“I’ll be derned. I wish I had a way with the women. I never know what to say.”
“Just watch me and study your lessons, son. The next time you encounter a lady dog on the street, start talking about mud flaps. It works every time.”
He gave a shrug and returned to the black hole of his thoughts . . . if he had any thoughts. I wasn’t sure he did, but at least I had tried to help him out with his problems in the Lady Department. I was always glad to help Drover along Life’s Path of . . . something.
Moments later, Slim pulled up in front of Jim’s Tire Service. I stood up and was in the middle of a nice Yawn and Stretch, when he slammed on the stupid brakes, throwing me against the cab. He stepped out and saw me . . . well, picking myself up, and he grinned.
“Stand up, pooch. We ain’t in the country anymore, so don’t embarrass me.”
Very funny. He’d slammed on the brakes on purpose, knowing perfectly well that it would send us dogs flying around in the back. He did it all the time. It was another of his pathetic attempts at humor. It wasn’t funny the first time, and it got unfunnier and unfunnier the more he did it.
Oh well.
The tire shop was located in a big metal building. Slim got the flat tire out of the back of the pickup and rolled it inside. I hopped down and followed a few steps behind. Suddenly my nose began picking up a strange odor. It was strong and it smelled a lot like . . . well, rubber.
Ah yes. This was a tire shop, right? And tires are made of rubber, yes? So there we were. It was all fitting together.
Several men were working inside, changing flats and making a lot of racket. One of them saw us and came toward us. Description: shorter than Slim and stocky in build, khaki pants and shirt, dark hair and eyes, and a nice smile. Oh, and his name was stitched on the front of his shirt: Miguel.
He and Slim seemed to know each other. They shook hands and made small talk. The substance of their conversation, as I recall, was that the weather had been too hot and too dry, and that we needed a rain. I agreed with all that.
Slim pointed to his tire. “I’m broke down, Miguel. Reckon you can fix me up?”
“No problem.” He took the tire and laid it up on a rack and started airing it up.
Slim slouched against the wall and glanced around the building. “Where’s that dog-eating cat of yours?”
Miguel looked up and grinned. “Pico? He’s around. He hides and waits. When a dog comes close . . .” Miguel made claws and growled.
Well, that got my attention. A “dog-eating cat”? I’d never heard of such a thing, and suddenly I found my eyes prowling the racks of tires at the rear of the . . . there he was! A big Siamese tomcat. He was perched on top of some tires, staring at me with weird blue eyes. Oh, and he was flicking the tip of his tail.
Our gazes met. Through my eyes, I sent the cat a message: “Pal, I don’t know who you are or who you think you are, but the last kitty that tried to eat me spent some time in the hospital.”
The cat—Pico was his name, I suppose—received my eye-message and . . . well, didn’t show much response at all, to tell you the truth, which proved that he was just another dumb cat. If he’d had any sense at all, he would have left the building and found a place to hide.
Remember my motto? “Do unto others but don’t take trash off the cats.” That goes double for cats who have wild fantasies about eating dogs. Dumb cat.
I was in the midst of glaring my message at that fraud of a blue-eyed tomcat, when Miguel’s gaze drifted down to me. “That your dog?”
Slim nodded. “Sort of. Me and the boss take turns with him. It’s kind of like sharing a cold. One of us has him for a while and passes him on the other.”
Miguel chuckled. “He looks like a pretty good dog.”
“I guess he’s as good as I deserve. He eats too much and he ain’t too smart, but people say the same about me.”
Miguel put his ear to the tire and listened for a hiss of air. He found the spot and pulled out a nail with a pair of pliers. “Can he burp?”
“Say what?”
“The dog. Can he burp?”
A grin spread across Slim’s mouth. “Well I . . . I never thought about that, Miguel. I suppose he can, but I can’t say as I’ve ever studied it real close.”
“I could make him burp. Right now, any time, on command.”
Slim hitched up his jeans. He was still grinning. “Now wait a minute. You’re saying you can tell him to burp and he’ll burp?”
Miguel nodded. “I’m a dog trainer. You want to see?”
Some of the other men had gathered around. One of them nodded and said, “Miguel can do it. He trains dogs, all kinds of dogs.”
Slim pushed his hat to the back of his head and chewed on his lip. “Well, this I’ve got to see. I don’t think you can do it.”
Miguel reached for his wallet. “Five bucks says I can.”
“Uh-uh. I ain’t a wealthy man like you, Miguel.” Slim whipped out his wallet. “But by grabs, I’ve got a one-dollar bill that says you can’t.”
“You’re covered.” Miguel laid a dollar bill on the cement floor and Slim laid one right beside it. “What’s the dog’s name?”
“Oh, he’s got many names, depending on how mad we are at him, but he goes by Hank most of the time.”
“I will teach Hank to burp on command.” Miguel disappeared into the office.
My gaze and Slim’s met. Neither of us had any idea what was coming next.
Oh, and that blue-eyed Siamese cat was watching.
Chapter Eleven: You’ll Never Guess Who Showed Up
Miguel went into the office and came back with a bowl and a can of . . . something. Soda pop? Yes, it was soda pop. He set the bowl down in front of me and poured the pop into it. Then he stood over me and pointed to the bowl.
“That’s for you, Hank. Soda pop, good stuff. Take a drink.”
I looked up into his eyes and whapped my tail on the floor. He’d brought a soda pop, just for me? Gee, what a nice guy. I mean, I’d always had a fondness for soda pop, especially on hot summer days, but on our ranch I seldom got any. The cowboys are kind of stingy, don’t you know, and . . .
Well, this was very touching. A fresh, cool soda pop, just for ME. I leaned forward and gave it a sniffing. It smelled . . . cool and refreshing. Wonderful. My mouth began to water and I found myself, uh, licking my chops. I rolled my eyes up to Miguel, just to be sure this wasn’t a trick.
He nodded and pointed to the bowl. “For you, doggie.”
Well . . . okay. I mean, if he was buying the drinks, I sure wasn’t going to insult him by turning him down. I started lapping. It was even better and sweeter and refreshinger than I had supposed. Great stuff. I lapped it all down and even licked the bottom . . .
Huh?
In a flash, Miguel reached down, picked me up, and started . . . what was the deal here? He was shaking me. He shook me several times, pretty hard, and then set me back down on the cement floor.
“Now, Hank,” he said, shooting a grin at Slim, “I command you to burp.”
What? Burp? Hey, I couldn’t just . . .
“Go on, doggie, let’s hear a big one.”
Gee, I hated to disappoint him, but who can . . .
All at once I felt a rumbling in my stomach, and something began moving up the stovepipe of my . . .
BORK!
My ears leaped up. Was that . . . me?
The men who had gathered around us broke into laughter and applause. Miguel beamed a smile, clapped his hands together, and snatched the two dollar bills off the floor. Slim leaned his head back and laughed out loud.
“You cheated, Miguel, but that’s okay. It was worth a buck.”
Miguel leaned over and patted me on the head. “Good dog, Hank. You are very smart. Stay away from Pico.”
Well, I . . .
I hardly knew how to respond. I mean, we ranch dogs aren’t used to so much kindness and attention, and heck, if Miguel wanted to bring me another soda pop . . .
Suddenly they were all gone, back to work fixing tires, clanging and banging and making hissing noises, and I found myself all alone. Oh well. One minute a star, the next minute just another dog on the street. But it had been nice, basking in the limejuice and enjoying my brief moments of . . . BUPP . . . excuse me, fame.
They were making so much racket in there, it was hurting my ears, so I headed outside. And let me hasten to add that my leaving the shop had nothing to do with the so-called “dog-eating cat.” It had suddenly occurred to me that Drover needed another lecture on . . . something or other. He could always use another lecture, so I . . . it had nothing to do with the cat.
A blue pickup pulled up in front of the shop. A man came inside, rolling a tire. We passed, and I had to get out of his way, otherwise he might have run over me with his tire. I hopped up into the back of Slim’s pickup and saw Drover.
What was he doing now? His eyes were wide open and he seemed to be jerking his head toward . . . my eyes went to the back of the blue pickup, and I found myself staring right into the ugly face of . . .
You’ll never guess who it was. Bruno the Boxer? Nope. Rufus the Doberman Pinscher? Nope. Rambo the Great Dane? Wrong again. No, it was the face of a wottreiler, and I happened to know the guy. His name was Bruiser.
Are you shocked? I knew you would be, but the tipoff was the blue pickup, don’t you see. I had identified it the very moment . . . okay, maybe I’d missed that little clue, but the important thing was that Bruiser was sitting in a pickup, not ten feet away from us. And he looked MAD. Real mad.
He recognized me. “So, it’s you again.”
All at once I felt myself . . . uh . . . sinking and shrinking and slinking, shall we say, and wilting under the glare of that big ape. Yipes! Who could look into such terrible eyes? And all at once I began to regret all the . . . uh . . . rude and tacky things I had . . .
“Drover, don’t say a word, not one word. We have entered into a situation here that could prove to be very dangerous.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Bruiser’s voice cut through the silence like a chain saw. “Hey, you. Dummy. Come here.”
I shot a glance at Drover. His teeth were chattering. “I think he’s speaking to you, Drover.”
“Oh my gosh, I knew we’d see him again! I knew you shouldn’t have . . . What if he comes over here? What’ll we do?”
I cut my eyes from side to side. I had just noticed an important detail. “Drover, do you see what I see? He’s chained to the pickup. Look, see for yourself.”
“Well, I’ll be derned, he is. Chained to the pickup.”
“Do you understand the meaning of this?”
“Well, let me think. It means that if we hide and keep quiet, he won’t bust the chain and kill us.”
I gave him a stern glare. “No. That’s not what it means. It means that he’s helpless and harmless. It means that he’s just another wimpy mutt who couldn’t hurt a fly. It means that we can give him more of what he deserves for trying to kill our helpless baby deer.”
A goofy grin spread across Drover’s mouth. “I’ll be derned. I never thought of that. You mean . . .”
“Yes, exactly.” I gave him a sly wink. “Do you remember the routine?”
“The same one we used on Bruno the Boxer?”
“That’s the one.” I gave him a pat on the shoulder. “You go first.”
“Well . . . are you sure? It’s kind of a small chain.”
“Don’t worry, Drover. No dog is strong enough to break a chain. Go for it.”
He hopped down to the ground and walked around to the side of Bruiser’s pickup. He looked up into Bruiser’s ugly face. “Oh, hi there. We were just wondering if you’d mind if we wet down your tires.”
Bruiser’s eyes widened. “Stay away from my tires, you little shrimp, or I’ll wring your neck.”
Drover swallowed hard. “Yeah, but you’re on a chain, and Hank says you can’t break it.”
“Hank’s brain can’t keep up with his mouth.”
Drover glanced at me and giggled. “Yeah, but I think we’ll mark your tires and see what happens.”
Drover took the left side and I took the right. We slapped a good strong mark on all four tires. Just as I had suspected, the cowardly rottweiler growled and grumbled, but he didn’t lunge against the chain. Even as dumb as he was, he knew he couldn’t break it.
We regrouped near the door on the driver’s side. “Nice work, Drover. I don’t know as I’ve ever seen you do a better job of marking tires.”
He grinned and wiggled his stub tail. “Yeah, it was fun. You reckon we ought to give ’em a second coat?”
He glanced up at Bruiser. So did I. What we saw shocked us both.
See, you probably thought Bruiser would be near-crazy with anger, right? Furious and ready to tear us apart? Well, he wasn’t. What we saw were . . . tears shining in the corners of his eyes. Honest. I’m not kidding.
Drover and I exchanged puzzled glances. This was NOT what we had expected.
Then Bruiser spoke. “You guys are right. I’m just a big, ugly lunk. I’m a bad dog, I’ve always been a bad dog, and everybody hates me. But you know what, fellas? Inside this huge, ugly body, there’s a little scottie terrier who wants just one thing in the world.” He looked up to the sky. “A friend!”
Again, Drover and I exchanged glances. I could see that Drover’s lower lip was beginning to tremble. And heck, maybe mine was too. I mean, this was kind of . . . touching.
He went on. “You hate me, I know you do, and I’m glad you hate me. I deserve it. But . . .” He glanced away and bit his lower lip. “. . . then there’s the story nobody ever hears about old Bruiser. I was orphaned as a pup and raised by junkyard dogs. Every morning and every evening, they . . . beat me.”
Drover’s mouth was hanging open. “They beat you? Why, that’s terrible!”
Big tears slid down his big, ugly face. “Yes, they beat me and made me mean. Over and over they said to me, they said, ‘Bruiser, you’re no good. You’re nothing but a rotten rottweiler.’ And you know what, fellas? After a guy hears that over and over, day after day, he begins to . . .”
He couldn’t finish. He broke down and started crying—sobbing. I found myself looking at Drover. “What have we done?”
Drover was beginning to cry. “I don’t know, but I feel awful!”
“Yeah, me too. What a louse I’ve turned out to be! I told the poor guy that he walked like a fat duck.”
“Yeah, and you showed him your hiney.”
“Yes, and I regret that now.”
“I’m sorry I wet on his tires and I wish I could take it all back.”
“I know, but it’s too late, Drover. It’s water under the tire.” I heaved a sigh. “Well, there’s only one thing left to do.”
“What? Tell me. I’m ready to do anything.”
“Let’s jump up into the back of his pickup and grant him his fondish wist: we’ll become his friends. We’ll convince him that he’s not just a rotten dog, that’s he’s really a wonderful fellow.”
Drover was staring at me. “You mean . . . you know, I don’t think that’s such a great idea.”
“Hey, you said you were ready to do anything. If we surround this guy with warmth and friendship, Drover, it could change his whole life. What’s more, it would make us feel better, knowing that we had befriended such a miserable wretch.”
“Yeah, but you know this old leg of mine. It’s giving me fits and I don’t think I could make the jump.”
“Okay, fine, have it your own way. You’ll be sorry, of course. I’ll get all the credit for turning his life around, and you, Drover, you’ll have to live with the fact that
you marked the tires of a helpless, broken dog.”
“I only marked two of ’em.”
“Yes, two tires, Drover, and that was just enough to break his heart. I hope you’re happy.”
“It works for me.”
“What?”
“I said, I hope I can live with the guilt.”
I marched around to the back of the pickup and prepared to begin my Errand of Mercy, salvaging what was left of poor Bruiser’s life and self-esteamer.
I hardly noticed that Drover had scrambled under Slim’s pickup. Or that Pico was still watching.
Chapter Twelve: My Triumph over the Raging Rottweiler
With a heavy heart, I hopped up into the back of Bruiser’s pickup. The poor guy was curled up in a ball near the front—all alone, unwanted, abandoned, hated by everyone. I went to him and laid a paw on his shoulder.
“I’ve come to help, Bruiser. Go on with your story.”
He raised up, and through teary eyes, he said, “Gosh, you really want to hear it?”
“Yes. I think it’s important that you tell it all to . . . a friend.”
“You’d . . . you’d consider being my friend?”
I lifted my eyes toward heaven and nodded. “Yes. You see, Bruiser, those of us in the Security Business appear to be tough and hard. That’s only because our job demands it. But peel off the outer layers of steel and iron, and you find dogs who really care.”
“Oh gosh!”
“So let it all spill out. I’m here not to judge but to listen.”
“Well, okay.” He wiped a tear from his eye. “Those mugs in the junkyard, they made me mean, see, and they told me I was rotten and nasty to the core.”
“Hmmm, this is so sad.”
“Yeah, but then one day I had this . . . this kind of revelation, you might say, and I looked back on my terrible wasted life . . . and I realized . . . they were right.”
HUH?
“What did you just say?”
“I said,” he rose to his feet, “they were right about me. I was rotten to the core, and that’s just the way I wanted it.”
The Case of the Raging Rottweiler Page 7