I wasn’t sure whose voice I’d heard, but suddenly it hit me that . . . the voice was right! A dog has no business running around in brutal heat. It’s very dangerous. Why, dogs have been known to faint, collapse, and even perish while jogging in the heat, and who needs that?
I felt sure that if Slim had been there beside me, he would have begged me to scuttle the mission, pointing out the obvious—that if anything happened to me, the ranch would just . . . well, fall apart.
As much as I hated to do it, I cut the engines, went gliding down through the cloudosphere, and executed a smooth landing on the county road beside the mailbox.
With a heavy heart, I climbed out of the cockpit, hurried to the shade of the nearest tree, and flopped down. There, I began pumping fresh air across my dripping tongue and went into a routine we call Maybe Next Time.
After ten minutes of this, I checked gauges and was glad to see that all my precious bodily fluids had returned to their normal readings. Would I plunge on with the mission? No way. That piece of shade had my name written all over it and I planned to . . .
Huh?
I heard footsteps approaching. It was the robber . . . and he was coming back to finish me off!
Chapter Eight: False Alarm
Okay, relax. It was Drover, chugging down the dusty road and coming in my direction. Oh brother. Was there anyone I would rather NOT see at that particular moment? No. I flattened myself out on the ground and tried to melt into the shadows.
Maybe he would go right past and never see me.
He trotted up to the mailbox and stopped, glanced around, and called out, “Hank? Where’d you go? Listen, I’m feeling kind of guilty about being such a little chicken. Terrible guilt, honest, and I’ve decided to start my life all over again. Hello?”
I held my breath and didn’t make a sound. He heaved a sigh and started out again, trotting west on the county road and heading toward Ranch Headquarters. He didn’t see me, and that was great.
But then he stopped and sniffed the air. He turned around and looked straight at me. His face bloomed into a smile. “Oh, hi. There for a second, I thought I smelled a skunk.” He came skipping toward me, then skidded to a stop. He sniffed the air again. “I did smell a skunk. Oh my gosh, is that . . . you?”
“It’s me, and let’s go straight to the point. You’re fired. Clean out your desk, turn in your badge, and disappear. I never want to speak to you again. Good-bye.”
“You mean . . .”
“I mean it’s over. I gave you every chance in the world to make something of yourself. Instead, you made a mess of everything.”
He hung his head. “I know but I can’t help it. I’m such a chicken!” He broke down and started crying. “Sometimes I can’t stand myself, but I’m all I’ve got.”
“Yeah, well, that’s real bad luck.”
“I promised Mom that I’d be a good little dog . . . and now I’ll have to tell her that I got fired! It’ll just break her heart!”
What can you say? I’m pretty hard-boiled (you have to be in my line of work), but this was no fun.
“Hank, give me just . . . five more chances.”
“Absolutely not.”
He bawled some more. “Give me just . . . three more chances.”
“No! I’ve made my decision, and there’s no turning back. Sorry.”
More bawling and squawling, then he moaned, “Okay, one last chance, that’s all, just one.”
He boo-hooed for another minute, while I reviewed his file and counted the plink of his tears on the ground. (Twelve). At last I couldn’t stand any more of it. “All right, quit bawling. One more chance, but you have to take the Pledge of No Chicken. Stand at attention, raise your right paw, and repeat the Pledge.”
He dried his eyes, snapped to attention, and raised his paw. “Yeah, but I don’t remember it.”
“I haven’t given it yet.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Here’s the Pledge, so pay attention. ‘I, Drover C. Dog, do solomonly swear to be brave and bold, to stop being a chickenhearted little mutt, and never the twang shall meet.”
“What’s a twang?”
“Say the Pledge!”
He said the words, and I began pacing in front of him. “All right, trooper, you’re back on the force. I’m taking a huge career risk, so don’t blow it. Here’s your first assignment.” I gave him a brief account of my scuffle with the burglar and his skunk. “I’m sending you up to headquarters to warn Slim. Can you handle that?”
“Oh, that’s why you stink so bad?”
I leaned down into his face. “Can you handle the job or not?”
He coughed and fanned the air in front of his face. “Oh yeah, I can do it, ’cause I took the Pledge of No Chicken.”
“Good. I’ll set up a command post over there in the shade and wait for your report.”
He began hopping up and down. “Oh, this’ll be fun!”
“Drover, it won’t be fun. It’s hotter than a depot stove.”
“Yeah, but Beulah might be at the picnic. Bye now, here I go!”
He went skipping down the road like a little . . . I don’t know what. Like a happy little grasshopper, I suppose.
“Drover, halt! Come back here!”
He came back and gave me a puzzled look. “Gosh, did I do something wrong?”
“Not yet. We’ve had a change of odors.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“I said, we’ve had a change of orders. I’m going with you.”
“But I thought . . .”
“In this heat, the trip to headquarters could be dangerous. You just rejoined the force five minutes ago, and we’d hate for anything bad to happen.”
“Gosh, that’s nice.”
“Let’s move out.”
I began marching down the middle of the road. Drover followed along behind—just where he belonged. After a moment, he said, “Oh, I get it now. Beulah.”
“That’s right, pal. She’s mine, and don’t you even speak to her.”
“She won’t like your smell.”
“She’ll love my smell. Women go for a deep manly aroma.”
“Yeah, but you tried that once and it backfired.”
“Drover, when I need your advice about romance, I’ll ask for it. In the meantime, please keep your trap shut.”
“You never learn.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing. I was just shutting my trap.”
As I predicted, it was a long hot trip to headquarters. We had to stop twice to rest in the shade, but thirty minutes later, we reached our destination. Even at a distance we could see that dozens of friends and neighbors had turned out for the picnic.
Several men in aprons cooked hamburgers on a big iron grill. A group of ladies sat in lawn chairs, talking and laughing, while another group played instruments and sang. Children were playing softball, and several ranchers slouched against trees, discussing grass and cattle. Others were pitching horseshoes.
As we marched toward the picnic ground, Drover said, “How are you going to tell Slim about the burglar?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The message. We made the trip so you could warn Slim about the burglar. How do you say ‘burglar’ in Tailwag?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
“Me! But I thought . . .”
“I’ve decided to let you handle it, son.”
“Yeah, but all I’ve got is a stub tail.”
“Use a simple wig-wag procedure and double the speed. Wig-wig-wag-wag-wiggy-wiggle.”
“That means ‘hamburger.’”
I stopped and gazed into the emptiness of his eyes. “Drover, I’m going to be busy entertaining a certain lady dog. I don’t have time to teach you how to comm
unicate with the human race. Go to Slim and tell him about the burglar. Use your tiny mind and figure it out.” I gave him a pat on the shoulder. “It’s good to have you back on the force.”
“Thanks.”
“Since you’re on probation, I know you won’t bungle this assignment.”
He began to wheeze. “You know, pressure really messes me up.”
“Pressure is good for us, son. If it weren’t for pressure, all the tires in this world would be flat.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Air pressure. That’s the difference between a tire that works and one that’s flat. Do you want to spend your whole life as a flat tire?”
He wheezed again. “Boy, I sure could use some air.”
“I’m sure you’ll find some at the picnic. This air is filled with air. Now, run along and take care of business. I’ll expect a full report in half an hour.”
He whined and wheezed, but I didn’t have time to hear his little complaints. I had bigger flies to fry. See, I had already searched the crowd and spotted . . . mercy! Have we discussed Miss Beulah the Collie? Yes, surely we have, because for years she had been the object of my dreams and devotion.
Flaxen hair. Dewberry eyes. Long collie ears and a long collie nose. A perfect tail, a perfect set of teeth, perfect toes . . . wow, what a woman!
How many nights had she visited me in my dreams? Dozens of times, hundreds of times. In my dreams, she belonged to me, and me alone, but the problem with dreams is that at sunrise, the show’s over and then we have to deal with . . . well, facts.
See, there was a bird dog in her life. Plato. They stayed on the same ranch, down the creek from us, and she seemed to have some kind of weird affection for him. I had never understood that. I mean, in so many ways she seemed gifted and intelligent. How could she like a bird dog when she could have . . . well, ME for example?
It made no sense, none. As a group, bird dogs tend to be dull, boring, and dumber than dirt, and Plato was all of those things—times five. What can you say about a dog that spends his entire life sniffing the ground, chasing birds, fetching sticks, and pointing old tennis shoes?
What you can say is that he was exactly the kind of mutt that Beulah should have avoided like a cloud of germs, but she didn’t. She actually seemed to like the creep, even though I had tried every trick in the book to win her heart.
You know, a lot of dogs would have gotten discouraged and quit. Me? I often got discouraged but didn’t quit. I would never quit! I would never give up hope that one day, the germ clouds would lift and she would see the Birdly Wonder for what he was—a stick-tailed buffoon who didn’t deserve the time of day, much less her affectation.
Those were the thoughts that echoed through the caverns of my mind as I went to my One and Only True Love. Yes, there she sat in the shade of an elm tree, watching all the activities that were going on at the picnic, taking it all in with her delicious brown eyes.
As I moved toward her through the crowd, I became aware of a very important detail. She was sitting alone! NO BIRD DOG. My heart leaped with joy. Holy smokes, maybe she had finally ditched the pest!
I quickened my pace and listened to the snare drum of my heart, beating out wild rhythms. Could this be the day? My heart said . . . yes!
Chapter Nine: Kangaroos Are Marsh Soup Eels
Ten feet away from Miss Beulah, I stopped. I wanted to be subtitle about this, don’t you see. Subtle. I wanted to be subtle.
A lot of mutts would have rushed right to her and tried to overwhelm her with kisses and hugs. Me? I wanted to give my charm a chance to do its magic, slowly and quietly, like the unfolding of a perfect rose in the Garden of Life as the new day’s sun spilled rays of fresh yellow light over the horizon of . . .
Hmm. I seem to have lost my train of thought. What were we talking about? Bones? No. The weather? I don’t think so.
It’s funny how that happens. You get all wrapped up in a thought and the next thing you know . . . dingo, it’s gone. Bingo, not dingo. A dingo is a wild dog, did you know that? It’s true. Dingoes live in a place called . . . what’s the name of that place? It’s south of here, and the whole country is crawling with kangaroos.
Actually, it might be incorrect to say that the country is crawling with kangaroos, because kangaroos don’t crawl. They hop, and we’re talking about serious hopping. They hop for a living. All day, every day, they hop around.
Oh, and they have pouches, too, right in front of their stomach. Creatures with pouches are called Marsh Soup Eels. Why? I have no idea. Ask a biologist, they’re the ones who come up with names that are hard to pronounce, such as Marsh Soup Eels.
My best guess is that kangaroos live in marshes, eat a lot of soup, and have a long tail that resembles an eel, but the important thing is that a mother kangaroo carries her baby around in the pouch, see, which means that baby kangaroos don’t do much hopping.
Australia. That’s the name of the place that has all the kangaroos, and they’ve got dingoes, too. Remember dingoes? Wild dogs. They eat kangaroos and kangaroos eat soup, so you might say that dingoes have a super diet.
Ha ha.
A little humor there. Did you get it? Soup and super. Ha ha. Okay, maybe it wasn’t all that great but . . . what were we talking about before you got me on the subject of kangaroos? Why should a dog in Texas be talking about kangaroos anyway? I’ve never even seen one, so . . .
Wait, hold everything! We were discussing Miss Beulah the Collie. Okay, now we’re cooking.
The point is that once a guy has feasted his eyes on Miss Beulah, he’ll never think about kangaroos again, even if he recently wolfed down a half-pound of frozen meat. He won’t care if they eat soup or salad or hamburgers, because . . . you know, I caught a whiff of those burgers on the grill, and you talk about a great smell! A cloud of meat smoke drifted over me and . . .
You can eat all the frozen hamburger you want, but give me beef cooked on a grill. Have we mentioned that as a wee little pup, I was raised in a beef box? It’s true, that was my nursery. A lot of your ordinary mutts spend their first months of life in a box that’s used for shipping oranges or spinach, but you’d never catch a cowdog hanging out in a spinach box. Dogs that are raised in spinach boxes and grapefruit boxes turn out to be little yip-yips, whereas your cowdogs develop a more refined . . .
I needed to check out those burgers. Sometimes at a picnic the cooks will, you know, give out free samples, if you approach them just right, and I figured I might as well, uh, test the waters, so to speak.
I followed the fragrant clouds of smoke and headed straight for the barbecue grill. Three men wearing aprons and cowboy hats stood over the fire, talking, sweating, and flipping yummy patties of beef. I approached one of them, sat at his feet, and beamed him an expression that said, “If only I had a burger, my life would be complete.”
He didn’t notice. I mean, the guy had twenty burgers on the grill and he was pretty busy, so I inched closer, swept my tail across the ground, and began making Sounds of Yearning.
At last he noticed me and even smiled (good sign). “Hi, pooch. Are you having a good Fourth of July?”
Oh yes, very nice . . . although . . .
“I guess you want a sample, huh?”
A hamburger? Gee, I hadn’t thought of that, but . . . well, one little burger might be a great way to celebrate the holiday. Or even two.
He slipped his splattular . . . splattula . . . spatula . . . whatever you call that thing . . . he slipped it under one of the yummy sizzling burgers, and you know, all at once things inside my body began leaping. My ears leaped up, my eyes leaped open, and my tongue leaped out of my mouth, all in the same instant of time.
He gave me a pleasant smile (this guy liked dogs, I could tell) . . . he gave me a pleasant smile and said, “Now, this is going to be hot, so you’ll need to . . .”
Yes?
His pleasant expression collapsed into one that . . . yipes . . . wasn’t so pleasant. In fact, it became downright ugly, and he said, “Dog, you stink! Get out of here before you ruin the meat. Hyah!”
Fine. I didn’t want his greasy old burgers anyway. They were probably burned to a crypt and oversalted and overpeppered, and if he didn’t want to share his meat with a loyal, hardworking ranch dog, that was fine with me. Hey, I was no beggar.
And besides, I had more important things to do, such as laying some heavy-duty charm on the World’s Most Gorgeous Collie Gal. Maybe you’d forgotten about her and maybe I had, too, just for a minute or two when we got sidetracked on that discussion about kangaroos, but you have to admit that they’re pretty interesting little brutes. I kind of wish we had a few of them in Texas, but we don’t.
The impointant point is that I stuck with my plan to approach the lady in a . . . hmmm, I almost said, “in a stealthy manner,” but that would sound cold and clackulating, wouldn’t it? Let’s say that I approached her “with reserve” and kept my distance. That sounds better, doesn’t it? Of course it does.
Yes, instead of blundering over to her, I stopped about ten feet away and waited for her to feel my presence and discover me in her own time. See, you can’t rush these things. True love needs time to grow and develop, because . . . well, because women are pretty strange.
I hate to put it that way, but everything in my experience says it’s true. For example, if you want to capture the heart and mind of a cat, it’s simple. You wade in, beat him up, and chase him up a tree. At that point, you’ve won his heart and mind. Or, if you haven’t, you don’t care because you have parked his heart and mind in a tree, and that’s the very best place to park the local cat. Hee hee.
I know all about this stuff, because I do it all the time and it’s a blast.
But that approach doesn’t work on the womenfolk. Try chasing your girlfriend up a tree and see what happens. It will come back to bite you every time. The ladies need time and space. They need to be courted and charmed, and that’s exactly what I had in mind for You-Know-Who.
The Case of the Secret Weapon Page 5