The Case of the Vanishing Fishhook

by John R. Erickson

  Ha.

  If you were a young cow mother, lying on the ground and trying to deliver a calf, and some guy started pushing on your hips with his boots and pulling on you with a chain, would you just lie there and be sweet about it? I wouldn’t have, and neither did that heifer.

  One second she was lying on the ground, and the next second she was on her feet—snorting, bellering, blowing smoke, and throwing her horns.

  Well, I saw the wreck coming and I knew that it was up to me to save Slim from his bonehead behavior. I sprang into action with a burst of barking, then dived in front of the heifer and bit her on the nose. At the time it seemed a good strategy. See, if she came after me, she couldn’t possibly harm Dr. Bonehead with her horns, right?

  But all at once Slim was squalling. “Hank, don’t get her stirred up! Leave her alone!”

  HUH?

  Okay, I hadn’t considered that once she began chasing me around the corral, Slim would be . . . don’t forget that he’d looped that chain around his wrist, and don’t forget that I’d had nothing to do with that decision. I never would have done such a crazy thing.

  Well, she came after me, sure enough, and let me tell you about heifers in labor. They’re in a real bad mood to start with, and then you add one cowboy doctor and one barking dog and . . .

  She was real unhappy about the whole situation and she let me know right away that she had every intention of harming someone. What was I supposed to do, sit there and get myself run over by a train with horns? Forget that. I ran, fellers.

  We made several laps around the corral. The good news was that I managed to stay a step ahead of her deadly horns and thus saved the ranch the price of a funeral. The bad news was that . . . well, old Slim was attached to her by a chain and as we lapped the corral, he sure moved a lot of dirt. And fresh manure. He looked like a propeller tied to the cow’s tail, is how he looked.

  It was on our third lap around the pen when he got wrapped around the snubbing post. That tightened the chain and, bingo, a cute little black baldface calf made his entrance into the world. The heifer must have noticed that something was different. She stopped, sniffed the air, bawled, and looked back towards her calf.

  And Slim. He undid the chain, got up on his hands and knees, and let out a groan. Maybe the heifer thought she’d given birth to a cowboy instead of a calf. Anyways she went over and gave him a sniffing. He looked pretty strange, I must admit. He’d bulldozed so much dirt with his face that it had turned brown. Oh, and the back of his white shirt had a big green splotch on it, the exact color of recycled grass.

  That snubbing post had knocked the wind out of him and he wasn’t in the mood to be sniffed, I suppose. He waved a hat in front of her face and said, “Get out of here, you old bat.” Another bad idea. The heifer decided that whoever that guy was on the ground, he had no business lurking around her new calf. She dropped her head, shook her horns, bellered, and started pawing up dirt.

  Slim got to his feet and made a run for it. The heifer followed and was taking aim at his back pockets when I decided to spring into action. I left my spot on the other side of the corral fence and went charging into battle. I think I could have saved him if he hadn’t . . . well, gotten his feet tangled up on . . . well, on ME, you might say.

  I don’t know how it happened. Apparently Slim wasn’t paying attention to his business. I think he could have missed me if he’d . . . okay, maybe I ran between his legs, but don’t forget that it was very dark out there and I was just trying to help. And don’t forget that I was concentrating on an insane heifer with horns.

  “Hank, get out of the way!”

  Anyways, Slim did another dive into the dirt and all at once I found myself positioned between him and the heifer. She stopped and we glared into each other’s eyes. Her head was shaking. Her eyes were on fire and bulging out of her head. Smoke and steam and burning lava hissed out of her nostrils.

  I was cornered, trapped, exposed, and all at once I realized that heroism had been thrust upon me. I decided to show her some fangs and address her in a firm term of voice: “Listen, you old hag, if you don’t . . .”

  Maybe we’d better not go on. The next part is so scary, I’m not sure I should reveal it. No kidding. You know how I am about the kids. I don’t mind giving ’em a little thrill now and then, but the real hardcore, heavy-duty scary stuff . . .

  Better skip it.

  Sorry.

  Chapter Three: Caution: Scary Material!

  What? You think you can handle the scary part? Well, maybe you can and maybe you can’t. I guess we can give it a try and see what happens, but if you end up having nightmares or wetting the bed, don’t blame me.

  I tried to warn you.

  Okay, back to the enraged heifer. Yipes! It was pretty clear that she had no desire to work this thing out or come up with a peaceful solution. In one rapid motion, she scooped me up on her horns and tossed me into the air like a feather. When I came back to earth, she was right there, waiting to do it again. She did.

  Hey, I could take a hint. If she didn’t want me in her nursery, that was fine. I was ready to leave, but it wasn’t so easy to get out when I was spending so much of my time doing loops and cartwheels in the air.

  The old hag . . . young hag. The hateful thing.

  Well, it took some doing, but at last I was able to escape her horns and scramble under the fence to safety. There, I joined Slim who was bent over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. I sat down at his feet and swept the ground with my tail, as if to say, “Well, how’d we do?”

  His eyes came up and pierced me. “You know, Hank, there’s times when I think our friendship ain’t worth all the trouble it causes. Next time I have to pull a calf, would you take a trip to the Belgium Congo and stay gone for a month?”

  Well, I . . . I hardly knew how to respond to that. I mean, I’d tried to do my part.

  The heifer had gone over to her calf and was licking it down, but every now and then her head jerked around and she gave us menacing glares. Slim raised up, rubbed his ribs, and let out a groan.

  “Well, it’s been a night for higher education, and I have learned an important lesson about pulling calves the Cowboy Way. Next time, I think I’ll just foller the manual.”

  See? I’d tried to tell him.

  He fished a pocket watch out of his jeans. He snapped open the case and brought the watch up close to his face. He squinted and scowled. “Good honk, I’m going blind, can’t even see the hands on this watch.” He gave it a shake. It made a rattling sound. “Oh. I wondered what that crunch was when I wrapped around the snubbin’ post. I thought it was my broken heart but I guess it was my watch.”

  He heaved a sigh and put his busted watch away. “I’m guessing it’s about five o’clock in the A and M—too early to start work and too late to go back to the house. You reckon we might ought to drive into town and get some breakfast at the cafe?”

  Drive 25 miles into town? In the dark? Not me, pal. I wasn’t that desperate for something to eat.

  He must have figured this out on his own. “Naw, too much trouble.” He yawned and stretched. “Well, I’m going to make me a pallet on the saddle shed floor and catch a few winks. How about you, pup?”

  Me? No, I still had rounds to make, things to . . . oh, what the heck, maybe the ranch could survive if I grabbed a few hours’ sleep. Sure.

  We groped our way to the saddle shed. Slim gathered up four saddle blankets and laid them out on the floor. Say, that looked pretty inviting, and I moved right in and began scratching up my . . .

  “Hey, don’t be digging up my bed. You can sleep on the floor.”

  Well . . . sure, fine. I was just . . . gee, he was awfully grabby about the bed.

  He snapped off the light and stretched out on my . . . on the bed, shall we say, while I sat on the hard cement floor.

  “A
hhhh! Heck of a fine bed. Don’t know as I’ve ever stretched out on a better bed. You’d love it, pooch, only we ain’t got any room for you. Sorry.”

  That was okay. I knew his sleeping habits. We would experience thirty seconds of silence, then the air would be filled with his honking and snoring, and at that point I would, heh-heh, find my rightful place on the bed.

  Sure enough, silence moved over us. I waited for my signal. Ten seconds. Fifteen seconds. Twenty seconds. Then . . .

  “Hank, have I ever sung you the song about Billy Joe and Dave?”

  What? The song about . . . hey, it was five o’clock in the morning!

  “I’ll bet you’d love to hear it.”

  No, I would NOT love to hear it. I would love to SLEEP. That’s what most people did at this hour of the morning.

  “I wouldn’t sing for just any old mutt. I hope you know that.”

  Oh brother.

  “You’re a mighty lucky dog.”

  Yeah, right.

  “I hope I can remember all the words. You’d forgive me if I messed up a verse or two, wouldn’t you?”

  Sigh. It appeared that I was about to be exposed to another one of his corny songs. A dog sure has to put up with a lot on this outfit.

  Have we discussed Slim’s singing? He wasn’t much of a singer, but he didn’t know it or wouldn’t admit it. He came up with these corny songs and then performed them for me. Why me, out of all the people and dogs in the world? How could I be so lucky?

  Because nobody else would sit there and listen to it. I had to. It was part of my job, and it wasn’t the part I liked the best. I had to sit there and stay awake and pretend that I was listening to something wonderful.

  I waited to hear the tiresome thing—his song, that is. I waited and waited. The next thing I heard was the sound of his snoring.

  He was asleep!

  What was the deal? After I’d gone to the trouble to prepare myself for the shock of his so-called music, he’d . . . oh well. It was no big loss.

  I had dodged a bullet, but by then I was wide awerp and ready to launch mysnork into another eighteen-hour day of wonk. There was no womp I would be urble to snork the honking sassafras smurk skittlebum . . . zzzzzzzzz.

  Okay, maybe I dozed off. Who wouldn’t have dozed off? Don’t forget, I had been up most of the night, protecting the ranch and calving out heifers. I was tuckered out and in desperate need of sleep, so I grabbed me a few Z’s.

  What woke me up was the sound of someone making an unauthorized entry into the . . . where was I? My head shot up and I managed to squeeze off a bark or two. Okay, I was in the saddle shed, and at first I aimed a bark at Slim because I thought . . . I don’t know what I thought, but there was this guy stretched out on the floor and that seemed pretty strange.

  But then the door opened and sunlight poured in, and through the glare of sunbeams I saw some kind of midget standing there in the doorway, so I turned my guns around and aimed several barks at . . .

  Huh? Okay, it turned out to be Little Alfred. Relax. I canceled the Code Three and shifted into the Grins and Wags Procedure.

  See, Slim and I had fallen asleep in the saddle shed, and . . . maybe you remember that part, so let’s move along. Slim sat up, yawned, and rubbed his eyes. Then he squinted at me and wrinkled up his nose and pushed me away.

  “Hank, has anyone told you lately that you stink? Well, you do. I’d sooner sleep with hogs.”

  There, you see? I’d stayed up half the night with him, had saved him from being trampled and skewered by an angry heifer, and that was all the thanks I got for it. He hadn’t cared about my smell when I’d been out there in the corral, saving his life, but now . . .

  Oh well. Putting up with his childish remarks was just part of the job, but I’ll tell you something. He didn’t smell so great himself. I mean, we’re talking about a bachelor cowboy who spent very little time in a bathtub, right? And a guy who’d recently been dragged through a cow lot, right?

  But did I make a big deal out of that? Did I go around telling everyone on the ranch that he smelled worse than hogs? No sir. All I did was . . . oh well.

  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I didn’t smell a bit worse than he did.

  And if he didn’t want me sitting close to him, that was just fine with me. I had other friends in the world, people who really cared about me and accepted me for what I was and didn’t mind if I smelled a little . . . well, ranchy.

  How’s a ranch dog supposed to smell?

  I jacked myself up off the floor, left Slim to enjoy his own boring company, and marched straight over to Little Alfred. And there, right in front of my former friend, I hopped up on my back legs and gave the boy a juicy lick on the cheek.

  He laughed and gave me a hug. “Hi, Hankie. What are y’all doing down here in the saddo shed? Were you sweeping?”

  Slim dragged himself up to a standing position, groaned, and rubbed his side. He explained that we had been calving out a heifer. “What time is it?”

  “Oh, ten o’cwock, I guess.”

  “Good honk. The day’s half over. I need to get some work done.” He yawned. “I wish them heifers would have their children during my office hours. They sure get my days and nights messed up.”

  “Hey Swim, I’ve got a gweat idea. Why don’t we pway Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn? Me and my dad have been weading the book at night.”

  “The heck you have.”

  “Yep. I’ll be Tom Sawyer. You can be Huck, and we’ll go down to the Mississippi Wiver and catch fish.”

  Slim nodded his head and thought about it. “You know, Button, that sounds like a lot of fun, but I’ve got a handicap that keeps me from doing stuff like that. It’s called a steady job.”

  “Aw, Swim.”

  “See, your daddy pays my wages and he wants me to play Slim Chance—cowboy vet, welder, hay-hauler, barn cleaner-upper, and windmill mechanic. He might not be tickled if I was to switch over to Huckleberry Finn.”

  The boy frowned and rocked up and down on his toes. “Well . . . he wikes the book. Maybe he wouldn’t care.”

  “Heh. You don’t know your daddy as well as I do, son. When it comes to ranch work, he’s a regular Simon LaGreasy. I think I’d better pass on the Huck Finn offer.”

  Alfred’s face fell into a heap of wrinkles and he pooched out his lips. “Dwat. I can’t pway Tom Sawyer without a Huckleberry Finn.”

  Slim snapped his fingers. “I know just the guy for the Huck Finn part.” All at once his gaze swung around and fastened on . . . well, on ME, you might say.

  Hey, what was this all about? I soon found out, and that’s where the Fishhook Deal came from.

  Chapter Four: Attacked by a Huge One-Eyed Robot

  They were staring at me, both of them, and grinning. What was the deal? I gave them Sincere Looks and whapped my tail on the cement floor, as if to say, “Sorry, I wasn’t listening and must have missed part of the, uh, conversation.”

  I’d heard part of it. Alfred and his dad had been reading some book about a guy who went fishing and . . . ate strawberries . . . huckleberries . . . something about berries, and Slim had been offered a job . . .

  To tell you the truth, it hadn’t made much sense to me and . . . why were they grinning at me?

  Alfred looked up at Slim. “You think Hank could be Huck?”

  “Why shore, why not? ‘Hank’ is pretty close to ‘Huck,’ ain’t it? I mean, you just shuffle a few letters around and you get Huck. And Huck, now, he was about half-lazy and worthless, as I remember, and that sort of fits too, don’t it?”

  Alfred thought that over. “Yeah, but in the book, Huck didn’t have a tail.”

  “Huh. Hadn’t thought of that. Say, we’ve got a hacksaw up at the machine shed, and I’ll bet we could fix that tail business.”

  What? Fix my tail with a hacksaw, is
that what he’d said? I searched their faces for some hint of what was going on here and . . . okay, they both laughed, so it appeared that this was some more of Slim’s cowboy humor.

  Around here, you never know for sure. I mean, just when you think he’s kidding, you find out that it’s a nutty idea and he’s serious about it.

  But this time he was kidding. I was glad.

  Slim got his chuckle out of it and continued. “Heck, it don’t matter that he has a tail. It’s all pretend anyway. Now.” He hitched up his jeans. “If y’all will excuse me, I need to start my day and get some work done. Some of us have to work for a living, you know.”

  Why did he glance at me when he said that? It was a cheap shot, another lame attempt at humor. He thinks he’s such a comedian. Sometimes . . . just skip it.

  Alfred and I followed him outside. He closed the saddle shed door, then opened a corral gate so that the heifer and her new calf could go out into the pasture. Then the three of us hiked up the hill to the machine shed. Slim stopped in front of the shed and gave us a stern glare.

  “Now listen, you two. I’ve got to do some welding to stay ahead of all the hay equipment your daddy tears up in a normal day. When I get under that welding hood and start burnin’ sticks, y’all don’t look at the fire, hear? It’ll blister your eyes.”

  Alfred nodded. “Okay, Swim.”

  “And don’t be getting into any mischief.”

  “Okay, Swim. We’ll be so good, you’ll think we’re angels from heaven.”

  Slim’s gaze went from me to Alfred and back to me. He shook his head. “Huh. Somehow I ain’t convinced, but I guess we can give it a try.”

  He pushed open the big sliding doors and we all went inside. Slim gathered up some tools and equipment, and turned on the welder whilst Alfred and I found places to sit nearby. Just for a moment or two I was distracted by a flea on my right hind leg, and when I looked up again I saw . . .