled and shrugged. “But it happens that way. We can’t control the way we feel.”

  “Well, let me try this out on you. Suppose, just suppose for the sake of supposing, that I burst into song at this very moment, and the song happened to speak to this very issue. Would it win me points or lose me points?”

  She cast a quick glance toward the south, where her bird dog friend was beginning the hunt. “I can’t say, Hank. You’d just have to try it and see.”

  The Punt of Love

  How can I begin to tell you, my pet,

  The depths of my utter confusion.

  You tell me go slow, I tell me go fast,

  I think that I need a transfusion

  Of daring ideas or something that works,

  Explaining a lady dog’s mind.

  I tried all my tricks and fell on my head

  And now I’m just further behind.

  Now, let us be frank, go straight to the point,

  I’ve tried and I’ve tried to impress you.

  The harder I try, the harder I fall,

  It’s finally time to address you,

  To ask you, what gives? What’s going on here?

  And what in the heck you expect

  A feller to think or say or do,

  Just short of breaking his neck?

  I fervently wish, I fondly desire

  That someone would draw me a map

  That showed the terrain of a lady dog’s mind,

  Every highway and mountain and gap,

  And valleys and streams and swamps and plains.

  I think such a product would sell.

  But I’d probably need a compass or three

  And radar devices as well.

  So what can I say? We’re back to square one.

  The tide has come into the shore.

  I’ve squared the circle and circled the square.

  I’m just as confused as before.

  The answer, I fear, is simple and plain,

  There isn’t a tonic or stunt;

  There isn’t a map or even a clue.

  The only solution is . . . punt.

  Well, I belted out my song and waited to see what she would say. She had listened to the whole thing, and now I caught a glimpse of her smiling. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but smiling was probably better than some of the alternatives.

  At last she spoke. “Well, Hank, it seems you have a hard time understanding us girls.”

  “Yes ma’am, I certainly do.”

  “Well,” she dropped her voice to a whisper, “some­times we have trouble understanding us too.”

  “Uh-oh. You mean, you don’t have any more answers than I do?” She shook her head. I slapped my forehead with my left paw—and, ouch, jarred my almost-broken neck. “Oh brother, this is even worse than I thought. Where do we go from here?”

  She heaved a sigh and looked up at the clouds. “Why don’t you jump up here and we’ll watch the hunt together. We’ll worry about the rest of it later.”

  Well . . . watching bird dogs wasn’t my idea of great fun, but sitting in the back of a pickup with the most gorgeous collie gal in all of Texas . . . hmmm, that was no bad deal.

  A guy never knew what might happen.

  Tall oats from tiny acorns grow.

  Heh, heh.

  Chapter Seven: She Resists My Charms

  Oaks, not oats. Mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow.

  Anyways, it appeared that the winds of love had shifted and Beulah was craving my company. (It must have been my song that did the trick. Pretty good song, huh?)

  All at once I felt fresh energy and a new zest for life galloping through my entire system. I shrugged off the terrible injury to my neck and head, and sprang like a deer into the back of the pickup.

  Beulah was impressed. I could see that at a glance. Hey, no bird dog in history had ever jumped into a pickup with such grace and so forth.

  But wouldn’t you know it? As soon as Drover saw me back there with Miss Beulah—and Beulah about to faint from the excitement of having me at her side—when Little Stub Tail saw all this, he was suddenly cured of his childish spasms.

  He began running around in circles and tried several times to climb over the tail-end gate. He failed, of course, but managed to leave several scratch marks on Billy’s pickup.

  “Hank, wait, I want up there too!”

  I gave him a withering glare. “I’m afraid not, son. Two’s a company and three’s a corporation. Beulah and I need some time alone . . .” I gave her a sly wink. “. . . and this would be an excellent time for you to do something constructive. For example, you might want to go chase your tail.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t have a tail. It got chopped off when I was a pup.”

  “Life is hard, Drover, and often unfair. Be glad they chopped off your tail and not your head. And above all, scram.”

  “Yeah, but I want to be with Beulah. I think she likes me.”

  “She’s just being polite, Drover.”

  “Oh drat.”

  “And we’ll have no more of your naughty language. Now, run along, and have a good day.”

  He whined and moaned and went padding off to the gas tanks. I watched him for a moment and took note of a rather important detail: He wasn’t limping.

  Well, having disposed of Drover and his . . . imagine him thinking that Beulah liked HIM . . . I turned to the Lady of My Dreams, wiggled my eyebrows, and . . . HUH? It appeared that she had, uh, moved to the front and was watching the sporting event, so to speak. I joined her.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, my lamb, but I had to take care of some unfinished business.”

  Her eyes swung around to me. They were sparkling. “He’s working.”

  “What?”

  “Plato.”

  “Oh. Yes. Him.”

  “He’s out in front of the men, and look at him go!”

  I tossed a glance toward the Birdly Wonder, and two words rushed to my mind: Big Deal. Of course I didn’t say this aloud. I knew that Beulah had some slight affection for the creep . . . uh, for the bird dog . . . for Plato, shall we say, and I didn’t wish to scoff at the utter stupidity of his . . .

 
I didn’t want to poke fun at his occupation, is the point.

  “You know, Beulah, I’m fairly affluent in birding myself.”

  “How nice.”

  I took this opportunity to move a bit closer to her. Heh, heh. “Perhaps you weren’t aware of that.”

  “No.”

  “But it’s true. The study of birds is called ‘Birdathology,’ from the root-word ‘bird’ and the rootless-word ‘athology.’”

  She scooted away from me and said, “Shhhh.”

  “Sorry.” We watched in silence for several minutes. “He doesn’t seem to be finding any quail.” I scootched over in her direction.

  “He will. He always does. Just watch.”

  She scootched over to the east. Gee, the way she was squirming around, she must have been as bored as I was.

  I tried to concentrate on the exciting events that were unfolding along the creek—Plato streaking back and forth with his nose to the ground and his tail stuck straight out behind him.

  Big deal. I was dying of boredom.

  “Beulah, I must tell you something very important. It’s going to come as a terrible shock.”

  That worked. She tore her gaze away from the hunt.

  “What?”

  “Well, Beulah, I happen to know that your friend . . . Plato, that is, won’t find any birds along the creek. I monitor the comings and goings of our quail population rather closely, you see, and I happen to know . . .”

  “Oh look! He’s found something.”

  I narrowed my eyes and studied the scene. Sure enough, Plato had locked down into a pointing position, as though he had been transformed into a cement statue.

  I took this opportunity to move a bit closer to her warm side.

  “Beulah, I hate to be the messenger of bad news, but I’ve been through that creek bottom dozens of times, hundreds of times, and know every grain of sand and every sprig of grass, and I’ve never seen a quail down there. I’m sorry. I know he’s a friend of yours, but . . .”

  WHIRRRRRR!

  Birds? Twenty or thirty quail?

  She turned to me with a smile. “See? I knew he’d find birds.” She scooted east.

  I found myself coughing. “Yes, I also thought he might stumble across that one covey . . . we’ve been watching it for, uh, weeks now and . . .”

  Down below, I heard the men shouting, “Good dog, Plato! Nice work, boy.”

  Okay, so maybe he’d lucked into finding the only covey of quail along that section of the creek. Any mutt could find one covey. The real test would come in finding another—and I knew for a fact that there wasn’t one.

  And just to prove it, I scooted a bit closer to . . . my goodness, she had lovely brown eyes!

  “Beulah, I’m a dog of few words, so let’s go straight to the bottom line. I think the time has come for you to . . .”

  “He’s picked up another scent. See how he’s slowed down?”

  “It’s a rabbit, Beulah. Don’t get your hopes up. But as I was saying, I’m a dog of few words.”

  “Good.”

  “So we agree on that. The problem with dogs these days is that they talk too much.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And what I have to say won’t take long. You see, I think our relationship has reached a turning point, and the time has come, my buttercup, for you to . . .”

  “Hank, I keep hearing your voice.”

  “That’s wonderful news, my cactus flower, be­cause I often hear yours—in my dreams.”

  “Yes, but this is no dream.”

  “Oh, it could be, my little bluebonnet. Our fondest dreams are within our grasp. All we have to do is . . .”

  “Shhh. Look, he’s on point again.”

  “Who? Oh, him.” Sure enough, What’s-His-Name had turned to stone once again. “You know, he’s going to get in trouble for pointing those rabbits. But as I was saying . . .”

  WHIRRRR!

  By George, the weeds just came alive with whirring wings and flying birds. Beulah turned to me and smiled.

  “As you were saying?”

  “Beulah, I don’t think those were actually quail. They looked more like, uh, blackbirds or starlings. Really.”

  “They were quail.”

  “Okay, maybe they were quail, but they were stupid quail. A smart quail would be up in the sand draws, where it belongs.”

  “A quail is a quail.”

  “I never denied that.”

  “And Plato found them. It won’t hurt you to admit that he’s good at his work.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll admit that he’s one lucky bird dog.”

  “Hank.”

  “And he’s pretty good at his line of work, although . . .”

  “Hank, shh. Let’s watch.”

  We turned our respective eyes to the south and watched The Hero at work. He was running again, sniffing out every bush and clump of grass.

  Hadn’t we seen all this before?

  I was getting restless. My time with Beulah was slipping away. I decided to make my move.

  I scootched myself closer, ever closer, to her warm wonderful side and . . . my goodness, we must have run out of room on her side of the . . . she more or less fell out of the back of the . . . uh, pickup, you might say.

  “Oh dear,” I said, looking down at her as she picked herself up off the ground. “You fell out . . . I guess.”

  She beamed a rather hostile gaze in my direction. “You pushed me out!”

  “It was an accident, Beulah, honest. I just wanted . . .”

  “You wanted my attention, but you can’t have it. Don’t you understand? I want to watch Plato at work.”

  “No, I don’t understand that. You have a cowdog right here beside you, so how could you have any interest in a bird dog? It doesn’t make sense, Beulah.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “I can’t explain it, and even if I could, you wouldn’t accept it.”

  “Would you like me better if I ran around chasing birds? Okay, if that’s what it takes, that’s what I’ll do. Good-bye, Beulah, I’m going away to prove that I’m a better bird dog than Plato. When I return, you’ll see the truth at last.”

  “Oh Hank, honestly!”

  I leaped out of the pickup and stormed away. She tried to call me back but by then my heart had turned to purest stone.

  I left her alone with her tears and memories, and went in search of Pete the Barncat.

  Chapter Eight: A Major Theft on the Ranch

  Why would I go looking for Pete? Good question. Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn’t have, but it just happened that in my last conversation with the little sneak, he had said something about “impressing Beulah the Collie,” if I recalled his words exactly.

  I had to find out what he meant by that.

  Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t in the habit of seeking the advice of cats, but Pete was an expert on sneaky plans and I needed some kind of special sneaky plan to take Beulah’s mind off her bird dog friend.

  It was for her own good, don’t you see. She needed the help of a true friend.

  I knew where to find the cat. In the middle of the day, he hung out on the shady side of the house, in the iris patch, to be exact. There, he lurked and waited and stared out at the rest of the world with his big yellow eyes.

  What was he waiting and lurking for? Scraps. A helpless bird. A leg to rub on. Who knows why cats spend so much of their time lurking? It’s just their nature to lurk in sneaky places.

  I felt very uncomfortable as I made my way past the gas tanks and up the hill behind the house, as though I were going into a den of thieves. I found myself glancing over both shoulders, and hoping that no one was watching.

  If word ever got out that I had gone to Pete for advice, my career would be finished.

  I d
idn’t leap over the fence and enter Sally May’s precious yard, for obvious reasons. Dogs were forbidden and I had no wish to tangle with the lady of the house. Sally May and I had suffered our share of misunderstandings, don’t you know, and I had no wish to throw gasoline on that open wound.

  We had been getting along pretty well, see, and I wanted to keep it that way.

  I sneaked past the yard gate and around to the north side. From that vantage point, I could see him—Pete, that is—hunkered down and lurking in the irises.

  I tossed a glance over my shoulder and dropped my voice to a whisper. “Pssst! Pete, come here.”

  His eyes swung around. He was grinning. “Hi Hankie. How’s the quail hunting?”

  “Not too swell, Kitty. Come over here to the fence.”

  “But I’m so comfortable, Hankie. I just love to lie here in the shade and watch the world go by.”

  “I know, but this is important. Come.”

  He ran his tongue over his left paw. “But Hankie, you haven’t said the magic word. I can’t move until you say it.”

  I noticed that my lips were beginning to rise into a snarl, but I shut them down just in time. “I don’t know any magic words.”

  “Well just darn the luck. I can’t move until I hear the magic word.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Okay, magic word. Abra­cadabra?”

  “Nope. You missed. Try again.”

  “Try again, magic word . . . okay, I think I’ve got it: shazzam.” He shook his head. “Pete, that’s a perfectly good magic word.”

  “I know, Hankie, but it’s not the right one. Keep trying. I’ve got all day.”

  Once again, I glanced over both shoulders. So far, I hadn’t been spotted. “Okay, Pete, I’ve got it this time. It’s slightly longer than one word but it ought to work.”

  “Well, give it a try and we’ll see.”

  “Here we go: Come here immediately, and that’s a direct order from the Head of Ranch Security.”

  He shook his head. “Won’t work, Hankie, but I’ll give you a hint. It’s a six-letter word that begins with P and ends with E, and it’s one of the most powerful words in the world.”