The Almost Last Roundup Read online

  “No, it might confuse me.”

  “Good point. Okay, let’s set the formation.” I put Drover on the right side of the screen door and I took the left side. On my signal, we launched our song. Here’s how it went.

  Chapter Ten: A Great Song

  We Feel So Ashamed

  We feel so ashamed.

  We know we’re to blame

  For making that stain on your trousers.

  We have no excuse.

  Our water turned loose.

  And now you must jump in the shower.

  Our hearts are attacked.

  We know you are hacked.

  We really can’t blame you for fuming.

  But, Slim, there is really no point in this dooming and glooming.

  It happened so fast

  And now we’re aghast

  For hosing you down without warning.

  We wet like a toad,

  Your lap caught the load

  And now we have gone into mourning.

  We’d do anything

  To take back the sting

  Caused by venting our distended bladders.

  The last thing we want is making you madder.

  Your patience is worn,

  Our friendship is torn,

  And Drover and I are just wretched.

  We beg one more chance.

  If you want, we will dance,

  Or throw an old sock and we’ll fetch it.

  This comes from the heart,

  We’re ready to start

  All over with fresh new intentions.

  But we’re here on the porch, as though we’d been put in detention.

  So let me suggest

  We put it to rest.

  I think we can find a way out:

  Forget the whole thing, and let your dogs stay in the house.

  What do you think? Awesome song, right? I agree.

  I wasn’t surprised that Slim ignored us. He knew we were out there, he could hear our pleas, but his heart had turned to stone, and he made us work for it.

  And we did. After going through the entire Heavy Begs Protocol, we had to bring out one of our all-time best sellers: Moans and Groans. It’s a toughie, but when we do it right, it works like a charm.

  We were three minutes into M&G when he finally showed up at the door. His appearance was a little shocking. He had taken a bath and changed into shorts and a T-shirt, and his legs…well, they were as skinny as fence posts and exactly the color of mayonnaise. No kidding.

  He leaned against the door jamb, crossed his arms, and glared down at us. “Am I going to have to listen to this mess all night long?”

  Well, yes, if that’s what it took.

  “Y’all don’t deserve a home that’s clean and decent.”

  We held our breaths and waited.

  “You ought to live outside with the toads and goats.”

  Boy, he was really pouring it on this time.

  “If I was to let you inside, would I need to put you in diapers?”

  Diapers! What a tacky thing to say. But you know what? He was beginning to loosen up.

  He nudged the screen door with his toe and pushed it halfway open. “The first bonehead that wets on my floor…”

  We didn’t give him a chance to finish his threat. We shot the gap, squirted through the crack in the door, and took our places in the middle of the living room floor. There, we became Perfect Doggies. He raved on for another three minutes, but that was okay. When you win, you can put up with their raving.

  At last, he wore himself out and flopped down in his big easy chair. He stared at the telephone on the floor. “I’ve got to call Viola, and I’m dreading it.” He got up, paced around the house, ate a cracker, and returned to the chair. He took a deep breath, snatched up the phone, and dialed the number.

  “Viola? Slim. Not so good. Viola, things are fixing to change over here.” He told her about the day’s events: the drought, the fire, haystacks burned, shipping the cows to market, and his job ending in two days.

  I couldn’t hear her side of the conversation, but I had a pretty good idea how she took the news. Bad. She was fond of Slim, don’t you see, and everybody in the neighborhood knew it, even the dogs. This was back before he gave her the lock-washer “engagement ring,” and we all kept hoping that one day, he would open his eyes and…

  I really don’t want to get started on this, but I guess I will.

  Okay, here we go. Slim had called Drover and me boneheads? Ha. He was the King of Boneheads! Miss Viola was the sweetest, kindest, prettiest lady in Texas. Furthermore, she was single and lived only three miles down the creek from Slim’s shack. Three miles!

  She had put out hints and given him opportunities, but here he was—still a dirty bachelor with mayonnaise legs, living alone in a shack, fixing to lose his job and move off to Montana…and miss out on the gift of a lifetime, a woman who might actually care about him!

  Blind, that’s what he was, blind, deaf and dumb, clueless, a perfect bonehead to the bitter end. And there wasn’t one thing I could do about it.

  Oh well, back to the phone conversation. “Anyway, Loper wondered if you could come over and ride with us day-after tomorrow. We’ll be short-handed. Good. Six o’clock at the corrals. Thanks.”

  He hung up the phone and stared off into space. “That’s one fine lady.”

  Yeah? Well, this was a great time for him to be figuring that out—now that he was fixing to leave the country, now that it was too late to do anything.

  You know, I’d always felt a powerful friendship with this guy, but there were times when I thought he didn’t deserve a patient, loyal dog. He needed a wolverine or a badger that would bite him three times a day. A pet shark. A snapping turtle.

  There’s a wise old saying about people who won’t open their eyes and see what’s right in front of them, but I’m so mad, I can’t remember it.

  Phooey.

  Sorry I got carried away. Where were we? Oh yes.

  Shipping Day started early. Slim was up at 4:30, made his coffee, and put on a fresh pair of jeans and a clean shirt. He pulled on his high-top riding boots with the spurs attached, fetched his chaps from the closet, and walked over to the door.

  Did he say, “Good morning” or “Hello, dogs”? Oh no. He opened the door and grumbled, “Out.” In the mornings, he has all the charm of a buzzard.

  Out on the porch, he turned on his flashlight and stuck the light beam right into my eyes. “Ya’ll ain’t invited to this. Stay here.”

  Fine with me. Who wanted to spend another day with him anyway? The old grump.

  On his way to the pickup-trailer rig, he looked up at the sky, a huge black dome lit up with a million stars. It was a desert sky: clear dry air and not a cloud in sight. I heard him mutter, “We sure won’t need our slickers today. Elmer Kelton had it right: The Time It Never Rained.”

  He climbed into the pickup, cranked up the motor, turned on the lights, and drove away. Just for the record, his trailer lights blinked off and on, making it look like some kind of Christmas display. Faulty wiring. Typical cowboy rig.

  You probably think that Drover and I spent the rest of the day sitting on the porch like stumps, snapping at flies and saying “Duhhh” to each other. Nope. I gave old Slimbo about thirty seconds of drive time, then turned to Drover.

  “All right, men, it’s time to move out.”

  He glanced around. “Move out of what?”

  “They’ll be loading trucks today and they can’t do it without dogs. We’re sending the entire Security Division to help.”

  “Yeah, but he told us to stay here.”

  “Drover, part of a dog’s challenge in this life is figuring out which of their orders we should ignore. Let’s go.”

  “Jump into the back
of a moving pickup?”

  “That’s correct. We’ve done it before: Syruptishus Loaderation.”

  “Yeah, but…” He took a few limping steps and crashed. “Oh drat, there it went! This old leg just quit me.”

  I didn’t have time to give him the tongue lashing he needed. “Fine, stay here and I’ll load all the trucks myself, but this will go into my report.”

  As I dashed away from the porch, I heard his faint reply. “Oh, my leg! Oh, the guilt!”

  How am I supposed to run a ranch when…oh well. He was no good at loading cattle anyway, the little weenie, because he was scared of getting kicked or stepped on. I would be better off without him.

  I went racing after the pickup and leaped into the back. It wasn’t so easy, because the pickup was pulling a gooseneck trailer. If a guy misses his jump or bangs his head against the neck of the trailer, he runs the risk of falling out of the pickup and getting run over.

  A lot of dogs wouldn’t have attempted such a foot…wouldn’t have tempted their feet…the point is, I took a huge professional risk, disobeying an order and diving into the back of a moving pickup. It had nothing to do with Slim’s charming personality, but had a lot to do with a cowdog’s deep sense of loyalty to his outfit.

  When they need us, we show up. When there’s work to do, we’re there.

  Slim and Loper would be short-handed, and whether they knew it or not, they would need my help loading those trucks.

  And then…well, there was Miss Viola. Don’t forget, she was crazy about me, and I had a feeling that she would be very impressed when she saw me loading trucks. A guy should never pass up a chance to impress the ladies, right? You bet.

  So there I was in the back of Slim’s pickup. He turned right on the county road and drove the two miles to ranch headquarters. The lights were on in the house when we drove past, and through the windows, I saw Loper and Sally May getting ready for the big day that lay before them.

  Even at a distance, I could see the sadness in their faces. This was the day of our Last Roundup.

  Chapter Eleven: On the Long, Dusty Trail

  Slim drove down to the corrals, turned off the engine and the lights, and started his morning chores. He fed the three horses he’d left up for the night: Dude for Loper, Snips for Slim, and Shadow, the Welsh pony, for Alfred. When the horses finished slobbering over their oats (they are such gluttons), he saddled them up.

  Me? I laid low. If Slim had caught me in the back of his pickup, he would have thrown a fit and locked me in the saddle shed.

  Along about six o’clock, when first light was showing on the eastern horizon, the others arrived: Loper, Sally May and Baby Molly, Alfred, and Miss Viola, with her sorrel mare in a two-horse side-by-side trailer.

  It was a pretty solemn occasion and nobody was cracking jokes. Loper explained the plan. We would drive two pickups to the north end of the ranch and unload the horses. Sally May would drive the pickup, the one without the trailer, and honk the horn, calling the cows. She would drive slowly to the south, while the riders followed along, horseback, picking up strays and calves.

  She would go through a wire gate into the next pasture, honking and calling the cows in that pasture too, and in the next pasture to the south. By the time we got to the headquarters corrals, we would have two hundred cows and about the same number of calves.

  In an ordinary, good-grass year, this roundup strategy wouldn’t have worked. We would have needed six cowboys to make the gather. You’re probably wondering why it worked this time, and you asked the right dog.

  See, in a drought, the cows are hungry. They’ve been scratching out a living on thistles, mesquite beans, gourd vines, and tree leaves, so when you blow the horn and rattle a feed sack, they’ll follow you all the way to Brownsville. All you need is a few riders on the drag-end to sweep up the calves and keep the herd moving along.

  It’s pretty amazing that a dog would know so much about roundup strategy, isn’t it? You bet. That’s why they call us cowdogs instead of porch-dogs. We know our cows, and don’t forget where Drover was spending his morning, the little slacker. On the porch of Slim’s shack.

  They loaded the four horses into the gooseneck trailer, and we left the corrals and drove north. Viola rode in the pickup with Sally May and the kids. Loper got in with Slim (I was in the back, but they didn’t know it) and we made the slow three-mile drive over pasture trails to the north end of the ranch. It took us twenty minutes.

  There, they unloaded the horses and the riders mounted up, just as pink light was beginning to show on the horizon. Loper glanced around to see that everyone was ready. “Well, this is a sad day for our family and this ranch. God bless us and keep us safe this morning…and send us a rain, even though it’s too late.”

  Slim nodded. “Amen. Anybody heard a weather forecast?”

  Loper flashed a bitter smile. “No, but it hasn’t changed in six months: hot and dry, dry and hot, hotter and drier. Let’s go.” Sally May drove south and start blowing the horn, and the roundup began. Hungry cows came fogging out of the draws and canyons, and Sally May led the way.

  I waited until they had gone a quarter-mile before I gave them the great news that I had come to help. Let’s face it, early exposure could have gotten me locked in the stock trailer. It had happened before. I mean, those guys had some peculiar ideas about gathering cattle, and sometimes I got the feeling that…well, they just didn’t understand how important it was to have a top-of-the line, blue-ribbon cowdog on the team.

  Hard to believe, isn’t it?

  I tagged along at a distance, then gradually picked up the pace until I “just happened” to end up trotting along beside Miss Viola and her mare. She wore a flat-brimmed felt hat with a braided rawhide stampede string under her chin (to keep the hat from blowing off in the wind), a western shirt with flowers and bright colors, blue jeans, and red roper boots with a nice little pair of Wayne Paul spurs on the heels.

  She looked so fresh and pretty, it made me gasp…and wonder if Slim’s head was filled with cement. He was going to leave this girl and move to Montana? Sometimes… oh well, we won’t get started on that.

  I trotted along beside her and was gawking so hard, I ran smooth into a mesquite bush. I guess that’s when she noticed me. She was surprised.

  “Hank? Where did you come from?” She turned in the saddle and called out to Slim, who was across the herd on the other side. “Slim, I didn’t know you brought Hank.”

  “Neither did I.” He spurred his horse and loped over to us, and scorched me with his eyes. “Bozo. I told you to stay at the house.”

  Yes, well, he should have known that wasn’t going to work.

  He rolled his eyes and grumbled. “Don’t chase the cattle, don’t bark, and try to act your age, not your IQ. If you start a stampede…”

  Miss Viola cut him off. “Oh, he’ll be all right. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  See? What did I tell you? She was crazy about me.

  Well, the morning that had been so pleasant at six o’clock got less pleasant as the hours passed. The sun grew warm, then hot. The wind picked up, the same cruel dry wind that had been thrashing us for months, only now it was heavy with the smell of burned grass and a cloud of dust kicked up by a herd of slow-moving cows.

  At nine o’clock, we came to a windmill and Loper called a halt. We’d been on the trail for two and a half hours. The riders were getting a little saddle-weary, and the cattle were ready for a drink at the stock tank.

  We gathered at the pickup and Sally May passed out breakfast burritos (she’d made them the night before) and cups of fresh, cool water. I happened to be sitting at the feet of Guess Who, and she happened to be standing off to the side, near Slim, and I heard part of their conversation.

  “What will you do?”

  He gave his head a shake. “I don’t know, Viola. Every cow outfit from Kansas t
o Mexico is in this same drought. There’s no cowboy jobs left, ‘cause the cows have all gone to the sale barn, same as we’re doing here.” He took a bite of his burrito. “All I know to do is start driving north ‘til I find green grass, and that’s liable to be Nebraska or Montana.”

  “That’s a long way from home.”

  “Yes ma’am, and if I thought about it long enough, I’d feel pretty blue. I’m trying not to think about it.”

  Their eyes met. He gave her a sad smile, and she answered with a sad smile.

  When the cattle had watered and caught their wind, Loper gave the order to mount up. Sally May drove ahead in the pickup and the cows strung out in a long line behind her, throwing up a cloud of dust that varied in color from gray to brown. The wind was coming out of the south, so everyone at the back of the herd was eating dirt—Little Alfred, Viola, and me.

  I couldn’t help being proud of the boy. I mean, this was the same little stinkpot who had ruined his dad’s birthday cake, but here he was, a little man, making a hand on a cattle drive. You could tell that he was getting tired and saddle sore, and his face looked like a Halloween mask (dust), but he didn’t whine or complain, and he kept his little pony moving down the trail.

  Just when you think these kids are about two-thirds worthless, they do something to fool you.

  Me? I stayed at the back of the herd and kept the slackers moving, the old thin cows and the young calves that were starting to pant. When they got too far behind the herd, I trotted behind ‘em and gave ‘em a snap on the hocks. It worked slick.

  Okay, there was one hateful old bat who took a dim view of me chewing on her ankles. She wheeled around and…well, tried to run a horn through my gizzard. It was a little embarrassing, to tell the truth. She chased me out of the herd and around in circles, whilst my friends on the cowboy crew whooped with laughter and yelled, “Git ‘er, Hankie, git ‘er, boy!”

  Not funny. I mean, the old hag wasn’t kidding about this, and…never mind. I took my position at the back of the herd, next to a certain lady, and we resumed our slow march to headquarters.