The Case of the Raging Rottweiler Read online

  “Naaa. I don’t need the exercise . . . even though some smart guy once said I walk like a fat duck.”

  “Fat duck? Now who would . . . oh, you mean me? Ha, ha. That was a joke, Bruiser, honest, just a joke. Good wholesome humor, but no kidding, I think you’d love that porch down the creek. It’s worth the walk.”

  “Naaa. I’m scared of the dark. And besides, I like your porch.”

  “You do? Well, uh, thanks. That’s a nice compliment, although the porch actually belongs to Slim, and I’m not sure he’d want you, uh, sleeping here. On his porch. Don’t you see.”

  “Yeah? Well, bark him out of bed again and we’ll ask.”

  “No, I think not. We tried that and . . . well, he asked that we not disturb him.”

  Bruiser was moving up the steps. I could hear his sloppy breathing. “Well, gee, what can we do? I mean, I sure wouldn’t want to sleep here if I’m not welcome.”

  “It’s nothing personal. He just doesn’t allow . . . uh . . . strange dogs, see. Sleeping on the porch. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Yeah? Well, here’s the way I figure it. I’m going to sleep on your porch. The only question is, how many dogs do I have to kill before I do it?”

  I tried to swallow the cotton and wool inside my mouth. “How many dogs . . . Bruiser, may I ask you a personal question? We were told . . . that is, we received a tip that, well, maybe you’re not as mean as you, uh, seem to be. Is there any . . . well, truth to that?”

  I heard him laugh. “Well, now, I guess you could bet your life on it and find out.”

  “Oh no, that’s not necessary, really. No, it’s a big porch, Bruiser, and I’m sure there’s plenty of . . .”

  “I have an idea. I’ll sleep on the porch and you sleep on top of the woodpile with your buddy. How does that sound?”

  He was right beside me now. I could feel his hot dragon breath on my face. “Actually, Bruiser, I think it would look bad. Undignified. See, I’m Head of Ranch . . .”

  He cut loose with a low, deep growl.

  “On second thought, that would be fine. The woodpile would be great. No problem. Drover, make way, I’m coming up.”

  I leaped up on top of the woodpile. Drover was there, of course, and he greeted me with, “Oh hi. What are you doing up here?”

  “Never mind. Scoot over. It seems we’re going to be sharing this bunk.”

  “Oh good, but I thought . . .”

  “Never mind. Scoot over and dry up.”

  He skeet over and dried up, and silence fell over our little compound. The silence didn’t last long. Drover, the little goof, fell right off to sleep (how could he sleep at such a time?) and began making his usual orchestra of weird sounds—wheezing, whistling, honking, and grunting in his sleep. As if that weren’t bad enough, Bruiser had his own set of noises. Remember what I said about rott­weilers being sloppy breathers? Well, guess what they do in their sleep. They snore. He snored like a ten-ton truck! No kidding, it was terrible.

  Who could sleep in the midst of such noise? I’ll tell you who: Drover and Bruiser. Oh, and Slim—Mister Couldn’t Sleep for All the Noise and Doused Me with a Pot of Water. Now that we had a rott­weiler King Kong occupying our porch, Slim slept like a rock.

  A great help he turned out to be.

  Well, I knew I would be up for the rest of the night. I mean, not only was the noise unbearable, but I had many things on my mind—such as what Slim would say in the morning if he found the entire Security Division . . . uh . . . asleep on the heights of the woodpile. It wouldn’t look good, not good at all, and worrying about such detonks is just the sort of thunk that keeps me awonk all nop.

  All night, I should say.

  See, I spend a lop of my toink worrying abonk such tiny derails . . . details. My mind is very okra, don’t you sleep, and it konks me awonking snork murk . . . boiled turnips . . . chasing rabbits . . . through the pillow feathers . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  Okay, maybe I finally dozed off, and the next thing I knew . . . HUH? I heard a door open and found myself staring at . . . a scarecrow. That was odd. Scarecrows lived in gardens, right? And this was no garden. This was . . .

  I blinked my eyes and studied my surrenders . . . my surroundings, shall we say. The porch. I was lying on the porch . . . on the woodpile, actually, and the scarecrow turned out to be Slim. The events of the previous evening came rushing back to my memory banks, and I found myself beaming . . . uh . . . Looks of Great Embarrassment toward Slim. And giving my tail Slow Taps, as if to say, “I know this looks odd, but hear me out, I can explain everything.”

  He blinked his soggy red eyes. “What are you fools doing on the woodpile?” Then his gaze slid away from me and fell upon the sleeping monster on our porch. His eyebrows shot up. “Good honk, it’s Bruiser. Is that what you dogs were barking about?”

  Oh brother.

  Just then, Bruiser woke up and raised his head. He looked straight into Slim’s eyes. Rottweilers do that, you know. They have a way of staring directly at someone and showing not one hint of fear. They just stare, and you don’t have any idea what’s going through their minds.

  That must have unnerved old Slim, because he backed into the house, and when he returned a moment later, he was armed with a catch rope. I felt an impulse to stand up and cheer, but I didn’t, because I knew that we were about to enter into a very dangerous moment. Let’s see if I can describe it.

  From where I was sitting, it appeared that Slim had chosen the rope as his weapon of choice. See, a cowboy’s rope can be either a catching device or a pretty good substitute for a club, depending on the situation. I’d seen Slim kill big rattlesnakes with his rope—pull the loop down to a knot, swing the knot around on six feet of rope, and then WHACK! You could crush a rattlesnake’s head with one shot.

  Without taking his eyes off of Bruiser, he built a small loop and took a step in Bruiser’s direction. Bruiser’s eyes never moved or wavered. Slim started talking in a voice that was soft but firm.

  “Now Bruiser, you’ve lost your way in the world, and I mean you no harm. I’m going to ease this loop around your neck so’s you’ll be around when Joe McCall gets here to pick you up. It’s for your own good and nobody’s going to hurt you—unless you decide to play King Kong again, and then, son, the fur will fly. Yours.”

  Slim took another step. Bruiser didn’t flinch or move or show any emotion at all. Their eyes were locked together. Drover woke up, saw the scene unfolding, and covered his eyes with his paws.

  Slim took another step. Bruiser stared. The ten­sion grew and grew. I could hardly stand to watch it. I had a feeling that something terrible was about to happen and . . .

  This is getting too scary. I don’t think we’d better go on.

  Chapter Eight: Much Too Scary for Most Readers

  What? You’re still here? I guess you think I’m going to change my mind and tell you the rest of the story, huh?

  Nope, can’t do it. Sorry. It’s just too tense and scary. Think of the kids. It might scare ’em so badly, they’d . . . I don’t know what might happen. We’ll skip over the bad part and go on to something else.

  It’s for your own good, honest.

  Okay, here we go. It was morning on the ranch and there was no raging rottweiler on the porch, not even a sign of one. Not only was Bruiser not there, but we’d never heard of him and maybe he didn’t even exist. Yes, that was it. There was no such dog as Bruiser, and even if there had been . . .

  Oh, what the heck, maybe you can handle it. Shall we give it a try? Okay, but don’t blame me if you get scared all the way into next week. Here we go. Hang on.

  There they were, Slim and Bruiser, heading for a faceful confrontation. Fateful, I should say, and neither showed any sign of backing down. Gulp. But one of them had to back down. In this game of nerves, there could be only one winner.

  Slim held th
e loop out in front of him. Bruiser didn’t look at the loop. His steely eyes were fixed on Slim. Closer and closer . . .

  At that very moment, when it appeared that Slim and Bruiser were heading down a path of no return, we heard the rattle of a pickup coming our way. It was Joe McCall. Bruiser turned his head and looked toward the sound. Slim eased the loop over his head and snugged it up—not tight, but snug.

  I held my breath and waited to see what Bruiser would do. He . . .

  You won’t believe this. He felt the rope, looked up at Slim, and . . . began wagging his stub tail! Slim leaned down and rubbed him behind the ears.

  “That’s better. Nice dog.” He straightened up and made a low whistling sound. “Whew! I guess he ain’t as mean as he looks.” He turned to me and grinned. “It’s safe for you heroes to come down off the woodpile now.”

  Was he suggesting . . . hey, for his information, I had chosen to sleep on top of the woodpile because it was cooler up there. It had nothing, almost nothing at all, to do with any uneasy feelings I might have had about . . .

  Hey, Bruiser was nothing but a big windbag, and I’d known it the minute I’d first laid eyes on him. Scared of cats. Scared of his face in the mirror. All bark and no bite, all talk and no fight. Why, he was just lucky I was such a kind and generous dog, otherwise, I might have . . .

  I hopped down off the woodpile and walked boldly up to Mister Phony Rottweiler and put my nose in his left flank. He growled. Big deal. I gave him one right back, and mine was twice as awesome as his.

  “You’d best keep your distance, cowdog.”

  “Oh yeah? Tell that to Drover. He might be impressed.”

  Before I could give the big chicken liver the thrashing he so richly deserved, Joe McCall rushed in and snapped a chain around his neck and led him away to the pickup. When I saw that the chain was secured to the racks of the pickup, I dived off the porch and went streaking out into the yard.

  Slim tried to hold me back, but my thirst for revenge was just too great. I gave the mutt a burst of Savage Warning Barks.

  “And let that be a lesson to you, Mister Phony Rottweiler. If you ever set foot on this ranch again, you won’t be walking like a fat duck anymore. You won’t even be walking, because you won’t have any legs!”

  Pretty impressive, huh? You bet. I got him told, yes sir, and the big lug was so shocked, so scared, so amazed, he didn’t even bark back. He just gave me that ugly stare and rumbled, “You’re such a loser.”

  They drove away. I lobbed a few more barks at ’em from the gravel drive, just to make sure they didn’t stop or loiter on their way out. Then I turned and marched proudly back to the porch. Slim was there, leaning against a porch post and running a toothpick through his teeth. I could see that he was impressed.

  “You know, Hank, there’s certain times when a dog ought to keep his mouth shut. But some dogs learn harder than others.”

  Okay, so maybe he wasn’t impressed. Did I care? Heck no. I had done my job and had sent the rottweiler packing, and it was just too bad that Slim didn’t appreciate the high quality of my work. He was the same guy, you might remember, who had dumped a pot of water on me in the middle of the night. That’s how much he knew about Ranch Security.

  Zero.

  Well, by then it was past eight o’clock and time to start the day’s work. Slim hooked up the stock trailer, saddled a horse, and loaded him in the trailer. As he was walking toward the pickup, he saw me and Drover sitting in front of the barn.

  “I’m going up on the flats to check on them steers. Y’all want to tag along?”

  Me? Tag along with him, after he’d dumped that pot of water on me? Ha! No thanks. I had better things to do and better friends to do ’em with.

  He shrugged and climbed into the pickup. “Dumb dogs.”

  Drover shot me a glance. “Know what? I think I’ll go. How about you?”

  “Not me, pal. Slim and I aren’t on the best of terms right now. I think it would do him some good to spend the day alone.”

  “Yeah, but it’s kind of boring around here.”

  “Not for me, son. Excitement is where you find it, and I seem to find quite a lot of it, no matter where I am.”

  Slim started the motor. Drover began edging toward the pickup. “Well, I think I’ll go. See you around.” He hopped up into the back.

  “That’s fine, Drover. You go and I’ll stay here and enjoy my own company.”

  “Bye, Hank.”

  They pulled away. What a relief. At last I was rid of the little squeak box and could look forward to spending my whole day . . . come to think of it, there wasn’t all that much to do around Slim’s place. I mean, no chickens to chase, no cats to humble, no . . .

  I trotted out and followed the pickup. “Drover, on second thought, I might go along for the ride. Hold up a second.”

  “Well, I’m not driving. You’ll have to get Slim’s attention.”

  “You can forget that. Slim and I aren’t on speaking terms right now.”

  “Well, I don’t know what to do. Bye now. Have a good day.”

  Okay, so I had to swallow my pride and trot along beside the pickup to . . . well, inform Slim that I had reconsidered his offer and had decided . . .

  He saw me trotting beside the pickup, I knew he saw me, but did he pull over and let me in? Oh no. That would have been too simple and easy. He made me trot and run a quarter mile before he finally stopped in the middle of the road. And then, of course, he had to make a big deal out of it.

  “Make up your mind, pooch, I ain’t running a taxi service. If you’re going with me, get in.”

  See? That’s all the thanks I got for . . . oh well. One of us had to show some maturity, and as usual, it had to be me. I hopped into the back and growled Drover out of my place of honor in the middle of the spare tire.

  We turned right on the county road and picked up speed. The wind began blowing my ears and tongue around. It blew my tongue around because my mouth was open, because that’s how we dogs air-condition our bodies in hot weather. We pant, see, and somehow that panting action cools us down.

  So I closed my eyes and let the wind tease and tickle my ears, while it also served the purpose of cooling down my . . . dog hairs? I opened my eyes and noticed a bunch of dog hairs swirling around in the air. Several of them . . . a bunch of them had landed on my tongualary region, forcing me to close my mouth and spit them out.

  I beamed a glare at my assistant. Over the roar of the wind, I yelled, “Hey, quit shedding hair! They’re getting in my mouth.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, I was under Slim’s bed, but it sounded like fun.”

  “Mouth. My mouth.”

  “You killed a mouse?”

  “You’re getting hair in my mouth.”

  “You got a mouse in your mouth?”

  “No, I’m getting your hair in my mouth. Hair! Your hair is swirling around.”

  “Squirrels around? I thought they were mice.”

  “What?”

  “The squirrels. Were they inside the house?”

  “Those were mice. MICE.”

  “Yeah, squirrels are nice. I’ve always liked ’em.”

  This wasn’t working. I heaved a sigh and pushed myself out of my spare-tire throne and lumbered over to the runt. I put my mouth at the entrance of his ear canal and raised my voice.

  “I said, YOU ARE SHEDDING HAIR. THE HAIR IS GETTING IN MY MOUTH.”

  He crumpled up like a burned spider and put his paws over his ears. “Don’t yell! It hurts my ears, and I hate to be yelled at in the morning.”

  “Okay, then try reading my lips. Look at my mouth.”

  He looked at my mouth. “I’ll be derned. Did you know you’ve got dog hairs in your mouth?”

  “What? You’ll have to speak up. I can’t hear any­thing in this wind.”

 
He put his mouth next to my ear. “DID YOU KNOW YOU’VE GOT DOG HAIRS IN YOUR MOUTH?”

  His screeching was so loud, it caused my earatory circuits to short out. “Don’t yell in my ear, you bonehead! I’m not deaf! Now, what did you say? I’ll try to read your . . . Drover, you’ve got dog hairs all over your lips. Were you aware of that?”

  “I know. I think they’re yours. Maybe you’re shedding hair in this heat.”

  For a moment I stared into the emptiness of his eyes. I felt exhausted, worn down by the forces of chaos. “Drover, sometimes I get the feeling that it’s impossible to communicate with you. Please don’t ever speak to me again.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. A few little hairs won’t hurt.”

  “Drover, sometimes I think I hate you.”

  “No, I ate first thing this morning. I couldn’t hold another bite, but thanks.”

  I turned away from the little lunatic and staggered back to my spare tire.

  I curled up and closed my eyes for the remainder of the ride.

  Make no mistake about it. Drover is a WEIRD little mutt.

  Chapter Nine: Slim and I Check Cattle

  I opened my eyes and saw that we had reached the Barnett place, a pasture up on the flats that Loper had leased for the summer.

  The pickup lurched to a stop. I rose from the spare tire and went straight into a Yawning and Stretching procedure. There, that felt better. The toxic vapors Drover had unleashed inside my brain had drifted away, leaving me whole and sound again.

  I was ready to go to work.

  Slim unloaded Snips, his horse for the day, and tightened the cinch. He swung up into the saddle and we set out on our mission, counting and checking two hundred yearling steers that were summering on grass. Hey, this was my kind of work.

  We headed east in a long trot, Slim and I did, and I noticed that Drover stayed at the pickup. Why? Because he’s a little weenie. Because he doesn’t know beans about the cattle business and doesn’t care to learn. Because the day was hot and he wanted to lie around in the shade.