The Big Question

by John R. Erickson

  Oh brother. These guys take so much patience.

  He was pacing again, this time in a higher gear and with a gleam in his eyes. “What would she think if I asked her to help me move cattle in a snowstorm, in the middle of the night?”

  Well, she was probably the only human in the entire world who would consider it a big adventure. Hurry up and call her!

  “Her daddy would throw a fit.”

  Her daddy was two hundred years old and half-deaf. He wouldn’t even hear the phone ring. Hurry up!

  He paced over to the phone. His hand reached out and closed around the receiver. “Do I dare?”

  DIAL THE NUMBER!

  His gaze swooped down to me. “Did you just bark at me?”

  Yes! Call her!

  He took a big gulp of air and dialed a number. “Boy, I hate to do this.” It rang for a long time and he was about to hang up, when…his eyes widened and he swallowed hard.

  “Viola? It’s me, Slim. Hey, remember what you said about helping me while Loper’s gone? Well, guess what. I’ve got cattle out on the highway and I’m in a real bind.” He closed his eyes and cringed, then smiled. “Really? Well, dress for snow and come on.”

  He hung up the phone and looked down at me. “Amazing. If some yo-yo had called me and asked for help on a night like this, I would have told him to jump off a cliff. She’s a trooper, that gal.”

  Right, and she was three times better than he deserved.

  He went off to the back of the house and started pulling on his warmest clothes. I had to sit down and rest. The effort of coaxing him toward the obvious had left me exhausted.

  Nobody but a dog understands how hard it is, being a dog.

  While Slim was dressing for the storm, Drover sat up and glanced around. “Gosh, it’s still dark. What’s going on?”

  “Slim has to go out into the storm and get cattle off the highway.”

  His eyes crossed. “You know, Hank, this old leg’s starting to throb and I’m not sure I ought to be…”

  “Drover, you are such a weenie.”

  “I know, but I hate cold weather.”

  “Well, you can relax. We’re going to sit this one out.”

  He grinned. “No fooling? We don’t have to help?”

  “That’s correct. Viola’s going to help, so he won’t need our services.” I flopped down on the floor and curled up into a ball. “A dog would have to be crazy to get out in weather like this. Hear that wind? It’s telling us to stay inside the house and guard the stove.”

  He grinned and heaved a sigh. “Oh good! Nightie night.”

  So that was settled. Slim would take care of the cattle and we would guard the stove. I hated that he had to go out in such awful weather, but that’s what cowboys get paid to do. We dogs had other responsibilities, such as…well, guarding stoves. You never know when some nut might break into the house and try to steal the stove.

  I had almost drifted off to sleep when Slim came tramping out of the bedroom, dressed like…I don’t know what, like a musher from Siberia: wool shirt, Filson vest, heavy coat, wool cap with ear flaps, insulated gloves, snow boots, shotgun chaps, and a blue wild rag wrapped around his neck. Beneath all that, he was wearing his red one-piece wool long johns.

  I raised my head, tapped my tail several times, and gave him a smile that said, “Well, you be careful out there. The roads are liable to be slick. And don’t worry about the stove. Just to be on the safe side, we’re going to post a double guard.”

  To which he said, “Come on, dogs, let’s go.”

  WHAT!

  Drover and I exchanged looks of alarm. Surely he was joking.

  “Hurry up, we’ve got cattle on the highway. Move!”

  Move? I rose to my feet and took a few…ouch…limping steps. Boy, all at once I noticed a grinding pain in my left leg…right leg…terrible pain in one of my back legs. It was an old bull-fighting injury and anthrax had made it worse. Arthritis, not anthrax, and you know what cold weather does to anthritis. Awful, unbearable pain.

  I limped over to him, and we’re talking about dragging myself along, hardly able to walk, and gave him a sad look that said, “Is there a doctor in the house?” I held my breath and studied his face.

  It had turned to stone. “Pooch, I’ve got to drive cattle in the dark and you might actually be able to help.” He leaned down and stabbed me with hard eyes. “And since you pigged out on my Christmas candy, you ought to have plenty of energy.”

  No, wait. Herding cattle in the dark? Hey, I’d been having a lot of trouble with my eyes, especially night vision, could hardly even see a paw in front of my face, no kidding.

  He opened the door and pointed toward the frozen darkness outside. “Let’s go. You too, Stub Tail. I ain’t leaving you alone in my house.”

  He wasn’t kidding about this. He was actually going to kick us out of our warm and happy home and force us to…

  I can’t describe how awful it felt, walking out that door, into pelting sleet, frozen ground, and a biting wind that stole the breath right out of my lungs. Unbelievable. Behind me, Drover was humped up and tip-toeing over the ice, and moaning like a lost calf.

  “Help! I want to go home! My feet are freezing!”

  “Drover, please hush.”

  “I’m so cold! Maybe this is just a movie.”

  “It’s not a movie, so try to be professional.”

  “I’m fixing to be a professional ice cube! Help!”

  Sometimes the only way to live with Drover is to ignore him. I ignored him.

  We followed Slim down to the saddle shed. He caught his horse…and let me tell you, old Snips was just as shocked about this deal as we were, and we’re talking about a horse whose attitude had turned as sour as a truck-load of lemons.

  When Slim threw that cold blanket and saddle on his back, Snippers humped up, snapped his teeth, pinned down his ears, pawed the ground, and swished his tail. On a normal day, I don’t have anything good to say about a horse, but on this occasion, I had to agree with Snips. Somebody on our outfit had lost his mind.

  Slim got him saddled and you should have heard him grunt when Slim pulled up the cinch! He hated the feel of that cold cinch against his belly. I wasn’t in a laughing mood but I had to laugh. By George, it served him right for all the times he’d chased me around the pasture, trying to bite off my tail.

  Have we discussed horses? I don’t like ‘em, never have.

  Slim led him to the stock trailer and opened the back gate. Snips took one look at the ice on the floor of the trailer and I knew exactly what he was thinking: “Boys, my shift was over at six o’clock, and I’m not going in there.”

  He was wrong about that. It took some “persuasion,” but Snips finally decided that he wanted to go for a ride in an icy stock trailer.

  Hee hee. I just love it when horses get in trouble.

  Slim pitched two sacks of feed onto the back of his pickup, just as Miss Viola pulled up in her daddy’s pickup. In the beam of the headlights, we could see pellets of sleet that were changing into big flakes of snow. The storm appeared to be getting worse. Great.

  We all piled into the cab of Slim’s pickup, with me and Drover occupying the middle of the seat. Slim shifted into four-wheel drive and off we went, heading west on the county road, with the windshield wipers flapping and the heater blasting hot air.

  Hunched over the steering wheel, Slim looked about as cheerful as a buzzard, but Viola wore her usual bright smile that lit up the cab. “Slim, I have to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “In that cap, you look more like Elmer Fudd than John Wayne.”

  In spite of his gloomy mood, he had to chuckle. “Heh. It takes a real man to wear a ridiculous cap.”

  “Well, this is quite an adventure.”

  “Viola, I didn’t know who e
lse to call. I hated to bother you.”

  “Oh fiddle. How often does a lady get to go on a cattle drive in the middle of the snow storm?” She opened up a little paper sack and offered it to Slim. “Here, maybe this will cheer you up.”

  He reached inside the sack and pulled out…hmm, what was that? Sniff sniff. My goodness, a piece of chocolate fudge? Slim held it up and turned his eyes on me. I guess he noticed that I seemed, well, interested. “You want a bite, pooch?”

  Hey, I didn’t want to be a burden, but…YES!

  He flashed an evil smirk, popped it into his mouth, chewed it up, and licked his fingers. “Too bad. By the way, Viola, it wasn’t Drover that ate my Christmas present. It was Bozo.”

  Bozo? Who was…okay, it appeared that he was referring to me and I was saddened that he kept dredging up ancient history. Mess up one time around here and you never hear the end of it.

  I turned to Drover and caught him smirking. “Wipe that grin off your mouth, soldier.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Do you think life is just one big joke?”

  “Well, it has some funny parts.”

  “Oh yeah? We’ll see if you’re still smirking after you’ve worked cattle in a blizzard.”

  His silly grin melted and he glanced around with big eyes. “He wouldn’t make us do that, would he?”

  “Son, unless you can come up with something better than that phony limp, I can guarantee that you will be driving cattle in the snow.”

  “Yeah, but I’m just a mutt, not a cowdog.”

  “Doesn’t matter. They’ll take anyone for this job.”

  He sniffled. “Well, my stub tail gets numb in the cold.”

  “Won’t sell.”

  “Help! I want to go home!” He collapsed on the seat and covered his eyes with his paws. Oh brother.

  Chapter Seven: Attacked By Snow Monsters!

  Like I said, Drover needs a lot of ignoring. But the important thing is that I had succeeded in wiping that little smirk off his mouth.

  I turned my attention to the road ahead. The snow was getting thicker and had covered the road. With the weight of the stock trailer behind us, the pickup was having trouble getting traction, even in four-wheel drive.

  We plowed our way through five miles of snow-packed road, until we came to the main highway. There, we saw a police car blocking the road, its emergency lights flashing red and blue, and a deputy sheriff standing in the middle of the highway. He had stopped all the northbound traffic and three cattle trucks were lined up, their running lights twinkling in the snow, their diesel engines grumbling and making clouds of steam in the air.

  Well, this was the place. Our ordeal was about to begin.

  Slim pulled over and stopped. The deputy walked toward us. He wore a big goose-down parka, leather mittens, and five-buckle overshoes. He looked cold, miserable, and grumpy when he laid his elbows on Slim’s open window and looked inside the cab. He recognized Viola and nodded a greeting.

  Slim said, “Morning, Deputy Kile. How’s your day going so far?”

  “Slim, I’ve been talking to those truck drivers. They’ve got three loads of fat cattle to deliver to National Beef in Liberal, Kansas, and they’re running late. They were wondering if you would rather be shot or hung.”

  Slim cackled. “Well, I’d rather be curled up in a nice warm bed, and I would be if you’d quit calling me in the middle of the night. Where’s my steers?”

  “Up the road about a hundred yards, on both sides of the highway. What are you going to do with them? Can you put them back where they came from?”

  Slim wagged his head. “Don’t think so. You can’t drive cattle into a storm. I think we’d better take ‘em back to the ranch and put ‘em out on grass.”

  “Well, get ‘em off the highway, that’s all I care about. You need my help?”

  “Nope, thanks. We can handle it. You go back to the office and eat a donut.”

  The deputy hacked a laugh. “I wish. I’ll be working wrecks the rest of the night. Well, head ‘em up and move ‘em out, and I’ll get these truckers on their way.”

  They said goodbye and Slim turned onto the highway. Dots of white snowflakes flashed across the beam of the headlights, making it hard to…

  What were those weird reddish lights up ahead? No kidding, all at once I saw a whole bunch of glowing lights in the middle of the highway. In some ways, they resembled…well, eyes, creepy eyes glowing in the…

  They were eyes! Holy smokes, we had stumbled right into the middle of an army of SNOW MONSTERS!

  Have we discussed Snow Monsters? Maybe not, because they’re not very common in these parts. Most often, you find ‘em up north, but I’d heard plenty of reports about them. They’re very dangerous. They eat snow, icicles, cattle, and I don’t know what else. I’d even heard that on a slow day, they’ll eat dogs.

  Pretty scary, huh? You bet, and I could see dozens of them, hundreds of them, standing right there in the middle of the highway, waiting for fresh meat to come along. Fellers, we were in big trouble.

  Well, you know me. When I find myself looking into the bloodthirsty eyes of a whole army of Snow Monsters, I don’t just sit there looking simple. No sir. In a flash, the hair along my backbone shot straight up and I went into a burst of Code Three Barking. By George, if they planned to eat me, they were going to have to work for it!

  Slim hit the brakes and we slid to a stop. “Hank, hush. Well, there they are, a hundred head of steers, right in the middle of the dadgum highway.”

  Huh? Steers? I throttled down my barking, narrowed my eyes and peered through the fogged-up windshield. Okay, on a dark night, when you drive up on a bunch of cattle, the first thing you see is their eyes reflecting the light of…

  Ha ha. Boy, they’ll fool you. I mean, you see those eyes glowing in the dark and, I’m not kidding, they look exactly like Snow Monsters. Ha ha.

  Anyway, I shut down the Code Threes and turned my eyes on Slim. He was giving me a flat stare. “Cattle, Hank. You’re fixing to get well acquainted with ‘em.”

  Right. Cattle. I knew that.

  He turned his gaze to Viola. “Okay, here’s the plan. You drive the pickup and lead ‘em back to the ranch. Honk your horn every now and then. They’re used to coming to a pickup for feed and I think they’ll follow you from Dan to Beersheba.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll come along behind, horseback, and push the stragglers.”

  “Slim, you’ll freeze out there.”

  “Well, if I die, tell Loper to give my brain to science. Somebody needs to figure out what makes a man go into this line of work.”

  She stared at him for a moment and burst out laughing. “You know, it’s a good thing that you have a sense of humor.”

  “Yeah, I’m too old to cry.”

  “I brought a thermos of hot soup. You want some?”

  He shook his head. “Maybe we can stop at the halfway point. If I’m still alive, I’ll take a jolt of it. If I’m froze to death in the saddle, don’t give any to the dog. I ain’t forgave him yet for eating my Christmas present.”

  They shared a laugh and Slim gave me an elbow in the ribs. I didn’t see the humor of it myself. I mean, how long was he going to hold that over my head? Hadn’t I confessed my mistake and begged his pardon? Okay, maybe I hadn’t gotten around to that, but…well, I’d thought about it. No kidding.

  Slim pointed a finger toward the glove box. “Hand me my flashlight, would you please?” Viola dug around until she found it. Slim clicked it on. No light. He handed it back to her. “I almost forgot. Around here, flashlights only work when you don’t need ‘em.”

  He pulled his cap down over his ears and opened the pickup door, letting in a swirl of big wet snowflakes. “Come on, dogs, you’re fixing to earn your biscuits”

  I took a big breath of air a
nd squared my shoulders. This wasn’t going to be fun but it had to be done. I dived off the seat and braced myself for…nothing could have prepared me for the awful feeling that came when my feet landed in the snow. I had expected it to be bad, but it turned out to be ten times worse than bad.

  I lifted my right front paw, trying to spare it from the dreadful fate of being plunged into ice and snow, but that left the other three in the frozen slop, so what’s a dog to do? Not much. My only consolation was that Drover would soon be sharing my misery.

  But then I heard Viola’s voice behind me. “Slim, maybe Drover should stay in the cab with me. He’s already shivering, the poor little thing, and I think his leg’s hurting.”

  What!

  “Okay with me.” Slim closed the door.

  I gave him a look of astonishment. Hey, the little slacker was shivering because someone had mentioned WORK! And as for that “bad leg” routine…

  He wasn’t listening. He trudged off toward the back of the stock trailer. “Come on, Hankie, it’s me and you against the forces of nature.”

  Oh brother! I tossed one last glance at the window and saw Mister Shivers looking down at me, grinning and waving a paw. Viola had scooted over to the driver’s side and the little mutter-mumble was sitting in her lap.

  “Drover, there will be a court-martial! And this will go into my…” A blast of wind stole the breath out of my body, so I wasn’t able to finish my sentence. Oh well. He would pay for this.

  By the time I trotted around to the back of the trailer, Slim had unloaded his horse and was tightening the cinch. As you might expect, Snips was in a lousy mood, grunting and stamping his back foot. We looked into each other’s eyes and there for a moment, our misery made us aware of the Brotherhood of All Animals. It was kind of touching, to tell you the truth.

  I said, “Well, Snips, it appears that our lives are going to be thrown together.”

  “Yeah. Is this the world’s biggest bummer or what?”

  “You know, I’ve never liked you. In fact, I’ve never been fond of horses in general.”