The Garbage Monster from Outer Space

by John R. Erickson

  Ten yards out, we emerged from the cover of the chinaberry grove, and for the first time, the rioting coons realized that they were surrounded. Ha! You should have seen the shock and surprise on their faces. This would be a piece of cake.

  I gave the order to attack and went zooming into the middle of them, yelling “Charge, bonzai!” at the top of my lungs. Drover brought up the Second Wave, and he was yipping and squeaking. Do you know what he was yipping and squeaking? “Frozen turkey, frozen turkey!”

  Oh brother. I was tempted to call off the attack and give him a scolding right there on the spot, but there wasn’t time. What kind of brain can take the command “Freeze, turkey!” and turn it into “Frozen turkey”? Drover’s brain, and there is nothing more to be said.

  And besides, I had five coons to whip.

  I went charging right into the middle of them. I could see their faces now. Those guys were . . . uh . . . growling and humping their backs, as coons often do when they . . . and several of those guys were pretty big . . . real big and . . . good grief, they were coming out after me!

  I went to Full Air Brakes on all four paws, slid to a stop, and then executed a quick Reverse Spin. I hit Full Power on all engines, spun my paws in the dirt, slammed into Drover, and kept truckin’.

  “Drover, we’re going to Plan B!”

  “I didn’t know we had a Plan B.”

  “We do now. It’s called Total Disarray and Run for Your Life!”

  “Oh my leg!”

  Yipes, one of the coons jumped me from behind. He was chewing on my ears and the back of my neck. It hurt! I tried to buck, I ran in circles, I leaped into the air. The coon hung on and continued meat-grinding my ears. I saw a tree up ahead. Maybe if I rammed the tree at full speed, it would dislodge my head and neck from the rest of my . . . BONK! . . . red checkers and fireworks sprayed brilliant colors behind my eyes. I found myself stumbling around the tree on legs made of rubber. I became aware of a dull throbbing pain which seemed to be coming from a lump the size of a biscuit on the top of my head.

  But you know what? It worked, and I mean worked like a charm. Not only had I shucked off the coon, but all of them were scampering away into the morning gloom. What a deal! I mean, sure, coons tend to disappear at the first light of day, but the main reason they were fleeing in terror was that they had just seen the Head of Ranch Security ram a huge tree and break it in half.

  No kidding, broke that tree completely in half, and we’re talking about a full-grown chinaberry with a trunk the size of telephone pole. Have I ever mentioned that my name in Coyote Language is “Mump-Wump-Hoosegow”? That means “Dog Who Breaks Trees in Half.” Yes siree, and that’s why all the coyotes on this outfit RUN when they see me coming.

  And so did those ruffian coons. You think they wanted to mess with a dog who tears down trees? Heck no. They ran, fellers, and we’re talking about running for their lives.

  I sent them packing with a withering barrage of barking. “And let that be a lesson to you, and the next time you mess around with Sally May’s gar­bage barrels, I’ll show you some serious tree trashing!”

  Pretty impressive, huh? You bet it was. I got ’em told, and then I turned and marched back to the barrels to, well, lay my mark on them and claim them as my own. When Sally May showed up, I wanted her to see, with her very own eyes, that I had recaptured her barrels and returned them to the ranch inventory.

  I was in the process of laying a good strong mark on one of the barrels when an odd sound reached my ears. They leaped to Full Alert Position, swiveled around, and homed in on the sound. It was a kind of buzzing noise, and it seemed to be coming from inside one of the . . .

  Hmmm, this was strange. A bee perhaps? I abandoned the Mark and Conquer procedure and peed into the barrel . . . peered into the barrel, I should say, and one little letter makes quite a difference, doesn’t it?

  Where was I? Oh yes, the barrel from which the . . . so forth. And there before my very eyes I saw . . . you won’t believe what I saw. I couldn’t believe it. I was astammered, dumbfoundered.

  There, lying on a collection of newspapers and various other items of trash was . . . you probably think it was the Garbage Monster from Outer Space, right? Nope. That comes later in the story. This time, what I discovered was a smallish sleeping raccoon, who was not only small but also asleep.

  And you know what else? It was none other than Eddy the Rac.

  Pretty amazing, huh? You bet it was.

  Chapter Three: Eddy Runs but I Get Caught

  Do you remember Eddy? Quick review. He was an orphan coon, see, that Slim found on the side of the road one day. Slim carried him back to headquarters and raised him in a cage until he was old enough to survive in the wild. We turned him loose when he became such a nuisance and a pain in the neck, nobody could stand him anymore.

  Oh, and one more item on Eddy. He was a cheat, a sneak, a hustler, and a con artist—a typical coon, in other words, only even more typical than most. How did I know? It had been my misfortune to be involved in several business deals with him. We don’t have time to go into . . .

  Oh, what the heck, maybe we have time for one quick example. Remember his famous Elevator Scam? He was confined to a cage, see, but he wanted out, so what did he do? He called me over and assured me that the cage was actually . . . he told me, on his word of honor, that . . .

  This is too embarrassing. I can’t go on.

  He assured me that the cage was actually an elevator. An elevator, and if I stepped inside, I could go for a ride. Can you believe that? I mean, how dumb would you have to be to . . .

  The point is—and it makes me sad to report this—the point is that I believed the little sneak, and I’m sorry that I can’t report which of us ended up locked in the cage, so just skip it.

  Sorry I brought it up.

  The funny thing about Eddy was that I kind of liked him. I mean, when he wasn’t doing deals and trying to steal the bark off every tree on the ranch, he was a pretty nice guy. And here he was again. He’d been part of the Garbage Barrel Robbery, and all his pals had run off and left him.

  And unless someone woke him up and hustled him out of there, he would be discovered by the most dreaded ranch wife in Ochiltree County.

  I banged on the side of the barrel. “Hey, you in there, wake up.” No response. I banged again, louder this time. “Hey, Eddy, wake up. You need to get out of here before the plot gets any thicker.”

  No response. Well, that was typical Eddy—play all night and then fall asleep at dawn. I grabbed the scruff of his neck in my enormous jaws and dragged him out. At last he began to stir. One eye slid open. It focused on me, then both eyes popped open. He jumped to his feet, humped his back, and started making those weird sounds coons make when they’re cornered.

  “Relax, pal, it’s just . . .”

  BAM!

  He slugged me! “Listen, you little malcomgrate, I’m trying to save your hide! It’s me, Hank.”

  He studied me with his beady little eyes. The hump in his back began to . . . whatever the word is. Reseed. Go down. Disappear. Then he spoke. “Oh. Hi. How’s it going?”

  “Well, for reasons which aren’t apparent to me now, I was trying to wake you up and save your skin—for which you punched me in the nose.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Thought you were someone else. Guard dog. Mean, bark, stuff like that.”

  “Well, I am a guard dog, but in a moment of weakness, I thought I’d save you from a terrible fate. Do you have any idea where you are, pal?”

  He glanced around. “Let’s see. Job. We pulled a job, right? Garbage job. With the gang. Where’s the gang?”

  “They ran, Eddy, and left you sleeping in the barrel.”

  “Oh yeah. Right. Got sleepy, had to catch a . . . zzzzzzzzz.” His head fell on his chest and he was asleep again. With some effort, I managed to bring him around again.
“Oh. Hi. Listen, got a deal, me and you.”

  “Don’t talk to me about deals, you little swindler. I’ve had all of your deals I can stand for one lifetime, and the point is that you’d better get away from here unless you want to get blamed for trashing ranch headquarters. Do you remember Sally May?”

  “Yeah. ‘When she’s angry, the trees run for cover.’ Right?”

  “Exactly, and if I were you, I’d do that—run for cover. She’ll be down here with the morning trash any time now. You’d best head for tall timber and make yourself scarce.”

  “Right. Thanks. You’re a pal.” He started backing away. “I’ll remember. Look me up sometime. Got a great deal.” He turned and monkey-walked into the chinaberry grove.

  Well, I had done my good deed for the day and had saved the little sneak from . . . imagine him saying that he had a deal for me! What a laugh. What kind of idiot did he think I was? Hey, I had gone to school on coons and there was no danger of me ever “looking him up” to hear about his so-called “great deal.” Ha!

  Well, with Eddy gone and out of the way, I returned to the job of marking and reclaiming the ranch garbage barrels. At that point, it suddenly occurred to me that it was time—nay, past time—for me to bark up the sun. Boy, that had been a close call. Just imagine what might have happened if I’d . . .

  It was too scary even to think about. The entire earth plunged into darkness. Cowboys groping around for their coffeepots.

  You’ll be proud and relieved to know that I got ’er done, barked that yellow ball of sun right over the horizon and up into the sky where she belonged. It was about as good a job of as I’d ever done, and at that point I . . .

  Hmmmm, became aware, shall we say, of certain fragrant waves that were drifting out of the, uh, plundered garbage barrels. Was it possible that those coons had missed some luscious chicken bones? Yes, the evidence was certainly pointing in that direction. Somewhere inside the second barrel lay a real treasury of . . .

  I cast long, probing glances over both shoulders. No one was around. No one was watching. No one would ever know, and what the heck, what could it hurt for me to, uh, salvage a few morsels from a mess that had obviously been caused by coons?

  See, my plan all along was to be sitting triumphantly beside the mess when Sally May came down with her morning trash. I wanted her to know who or whom had recaptured the barrels and punished the rioting coons. That would still work. All I had to do was dart inside the barrel, seize the delicious, yummy chicken bones, wolf them down, and then return to my Position of Triumph.

  Yes, this would work. I dived into the barrel and began scratching around for . . . I knew they were in there, I mean, the aroma of fried chicken bones was getting really strong and powerful, and all I had to do . . . there was still quite a lot of junk in the bottom and it took some extra-special digging procedures to . . .

  “HANK! WHAT ARE YOU . . . GET YOURSELF OUT OF THE GARBAGE!”

  Huh?

  My head snapped up and . . . clunk . . . I banged it on the derned barrel, but that was a small concern compared to . . . had I heard a voice? A shrill angry female voice? Gulp. Where had she come from? I mean, I’d checked in all directions and . . . it was too early for her to be . . . I mean, she never brought her trash down at this . . .

  I poked my head out. There she was in her bathrobe and slippers. Her hair was . . . how can I say this? She hadn’t taken the time to fix her hair for this meeting, shall we say, and it was a wee bit unshoveled. Disheveled. She held a sack of garbage in each arm. Her face was . . . yikes, turning red or purple, and her eyes glowed with an unwholesome light, and her nostrils were beginning to take on the shape of a rattlesnake’s head.

  Gulp. Those were all signs that she was moving into one of her Thermonuclear Moments.

  Our eyes met. I tried to squeeze up a smile, and I heard my tail thumping against the barrel, as it struggled to express my, uh, profound sense of . . .

  Her lips moved but no words came out. Then they did. “You . . . you . . . you hound! Look what you’ve done! I can’t believe you’d . . . ohhhh! Scattering trash on your own ranch!”

  Boy, that hurt. Her words went through me like a can of worms. She dropped the sacks of trash.

  “Well, I’m not going to clean up this wreck, but I know who will. Don’t move, I’ll be right back.”

  And with that, she stomped back to the house. The screen door slammed. I heard voices in the house. A moment later, the screen slammed again. Heavy footsteps, several of them, and they were coming in my direction.

  I felt terrible about this, just awful, but it occurred to me that I might have just enough time to dart back into the barrel and get those last two or three bones. What the heck, if I was going to take the rap for this deal, I might as well make use of the, uh, salvage rights. I shot back into the depths of the barrel and was in the midst of crunching two lovely drumstick bones when . . . voices? Loud voices?

  Uh-oh, maybe I should have skipped those last two bones. Now that I thought about it, a dog didn’t appear at his sorrowful best when he was, uh, crunching chicken bones. I crawled out . . . right into the scorching glare of their eyes. She’d brought Loper. And Little Alfred.

  “There!” she said, shooting a finger-arrow at my heart. “There’s your dog and that is your mess. When you get it all cleaned up—every paper and eggshell—I’ll have your breakfast ready.”

  “Hon, I’ve got to leave for New Mexico to look at those bulls.”

  A wicked smile bloomed on her face. “Yes? You’ll have to hurry.” Just then, we heard Slim’s pickup coming down the hill. “Maybe Slim would like to help. You boys have fun.” She waved her fingers and returned to the house.

  Loper shot a glare at me and seemed on the brink of saying something hateful, but just then Slim came walking up. He had his hands in his pockets and a grin on his mouth.

  “Good honk, did the garbage barrels blow up in the night? And who’s that layin’ in the midst of all the rubble? Why, it’s cute little puppy dog. Huh. Mornin’, Loper.”

  Loper placed a hand on Slim’s shoulder. “Slim, old buddy, you know I’d never ask you to do a job that I wouldn’t do myself.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “But I’ve got to be in San Jon, New Mexico, at ten o’clock. If I leave right now, I’ll barely make it. We’d hate for me to be late, wouldn’t we?”

  “I ain’t likin’ the way this is soundin’.”

  “And we’d hate for Sally May to have to clean up the mess our dog made, wouldn’t we?”

  “Our dog?”

  “So if you’d volunteer to take care of this business, I’d grab a bite of breakfast and get on the road, and you’d become our Ranch Hero for the Day.”

  “I’ve got to haul them cows to the sale barn.”

  “That’ll keep ’til tomorrow. Thanks, pardner.” Loper whopped him on the back. “Beneath that lousy personality, you’re a warm and wonderful human being. See you tomorrow night.”

  And with that, Loper hiked up the hill to the house, which left me alone . . . with Alfred and Slim.

  Well, I’d been in worse company. Maybe they would understand. We were pals, after all, and they had warm spots in their respective hearts for, uh, dogs and so forth.

  Slim beamed me hateful looks, but Alfred came over and put his arm around my neck. And then he whispered, “Hankie, you’d better quit knocking over twash barrels, or my mom’s going to find you another home.”

  Me? Hey, I didn’t . . . I was just doing my job, minding my own . . .

  What a lousy deal! I had been framed and railroaded and blamed for crimes I didn’t commit.

  Chapter Four: I’m Accused of Terrible Crimes

  Now, I’ll be the first to admit that being left alone with Slim and Alfred was better than some of the alternatives, but still, this didn’t show much promise of being a happy occasion. Slim
wasn’t thrilled with his assignment. I could tell.

  I mean, right away he curled his lip at me and said, “You dufus dog, couldn’t you find anything better to do last night?”

  I thumped my tail and gave him Hurtful Looks. Wait a minute, I was innocent, perfectly . . . okay, I’d salvaged a couple of measly chicken bones and maybe that hadn’t been such a great idea, but . . . coons, it was the coons, and all I’d done was . . .

  Nobody wanted to hear my side of the story! Even Slim, who’d always been a great pal of mine, even Slim had rushed to judgment and convicted me of crimes I didn’t commit! Hey, for their information, I had risked my life to defend the ranch against a gang of . . .

  “Get out of the barrel, Muttfuzz, unless you want to spend the rest of your life in there—which might not be such a bad idea.”

  He raised up the garbage barrel and, fine, I could move. And no, I sure didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a trash heap, but the point here, the tragic point, was that nobody was listening to my side of the story.

  Why didn’t he look down at the ground! The evidence was right there in front of his nose: coon tracks, dozens of them. Did I leave coon tracks? Heck no, but did he bother to look for clues? Had it ever occurred to Loper or Sally May that . . .

  What a fool I’d been for helping Eddy the Rac escape! If I’d just left him sleeping in the barrel, he would have been caught lefthanded and charged with the crime. Instead, I had to sit there and listen to Slim gripe and grumble.

  And he did plenty of that. Every time he bent over to pick up a piece of rubbish, he shot a glare at me and muttered something under his breath. I didn’t catch all of it, but I heard enough to know that I had already been tried and convicted.

  So there I was, thinking about all the injustice in the world, when who should show up but my least favorite character on the ranch. Pete the Barncat. I saw him at a distance and hoped he would stay out of my way. Did he? Of course not. Pete is a genius when it comes to showing up at exactly the wrong time.