Читать книгу The Case of the Three Rings - John R. Erickson - Страница 7

Chapter Two: Slim’s Fateful Decision

Drover and I were on our way to the kitchen to wish Slim the good-morningest of good mornings, when we met him coming into the living room. He had just finished gnawing on a cold turkey neck. He wore flannel pajamas, his hair was a mess, and there was an odd expression on his face: distracted and very serious.

The man had something on his mind and that was odd. I got the feeling that he’d been thinking about something during the night and we were fixing to hear about it.

I gave Drover the signal to cancel Happy Dog and Good Morning, and we shifted into a program called Dogs Who Listen. It’s a dandy program but pretty difficult to pull off. It requires that we mirror the moods of our people, don’t you see. If they look thoughtful, we look thoughtful. If they want to talk, we listen.

The reason it’s a tough program is that it requires a high level of concentration. As you might expect, Drover isn’t very good at that, because he has a lot of trouble staying on task. When we’re doing Dogs Who Listen, we can’t scratch or fall asleep. You’d be surprised at how crabby our people get when they confide in their dogs, and we scratch or fall asleep.

We sat down on the living room floor and waited to hear what this was all about. Wearing a deep scowl, Slim paced two circles around the room, then stopped beside the stove and stared at the floor. “Dogs, I can’t sleep. A week ago, I done a terrible thing and it’s eating me up.”

Drover and I exchanged glances. What was this? Slim had done a terrible deed and we didn’t know about it? I inched closer so that I could hear every word.

“I asked a fine lady if she’d marry me, and she said yes. Now my conscience won’t give me a minute’s peace. I think she was feeling sorry for me, is why she said yes, and I’m betting that she’s changed her mind, only she’s too nice to tell me.”

He looked down at us. “I’ve been brooding about it all week, and the truth just came to me. I’ve got nothing to offer Viola. She needs to forget about me and go on down the road. I’ll wait till eight o’clock and then I’m going to call her up and tell her the deal’s off. She’ll probably cry for two minutes, but for the rest of her life, she’ll thank the Lord that I let her off the hook.”

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He heaved a deep sigh. “There, the decision’s made and maybe I can get some sleep.” He shuffled off toward the bedroom. “Hank, if I ain’t up by eight o’clock, bark me out of bed.”

And with that, he was gone. I was too stunned to speak, and my mind drifted back to that day a week ago. Yes, I remembered it very well. In a snowstorm, Slim and I spent five hours gathering a hundred head of steers off a busy highway and driving them five miles back to the ranch. He was ahorseback, I was afoot, and Miss Viola drove ahead of us in the pickup. Fellers, that was one of those times when the weather wasn’t fit for man nor beets. We’re talking about brutal cold.

Slim caught a bad chill and came down with galloping pneumonia. Miss Viola had to drive him to the hospital (he fought it every step of the way, as you might expect). He slept most of the way into town and seemed to be out of his head with the fever, but all at once he sat up straight, looked at Viola with a crazy expression in his eyes, and said, “You know, me and you ought to get married some time.” Then he went back to sleep.

I was right there in the cab of the pickup and saw the effect it had on Miss Viola. It made her so happy, she laughed and cried at the same time. She was afraid he wouldn’t remember what he’d said, but two days later, when he got out of the hospital, he asked her again—and even slipped a lock washer on her ring finger (he didn’t have an engagement ring). She cried with joy and threw her arms around his neck.

For a whole week, Drover and I had adjusted to the new reality. Slim had finally come to his senses and had done what every sane human and dog had known all along: that he should put a ring on that lady’s finger and let her start planning for the future.

And now he was going to call her up and tell her the deal was off?

I couldn’t believe it. I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT! Didn’t he know that she’d been waiting for years for him to ask the Big Question? I mean, it was so obvious, even the dogs knew it.

Remember all the times she’d volunteered to help him haul hay and move cattle? All the dozens of cookies she’d baked for him? The times she’d taken care of him when he was hurt and sick, all the meals she’d cooked for him?

Any man with a brain in his head would have seen the glow on her face when she was around him, but Slim…oh brother! Sometimes the man drove me nuts. He had a treasure in his hands and now he was fixing to throw it away.

I turned to my assistant. “Drover, if he makes that phone call, I’ll be forced to take drastic action.”

Drover’s gaze returned from the vapors. “Oh, hi. What’s a plastic reaction?”

“If he backs out of the engagement, I’m going to bite him.”

“Yeah, chewing plastic’s kind of fun.”

“I’ll probably lose my job, but I don’t care.”

“You sure got in trouble for chewing the plastic handle on Sally May’s garden trowel. Boy, she threw a fit.”

“What? Viola threw a fit?”

“No, Sally May.”

“Sally May threw a fit because Viola was chewing plastic? Drover, what are you talking about?”

He stared at the floor and shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s three o’clock in the morning and nothing makes sense. I’m going back to bed.”

He shuffled over to his favorite spot in front of the stove, flopped down, curled up into a ball, and went right to sleep. What a weird little mutt.

Oh well. He’d been right about one thing. It was three o’clock in the morning and my bed was calling me back. I scratched around on the bare carpet, hoping to soften it up a bit (no luck there) and flopped down.

My body cried out for sleep, but I already mew that slop wooden crumb...sleep wouldn’t come. My mind was just…purple onion Spanish rice chicken coop…my murg was just too wound up over that bushwhack with Slum…that business with Slim. If only the bananas wore cufflinks, the whooping cough wouldn’t be any the wiser…murf bop pattywhack, give a dog a bone…snurf snicklefritz mulligan stew….zzzzzzzzzz.

Okay, maybe I finally drifted into a troubled sleep, after tossing and turning for hours and worrying myself sick over Slim Chance and his latest bonehead idea. The next thing I knew, it was morning. I was awakened by the sound of footsteps. I opened my eyes and saw…good grief! There was some kind of monster—nine feet tall, and he had vampire teeth and three horns sticking out…

Wait, hold everything. Ha ha. You can fool Hank the Cowdog once in a row, but never twice. It was Slim, dressed in flannel pajamas, and he didn’t fool me, not even for a second. Okay, maybe for one second, but it was no big deal.

I rose to my feet, took a good stretch, and glanced around. Daylight was showing through the windows, so it must have been around eight o’clock. Wait! Hadn’t Slim told me to do something at eight o’clock? My mind raced back to that strange encounter I’d had with him in the middle of the night.

Oh yes, he’d told me to bark him out of bed, but he was already out of bed, stumbling around the house and slurping on a cup of coffee. Should I bark anyway? Maybe so. I mean, a dog should follow orders, even when they seem pointless. I barked.

“Hank, dry up.”

See how he is? He tells me to bark at eight o’clock, I bark, and he snarls at me to “dry up.” Nobody understands how hard it is to be a dog around here.

He raked the hair out of his eyes and reached for the telephone, and now I remembered what he’d said in the middle of the night: he was going to call Miss Viola and tell her their engagement was off. And do you remember what I’d vowed to do if he made that call?

I had taken a solemn vow to BITE HIM, in hopes of preventing him from making the dumbest decision of his life. Through some miracle, he’d made the right move and asked her to marry him, and now he was on verge of blowing the whole deal to smithereens—because he felt he wasn’t good enough for her!

How dumb was that?

Hmm. You know, come to think about it, he had a point. I don’t mean to be cruel, but let’s look at the facts. The guy had skinny legs, big feet, and a long nose. In the morning, he looked like a vampire. He ate boiled turkey necks and sandwiches made of ketchup and canned mackerel (that’s really bad stuff). He seldom washed his dirty dishes and was prone to sing corny songs to his dogs.

You add that all up and you get…why was she interested in such a man? I mean, the evidence just screamed out the verdict: SHE WAS TOO GOOD FOR HIM!

In other words, Slim had arrived at a sensible decision and was fixing to do what any honorable man would have done, call her up and tell her that he’d made a terrible mistake. That left only one question unanswered: would she remain an old maid, or would she marry…well, ME, for example?

I’m not one to honk my own canoe, but while we’re looking at evidence, let’s pull out the file on me. Check this out:

• Long, handsome cowdog nose.

• A great set of ears.

• Wonderful personality, worlds of charm.

• A deep, manly aroma.

• A noble heart.

• Years of distinguished service heading up

the ranch’s Security Division.

Pretty impressive, huh? You bet. The only lady dogs in Texas who weren’t wild about me were the ones who’d never met me, and that couldn’t be helped. A dog can’t be everywhere at once.

Did I deserve Miss Viola’s love and devotion? Absolutely, you bet. But one small problem stood in our way. I was a dog, and there was no chance that she would ever marry me.

Sigh. What a bummer. Okay, back to Slim and his phone call.