The Case of the Car-Barkaholic Bog

by John R. Erickson

  You know me, I’m no fussbudget, but still, if I had an alley behind my house—which I don’t because I don’t have a house, the cowboys won’t build a house for their Head of Ranch Security, that tells you what a cheap-John outfit I work for—and where was I?

  Oh yes, trash and litter. If I had a house in town with an alley behind it, I think I’d take a little more pride in the appearance of my alley than some people I could mention.

  But never mind all that because I had more serious problems to attend to than a messy alley. I had a b . . . a lump of newspaper hung up in my throat, windpipe, food tube, esophocles, whatever you call that thing, and I sure needed a drink of water to wash it down.

  Hence, I hurried down the alley to find my sister’s yard.

  In the dark, all back fences begin to look pretty muchly alike.

  It had been a while, see. I had only been there once before. It was very dark. I was in a hurry. Who wouldn’t have been in a hurry?

  What I’m driving at is that I made three passes up and down the stupid alley and couldn’t decide which yard belonged to my sister, and all the while that chicken . . . that chicken-flavored news­paper lump was dealing me misery.

  But at last, on the fourth pass, my recollection of the place began to return and I had narrowed my choices down to two: Yard A and Yard B.

  Which was it? I had to make a choice. Making important choices while coughing and gagging and wheezing is not easy, but I had to do it.

  So I made the choice, and perhaps you’d be interested in knowing how I went about it. Okay, you asked. Here goes.

  At first glance, a guy would be inclined to choose A over B, because A comes first in the alphabet, can be divided by 2, and somehow just looks more appealing than a B, I don’t know why.

  On second glance, a guy would be even more inclined to choose A over B because B sounds a lot like “bee” and bees sting. Nobody has ever been stung by an “A” or by anything that even resembled an A.

  But on third glance and on the other hand, if a guy is inclined to be superstitious, he knows that Life plays tricks on all of us. Oftentimes what appears to be obvious is only a fake and a fraud, a mean trick played upon us by whoever it is that plays tricks and enjoys watching us mess up.

  Hencely, a shrewd mind will make the obvious choice (in this case, Yard A) but then quickly reverse it (to Yard B) to foil whatever tricks the Tricksters might have planned for him.

  And so it was that I arrived at a scientific decision. I chose Yard A, established it as my Decoy Decision, and instantly reversed the deal and threw all my marbles at Yard B.

  Pretty clever, huh?

  Crouched on the ground below the fence around Yard B, I coiled my legs under me and made a gigantic leap upward, snagged my front paws on the top of the fence, pulled and tugged with my front legs while kicking and scrambling with my hind legs, and finally boosted myself over.

  At last, I had reached my destination, and now all that remained was for me to awaken my sister and give her the good news that I had arrived for a visit.

  I hated to wake her up. Last time I’d dropped in for a visit, she’d been having trouble with headaches, and I knew that with all the responsibility of raising four pups and so forth, she needed her sleep.

  But I didn’t want her to think I was an intruder, poking around in the dark. So I went creeping through the yard. Using all my sensory equipment, I managed to locate her darkhouse in the dogness. I could just barely make out the tip-top of the tip of the top of the . . .

  I could just barely make out the peak of the roof, let us say, of her doghouse, and on silent paws I slipped across the yard. As I drew closer, I could hear her breathing.

  No big shock there. I mean, I had expected to hear her breathing because, well, she was a normal healthy dog and she breathed in her sleep.

  But her breathing did seem heavy, and moments later I found out why.

  Chapter Five: A Case of Mistaken Identity

  Yes, I was a little surprised that a lady of Maggie’s standing in the community would SNORE. I was kind of embarrassed, to tell the truth, that my sister would . . . I mean, we’re talking about heavy-duty hog-pen noises.

  “Maggie? Oh Maggie. Margaret?” No luck. I had no choice but to raise my voice. “Maggie, I’ve got a wonderful surprise for you. Uncle Hank is here for a visit! Maggie? HEY!”

  That did it, broke the rhythm of her snores. She snorted and grunted, and good heavens, the poor girl must have been having trouble with her sinuses. How could such a sweet fenimum lady make such truck-like noises?

  “Maggie, sorry to wake you up, but I just wanted to check in and . . .”

  I could see her head now. Big head. Sharp pointed cars. Heavy jowls. Hmmm, she was having a problem with her weight, too.

  “Anyway, Mag, it’s me again, Hank the Cowdog, and are you my sister Maggie or have I . . .”

  A deep voice answered: “Son, my name is Rambo. You have woke me up, and you are fixing to learn what happens to mutts who wake up Great Danes in the middle of the night.”

  HUH? Great Danes?

  Well, we needn’t drag this thing out.

  On the positive side, I managed to dislodge the foreign object in my throat. On the negative side, what dislodged it was the force of my body being hurled against the fence.

  And, yes, I did pick up a few facts about Great Danes. Their “greatness” refers to their size, not to any higher qualities of mind or spirit. And they have no sense of humor at all, I mean, none.

  Zero.

  Zilch.

  Never wake up a Great Dane in the middle of the night.

  Well, let us say that I had made a slight miscalculation and had entered the wrong yard. Let us say that I was expelled from the yard in a rude manner, and that I was lucky to escape with all four legs attached to their proper places.

  That Rambo character was an incredible thug, although if he hadn’t caught me by surprise and if I hadn’t been handicapped by a foreign object that was hung in my throat, I might have . . .

  I might have left the yard anyway, come to think of it.

  So there I was, alone again in a dark alley. I didn’t dare try another yard-entry at that late hour, for obvious reasons, and so I wandered around for several hours, just killing time.

  Not much to report there. I barked at several mutts who barked at me first, and I caught a big black cat picking through the remains of the garbage barrel I had overturned.

  In other words, she was stealing MY garbage. But I taught her a valuable lesson about property law. She was crouched there in the alley, see, and thought she was getting by with her sneaky activity, thought that whole alley belonged to her, never saw me creeping up behind her, and . . . heh, heh.

  I love doing that to cats. It’s one of the things that makes being a dog worthwhile.

  If you work it just right, you can creep up on ’em and at the very last second, roar right in their ears. Then, “Reeeeeer! Hiss!” They’ll hiss and spit and squawl, turn wrongside out, and run away.

  Once in a great while, they’ll turn around and pop you on the nose with their claws, as this one did, and sometimes that causes a little blood to flow, but the end result is always worth the sacrifice.

  I chased that cat up a utility pole and returned to my garbage barrel and spent the remainder of the night guarding my treasures. I wasn’t sure that I needed those treasures but they were by George MINE and I wasn’t about to turn them over to a bunch of rinky-dink town cats.

  One of the disadvantages of owning treasures is that you have to guard them, and guard duty can be very boring. I remained alert and vigilant until the early morning hours, at which time I probably fell asleep.

  Yes, I’m almost sure I fell asleep because the next thing I knew, it was broad daylight and the sun was straight overhead. I leaped up from my bed of grass and papers, shook m
yself, took a good long stretch, yawned, made a quick inventory of my treasures, and lit out to find my sister’s place.

  In the light of day, I had no trouble finding it. Yes, it all came back now, all the signs and landmarks I had missed the night before, how foolish of me to have missed them, but remember that the night had been very, very dark.

  Extremely dark.

  No moon whatsoever.

  No dog could have found that yard in the dark.

  Okay. Once again, I was faced with a five-foot wooden fence, but once again that was no big deal. I crouched, leaped, hooked front paws, scrambled back legs, and pulled myself up to the summit.

  There, balancing myself on the top two-by-four, I pulled myself up to my full height, and cried out in a triumphant voice, “Hey, Maggie, surprise! Look who’s . . .”

  Balancing on a two-by-four is one of the most difficult tricks in the world, especially when you combine it with a triumphant shout, and a lot of times what happens is that a guy will go over the side in a crash-dive situation.

  In other words, falling off a fence is no disgrace, even if you happen to swap ends and land on your back.

  It was my good fortune to land in a clump of tall dry weeds that softened the blow but also made it very difficult for me to regain my footing.

  No problem. All I had to do was kick and scramble . . . but on the other hand, these were large weeds and it appeared that I had gotten myself high-centered in them and, by George, I couldn’t get out.

  Funny, how those embarrassing moments always seem to come at the worst possible . . . I had wanted to impress my sister with an extra special trick, don’t you know, and . . .

  Well, there I was, hung up in some derned fool weeds, and here came my nieces and nephews, all four of them, cutest little guys you ever saw.

  “It’s Uncle Hank!”

  “Hi, Uncle Hank!”

  I chuckled and looked down at them. They all appeared to be standing upside down because, well, because I was lying on my back in those stupid, idiot weeds.

  “Hi, kids! Hey, it’s great to see you again. Did you see your Uncle Hank balanced up there on that fence, huh? Was that pretty exciting, or what?”

  “What are you doing in the weeds, Uncle Hank?”

  “Weeds? Oh, you mean these weeds? Just part of the trick, honey, and now I’ll just . . . kick my way out of these . . . sometimes it takes a . . . whew, boy, these are some kind of heavy weeds y’all have here!”

  “Are you stuck, Uncle Hank?”

  “Should we call Momma to help you, Uncle Hank?”

  I laughed. “Don’t you bother your ma, son, no, I’ll just KICK AND STRUGGLE and in no time at all, call your momma, son, I think I’m hung up.”

  The boy—Roscoe, I think it was—went scampering over to the doghouse. “Momma, Momma, come quick! Uncle Hank’s here!”

  “Oh good heavens! He couldn’t have come at . . .”

  “Come quick! He fell in some weeds and can’t get out.”

  I couldn’t make out what she said then, but I could tell, just by the tone of her voice, that she was pretty concerned about me.

  Good old Mag! She had some peculiar ways and over the years we hadn’t seen eye-to-eye on everything, but when it came down to taking care of her kinfolks, hey, she was solid as a rock.

  She followed Roscoe over to the clump of weeds. She seemed to be wearing a peculiar smile, almost a smirk, although it was hard to tell since I was looking at her upside down.

  “Good heavens, Henry, what are you doing!”

  “Hi, Mag, fine thanks, great to see you again. Oh, I took a little tumble off the fence, you might say, and by George, I seem to be hung up in these weeds.”

  “Yes, so it seems, Henry. And what were you doing on top of the fence?”

  “Oh, just goofing around, Mag. You know me. Heck, I wanted to give these kids a little . . . tell you what, Mag, why don’t we talk about it after you help me get out of here?”

  She came over and pushed down on the weeds with her front paws. It didn’t take much to get me out of there, just a little shove on the weeds, and bingo, I was out of that mess and back on the ground.

  I gave myself a good shake and knocked off some of those weed stems, kind of spruced myself up because, hey, I wasn’t slumming anymore. I was visiting my sister!

  Well, naturally, all four kids came rushing up to me.

  “Hi, Uncle Hank!”

  “Do another trick for us, Uncle Hank!”

  “Yeah, and tell us a story about coyotes and wolfs!”

  I looked down at them and smiled. “All in good time, kids, all in good time. But first, let me say hello to my favorite sister.” I walked over to her and gave her a hug. “Maggie! It’s great to see you again.”

  She embraced me but then pulled away. She lifted her nose and sniffed the air. “Henry, I think I smell . . . garbage.”

  “Garbage? Hmmm. That’s odd. Oh, I know what it is. There’s garbage strewn all over the alley, Mag, terrible sight. Do you have cats in this neighborhood?”

  “Well . . . yes, but . . .”

  “There you are! I knew it. Those cats have been picking around in the garbage barrels. In fact, I caught one in the act and ran her up a pole. To be honest about it, Maggie, I was shocked to see your alley in such a mess.”

  “Oh. Well, of course, we try to . . .”

  “Don’t worry about it, Maggie. I know it’s not your fault, but it was a little shocking. And, who knows, I might have picked up some of that garbage smell just walking down the alley, is probably what happened.”

  “I’m sure that’s what it was, Henry.”

  Heh, heh. Dodged a bullet there.

  “Perhaps,” she added with a smile, “you’ll have to be more careful when you leave. I wouldn’t want you going back to the ranch smelling of garbage. I know how fussy you are about those things.”

  Little Spot, the other boy, pushed his way into the conversation. “You’re not leaving, are you, Uncle Hank? Can’t you stay a while and tell us a story?”

  For some reason, Maggie’s eyes grew as wide as plates. “Hush, child! Your uncle is a very busy dog.”

  I chuckled “That’s okay, Mag. He’s right. By George, when you get too busy to visit your kinfolks, you’re just too busy.”

  “Uh, yes, but Henry, we know you have a ranch to take care of, and we understand that you’re anxious to get back to your work.”

  “Well, yes, I am a pretty busy dog. I mean, running that ranch all by myself is no small potatoes.”

  She seemed to be edging toward the fence. “Certainly not! I don’t know how you do it.”

  “It’s tough, Mag. A lot of dogs couldn’t handle it.”

  By this time we had reached the fence. Maggie smiled and turned her adoring eyes on me. “Well, Henry, this is good-bye. Do come again sometime when we’re all not so busy.”

  “Yes, I sure will, Mag.”

  I was about to kiss them all good-bye when all of a sudden, I noticed something that changed my plans entirely.

  Chapter Six: Maggie Has a Fainting Spell

  I heard Maggie say, “We’re so glad you dropped by to say hello before you had to say good-bye.”

  But I heardly hard her words, hardly heard her words, because by then I had begun to notice the sad faces of my nieces and nephews. It really touched my heart to see them looking that way.

  “Hey, kids, what’s with the long faces and the pooched-out lips?”

  It was Roscoe who spoke. “We wanted to hear a story, Uncle Hank. Couldn’t you tell us just one before you leave?”

  I heaved a sigh and turned to my sister. “What do you think, Maggie? Should I stick around just long enough to tell ’em one little story?”

  The kids sent up a cheer. And Maggie? Well, she was just beside herself.

 
A guy tends to forget how much these little visits mean to the kinfolks, especially the ladies.

  I went trooping over to the doghouse, with all four pups scampering along behind me, and flopped down on a nice clean piece of carpet. The pups gathered around in front of me.

  I started off by telling them the story of how I single-handedly whipped the entire Coyote Nation and won the heart of Missy Coyote, the lovely coyote princess.

  The boys loved the part about the fighting, how I whipped Rip and Snort and Scraunch in deadly hand-to-hand combat. And the gals, well, they wanted to know every little detail about Missy.

  “Was she pretty, Uncle Hank?”

  “Pretty? Honey, to this very day, I dream about her and often regret that I didn’t become a cannibal. Say, did I ever tell you boys what the coyote warriors do to impress their girlfriends? They find a dead skunk, see, and . . .”

  Maggie had been hovering nearby, but now she came swooping in. “Children, we need to clean up around the house. You can pick up your things and listen to your uncle at the same time. That won’t bother you, will it, Henry?”

  “Oh, that’s fine, Mag. I can talk while they work. Anyway, kids, what these wild coyote warriors do when they really want to impress their lady friends is, they find ’em a dead skunk, see, and . . .”

  All at once the air seemed to be filled with dust—so much that I could hardly breathe. It caused me to sneeze, in fact. I glanced around and . . . oh, Maggie had taken a rug in her teeth and was giving it a good shake.

  She hadn’t noticed that she was doing this directly upwind from me. I moved to get out of the dust cloud and went on with my story.

  “Anyways, these coyote warriors, when they really want to make an impression on the gals, they . . .”

  Cough, wheeze!

  She was shaking it again, and believe it or not, the wind had shifted so that it carried the dust right into my face!

  I moved again. “As I was saying, kids, these tough old coyote warriors . . .”