“Okay, Swim.”
He pushed himself up out of the chair. “I’ll open the damper and chunk up the fire, and then I’m going back to bed. Y’all better start cleaning up that . . . boy, I can’t stay awake.”
On his way back to bed, he opened the damper and threw some logs into the stove. Opening the damper helped a bunch. All at once the smoke started going up the chimney instead of into the house.
We heard the bed springs groan and squeak under his weight. Moments later, the sounds of thirty-two head of wild hogs reached our ears. Okay, it was his snoring, but it sounded as loud as a bunch of wild hogs.
Anyways, he was gone again and Little Alfred and I were alone again. We looked at the flour mess on the floor—some of which, by the way, had combined with the previous honey mess. We both fell into deepest despair.
“Hankie, what if Viowa’s stuck in a snowdwift?”
Well, if she was stuck in a snowdrift, she was . . . stuck in a snowdrift. What else could you say? Nobody on our place could help her.
Alfred was thinking about something. I could see at a glance that whatever he was thinking about didn’t involve cleaning up his mother’s kitchen. That worried me. At last he revealed his thoughts.
“Hankie, I bet we could dwive the pickup and go find Viowa.”
I stared at him. He wasn’t kidding. Him, drive the pickup out into . . . that was the craziest idea I’d heard in . . . no, I wanted no part of such . . . go out in this howling storm? NO!
“I think we could do it. I know how to dwive the pickup.”
Oh yeah, sure. When Slim was there to start it up and put it in gear. That wasn’t driving, that was steering. I turned my back on him and assumed the Pose of Shunning.
I heard his steps behind me. He seemed to be heading . . .
“Well, I’m going to twy. You and Dwover can come if you want, or y’all can stay here and be chickens.”
Chickens! Since when was it chicken to use sound judgment, to be mature, to be . . . okay, okay, if the little snipe was going out into the storm, I needed to be there to protect him from . . . this was crazy.
We marched out into the utility room. Alfred found a pair of warm gloves and a wool stocking cap. Whilst he was pulling them on, I turned to the ball of white fur on the floor.
“Get up, Drover. We’re going out on a rescue mission.”
His head came up and his eyes crossed. “Out in this storm?”
“That’s correct. If it weren’t snowing, we wouldn’t need a rescue mission. All these things fit together.”
“Yeah, but . . . what about my leg?”
“Bring it along. This is All Hands on Deck.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have any hands. All I’ve got is feet.”
“That’s close enough. Move out, soldier, and I don’t want to hear any more of your opinions.”
He whined and moaned, but I ignored him. Alfred opened the door and we trooped out into the . . . gag, that wind was terrible! It took our breath away. We could hardly see the yard gate through the blowing snow.
Drover moaned and shivered. “I want to go home!”
“Hush. You are home. Home is where the heart is.”
“My heart’s frozen!”
“Look at the bright side, Drover. As long as your heart is frozen, you’ll never get heartburn.”
“This is crazy and that’s not funny.”
“I’m sorry, son, it’s the best I can do. Now hush.”
We lowered our heads into the wind and followed the boy across the snowdrifted yard, out the gate, and up the hill to the place where Slim had parked the pickup. If we were lucky, Alfred wouldn’t be able to start it. Then we could go back into the house, satisfied that we had done our best.
We reached the pickup. The windblown snow hit our faces like BBs. Alfred reached up, seized the door handle, and pulled the door open, struggling against the wind. When he finally got it open, he pointed inside.
Okay, here went nothing. I nudged Mister Squeakbox with my nose. He jumped inside and I followed. We sat down on the . . . that was the coldest pickup seat I had ever experienced! It was hard, brittle, and frigid, and my hiney wasn’t proud of me for making it sit down on such a block of ice.
Alfred struggled his way into the cab and the wind slammed the door behind him. The wind was rocking the pickup. Our respective breaths made balloons of fog in the air.
Okay, now what?
Alfred sat down behind the wheel. Good grief, he couldn’t even see over the dashboard! How was he going to . . . this would never work. We could only hope that he wouldn’t remember how to start the engine.
But he was thinking about it. I could see that. He was trying to remember all the steps Slim went through when he started the thing. Tension hung in the frozen air like . . . I don’t know what, but we were all tense and nervous—all of us but Little Alfred, and he didn’t seem worried at all.
He studied the controls, the gear shift, and so forth. Then he spied the key. His eyes brightened. “I think . . . I think you’re ’posed to turn the key, and that’ll start the motor.”
Yes, but that was Step Two. Step One called for the driver to push in the clutch, and Alfred’s legs were so short, they couldn’t even reach the clutch, much less push it to the . . .
He turned the key.
The pickup lurched forward.
Holy smokes, he’d managed to start the dadgum pickup while it was in gear, and we were moving!
All the brightness went out of Alfred’s face when he realized what he’d done. His eyes became big white saucers and he said, “Uh-oh, I think we’re going to have a weck!”
He was right about that.
Chapter Ten: We Go Out into the Storm to Rescue Miss Viola
We were moving. Drover and I sat there like frozen statuaries, staring ahead at the swirling white void that lay just beyond the windshield. Alfred gripped the wheel. We were heading toward the edge of the little hill that sloped down to the yard.
Maybe he tried to turn, or maybe he saw what was coming and froze with fear, but he didn’t make the turn. We chugged forward, came to the lip of the hill, started down, picked up speed, and . . . good grief, we were heading straight toward the . . .
CRUNCH!
Fence. We came to a sudden stop. Drover and I were thrown to the floor and ended up in a pile of legs and tails. We scrambled our respective legs around and managed to get ourselves properly aligned, but not before Drover kicked me on the nose. Twice.
“Would you stop kicking me on the nose?”
“Well, I’m just trying . . . we had a wreck!”
“I’m aware of that, but a wreck doesn’t give you license to kick and paw the Head of Ranch Security on the nose.”
At last I struggled to a sitting position and saw that we had just rammed the pickup into the fence around Sally May’s yard and had laid a section of it flat on the ground. That was bad enough, but we were lucky the pickup had died in the process. Otherwise we might have driven right into the bedroom where Slim . . .
Huh?
Uh-oh. Speaking of Slim, guess who stepped out on the porch at that very moment. Yikes. He had looked sweeter and nicer when I’d thought he was a Mummy Monster. He surveyed the damage, shook his head, and motioned us into the house. I turned my eyes to Little Alfred. He was still gripping the steering wheel and had a sick look on his face.
“Oops. I wondoo what I did wong? I guess you’re ’posed to push in the cwutch before you turn on the key.”
Right. And I had tried to warn him about that.
“Welp, I guess we’re in twouble again. Swim wooks mad, and when my mom gets home . . .” He made a scary face.
I began rehearsing my alibi. “Sally May, I know this looks pretty bad, I mean the fence knocked down and the, uh, honey tracks in the kitchen and . . . yes, the flour all
over the . . . I realize it appears that we spent most of our time, uh, goofing off and engaging in, well, riotous behavior, but I think I can explain everything.”
That’s as far as I got. The terrible truth was that I couldn’t explain everything. I couldn’t explain any of it, except to say that . . . well, one thing had led to another.
And, yes, we were in twouble again.
Alfred opened the pickup door and we trooped into the house. Slim was waiting there in the utility room, towering above us like a huge tree with his arms crossed. Okay, maybe trees don’t have arms, but he was derned sure towering and his arms were crossed and his puffy red eyes made him look pretty scary.
Drover and I went straight to the rug and dropped like rocks and assumed the Pose of Sleeping Dogs. Maybe he’d think we’d been there all along. Yes, that was it. We’d been there on the rug all along, good dogs to the end, and we knew nothing, almost nothing at all about the . . . uh . . . the crisis involving the pickup and the, uh, fence.
That had been Little Alfred’s deal. We dogs had been sleeping away, and then suddenly we’d heard this crash, this loud crash, and we’d raised our heads and . . . well, that had been our first indication that something . . .
His gaze burned us up. I felt his eyes on me. I squirmed and cringed and melted into a puddle of hair. At last I dared to lift my head and give him a limp cowdog smile that struggled to say, “Oh. Hi there. We just woke up and . . .”
“You knotheads. Do you see what y’all have done to the dadgum fence? What were you trying to do out there?”
Alfred hung his head and pooched out his lips. A tear slid down his cheek. “We were diss twying to help, Swim. You were sick, so me and my doggies were going to find Miss Viowa. I didn’t mean to . . .”
That did it. He broke down and started bawling. Slim watched in silence as tears rolled off the boy’s cheeks and splattered on the floor. I noticed that . . . hmm, the ice in Slim’s eyes began to melt just a bit. He looked away and shifted his weight to the other leg. He swallowed, causing his Adam’s apple to hop around.
Alfred must have noticed too, because he turned up the volume and spilled some more tears. I saw an opening here and began tapping out the rhythm of “We’ll Never Pull This Stunt Again” with my tail, and began beaming Sincere Mournful Looks in his direction. Have we ever done that song? Maybe not. Here’s how it went.
We’ll Never Pull This Stunt Again
Hey Slim, we know we really goofed up badly.
Our hearts are broken beyond repair.
And now all three of us are feeling sadly.
That’s why we’re hiding beneath this chair.
We understand how bad this looks,
We’re feeling like three common crooks,
We only wanted to impress
And help a lady in distress.
And yeah, okay, we know we should have waited
For you to come out and lend a hand.
And now the fence is flat, we really hate it.
We’re feeling smaller than grains of sand.
The damage is already done,
We’d better hide his mother’s gun.
Or maybe you could don your clothes
And fix the fence so no one knows?
Okay, it’s time for Tragic Looks and pleading.
We beg forgiveness for our sin.
So be assured our broken hearts are bleeding.
We’ll never pull this stunt again.
You think we’re kidding?
No, we’ll never pull this crazy stunt again.
By George, it was working! Before our very eyes, Slim’s flint heart began to soften, and he said, “You knotheads. It was my bad luck to get sick in a house with the Three Stooges. Okay, I’ll pull on some clothes and we’ll see if we can find Viola. I just hope I can stay awake to drive. I think I’ve got Ensleepalosis.”
Alfred stopped crying. “I can dwive.”
“Sure you can. We just seen a prime example of your driving skills, and I ain’t impressed.”
He beamed us one last glare and went off to the bedroom, muttering under his breath. We waited. He didn’t return. Five minutes passed, ten minutes. Alfred began to fidget, then he motioned for me to follow him and we went creeping through the house to see what was going on.
We passed through the . . . arg, through the kitchen, and somebody sure needed to get that place cleaned up. It looked even worse than I remembered. We hurried through the kitchen and entered the darkened living room . . . and there was Slim, sitting in the chair . . . asleep! It appeared that he had sat down to pull on his boots, had gotten one pulled on, and had fallen asleep.
Well, that was a heck of a way to start a rescue mission.
Alfred tugged on his arm and woke him up. He blinked his puffy eyes and glanced around the room, then mumbled, “I’ll be derned. Must have dozed off.”
He finished pulling on his boots, put on his heavy coat and wool cap, and we were ready to brave the howling storm and rescue the lady in distress. We tromped through the house, gathered Mister Shivers from the utility room, and went out into the storm.
When we reached the pickup, Slim studied the damaged fence. He didn’t say anything, but he gave us a glare that would have wilted a vase of flowers.
He wasn’t real proud of us, it seemed.
He locked in the front hubs, which activated the four-wheel drive, and checked to be sure he had a tow chain on the back of the pickup. Then he opened the door and the three of us loaded up and sat on the cold seat, which was VERY COLD.
We shivered and breathed clouds of fog. Slim cut his eyes at us. “Y’all are fogging up the windshield. Reckon you could quit breathing for half an hour or so?”
Well, just what did he think . . . okay, he was joking. He smiled. With these cowboys, you never know. Sometimes they come up with bonehead ideas and they’re serious.
He started the motor, wiped off the windshield with the back of his glove, put the pickup in reverse, and said, “Well, let’s see if we can back out of your momma’s yard.” He gunned the motor, popped the clutch, and we plowed our way back up the hill. Then he put her in first gear and we drove around the north side the the machine shed, past the shelter belt, and on north toward the county road.
The north-south roads had blown clear of snow, but when we reached the county road and turned east, we found it pretty well drifted over. Slim turned on the windshield wipers and squinted at the road ahead.
“Boy, this is a nasty little storm. You sure don’t expect this kind of snow so early in the year.” He turned to Alfred. “If I know your daddy, I’ll bet he’s about to go nuts, listening to the weather report on the radio and walking the floor.” His brow furrowed and he lifted his nose. “Somebody in this pickup stinks.”
“It’s my doggies. They got wet fwom the snow.”
“You sure it ain’t you?”
“It’s not me, pwomise.”
“Well, okay. But just in case, you’d better take a bath before your momma comes home. By the way, how did it happen that them dogs ended up inside the house?”
Alfred rolled his eyes. “Well, it was cold outside and I guess they just . . . came in.”
“Uh-huh. Well, if we should happen to make it back to the house alive, it might be all right for them dogs to . . . ”
You won’t believe what happened next. All of a sudden . . .
He fell asleep!
Right in the middle of a sentence, Slim fell asleep at the wheel!
His chin fell down on his chest and the pickup began drifting toward the ditch—or what used to be the ditch. Now it was a big snowdrift. I happened to be looking at him when his lights went out and I saw a crisis-in-the-making in the making.
What did I do? I barked. Yes sir, I issued a loud clear bark to sound the alarm. It had no effect. He appe
ared to be in a deep measle-sleep. But I managed to get Alfred’s attention. He gave me a puzzled look, then glanced at Slim and saw what had happened—we were heading straight for a big snowdrift in the north ditch!
Chapter Eleven: We Save Miss Viola from the Storm
Alfred responded at once and his response had the right effect. You know what he did? He screamed, and we’re talking about a LOUD blurd-cuddling screech that rattled the windows—blood-curdling screech, I should say—and it was so loud, it hurt my ears.
It worked. Slim’s eyes snapped open. He stared at the boy for a few seconds, then saw that we were heading for the ditch. He jerked the wheel at the very last moment and got us back into the road.
“I wasn’t asleep,” Slim muttered. “But you might better keep a watch out, just in case. Boy, these childhood diseases are sure hard on us grown men.”
He gave his head a shake, blinked his eyes, and concentrated on the road ahead—of which there wasn’t a whole lot to see, since the wind was driving the snow across it in ribbons and sheets and clouds. It had a kind of hypno . . . hypnomatic effect on all of us, even me. I mean, one second you could see the road, and the next it was gone, swallowed up in a big white blur. It made us all feel kind of dreamy.
But Little Alfred was on the job and he kept a sharp eye on Slim. Every time Slim’s eyes started to glaze over, Alfred let out another screech. It worked, but Slim felt the need to grumble and complain about it.
“I hope my insurance covers ear damage. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if you screeched just a little softer.”
“Yeah, but then you’d fall asweep and we’d get stuck in a snowdwift.”
“Okay, but when you see me wearing hearing aids in both ears, you just remember who caused it.”
Alfred laughed. “Oh Swim, you’re funny.”
“Great. I always wanted to be funny in the middle of a snowstorm. I sure hope we . . .” His voice trailed off, and I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep again, but then he said, “By netties, there she is.”
All eyes turned toward the front. There in the north ditch, was Viola’s daddy’s blue Ford pickup, high-centered and stuck in a snowdrift. We pulled up beside it and Slim rolled down his window. Viola rolled hers down too, and we could see her pretty face. Her cheeks were red from the cold and she wore a bright smile. Oh, and she had a fur cap on her head.
The Case of the Measled Cowboy Page 6