The Curse of the Incredible Priceless Corncob Page 4

  The treasure was safe.

  I moved it down to the sick pen and slipped it under one of those old wooden feed troughs. Surely it would be . . . but maybe not. Hadn’t I left tracks in the dirt? Anyone who leaves tracks in the dirt can be tracked.

  No, my treasure wasn’t safe there. I removed it and went in search of a better hiding place.

  I must have walked around headquarters five times before it dawned on me that a safe hiding place simply did not exist. I mean, if you’re hiding garbage or ordinary stuff, any old place will do, but if you’re hiding a priceless fortune . . .

  Of course that left me with a small problem. What the heck was I going to do with it if I couldn’t hide it? I didn’t dare leave it anywhere, I didn’t dare sleep, I didn’t dare let it out of my grasp, so you might say that I walked around all night with the Priceless Corncob in my mouth.

  Sure got sleepy. Boy, did I get sleepy. Could hardly keep my ice open, but iron discipline pre vailed and I kepp ppinch ing mys self to sssstay awakzzz derned near fell slee p zzzzeveral time

  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  H U H??

  All at once, someone was bending down, yelling in my face! Who was this man? What was the meaning of this? He must have been insane, yelling at me like that.

  Well, hey, if there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s one thing more than another, and also crazy people yelling at me in the morning, so I by George bristled up and . . .

  Morning?

  How could it be morning? IT COULDN’T BE MORNING! I remembered very distinkingly . . . only moments ago . . . through iron discipline I had . . . I’ll be a son of a gun, it WAS morning.

  And the guy yelling in my face was High Loper. “Hank, wake up, you lazy devil, we’ve got a job for you! Come on, jump in the pickup!”

  Job for me . . . jump in the pickup, by George okay, I was wibe awape and reaby to go worp, I jumped up and staggered five steps and leaped into the back of the pickup, my leaper didn’t work so good, hit the tailgate dead center with my nose, derned near broke it off, hit the ground hard, jumped up, tried her again, got her done this time, landed slap in the middle of the pickup bed and also on the high-lift jack.

  And by that time I was not only wide awake but I realized that I had fallen asleep sometime during the night, which is sort of a precondition to waking up. Falling asleep, that is.

  I could hardly believe it. How could I have . . . well, I never claimed to be more than flesh and blood.

  I yawned and took a big stretch. And then I remembered MY TREASURE. My eyes darted to the spot where I had fallen asleep.

  THE PRICELESS CORNCOB WAS GONE! Someone or something had stolen it in the night, and although I hated to cast dispersions at anyone in particular, my cowdog intuition told me that Drover had . . .

  Oh. It was then I noticed that Slim had come along, picked up the cob, and was taking it to the trash barrel. He pitched it into one of the three barrels and wandered over to the pickup.

  Well, that wasn’t exactly a catastrophe. All I had to do was hop out of the pickup, slip over to the barrel . . .

  “Hank, get back in the pickup!”

  On the other hand, maybe I could wait until we got back from this job. I hopped back in the pickup bed and greeted Loper with a friendly wag and big cowdog smile.

  He started the pickup and we went roaring up the hill in front of the house. Drover, also known as Mister Sleep Till Noon, heard the noise and managed to lift his head off his gunnysack for just a second. He looked around, waved good-bye, and went back to sleep.

  No big surprise there. That’s typical Drover. But you’ll notice that the cowboys chose ME for this important job, not Mister Half-Stepper.

  They can tell who hustles and who’s a slacker. Also who’s a greedy-gut and who’s not.

  Anyway, we went up the hill and past the front of the house. Little Alfred was out in the front yard and waved a yellow sand shovel at us.

  That’s one of the little bonuses of being on the first string, don’t you see. When you’re chosen for an important mission, you can ride on the spare tire in the back of the pickup and watch the little kids wave and cheer as you go off to the pasture.

  Kids kind of idolize a brave and heroic cowdog, which is one of the bonuses I guess I already said that.

  We pulled around to the back of the machine shed and Loper backed up to the green stock trailer. Slim got out and signaled him back, flopping his hands for “left,” then “right,” then “come on back,” then . . . crunch!

  Slim shook his head. “That’s a little too much.”

  Loper watched him in the rearview mirror. “How am I supposed to know what all your dad­gum hand signals mean!”

  “Pull up!”

  “You just told me to come back!”

  “Well, come back then, I don’t care. But if you want to hook up this trailer, you’ll have to pull up.”

  Loper grumbled and stuck the gear shift into grandma-low and crept forward. To help him out, I barked a couple of times. “Hank, shut up!”

  O-kay.

  “Whoa!” Slim called out, then he shook his head and frowned. “No, that’s too much now. Back up.”

  “Make up your mind, will you! We’ve got work to do.”

  Loper put the pickup into reverse and came back. Slim measured off the distance between his hands and clapped them together.

  “There you go. Hold her right there.” On impulse, I barked again. Slim’s eyes came up. He grinned and shifted his chewing tobacco over to the other cheek. “Loper wouldn’t go very far in this life without our directions, would he, Hank?” I barked three more times.

  Loper stuck his head out the window and launched some tobacco juice into the weeds. “Are you welding that trailer or just hooking it up? Come on, we’re burning daylight!” I barked for that. “Shut up, Hank.”

  Slim cranked the trailer down on the hitch ball and locked it in place. He didn’t hook up the trailer lights, I noticed. These guys never hook up the trailer lights because the trailer lights never work.

  Poor management, if you ask me.

  Slim climbed into the cab and off we went. I climbed on top of the spare tire so’s I could catch a nice fresh breeze on my face and see where we were going.

  That’s one of my jobs around here, riding look-out. Any cars or trucks that come along need to be barked. You never know who might be riding in those cars and trucks, and the best policy is to give them a good barking right away.

  Loper turned right at the mailbox and then made a left onto that pasture road that goes up into the canyons. I sat up there on the spare tire and enjoyed one of God’s blessings, a nice fresh fall breeze blowing over my . . .

  By George, it was raining. I got a big juicy raindrop right in the middle of my face, is how I knew it was raining. But there was something funny about this rain.

  I studied the sky. There wasn’t a cloud up there, not even one. I had just about decided that I had imagined the raindrop when another one smacked me just below the left ear, and before I knew it, another one smacked me just below the right ear.

  You know what? Them raindrops were brown. Never saw anything quite like it. I checked the clouds again and caught two more raindrops square in the face.

  That was enough for me. I went to the back of the pickup. I can’t tell you what makes brown raindrops fall out of a clear blue sky, but I can tell you from firsthand experience that if you go back to the tailgate and lie down, the rain will stop.

  Beats anything I ever saw.

  Chapter Seven: A Narrow Escape from Horned Death

  We made our way north over that dusty, bumpy road, climbed the caprock, went into the middle pasture, followed the road where it loops around to the west, turned back north over at the fence between the middle and west pastures, drove a mile or two in that direction, and went into the nor
thwest pasture at that wire gate near the spot where that old cow died in the blizzard and her bones are still there, which explains why they call it Dead Cow Gate.

  Sounds kind of spooky, doesn’t it? Dead Cow Gate. Well, if you think that’s spooky, I’ve got some bad news for you. The REAL spooky part is yet to come.

  I mean, unbeknownst to me, I had been tapped for one of the most dangerous missions of my career, and if you have the slightest physical weakness, such as shortness of breath, a tendency to faint, hook worms, round worms, ringing of the ears, Eye-Crosserosis, liver flukes, inflammation of the galoot, tired blood, or heartburn—DON’T READ THE REST OF THIS CHAPTER.

  Just skip over it. It ain’t worth the risk unless you’re in top physical condition and you’re mentally prepared for a tale that will make your hair stand on end.

  This mission was so dangerous that I can’t even reveal if I survived it or not. So there you are. Proceed at your own risk, and if you get the liver scared out of you, don’t blame me.

  We drove through Dead Cow Gate and headed north on a narrow, bumpy feed trail. Since we were pulling a stock trailer, Loper had to take it slow. I know that broke his heart because he loves to hot-rod the pickup over the ranch.

  He’s sure hard on equipment.

  Well, we came to that hill that leads down to the windmill, and we inched our way down. I noticed that the Mysterious Brown Rain had stopped by this time and I went back to my position on the spare tire. Up ahead, standing near the water tank, was a horned cow, and ten-twelve feet to the west, lying in a clump of grass, was her calf.

  Maybe she thought that calf was hidden, and I expect that most ordinary dogs would have missed it, but my eyes are trained to pick up the smallest details and that’s just what they did.

  So the clues were falling into place. We hadn’t even arrived on location, yet already I had begun gathering clues and sifting evidence. I had a feeling that it wouldn’t take me long to wrap this one up.

  Loper stopped the pickup and he and Slim stepped out. The cow watched their every move, which was okay because I watched HER every move. She sniffed the air and bawled and looked over toward the calf. She backed up a few steps and started pawing up dirt.

  So. We had one here that was going to play the tough-guy routine. I’ve seen it many times in my career, and I have my little bag of tricks that I use on cows like her. Sometimes I bite their heels, sometimes I bite them on the flanks, sometimes I take a killer hold on their noses, but in all cases I use quickness and superior intelligence to beat them at their own shabby game.

  But here’s the thing to remember: when one goes to pawing up dirt, it does something to me, inflames me, gets me all stirred up, makes me want to dive out of the pickup and go on the attack.

  Which is sort of what I did. I flew out of the pickup like an arrow on its way to the target, hit the ground running, and went into what we call the Pre-Gather Barkeration Mode. Behind the complex technical language lies a simple truth, which is that a lot of times you can accomplish your primary objectives with a stern barking.

  Now where were we? Oh yes, I had just dived out of the pickup and gone into the Pre-Gather Barkeration Mode. I gave her three rapid barks as a way of beginning the procedure and testing her resolve.

  You might say that her resolve tested out pretty high. I knew I had a bad cow here when she answered my first three barks by loading me up on her horns and throwing me a distance of, shall we say, something in the 10–12 foot range.

  In the business, we refer to this as Pre-Gather Flying Lessons. That’s kind of an inside joke, see, because we rarely plan it that way, for obvious reasons. But the fact that it’s an inside joke doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s funny.

  Basically, it’s not funny at all. Basically, it hurts.

  You might say that she caught me slightly off guard and that landing on my back did nasty things to my ability to breathe and see. I staggered to my feet and waited for the cowboys to come to my rescue.

  “HANK, YOU IDIOT, LEAVE THE COW ALONE! You’ve got her so stirred up, we won’t be able to do a thing with her!”

  HUH? Leave the . . . Well, hey, I can take a hint. By George, it doesn’t take a full orchestra and a neon sign to get a point across to Hank the Cowdog. I dragged my powerful but wounded body out of the field of battle and took cover, so to speak, behind the pickup.

  Loper had taken a catch rope out of the cab, and I listened as they discussed their next move. It appeared that, for reasons unknown at that point, they wanted to load the cow and calf into the trailer. How did they plan to do that out in the pasture, where they had no pens or loading facilities?

  Here’s what they did. Loper shook out a little loop and slipped around behind the calf. The old cow watched him and appeared ready to charge, but just then Slim stepped out and waved his hat at her. (It’s an old trick, used to distract a cow on the fight.)

  While the cow made wicked noises at Slim, Loper was able to get into throwing range of the calf. When the calf jumped up to run, he brought up the loop, whipped it around one time, and flipped it out. (It’s called a hoolihan toss and Loper can do it pretty well.)

  The loop went straight to the mark and pulled down on the calf’s neck. When Calfie hit the end of the twine, he jumped into the air and started bawling. That got the old lady stirred up something terrible. Say, fellers, she was ready to do some serious damage.

  She wasn’t paying attention to Slim anymore. She had her wild eyes on the guy who was messing around with her calf. She shook her horns and bellered and took aim for High Loper, who was trying to drag the calf to the trailer.

  It was at that precise moment that Slim un­leashed a secret weapon, his deadly fighting and barking machine. He looked down at me and said, “Get her, Hank!”

  Even though I was still hurting from my first encounter with the nasty wench, even though I had been called an “idiot” by the very cowboy I was being sent out to rescue, I forgave past mistakes and ignored the throbbing of my body and went streaking into combat.

  I wish you could have seen it. Oh, that was an attack to remember! I sank my teeth into her brisket and suddenly she lost interest in what Loper was doing. She slung me around and bellered and slobbered, but you know what? When you got one by the brisket, she has a real hard time putting her horns to use.

  Well, while old Sookie was trying to sweep the ground with me, Loper dragged the calf into the trailer, stuck it in the front compartment, and closed the middle gate. By this time I had figgered out their strategy. They’d locked the calf in the front and hoped that when the old lady heard him bawling, she would jump into the back compartment. They could close the back gate on her and that would be the end of it.

  Not a bad plan, actually, only it didn’t work. The old cow was so stirred up by then, she had lost interest in her calf and all she could think of was making hamburger out of me. How foolish of her, but nobody ever said that cows were smart.

  Well, I played my deal about as slick as it could be played. I hung on to her brisket until all hands were safe and all our objectives had been accomplished. Then I simply released my jaws and walked away.

  All right, maybe I RAN away, for the simple reason that she came after me with them horns. That’s an excellent reason for running. Before you could say “osmosis” five times, I had scooted my bad self under the pickup and was through for the day.

  Mission accomplished.

  I was ready to go to the house but the cowboys were still puzzling over the problem of how to get the cow loaded. That being their problem, I didn’t concern myself with it.

  I was licking down a couple of spots where the cow had mussed my coat, when all at once I realized that the boys had stopped talking. And they were looking under the pickup. At me.

  “Here, Hankie, come here, boy.” That was Loper. I hardly recognized his voice. Instead of yelling and cursing, he was addressing
me in a tone that was not only friendly, but also full of respect and admiration.

  What was this? You mean after years and years of being yelled at and taken for granted, I was suddenly getting some of the appreciation I so richly deserved?

  I crawled out from under the pickup and collected kind words, pats on the head, a couple of nice rubs under my chin. I was basking, so to speak, in the limelight when . . . that was strange. Loper picked me up and carried me into the back compartment of the trailer, and Slim slipped the catch rope around my middle, just behind my front legs, and he pitched the coils of the rope over the bars on the left side of the . . .

  What were these guys . . .

  And then they left me in there by myself and Slim took hold of the rope and gave it a jerk and I went up into the air and . . .

  What the heck were they . . .

  “All right, Hank, start barking again, see if you can get her to come after you.”

  Start barking . . . see if I could . . . HUH?

  Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle . . . hey, those guys were planning to use me for BAIT! Which was too bad because I had no intention of, but on the other hand, when they’ve got you on a catch rope, it’s hard to argue . . .

  I barked a protest. I mean, this was by George outrageous, but barking might not have been a smart thing to do, don’t you see, because it sort of called attention to my presence there in the trailer.

  And here she came. I could see the blood vanes, blood vaynes, blood vaens, spelling has never been one of my better areas, blood veins standing out on her eyeballs. I could hear her snorting like a locomotive. I could see the sharp tips of her horns gleaming in the sunlight.

  Fellers, she flew into that trailer like a jungle cat and all at once it seemed awful crowded. There for a minute, I thought the old curtain was about to fall on my life’s performance, so to speak, and that I was fixing to go to my internal reward.