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  Miss Viola had gotten out of the pickup by then and came up with a worried look in her eyes. “Slim, you sound awful!”

  “I’m okay.” He straightened up and closed the gate. Then, shuffling along on what appeared to be frozen feet, he led Snips to the trailer gate and told him to load up. This time, the big lug didn’t need an engraved invitation. I mean, he was ready to go to the barn and he flew into the trailer.

  Minutes later, we were all packed into the warm cab of the pickup and Slim was holding a cup of soup in his trembling fingers. I found myself sitting next to Drover. I had no intention of ever speaking to him again, but he spoke first.

  “How was it?”

  My gaze slid around and landed on him like…I don’t know what. Like a fly swatter, I suppose. “What?”

  “I guess it was pretty cold out there.”

  “I can’t describe how cold it was.”

  His gaze wandered. “Yeah, I sure felt bad, staying in here, but Miss Viola…well, she needed somebody to keep her company.”

  “Uh huh. Did you enjoy sitting in her lap? I saw that.”

  He grinned. “Oh yeah. What a great lap!” He glanced around and lowered his voice. “You know, Hank, I think she loves me.”

  I stared into the eyes of this pathetic little squeakbox and searched for words that would express the armored column of thoughts that were rumbling across my mind. I thought of screaming in his face or giving him the thrashing he so richly deserved, but I was too cold to move, so I muttered, “Drover, this will all come out at your court martial, and you WILL PAY.”

  His grin faded. “Gosh, what did I do?”

  “You not only sat in her lap, but you enjoyed every minute of it!”

  “Well, you would have done the same thing.”

  “Of course I would have, and that’s the difference between you and me.”

  “Yeah, but what’s the difference? I don’t get it.”

  My eyes darted back and forth. All at once, I didn’t get it either, yet I knew in my deepest heart that he was totally wrong and I was totally right. And isn’t that all that matters, really? If we know we’re totally right, we don’t have to explain it to the tiny minds of this world.

  I turned my back on the little wretch and took a solemn vow, never to speak to him again.

  It was a long slow drive back to Slim’s place, with the four-wheel drive pickup grinding across the snow-packed road. It had turned into a gloomy day with an overcast sky that was still spitting flakes of snow. The north wind had diminished somewhat but it could still cut you to the bone.

  Slim gulped down his soup and said it warmed him up, but I noticed that his hands were still shaking and his face looked as pale as oatmeal. Viola noticed too. I mean, she hardly took her eyes off him, and every time he bent over the wheel and coughed, she seemed to feel it as much as he did.

  At last, we arrived in front of Slim’s saddle shed. He led his frosted horse into the corral, pulled off the saddle, and left him with a big scoop of oats and three flakes of bright alfalfa hay—a lot more than he deserved. If Slim had paid him what he was worth…

  Oh well, we needn’t dwell on that. You know my Position On Horses. They get all the glory and publicity, all the photographs and paintings and all the glamorous parts in the movies, but we know who keeps things running in the Real West.

  The dogs.

  Chapter Ten: Feeding Cattle in the Snow

  Slim walked Viola to her pickup, and let me tell you, she had her eyes on him every step of the way. He didn’t look so good and she noticed. When they reached the pickup, he opened the door for her. Instead of getting inside, she pulled off the glove on her right hand and placed it on his cheek.

  “I think you’re running a fever.”

  “I ain’t got a fever.”

  “Maybe you ought to go to the doctor.”

  “I ain’t going to the doctor. He spends his days sticking needles into people. There’s something wrong with a man who does that for a living.”

  Viola shook her head and gazed off into the distance. “You are such a baby!”

  “I’m feeling better now.”

  “This flu is nothing to fool around with. Maybe you should go to bed. I’ll bring you some supper.”

  “Viola, I’ve got to feed cattle. Every blade of grass on this ranch is covered with snow. Those yearlings haven’t had a bite to eat in at least twelve hours. That’s my job.”

  Her nose rose to a defiant angle. “Then I’ll help.”

  “No, you won’t. Go home. Your folks are probably walking the floor, wondering if you ran off with a carnival.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Slim, I’m a grown woman!”

  He looked at her and a weak smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “You’re kind of cute when you get mad. Anybody ever tell you that?”

  “Stubborn man.”

  He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Viola, I sure appreciate your help. Now, you go on home and stay warm. I’ll be fine.”

  “When you finish feeding, promise you’ll go straight to bed?”

  “Promise, cross my heart.”

  “I’ll call you this afternoon.”

  “Yes ma’am.” He gave her a little hug. “Thanks again. You’re a trooper.”

  Her eyes lingered on him for a moment. “I’m more than that, but thanks. I guess being a trooper is better than being a nuisance.”

  “Well, you’re that too…sometimes.”

  She gave him a playful slap on the arm, got into her daddy’s pickup, and drove away. Slim watched and muttered, “Now that she’s gone, I can cough all I want.” He doubled over and coughed so hard, his eyes watered and his face turned red.

  Maybe he thought she didn’t notice. Ha. Little did he know. I happened to be looking at her pickup as she drove away and saw her eyes in the side mirror. She saw everything.

  She didn’t stop but she noticed, and as you will see…well, that comes later in the story and you’ll find out soon enough.

  Where were we? Oh yes, tired, worn out, half-frozen, hungry, and ready to spend the rest of the day napping in front of Slim’s wood stove. I pointed myself toward the house.

  You know, when a guy gives a hundred and ten percent and endures hardships beside his cowboy pals, he’s left with a pleasant afterglow of memories. The slackers and half-steppers of this world never figure it out—that you don’t know how good life can be until you’ve experienced how bad it can be.

  “Hank, this way!”

  Your ordinary ranch mutts dodge the tough jobs and hard assignments. They want the pleasure but not the suffering, but you can’t have it both…

  “Hank!”

  …ways. Huh? I stopped and glanced around and saw Drover, my former Assistant Head of Ranch Security, shivering in the snow. (I had already decided to fire him). “Did you call me?”

  “No, it was Slim.” He pointed a quivering, ice-caked paw toward the north, where Slim was unhooking the stock trailer from the pickup.

  “Oh. I wonder what he wants.”

  “I think we have to feed cattle.”

  “Are you crazy? Listen, pal, I worked my shift, my day’s over. If you want to help Slim, go ahead. I’m out of here.”

  I continued my march to the house. On the porch, I stood in front of the door and waited for Slim to come and let me inside the house. I mean, it was bad luck that he had to make his feed run after working half the night, but I was pretty sure that he would understand my position.

  He finished unhooking the trailer and yelled, “Come on, dogs!” Drover pitty-patted his way through the snow. Slim opened the pickup door and little Mister Do Right hopped inside. Slim saw me waiting on the porch. “Come on! The train’s fixing to leave the station!”

  Yes, well, we’d had a change of plans. See, I was booked on a train that would take me inside t
he house, where I could, uh, guard the stove and so forth, only he needed to come and open the door. Surely that wasn’t asking too much.

  He climbed into the pickup and pulled away from the stock trailer. Hmm. That seemed odd. I mean, couldn’t he see me there on the porch? Maybe not, so I stepped over to the edge of the porch and delivered a blast of barking, just to let him know…

  A gust of frigid wind blew snow into my face, and it suddenly dawned on me that…he was leaving! He wasn’t going to let me in the house! Hey, what kind of sweat-shop outfit was this?

  I saw little Do Right’s face framed in the back window. He was waving goodbye and looked as warm as toast, the little…

  Okay, sometimes we dogs have to give up our days-off and put in some overtime. I mean, when you sign up with the Security Division, you’re signing up for eighteen-hour days, seven-day weeks, and the kind of heavy responsibility that your ordinary run of mutts want no part of. We do it because, well, we’re driven by a higher sense of DUTY.

  I flew off the porch, pushed the throttle up to Turbo Five, and went streaking down the road in pursuit of my comrades. Duty. That’s what drives a ranch dog.

  When Slim reached the mailbox, he slowed down to make his turn onto the county road. There, I was able to dash in front of the pickup and flag him down. Using Broad Smiles and Vigorous Wags, I delivered an important message. “Hey, great news. I’ve decided to re-enlist!”

  He slid to a stop and opened the door. “Get in here.”

  I leaped upward and rejoined my unit, shoved Little Squeakbox out of the Shotgun Seat, and took over command of the operation.

  Boy, it was great to be back on the job! There’s nothing I’d rather do on a cold winter day than hang out with a cowboy pal and feed cattle in the snow. You’ll never find this dog sitting around the house when there’s work to be done, no sir-ee.

  But of course I had to listen to Drover gripe and whimper about…what was it this time? Oh yes, I had taken command of the Shotgun Position, and something in his tiny brain told him that he deserved it more than I did.

  I tried to be patient. When he had gotten control of his emotions, I leaned down and whispered, “Drover, you need to spend some time alone, thinking about your attitude. You’ll never get anywhere with a lousy attitude.”

  I don’t think he appreciated the advice, but that’s the risk you take when you try to pass along wisdom to twerps and nitwits. They’re seldom grateful, which brings to mind a wise old saying.

  I can’t remember the wise old saying, so let’s skip it.

  Where were we? Oh yes, out on a cold, snowy, miserable day, on a mission to rush groceries to hundreds of hungry cattle. They didn’t deserve such treatment, but we were under orders to feed them, whether they deserved it or not.

  That’s an odd thing about this line of work. We spend most of our time helping animals that are too dumb to know they’re being helped, or to feel even a shred of gertrude for all our sacrifices. Oh well.

  We went slipping and sliding down the county road, drove two miles west to ranch headquarters, and pulled up beside the hay stack. There, Slim draped his arms over the steering wheel and coughed for two minutes. It didn’t sound good.

  Then he turned to me with watering eyes and said, “I’ve got to load some hay. Ya’ll stay in here.”

  Yes sir! That was a wise decision. I mean, I didn’t dare leave Drover alone in his hysterical condition. And, well, the warm cab was nice too.

  Slim got out and loaded twenty bales of alfalfa onto the pickup’s flat bed. It seemed to me that it took him a long time to do it, longer than usual. When he got back inside the cab, he just sat there for a long time, wheezing and blinking his eyes. “Boy, things are looking kind of fuzzy.”

  Fuzzy? That didn’t sound good. Maybe Miss Viola had been right. Maybe he was coming down with something. Maybe we needed to drive back to the house and put him to bed.

  You know, sometimes a cowboy will listen to his dog, when he won’t listen to anyone else, so I delivered a couple of stern barks, just to let him know…

  “Hush. You’re hurting my ears.”

  …just to let him know that nobody on the ranch cared what he did, and that went double for his dogs. By George, if he wanted to get sick, that was fine with me. We can’t help these people when they don’t listen.

  Chapter Eleven: Slim Passes Out In The Pasture

  Slim slipped the pickup into gear and we chugged away from the hay stack. At the mailbox, he turned left on the county road and picked up speed. Snow was drifting across the road, making a kind of white veil that caused the road to move in and out of focus.

  I found myself staring into the white void, and you know, the longer I stared, the more everything started looking like a dream. I mean, when you stare into blowing snow for a while, it begins to hippnopotomize you. Your mind sort of wanders, and if you’re not careful…

  Good grief, Slim’s chin was resting on his chest and his eyes were closed! Was that natural? Not if you’re driving a pickup loaded with hay and high-dollar cowdogs. Yipes, he’d fallen asleep and we were heading toward a tree in the ditch!

  I grabbed a gulp of air and barked. “Hey, wake up!”

  He jumped, blinked his soggy eyes, and jerked the pickup out of the ditch. We missed a hackberry tree by about six inches. “I saw it, I saw it.”

  Oh yeah, right. If I hadn’t sounded the alarm, he would have sawed it right in half. I turned to Drover. “Keep your eyes on him, son. He’s sick and has no business driving.”

  The runt’s eyes drifted into focus. “Oh, hi. Did you say something?”

  “I’m going to sit next to Slim so that I can keep him awake. Obviously we can’t count on you.”

  “Oh, I can count, I just can’t spell.”

  “Drover, please hush.”

  I shoved my way to the center of the seat, where I could keep a close eye on the guy who was trying to get us killed. Behind me, Drover let out a squeak of joy. “Oh goodie, I finally get to ride Shotgun! Thanks, Hank, this is great.”

  What can you say? Nothing. Sometimes I think…never mind.

  The point is that, after parking my assistant over on the right side of the cab, where he could do the least amount of damage, I took up a position right beside the alleged driver, where I could watch him like a hawk.

  It was a good thing, too, because there was definitely something wrong with him. I mean, one minute his eyes seemed glazed and dazed, and the next minute, they slammed shut and his chin fell down on his chest. Fellers, if I hadn’t been there to bark him awake, he would have wrapped that pickup around a tree.

  Was he grateful? Oh no. He growled and grumbled, but I didn’t care. Someone had to take charge of this situation.

  At last we came to the pasture where we’d left the steers, and turned off the main road onto a two-rut trail. We drove north through the snow, then Slim stopped the pickup, blew the horn, and rolled down his window. Somewhere out in the swirl of snow, we could hear the cattle bawling and within minutes, they had us surrounded. They were so hungry, they were trying to eat the bales of hay right off the back of the pickup.

  I waited for Slim to do something. I mean, it isn’t good when cattle start chewing on a load of hay. Do you know why? Because they are such gluttons, they’ll pull the load right off the pickup and then you’ll have fifteen or twenty bales lying in a big pile. Slim knew that, so why was he just sitting there?

  He seemed to be in a daze. He coughed several times, blinked his eyes and began…well, mumbling to himself. It was crazy talk. “The church ladies are coming out for a picnic and I’ve got to set up some tables…promised Sally May I’d set up the tables and gather up some wood for a fire…roast some marshmallows…”

  Picnic? Roast marshmallows? Hey, we were in the dead of winter. It was snowing. What was going on here?

  His voice trailed off and his
eyes seemed to be looking out at nothing. He opened the door, stepped outside, closed the door, and started walking. He went about ten steps. His legs began to wobble. He staggered to the left, then back to the right. He tripped on a sagebrush, stumbled, staggered, lurched, and…good grief, fell into the snow!

  I waited for him to move, get up, do something. He just lay there. The cattle rushed over to him and began sniffing his clothes. It appeared that…gulp…it appeared that they were going to EAT HIM!

  A shiver went through my whole body. I turned to Drover. He had been watching and I saw two big plates where his eyes were supposed to be. He let out a gasp. “Oh my gosh, what’s wrong?”

  “Drover, I don’t want to alarm you, but we have a problem. Slim has just passed out in the pasture.”

  “Help!”

  “We’re twenty-five miles from the nearest town and nobody knows we’re here.”

  “Help!”

  “Please stop squeaking. I think the cattle are trying to eat him and we’re locked inside the pickup. My question is…what should we do?”

  His eyes crossed and his whole body was shivering. “I thought you didn’t want to alarm me.”

  “I’m sorry. Drover, I don’t often ask for your advice, but I need some help on this one. What should we do?”

  “I think I’ll faint.”

  “You will NOT faint! I forbid you to faint. Now talk to me.”

  For a whole minute, he couldn’t speak, but finally he whispered, “Wait, I’ve got it. Let’s run away from home!”

  I gave that some thought. “You know, that’s a great idea. We’ll disappear into the sunset and…well, maybe this will all go away. Come on, son, let’s get out of here!”

  You’re probably wondering how two dogs that are locked inside a pickup can run away from home. Great question and here’s how we did it. For two solid minutes, we dashed across the pickup seat, from one door to the other, until we had pretty muchly worn ourselves out.