by Bob Brewer
The morning dew had disappeared from the grass around the bandstand long before the trio of odd bedfellows showed any sign of awakening.
During the night Abe and Shorty had wrapped themselves cocoon-like in their blankets to ward off the chill, and the old dog had wedged himself in between them to capture any escaping body heat. Impromptu as it was, the sleeping arrangement had been acceptable to all concerned until it came time to wake up.
Abe’s loud snoring rather than the time of day woke the dog out of his hard, stuporous sleep. He edged his muzzle over and sniffed at Abe’s exposed ear.
“Give me some room,” Abe complained, and moved his head out of the dog’s reach.
The dog rolled over to inspect his other companion. Seeing the top of a baseball cap sticking out of Shorty’s king-size blanket was not enough to satisfy his curiosity. He stretched his neck and nosed the cap up to get a better view. The sight of McDougal’s brushy eyebrows and over-sized nose must have been sufficient to jar his recollection. The ‘woof’, slobber, foul breath and all, was an automatic response that caught Shorty squarely in the face, and completely by surprise.
The Irishman snorted and huffed in an effort to clear the air and his face of whatever had happened. He tried to reach up and wipe the dampness off but his hands were tucked under the blanket so tightly he couldn’t move them. The old dog hadn’t had time to react and was still breathing in his face. McDougal snorted again and blew a puff of breath from the corner of his mouth trying to direct its force to clear his left eye. When that didn’t straighten out his vision he bolted to a sitting position, his arms furiously trying to throw the blanket off. The dog, scrambling to get to his feet, panicked and let out an earsplitting bark.
“Mother of Mercy!” the struggling Irishman cried out in desperation. He was hopelessly bound up in the over-sized blanket.
“What’s happening?” Abe yelled, busily trying to shed his own bedding. He couldn’t see what was going on with McDougal and the dog. He started to raise up, but the dog, in his stumbling effort to get away from the bedlam, trampled him back down then fell on him.
“Get off!” Abe shouted. All the yelling and thrashing about had the poor old dog in turmoil. His mind must have been as fuzzy as the men’s were. Seeing no route of escape, he crawled up onto Abe’s face and began to howl.
McDougal, who had cleared one hand of the stubborn blanket, decided to stand in order to finish the job. He pivoted around on his free hand and got his knees under him so he could get into a kneeling position. Then up he went. Instantly his head thumped into one of the floor joists of the platform. A muffled grunt escaped his lips and back down he came.
Abe managed to get the dog off his head in time to see McDougal’s blanket come tumbling towards him, but McDougal, himself was nowhere in sight. Abe screeched. The only thing he could do was duck back into his own bedding and hope he was safe. He scrunched down just as the blanket with McDougal buried inside slammed into his back. The dog yelped. Everything went quiet for a long moment then the Irishman moaned. Abe stuck his head out of the blanket.
“Mr. Douglas?” Shorty asked.
“Yeah,” Abe answered.
“Could ya get me covers off?”
With the dog out of the way, Abe easily climbed out of his own bedding, and found a loose edge on the Irishman’s blanket. He got a firm grip on it and pulled. Shorty rolled over twice and spilled out three feet away. He lay as he landed for a moment squinting up at the floor joists of the platform, then briskly rubbed a sleeve back and forth over his eyes. “Where are we?” he asked in a dazed voice.
“I’m not too sure,” Abe answered, peering into the patchwork of light and shadow being cast through the lattice of the bandstand. “Are you okay?”
McDougal rubbed the top of his head. “Ohhh…I’ve got an awful headache,” he said slowly. “And I’m thinkin’ I ought to be off to the loo.”
The old dog had crawled as far to the rear of the platform as he could, but now that the two men sounded normal he started snaking back towards them. McDougal saw the movement. He narrowed his eyelids against the darkness and recognized the form of the dog. “Ya mangy bags of bones,” he scolded. “Ya could’ve caused me sudden death. Where’s yer manners?”
The dog stopped and laid his head on the ground.
“Oh, don’t be lookin’ so down in the dumps,” Shorty said in a softer tone. “Just don’t be wakin’ me up like that anymore.” Turning to Abe, he added, “I’ve really got to be gettin’ to the loo.”
“I think I’ll just stay here a little longer if you don’t mind,” Abe said, resting his head back on his rucksack. Shorty said okay, and Abe put his hat over his eyes. He was sound asleep again when Shorty came back a little later with two cups of coffee and a white paper bag in his hands.
“Top of the mornin’ to ya,” McDougal said cheerily as he shook Abe awake. “Look what I brought ya.” He took the lid off one of the cups and held its steaming top over for Abe to get a whiff of the fresh black coffee it contained.
Abe raised his hat brim to look at the offering. “Thanks,” he said, then let the hat settle back over his face.
“Would ya rather be havin’ somethin’ with a bit more punch to it?” The Irishman asked. Abe nodded he would, and McDougal saw the hat move a little. “Well, I’ll just have me coffee then I’ll run out and get ya somethin’.”
“No. No. Don’t do that. I’ll just drink the coffee,” Abe replied. He moaned and pushed himself into a sitting position.
The old dog had edged his way up next to Abe and was eyeing the bag. He lifted his nose and sniffed the air.
“Did you bring him something?”
“I was afraid not to,” the Irishman said in a jovial voice. He reached into the bag, took out two glazed doughnuts and tossed them on the ground in front of the dog. “Would ya like one yerself, Mr. Douglas?”
After their continental breakfast, which they finished around noon, the two men decided to part ways and scout out the town.
“Where should we meet up later?” Abe asked when he came out of the doughnut shop. McDougal had told him the people there were very nice and they had an excellent restroom. Shorty and the dog were waiting for him.
“Carson’s place was nice enough,” Shorty suggested. He pulled his snap purse out, patted it and gave Abe a wink.
“I don’t know, Mr. McDougal,” Abe answered, scratching his whiskers in thought as they ambled down the street. “Maybe we’d better stay away from there for a couple of days. I didn’t like the look of that kid you beat.”
“Yer right there,” McDougal agreed. “Kinda spooky, wasn’t he?”
“Scary,” Abe said. “Let’s just stay together for a while. We’ll find a meeting place then we’ll split up.” He turned to the dog. “Come on, boy, let’s see what your town looks like.”
A few steps past the corner of the first main street and the highway, Abe stopped abruptly. “Does this look familiar to you?” he asked McDougal.
The little man turned all the way around very slowly, his eyes peeled for any clue they might gather. The circle completed, he said, “No. I can’t say that it does.”
“Over there,” Abe said, pointing across the street. “I’m pretty sure that’s where I left my bottle of wine last night.”
“Yer bottle, ya say?”
“Yeah. I bought a bottle from Bill. Don’t you recall? And I think I left it in the alley right there.”
McDougal seemed at a loss. “What did ya do that fer?”
“We were following the dog, Mr. McDougal. Don’t you remember?”
Shorty pushed the bill of his cap up and put a hand to his forehead. “Oh, me mind’s a vapor, Mr. Douglas. To be perfectly honest with ya, no, I don’t recall followin’ the dog.”
Abe started across the street. “Watch yourself,” he warned then made sure there were no cars coming within a block of them. Satisfied, he led them to the safet
y of the sidewalk on the other side. The old dog passed them and headed straight for the alley entrance between the Guthrie Mercantile building and Fast Albert's Motorcycle Repair Shop.
Neither of the businesses looked to be overly successful. A sign in the motorcycle shop window advised that it was only open on Tuesdays. Anyone needing repairs could leave their bike at Guthrie’s providing it was before noon during the week, or ten a.m. on Saturday.
“Yer the worst one fer readin’,” the Irishman complained as they stood in front of the cycle shop while Abe rattled off the wording of the sign.
Abe finished his reading and turned with a smile on his face. “It’s me mind, don’t ya see?” he mimicked the little man. “How would ya suppose I got to be so smart?”
Shorty thought on it for a moment. “Well,” he said finally. “If ya had a motorbike, then I might be thinkin’ ya had reason to read the sign. But, Mr. Douglas, ya ain’t got one.”
“No, I haven’t, but I had a car once,” Abe boasted.
“Ya didn’t?”
“Oh, yes I did.” Abe reached for his billfold. He found and opened it. “Here, Mr. McDougal, look at this. It’s a driver’s license. You see that? That’s me, Abraham Lincoln Douglas. That’s my picture.”
Shorty looked the ragged card over. It had been transported around for twenty-odd years and showed it. He shifted his eyes between the card and Abe several times before commenting. “I’m proud that ya know how to drive an automobile and ya got yer license and all, Mr. Douglas. But do ya think we could be movin’ along now?”
“I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we call this alley our meeting place? You can go on and check things out, and I’ll just take my time and do some more reading. I like to read about places and things. We’ll join up back here later this afternoon. What do you think?”
Shorty handed him back his billfold. “That’s the plan then,” he agreed. “I’m thinkin’ of goin’ back to the other side of the tracks.”
“To Carson’s?” Abe asked with a frown.
“Oh, no. No, I’ll just sort of mosey around to see what else’s over there.”
Abe nodded. “Okay. I’ll look around this side and see you later, huh?"
“That's the plan," Shorty repeated, and he was off.