The Case of the One-Eyed Killer Stud Horse Read online

  No, that wasn’t my brand of fun. I had better things to do than . . . but you know, that little Ashley came out the gate and looked at me with those blue eyes and stroked me on the head and invited me into her beauty shop and . . .

  Oh what the heck, I had a few minutes to burn.

  Those gals were quite a contrast to Alfred, the ornery little stinkpot, who was your typical three-year-old boy made of snails and rails and puppy-dog tails, gunpowder, lizards, toad frogs, and a dash of alligator juice.

  That boy could make more noise more different ways and do it longer than anybody I’d ever come across. One minute he was a cattle truck, then he was a tractor, then he was a bulldozer, then he was a bugle or a drum or a chainsaw or a machine gun—just anything that made noise.

  He’s the only kid I ever met who could start off singing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” switch to a chainsaw, sing “Jesus Loves Me,” and then spray you in the face with his bulldozer imitation, all in the space of two minutes.

  By himself, Little Alfred could be a—how shall I put this? Better just drop it. He was Sally May’s child, after all, and I had reason to suspect that she loved him.

  Let’s just say that Little Alfred was easier to bear when he fell under the good influence of his girl-cousins. They were giving the orders that afternoon, and their brand of play didn’t require any bulldozers, bombs, or sirens.

  They also told him to stop cranking my tail, which I appreciated.

  I sat down in the beauty shop and smirked at Drover. “Son, if you knew how silly you look, you’d go dig a hole and bury yourself. And Kitty-Kitty looks even sillier than you do.”

  Pete gave me a dark glare. He wasn’t enjoying Dress Up. I could tell because his ears were lying flat on his head.

  Drover grinned. “Sure is fun, though. Wait till they fix your hair. You’ll like that.”

  “I doubt that, son. I won’t be staying long. I’m just here to check things out.”

  But you know what? I did kind of enjoy it. Ashley took a brush and ran it through my hair, smoothed it out with her hands, and my goodness, her little hands were just as soft and gentle as rose petals, and now and then she would look down in my face and smile and . . .

  Never thought I’d fall for blue eyes, but fellers, there was something about them eyes and her smile and the way she held my face in her hands and stroked my hair and, oh what the heck, there was worse things in the world than getting your hair rolled up in pink curlers.

  Boy, she was a heart-breaker, that gal. Had the cutest little pointed nose you ever saw and red lips that were shaped like a bow and skin as smooth as whipped cream, and you know, when she put that dress on me and tied the sunbonnet under my chin, I just sat there, wagging my tail and looking up into her eyes.

  Fellers, if she’d asked for the moon, I would have been on the next rocket ship to space. If she’d asked for the stars, I would have picked her a bushel basketful out of the Texas sky. If she’d asked for a song . . . well, shucks, I would have written her one, something like this one here.

  Thank You Lord for Making Gals

  Oh little boys like snakes and frogs,

  They’re mean to cats and puppydogs.

  They’ll pull your tail and twist your nose,

  And drive their tractor across your toes.

  They’ll make you mad and they’ll make you howl,

  And make you glad for little gals.

  Oh thank you Lord for making gals!

  They give a boost to our morale.

  This would be a sad old world

  If we had frogs instead of girls.

  These little donkeys we call boys

  They make a mess and lots of noise.

  You always know when they’re close by,

  They tease the girls and make ’em cry.

  They’re hard on clothes and break their toys,

  There ain’t much use for little boys.

  Oh thank you Lord for making gals!

  They give a boost to our morale.

  This would be a sad old world

  If we had frogs instead of girls.

  Little boys ain’t fit to keep,

  They’ll mess things up and make you weep.

  They keep the place all torn apart,

  They’ll run your hose and break your heart.

  They’ll make you cuss and they’ll make you growl.

  And make you wish for a little gal.

  Oh thank you Lord for making gals!

  They give a boost to our morale.

  This would be a sad old world

  If we had frogs instead of girls.

  So thanks again for little gals!

  They’ll treat you nice and be your pals.

  But I swear by stars above

  Watch out, or you’ll fall in love!

  Yes sir, watch out or you’ll fall in love. That was sure the truth. But I didn’t take my own advice. I wasn’t watching out and I fell in love with them two little gals.

  Whatever they wanted to do with me, that was just by George all right. And if they’d wanted to take me home with ’em after the holiday, I was ready to resign my position as Head of Ranch Security and move out.

  Well, we played Dress Up and Beauty Shop for a while, then Amy went inside and brought out a little wooden table and some plastic dishes and we played Tea Party.

  They had me and Drover stand up on our back legs and put our front paws on the table, see, and then Amy poured everyone a cup of tea. (It was really milk.) I noticed that Drover was grinning at me.

  “Are you grinning at anything in particular or is this your usual expression?”

  “Who me? Was I grinning?”

  “Yes, you were, and you still are.”

  “Oh, gee. I guess I’ve never seen you in curlers and a dress and a sunbonnet before.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah. You look kind of funny.”

  “I see. Well, it might surprise you to know that you look a little strange in your striped overalls.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes, you do, and dogs who live in glass houses shouldn’t call kettles black.”

  “Dogs who live in glass . . . okay, I’ll try to re­member that.”

  “Do that. And you might also remember that making little girls happy is part of our job. Also that beauty knows no pain. Also that sticks and stones may break my bones, but you can just shut up.”

  “That’s a lot to remember.”

  “You can do it, son, but if you have any trouble, just remember the ‘shut up’ part.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Pete was being a spoil-sport about playing Tea Party, but that was no big surprise. You know these cats. They never want to do anything for anybody else, just too selfish.

  He still had his ears flattened against his head and the pupils of his eyes had gotten big, and he was flicking the end of his tail and giving off that growl-siren of his. I never did care for that, and I noticed that every time I looked at him, my lips began to curl up.

  Well, the gals told me and Drover to drink our tea, so I put on an impressive demonstration of how a huge enormous cowdog can lap milk out of a tiny teacup, without spilling a drop or knocking over the cup. It ain’t every dog who can do that.

  Whilst I was demonstrating this technique, Grandma walked out the back door and looked at us. Her face lit up and she called for Sally May.

  “Sally May, grab your camera and come look at this! It’s the cutest thing I ever saw.”

  A minute later Sally May came hobbling out the door on her crutches. Seeing her there within crutch range made me a little uncomfortable. I wagged my tail and looked the other way, hoping she wouldn’t do anything rash.

  I mean, Sally May armed with a rock is bad enough, but when she’s packing two crutches
watch out.

  Lucky for me, she smiled, even laughed. “Well my stars, is that my husband’s dog, the same one I wanted to kill this morning? I hope you girls don’t get leprosy from handling the nasty thing . . .”

  I glanced around, looking for a “nasty thing.” Didn’t see one.

  “. . . and girls, we’ll want to go straight to the washing machine with those doll clothes when you get done.” She looked at us and shook her head. “I’ll swear, Mom, between kids and dogs, a poor woman never knows which way her feelings might go.”

  “Isn’t that the truth!”

  Sally May held the crutches under her arms and brought up the camera. She told us to smile and hold still. I held still but didn’t smile. I leave all the smiling stuff for Drover. I don’t mind playing Dress Up and Tea Party, but I don’t intend to smile about it. That wouldn’t be dignified.

  The ladies went back inside to work on their punkin pies, and I finished lapping milk out of my teacup. Down towards the bottom, the cup started moving around the table and I had to move with it. This brought me closer to Pete, and he made the mistake of hissing at me.

  Well, you know me. There’s some things I can tolerate and some things I can’t. No cat hisses at Hank the Cowdog and gets by with it. My lips curled. I bared my fangs and growled.

  Pete fired up that yowl of his, hissed again, and popped me on the nose with his claws. Hey, that was the wrong thing to do. I was fixing to pulverize . . .

  Lucky for Kitty-Kitty, Amy and Ashley made a dive for me, grabbed me around the neck, and somehow managed to prevent my highly conditioned body from flying like an artillery shell right into the middle of the dumb cat. Saved his life, is what they did, ’cause I was all set to clean his plow.

  Well, Kitty-Kitty had been looking for an excuse to escape anyhow, he being a kill-joy and a spoilsport, and he went bounding across the yard, ducked under the fence, and headed out into the pasture—taking the nightgown with him.

  The girls turned me loose and ran after him, out into the pasture.

  It was at that point that Drover said, “Gosh, I hope Tuerto isn’t around.”

  “Don’t be absurd. After that scare me and Loper threw into him, I doubt that we’ll ever see . . .”

  HUH?

  Unless I was badly mistaken, my sensitive ears had just picked up the sound of horse’s hooves.

  Coming from the east.

  In the home pasture.

  Chapter Eleven: A Fight to the Death with the Killer Stud Horse

  I turned to Drover. “Do you hear something?”

  “What?”

  “I said, do you hear something?”

  “Well, I hear your voice, and birds, and a war going on.”

  “That’s not a war, you imbecile, that’s Little Alfred playing trucks. Do you hear horse’s hooves?”

  “Well, let’s see.” He cocked his head. “No, I don’t . . . oh yeah, I do, sure do, sounds just like . . . oh my gosh, Hank, do you reckon it could be . . .”

  “Yes, of course! At last the pieces of the puzzle are falling into place, for you see, Drover, there are no other horses in the home pasture. It’s Tuerto the Killer Stud Horse!”

  “Oh my gosh, he might hurt those girls!”

  “Not while we still have a breath left in our respective bodies, Drover.”

  “I’d kind of like to save my breath, and anyway this old leg is starting to act up on me again and . . .”

  “Come on, son! This is Red Alert and Code Three, all rolled into one. Stand by for blastoff! Stand by to initiate attack formation! Stand by for Heavy Duty Barking Mode!”

  “I’ll sure bark, Hank, but . . .”

  “Ready? Blast-off! Hit the grit, let’s go, stay behind me and stand by for further orders!”

  “Well . . .”

  I went zooming across the yard, past the iris bed, past that big hackberry tree there on the south side of the house. When I came to the yard fence, I leaped upward and outward and became airborne.

  Behind me, I heard Drover call out, “Hank, I don’t think I can jump the fence! It’s too tall and my leg . . .”

  There wasn’t time to fool around with Drover. Up ahead, I could see Tuerto pounding across the pasture, his mane and tail flying in the wind, his gotch-eye a reflection of his gotch-heart.

  He was heading straight for my girls, who had caught up with Pete and were trying to get him out of the nightgown.

  I began barking. “Run, girls, run! I’ll cover for you, run for the house!”

  Instead of running, they looked up, saw the horse pounding down on them, and froze—the very worst thing they could have done. But Pete, who was always quick to size up a situation and take good care of Pete, suddenly turned into a hissing, spitting, yowling little buzz saw.

  He broke away from the girls and went sprinting for the nearest tree.

  Tuerto was getting closer now. He began to buck and snort. He pinned back his ears and showed his teeth and headed straight for the poor frightened little girls.

  My original battle plan had called for me to initiate a defensive maneuver—to draw Tuerto’s attention to me, in other words. I had hoped to distract him, using my amazing quickness and speed to stay out of range of his hooves while the girls made a run for the house.

  But when I barked and tried to draw his attention, he only laughed and kept going. “No, leetle duggie, I don’t want you. I want these gerls!”

  I had to scratch that plan. I was in the process of trying to come up with another when I heard Ashley scream—little Ashley of the clear blue eyes, little Ashley of the rose petal hands. Then Amy let out a scream.

  Well, hey, there’s a time to make stragedy and there’s a time to fight for what’s right and good in this world, never mind the consequences.

  When I was convinced that Tuerto wasn’t going to let up on his attack, I abandoned all plans and went after him. No one-eyed stud horse was going to beat up on MY girls!

  I got to him just seconds before he reached them, and I gave him a pile driver attack that he couldn’t ignore.

  I didn’t fool around, fellers, I went for his throat. When they out-weigh you by a thousand pounds, you don’t go for hocks or flanks or noses. You go for something they can’t live without.

  I went flying through the air and sank my teeth into his throat. That shut him down. All at once he wasn’t thinking about beating up on a couple of little girls, ’cause he had fifty-seven pounds of killer cowdog chewing on his vital parts.

  He slid to a stop, reared up on his back legs, pawed the air with his front hooves, and gave his head a mighty toss. I held on as long as I could and then he threw me off.

  I hit the ground and bounced right back, and before he could strike the girls, I put myself in the middle, and there I stood, bristled up like a boar coon, growling, barking, showing fangs, giving him the whole nine yards of threatening gestures.

  By this time the girls had gotten over their shock and were cheering me on. “Get him, Hank! Bite him! Go away, you mean old horse!”

  Well, hey, I was proud to have someone cheering me on, but I wanted them girls to make a run for the yard, while I was still able to fight Tuerto off of them. I guess the little scamps didn’t want to leave me there alone.

  Just then, Grandma came out on the front porch and screamed. She told the girls to run for the house, and she came out in her long dress and grandma shoes, yelling, “Scat! Hike! Go away!”

  Tuerto got a laugh out of that, and while he was yucking it up, I made another dive for his throat. Bull’s eye! And while he was slinging me around, the girls made a run for the house. Grandma met them at the gate, gathered them up, pushed them into the yard, and slammed the gate shut.

  Then Tuerto turned to me. Our eyes met—my two and his one. “Ah leetle duggie, you spoil my fun so much. Now I must keel you. Never have I keeled a
dog who was wearing a dress.”

  I had forgotten about the dress. “Well this is your big chance, Gotch-Eye.”

  “Eet weel not take long, you weel see. One queek beet with my hoof and you weel be no more.”

  “Oh yeah?” That was the best reply I could think of. Oftentimes you think of the snappier replies the next day.

  I hadn’t planned to get myself drawn into a fight. I mean, I had gotten my gals out of the combat zone and finished my rescue mission and was ready to call it a day.

  But just then Grandma ventured back outside, picked up a rock and threw it at Tuerto. “You hateful thing, go away from here this very minute!”

  He made a move toward her. She squealed, snatched her dress up to her knees, and sprinted back into the yard, her grandma shoes clacking on the gravel.

  Just for a second there, I let my attention lapse. I was watching Grandma instead of Tuerto, and he seized on the opportunity. Before I knew it, he had clubbed me over the head with a hoof.

  I saw stars and moons and checkers and flashes and colored lights. I was stunned. I knew I had to run but my legs had turned to water. My knees gave out. For a moment I couldn’t move, and he hit me again, this time with both hooves.

  I could feel myself being pulled into a dark wave, but then I heard my girls calling my name.

  “Hank! Hank! Get up before he hurts you! Run!”

  I fought against the darkness. I pushed myself up on all-fours and weaved from side to side. I tried to growl and noticed that blood was dripping from my mouth.

  Tuerto went up on his back legs and sent down another storm of hooves. One got me on the ear. It hurt so bad, I began to wonder how I would look with only one ear.

  But then I fought back. I got a bite on his upper leg and bore down. He shook me loose, but I came away with a piece of skin and the taste of blood. I couldn’t tell if it was my blood or his, but it definitely was his skin.

  Well, that made him mad. He went up on his back legs again and loaded up for another round.