“Good point. Okay, we’ll try it, but I’m on top.”
“Okay with me, ’cause it’s warmer on the bottom.”
I studied him for a moment. “Which is why I’m taking the bottom.”
“I thought you wanted the top.”
“I was misquoted, Drover. You must beware of misquoting others and leaping to conclusions.”
He raised himself and plopped down on top of me. Ooof. He was heavier than you might have supposed, but also pretty warm. I figured I could stand it for one night. I closed my eyes, shifted my breathing control over to the Slow and Deep setting, and drifted off into . . . a foot in my face?
“Drover, get your foot out of my face this very minute.”
“Murgle skiffer porkchop faceless footies rickie tattoo.”
I spun my legs for several seconds, until I got a firm grip on the porch. Then I heaved myself upward and threw him off my back. When he sat up, his ears were crooked.
“Drover, this isn’t working. I can’t sleep with your foot in my face all night. I guess we’ll have to . . . wait a minute, wait just a minute! I’ve got an idea, and I think this one will work.”
I began pacing back and forth in front of the runt, as I often do when a brilliant idea begins taking rot in the vast fields of my mind. Taking root, I should say.
“I’ve got it, Drover. Here’s the deal. We’ll sing our way into the house. We’ve done it before, maybe it’ll work one more time.”
“Yeah, but I still can’t carry a tune, and this is survivest of the fiddles, you already said so.”
“Never mind the fiddles. We don’t need fiddles for this. We’ll do it with our own voices, and we’re going to attack his heart.”
“You mean . . . give him a heart attack?”
“No, no, you don’t understand. We’re going to sing a song so sad and full of tragedy, it will penetrate into the deepest bones of his heart.”
“I’d rather penetrate his house.”
“That comes next, Drover. First we win the heart, then we win the house.”
“Yeah, but we don’t have a song. I’m so cold, the only song I can remember is ‘Three Blind Ducks.’”
“It’s ‘Three Blind Mice.’”
“I don’t know that one.”
“It doesn’t matter, Drover. I’ve got the song. All we have to do is belt it out. Stand by for Heavy Duty Singing.”
We parked ourselves right in front of the door and shivered and moaned and beamed our most pathetic looks toward the house. Here’s how it went.
We’re Freezing Our Tails
Slim, we’re well aware that you’re cozy in your shack,
Reading Western Horseman and preparing for the sack.
You’re drinking a hot chocolate, your feet are warm and dry
’Cause you held them to the stove until they were ’bout to fry.
We dogs are very glad that the cold has lost its sting,
You’re sitting in your castle like a pampered cowboy king.
We know that you worked hard today, outside in wind and snow,
But there’s one more little thing we think you really ought to know.
We’re freezing, we’re freezing, we’re freezing our tails.
My derriere’s frozen as stiff as a nail.
The snowdrifts grow deeper, the wind blows a gale.
We’re freezing, we’re freezing, we’re freezing our tails.
Slim, we’re well aware that you’re not the kind of guy
Who’d harm a helpless creature or even kill a fly.
We know that you would worry if you found a homeless mouse,
Could we talk about the chances of our staying in your house?
We know a guilty conscience is very hard to bear.
It worries us most deeply that you’re sitting in your chair,
Consumed with guilty feelings, contemplating all your sins,
’Cause your dogs are shaking on the porch, just begging to get in.
We’re freezing, we’re freezing, we’re freezing our tails.
My derriere’s frozen as stiff as a nail.
The snowdrifts grow deeper, the wind blows a gale.
We’re freezing, we’re freezing, we’re freezing our tails.
Yes, we belted it out, right there on the porch, and also added some world-class howling and moaning to add to the overall effect. About halfway through the song, I noticed Slim’s face at the window. Then, just as we were winding up the last chorus, the door popped open and he stuck his head out.
“Is this likely to go on all night?” Drover and I nodded our heads. “Is there anything I could do, short of killin’ y’all, that would cut down on the noise?” Oh yes, just . . . let us in the, you know . . . house. That simple.
Slim heaved a sigh. “You knotheads. Okay, come on in, only we ain’t . . .” We flew into the house. “. . . going to make a habit of this, and don’t get on the furniture.”
Furniture? Ha. No problem. There wasn’t any furniture.
Shucks, this was real luxury. We had a cowhide rug on the floor and a nice woodstove to keep us warm. Was there more to life than this? I didn’t think so.
Slim flopped into his chair and opened up his Ben K. Greene book and started reading. Drover curled up into a ball and went right to sleep. I flopped down . . . hmm, and noticed a wrinkle in the cowhide, right where my shoulder was resting. I wiggled around and tried to smooth it out.
That didn’t work, so I went through the entire Jack Up and Rise procedure, got to my feet, and began digging on the wrinkle. I did this as quietly as possible but Slim must have heard it. His eyes came over the top of his book.
“Hank, don’t be diggin’ up Leonard’s carpet.”
Fine. No problem. If that’s the way he felt about it, I would take what was offered and suffer in silence. Or at least until he went to bed, heh heh.
Around nine-thirty he yawned and put his book aside, rose from the chair, and announced, “This excitement has wore me out. After I visit Mrs. Murphy, I’ll be ready for some serious wintertime sleepin’.”
He pulled on his boots and coat and went outside. Drover slept through all this, but I didn’t. I had picked up some clues about the mysterious “Mrs. Murphy,” don’t you see, and I was curious to know just who she was and what she did around here. I went to the window, hopped up on my back legs, and peered out into the darkness.
Hmm, yes. Through squinted eyes, I observed . . .well, a rusted window screen was about all I could see. I mean, it was so old and corroded, you could hardly see out of it. The only other window on that side of the trailer was just above Slim’s couch-bed. Did I dare trespass on the bed to get a look outside? He had, after all, said something about . . . “staying off the furniture.”
Hmm. On the other hand, I really needed to know about this Mrs. Murphy character. If this was going to be our home, even on a temporary basis, it was pretty important for me to know who came and went, right? Some dogs get serious about guarding the house and some don’t. It was pretty clear that Drover didn’t, but I sure did. To me, guarding the house was a serious and heavy responsibility, and yes, I had to know who she was, this elusive mysterious Mrs. Murphy.
I leaped up onto the bed, parted a set of dusty little curtains with my nose, and peered out into the night. At first I saw nothing and no one.
Then, all of a sudden, I saw a strange man come out of a . . . well, some type of small narrow shed or building just beyond the horse pen. I hadn’t noticed it before. It sat in the chinaberry grove. It had a slanted roof and a door that took up most of the east side. I mean, this was a very small shed, just barely large enough to hold one man.
And who was that guy coming out? He wore cowboy clothes but no hat. That was a pretty important clue right there. No normal cowboy would be out in this cold weath
er without his hat. I made a mental note of this. I had a feeling that it might be crucial later in the investigation.
This man, this strange man who had come out of the shed, appeared to be walking toward our trailer. I felt the hair rising on my back, and a growl began to rumble in the depths of my throat. The pieces of this puzzle were falling into place, all too well and all too soon, and it was beginning to look pretty bad. Are you keeping a list of clues? Maybe not, so let me list them.
Clue #1: Slim was nowhere in sight.
Clue #2: A strange hatless man was approaching the house.
Clue #3: Most worrisome of all, Mrs. Murphy was obviously hiding somewhere. Was she lurking behind the chinaberry trees, or was it possible that she had taken refuge in the shed? And who was she? A spy, no doubt, an enemy spy who had been sent to . . . do something.
At this point, we had many questions and very few answers. What we did have was plenty of reason to move into Alert Stage One.
“Drover, wake up. I don’t want to alarm you, but a strange man is approaching the house.”
His head came up, one ear up and the other sagging. “Did someone call my name?”
“Yes, I did. Now listen carefully. There’s a strange man approaching the house. He will be at the door in less than ten seconds. Slim has disappeared without a trace. We don’t know what happened to him, but we suspect that Mrs. Murphy had something to do with it. If the stranger comes into the house, we have no escape route. We may have to fight to the death.”
That got his attention. His eyes ballooned. “Fight to the death! Oh my gosh, oh my leg, help, Mayday!”
He began squeaking and running in circles.
“Stop squeaking and bark! We’ve got to let this guy know that the house is being defended. Maybe if we throw up a withering barrage of barking, he’ll get the message and leave.”
And that’s what we did. We pointed ourselves toward the door and unlooshed . . . unleashed, I guess it should be . . . unleashed our most ferocious barrage of barking. Even Drover threw himself into the effort. Once the little mutt realized the seriousness of our situation, that our backs were against the wall, he came up with some pretty good barks.
There for a minute, I thought we had stopped him—the intruder, that is—with our withering so-forths, but then I saw the doorknob turn and I heard the click of the latch.
We both stopped barking and stared at the door. I swallowed hard. “Okay, son, we gave it our best shot and it didn’t work. We have no choice now but to go to Reverse Battle Stations.”
I could hear his teeth chattering. “Reverse Battle Stations? What does that mean?”
“It means hide, you dunce! This is every dog for himself! Run for your life!”
In the panic that followed this announcement, Drover scrambled into a tiny space beneath the chair. This left me with no place to go, so in sheer desperation, I went into Bunker Position beneath the covers on Slim’s bed.
Then in the eerie silence, we listened.
The door opened.
Footsteps entered the house.
The door slammed shut.
I could hear the pounding of my heart. In the deathly silence, it sounded like the thumping of a washtub. I could only hope that Drover didn’t squeak or do anything else to give us away.
I heard the man cough. Then I heard another sound: the swish of a coat being removed and dropped upon the floor. Uh-oh, what if he planned to stay for a while? Could we maintain Radio Silence over a long period of time? It would be tough, especially for little Mister Moan and Groan.
Then suddenly a voice cut through the silence. It said, and this is an exact quote, it said, “Well, I’m back from Mrs. Murphy’s.”
HUH?
Chapter Ten: I Solve the Mystery of Mrs. Murphy, the Spy
That voice sounded very familiar, almost like . . .well, almost like Slim’s voice, yet I had observed the intruder myself and had been pretty sure . . .
I summoned up the courage to lift the sheet with my nose, just enough so that I could peek out with one eye. Hmmm. It certainly appeared to be Slim, I mean, right down to the smallest details: the long pointed nose, the glasses, the belt buckle, the faded jeans that bagged in the seat.
“Get out of my bed.”
Sure, okay, but . . . I slithered myself out of the sheets and off the bed and approached him in a stealthy manner. See, we still had a lot of loose ends in this case, and I wasn’t convinced that this was actually Slim. Sometimes they’ll use disguises, you know, your spies and your enemy agents, and they’re very clever about it.
The last thing I wanted was to come out of this deal looking foolish. I wouldn’t be convinced that this was actually Slim until I got close enough to give him a thorough sniffing. I moved toward him one step at a time. I watched his face very carefully and raised the hair on my back, just in case this turned out to be a truck.
A trick, I should say.
Sniff. Sniff. Sniff.
Okay, chicken manure. You can relax. We, uh, cancelled the alert. False alarm, in other words, but let me hasten to point out that he hadn’t been wearing his cowboy hat. That had changed his appearance entirely. I mean, what’s a cowboy without a cowboy hat? They never go anywhere without a hat, and when they do . . . well, they run the risk of being mistaken for somebody else.
And if he didn’t want his dogs going into a panic, he should have . . .
Never mind, just skip it.
I tapped my tail on the floor and rolled my eyes up to his face. He was shaking his head. “Good honk, I make one trip to the outhouse and you geniuses forget who I am. And stay off of my bed.”
Sure, you bet, but who’d said anything about an outhouse? I thought he’d gone somewhere to hold a secret meeting with . . .
Okay, the pieces of the peezle had begun falling into place, the pieces of the puzzle. Slim was a cowboy, right? And they have their own peculiar way of communicating, right? Which always seems to involve some kind of joke, right? So instead of just making a simple statement, such as, “I’m going to visit the outhouse,” he had mumbled something about “Mrs. Murphy.”
Do you get it? He had his own name for the outhouse! Does that make sense? I think it’s REALLY WEIRD, if you want to know what I think, and I don’t know how these people expect a dog to stay on top of House Security when they’re speaking in codes and leaving the house without their hats. It sure makes you think they don’t take our jobs . . . oh well.
I had a little trouble getting Stub Tail out from under the chair, but finally he came creeping out. But for the rest of the evening, until the lights went out, I noticed that he was giving Slim a close inspection, just in case he turned out to be Mrs. Murphy, the spy.
I can’t say that I blamed him. I mean, once these guys start playing pranks on a dog and joking around all the time, it makes you wonder. I’ll say no more about it.
Well, we spent a great night inside the house, bedded down on Leonard’s cowhide carpet. It was kind of fun, listening to that old north wind whistle and groan outside, whilst we were curled up beside a nice warm . . .
Oh, there was one small problem. Along about five o’clock in the morning, Slim’s last load of wood had pretty muchly burned down to embers, and . . . well, the house started cooling down. See, just before bedtime, he’d loaded the stove with what he’d called his “best all-nighter logs,” big chunks of mesquite and hackberry that were supposed to burn through the night.
Well, they didn’t quite make it, and before daylight that old floor got pretty derned cold. And hard. I awoke from a deep sleep and suddenly felt a . . . a sudden and deep concern that Slim might be getting cold. Especially his feet. See, hot air rises and collects around the headatory region, while cold air falls and gathers around the feet, and the last thing we needed was for Slim to wake up with frostbitten feet.
That frostbite can be very da
ngerous, and you hear stories all the time about guys who were careless about the weather and got their hands and feet and ears frostbitten. You know what happens then? They have to cut ’em off. That’s right, and since Slim was the breadwinner of the house, I sure as thunder didn’t want to take any chances of him getting his feet sawed off.
I mean, his boots wouldn’t fit anymore, and where would he put his spurs? No sir, we didn’t need any of that, so I took it upon myself to, uh, save his feet from the . . . frostbite hazard.
It wasn’t as easy as you might think. I had to pull myself up on his bed, creep several steps to the east, and lie across his feet—all of that without waking him. See, he never would have approved of my actions. I knew that. Cowboys are proud, right? Maybe even vain. They think of themselves as tough and independent, and they never want to accept help from anyone else.
I understood all that, so I did it quietly—for his own good. I mean, if a loyal cowdog can’t take care of his master’s precious feet, what good is he? But this next part will really surprise you. I didn’t even take credit for it. No sir, it was a selfless act of selfless devotion. At first light, I slithered back down on the floor and, well, shivered until Slim got the fire chunked up.
Is that touching or what? You bet it is, and you know what else? He didn’t lose one foot, not even one toe, to frostbite. That just shows you what a loyal cowdog can do when he sets his mind to it. And what really surprises me is that there are people in this world who don’t even own a dog. And a lot of those people are walking around without feet and toes.
Okay, where were we? Oh yes, morning. At first light Slim crept out of bed and chunked up the stove with fresh wood. Then he jumped back under the covers and grabbed another fifteen minutes of sleep. When the house warmed up, he crawled out of bed, stretched his long arms, and pushed the hair out of his face.
I lifted my head, whapped my tail on the floor, and gave him a big good morning smile. He returned it with a yawn and a scowl. “Which reminds me, I’ve got to call Loper and figure some way to get you dogs back to the ranch.”
Slim's Goodbye Page 6