Читать книгу The Secret Pledge - John R. Erickson - Страница 6

Chapter One: Not a Normal Day on the Ranch

It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. When Drover and I loaded up in Slim Chance’s pickup and headed out on our daily feed run, I expected it to be a normal day on the ranch—driving from pasture to pasture, feeding alfalfa hay to several bunches of ungrateful cows, checking windmills, doctoring twelve yearlings in the sick pen, feeding the horses…the usual stuff.

Well, we did the usual stuff, but there was more and we’ll get to it in a minute. But first, let’s set the scene. It was in the fall, and what a great fall we’d had! Boy, you talk about delicious weather: cool nights and warm, still, golden afternoons without much wind. The flies were pretty bad, but we expect that in the fall. If a fly can’t deal out a certain amount misery on a pretty autumn day, he’d have no reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Which brings up an interesting question: Where do the stupid flies go at night? Do they sleep? Do they have beds?

And I’ll tell you another interesting question, this one about ants. They live in a dark hole in the ground. They have no lights, not even a candle, and they have no clocks. An ant hole is dark all the time, just as dark at noon as it is at midnight, yet at first light every morning, you see ants creeping around. How do they know when it’s time to go to work?

For every interesting question, there’s bound to be an equally interesting answer, but on this occasion, I don’t have one.

Now, where were we? Oh yes, flies. No, we finished our discussion about flies. We were talking about something more important, but I’m drawing a blank.

You know, this is frustrating. A dog takes pride in commanding a tight ship, making lists, keeping priorities, and tending to the business of running his ranch, then something like this comes along and it takes the window out of his sails. What makes it twice as bad is that sails don’t even have windows, and at some point, you begin to wonder…

Phooey. I’m sorry, I seem to be…wait. We were feeding cattle on the first day of November and met a very important Someone on the county road. Who? Be patient, we’re getting there.

As I recall, we had loaded twenty bales of alfalfa hay in the back of the pickup. Actually, in the interest of fairness and honesty, I’ll admit that Slim had loaded the hay, but I had taken on the huge responsibility of supervising his work, which meant that every time he lifted a bale, I was standing by to pounce upon whatever form of vermin might be living beneath the bales.

We’re talking about mice and field rats. They seem to think the hay stack belongs to them. Without anybody’s permission, they build subway tunnels and mouse-towns down there, and it’s my job to set ‘em straight on who owns the hay stacks on this outfit. ME.

We have regulations. No building permit? Fine. No tunnel, no town, no mouse nests, and no secret stashes of turkey corn. (They steal some of the corn Sally May puts out for the wild turkeys). Every winter, I have to clear ‘em out and send ‘em packing. They never go far, of course, but sooner or later, they run out of hay bales under which to build and burrow, because we feed all the hay. At that point, I don’t know where they go, but they become somebody else’s problem.

Anyway, we got the hay loaded and were on our way to feed the east side of the ranch. We were on the county road and a pickup approached us from the east. Slim recognized the vehicle, stopped in the middle of the road, and started gabbing with Billy, one of the neighboring ranchers.

For a while I listened as they covered the usual topics: the grass, the weather, quail season, cattle prices, and whatever the almanac was predicting for the winter. I confess that my attention began to wander and I was finding it hard to stay awake.

But then Drover poked me in the ribs and gasped, “Oh my gosh, it’s…it’s Miss Beulah!”

Oh mercy me! You talk about something that will bring me roaring out of a nap! My eyes snapped open and I caught a glimpse of her, sitting in the back of Billy’s pickup—Miss Beulah the Collie, the girl of my dreams, the most gorgeous collie gal in Texas.

When I saw her, my eyes bugged out and my heart went into a spell of pittypatapations. Sorry, that’s a big word, so let’s break it down. Pitty-pat-a-pations. It’s a medical term, don’t you see, and it means that your heart starts jumping around in your chest like a couple of jackrabbits in a sack.

Yes, by George, the very mention of her name caused my heart to jump around. You know, I didn’t want to make a scene or cause any trouble, but Slim happened to be sitting between me and the open window, and…well, things happened. On my way out the window, I might have left some claw marks on his arm, tore a button off his shirt, and knocked his hat down on his nose.

“Hank, for crying out loud!”

To be honest, I hardly noticed, because my mind had already shifted into a Higher Dimension of Reality. See, for years I had been trying to win her heart and capture the torch of her love, and we’re talking about using every trek in the beak, but somehow nothing had worked. Trick in the book.

It was baffling, maddening, discouraging, and frustrating, and you can multiply all those words by ten, because…sorry, I don’t mean to get all worked up, but this had been a matter of deepest concern. See, not only had she resisted my charms, but she seemed to have some kind of weird affection for a bird dog.

A BIRD DOG!

Getting trounced in the Arena of Love would have been bad enough in itself, but getting trounced by a skinny, stick-tailed, pea-brained bird-merchant was almost more than I could bear. And, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, we’re talking about Plato.

I’m sure you remember Plato, a spotted bird dog with about as much sense as fishing bait. He and Beulah lived on the same ranch, and where you saw one, you usually saw the other. They went places together. They were friends.

Actually, they were more than friends, and that was the crutch of the crust of my problem. I won’t say that it made me jealous. Everyone knows that jealousy is a petty emotion, so let’s just say that I was…no, by George, let’s go ahead and dive right into the truth.

I was jealous. There. It’s out in the open for all the world to see.

How could she care about such a goofball? It was beyond reason…and, actually, therein lay my only hope. See, Beulah’s affection for the dumbbell was so crazy and out of character, I clanged to the belief that I was only one step away from Sweet and Ultimate Victory.

Some days, that’s all that got me out of bed and kept me going, no kidding, the flick flimmer…the flim flicker…the faint flicker of hope, there we go, that one day, her eyes would open and she would come to her senses.

One trick, that’s all I needed—one song, one blast of romantic poetry, one drop of a magic love potion behind my ears—and she would be MINE.

So there you are, a glimpse into the secret dungeon of my heart. It helps to explain why I stampeded across Slim’s lap and dived out the window, and why I didn’t give a rip if I had torn his shirt.

A little humor there to lighten the atmosphere. Did you get it? See, I didn’t give a rip about tearing his shirt. Ha ha. Rip and tear. Ha ha. You know, humor is very important to the over-all so-forth, and we must never get so swept up in our sorrows that can’t pause to....

Never mind. I had caught a glimpse of Miss Beulah and it appeared that this might be my Big Chance. Was it, really? To find out, you’ll have to keep reading.