Читать книгу The Quest fort the Great White Quail - John R. Erickson - Страница 7

Chapter Two: The Texas Bone Famine

I trotted past the garden, past Emerald Pond, up the hill north of the gas tanks, and to the front of the machine shed. There, I paused to reconoodle the situation down at the yard.

I didn’t mind returning Drover’s stolen property, but I sure didn’t want to be observed by our people in the house. See, I had every reason to suppose that if they saw me with Alfred’s truck in my mouth, they would assume that I was the one with the deadly Chewing Disorder. Even worse, they might accuse ME of being the thief.

It sounds crazy, doesn’t it, the Head of Ranch Security being accused of chewing up toys, but let me remind you that such mistakes have happened before. Just when you think you’ve won their trust, they’ll catch you in an awkward moment and start piling on the charges.

Sally May was the worst offender. I mean, there seemed to be no end to her suspicions. Did I need to add fuel to the fires of her suspicion? No sir, and that’s why I did a Visual Sweep of the entire area: the west side of the house, the back-yard, the porch, the flower beds, all the places where Sally May had been known to lurk.

I hate to put it that way—lurk—but after a dog’s been nailed eight or ten times, after Sally May has suddenly appeared out of nowhere and caught him in an embarrassing situation, he gets a little punchy.

See, one of the valuable lessons I had learned about Sally May was that she often works at the kitchen sink. While peeling potatoes or washing dishes, she looks out the window and does surveillance of the backyard area. Just when you think the coast is clear and nobody is watching, she’ll catch you in some little mistake. Then her voice will pierce the silence, causing every hair on your body to stand on end, and things start sliding downhill in a hurry. We sure didn’t need any of that.

And, you know, the longer I thought about this deal, the less interested I was in getting blamed for Drover’s crimes. What was in it for me? Nothing. But what would I do with the stolen property?

I submitted the problem to Heavy-Duty Analysis and arrived at a sensible solution. Instead of returning the truck to the yard, I would simply haul it off to a quiet spot and dump it. Somebody would find it eventually, and my name would never appear on anybody’s list of suspects.

Great idea, and I was a little surprised that I hadn’t thought of it sooner. I turned away from the house and trotted around to the north side of the machine shed. Once there, out of the view of prying eyes, I dropped the thing on the ground and heaved a big sigh of relief. At last, we were rid of it! Now I could get back to the business of . . .

I glanced around in a full circle. I didn’t think that Drover had followed me, but you never know. His compulsion was very compulsive. I saw nothing and nobody, so I . . . uh . . . began staring at the toy truck. Why? Well, it’s hard to explain to someone who’s never been a dog, who’s never experienced the . . .

How can I say this? Normal dogs sometimes find themselves attracted to certain substances, don’t you see, and notice that I said normal dogs. We’re not talking about your perfect little do-right poodles and yip-yips that stay inside a house, wear perfume and ribbons, and never have a wayward thought.

We’re talking about real dogs, normal, healthy, red-blooded American dogs that go to work every day, eat Co-op dog food out of a hubcap, and keep the country running. See, when a guy works eighteen hours a day, every once in a while he yearns for some entertainment. We’re not talking about anything lavish or expensive, just simple pleasures that satisfy a tiny need, such as . . .

I found myself staring at the toy truck. It was a pretty shade of red and made of soft plastic, not the kind that breaks into splinters and hurts your teeth and gums. I could almost understand why Drover had been attracted to it. I mean, chewing soft plastic isn’t the same as chewing a bone, but in times of bone shortages . . .

Did I mention that we were in the midst of a terrible Bone Famine? Maybe not, but we were. It was one of the longest, most brutal Bone Famines in recent memory. The supply of bones had just dried up, and dogs all over Texas had been forced to chew . . . well, other things. You know, sticks, rocks, newspapers, old shoes, and other things they wouldn’t ordinarily chew.

I, uh, tossed glances over both shoulders and my eyes returned to the truck. I hadn’t chewed a good bone in weeks . . . months . . . years, and all at once . . .

Okay, we need to talk. We’re friends, right? We can talk about things that aren’t necessarily pleasant, things we’re not proud of? I’m just going to blurt it out.

I started chewing the truck, and I LOVED IT!

I had never dreamed that chewing plastic could be such an exciting experience, but it was, and all at once Drover didn’t seem nearly as crazy as I’d thought.

I chewed it to smithereens and wanted more . . . more plastic! Yes, plastic. Who needs bones in a world full of nice chewy plastic? Bones can wear down your teeth and cause bone particles to collect in your estomagus, but plastic . . . it doesn’t splinterize and poke your gums. Further­more, since you don’t swallow it, all the various pieces remain outside the bodily so-forth.

See, plastic was invented for DOGS. Maybe you didn’t know that. Maybe I didn’t know it either, but after conducting this first experiment with a plastic substance, it became very clear to me that someone out there had invented plastic so that dogs could chew it.

Why not? For thousands of years, dogs have been man’s best friend. We’ve liked our people when they were unlikable, loved them when they were unlovable, forgiven them when they were unforgivable. We’ve licked their ears when we really wanted ice cream, kept them warm on cold winter nights, laughed at their stale jokes, and listened to their corny songs about Old Paint and Dunny.

Don’t we deserve something special? Yes, of course we do, and that special something is PLASTIC.

Okay, there’s one little problem with plastic. Once chewed and re-chewed, it leaves a mess, but what’s a little mess in the broader context of history? This world is a big place. Put the world on one side and a small deposit of shredded plastic on the other, and you can see right away that shredded plastic is no big deal. It’s the kind of thing our people ought to ignore, right?

I’m glad you understand, because . . . well, once I had chewed up the truck, I found myself . . . uh . . . wishing to find other objects made of plastic, shall we say.

I headed toward the house. As I was passing the front of the machine shed, I happened to notice the head of a small whitish dog peering out the crack between the two sliding doors. When I appeared on the scenery, the head vanished inside.

I stopped and stuck my head inside the door. “Drover? Come out. I know you’re in there.”

A moment later, he stepped out of the barn, and right away I picked up an important clue. He had twisted his body into the shape of a horseshoe and was flashing a goony smile. Maybe you’ve never seen such odd behavior in a dog, but I have. Drover does it fairly often, and it’s a sign that he’s feeling guilty about something.

“Why are you doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“You’re moving around like . . . I don’t know what. Like a donut that’s had a bite taken out of it. Normal dogs walk in a straight line, Drover. You’re walking like a crab.”

“I’ll be derned. I’ve never even seen a crab.”

“Nevertheless, you’re walking like a beached crab.”

“I tried to eat a crawdad one time, but it bit me on the nose.”

“Answer my question.”

“I forgot. What did you ask?”

I stuck my nose into his face. “Why are you walking in that ridiculous manner? To tell you the truth, Drover, it embarrasses me to see you doing that.”

His grin faded. “Well, I guess I’m feeling . . .”

“Yes? Yes? Finish your sentence. I’m a busy dog.”

“I guess I’m feeling . . . guilty.”

I gave him a triumphant smile. “Aha! I knew it. Drover, you should never try to conceal anything from me. I can read your thoughts like a duck out of water.” I began pacing in front of him. “Okay, soldier, out with it. What have you done this time?”

“Well . . . what you said about Alfred’s toy truck made me feel pretty bad.”

“We’ve already discussed this. Why are you still brooding about it?”

“I started feeling this terrible burden of guilt, so I came up to the machine shed to hide. But you caught me.”

“Are you sure you haven’t done something else? Look deeper into the darkness of your Inner Bean.”

“No, it was the truck. It made me feel like a rat, messing up a kid’s toy.”

“Drover, that doesn’t make sense. If you felt like a rat, why did you walk like a crab? Crabs and rats are not the same; therefore, they are very different.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Crabs bite.”

“So do rats.”

“That’s exactly my point. They’re completely different. Now, why are you still brooding over the toy truck?”

He stared at the ground. “Well, Alfred’s out in the yard, looking for it. I thought you took it back.”

“Huh? Well, of course I took it back.”

“You’ve got something in your teeth.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said, you’ve got something red in your teeth.”

“Red? Don’t be absurd.” I whirled away from him and began scrubbing my teeth. “It must be some, uh, fragments of red meat.”

“It looks kind of like plastic.”

“It’s red meat, Drover.”

“I’ll be derned. Where’d you get red meat?”

“Never mind where I got it.”

“Wait. Maybe some of the plastic came off the truck when you were carrying it back to the gate.”

I beamed him a pleasant smile. “There we go! Of course. Ha ha. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“It’s still there.”

I scrubbed harder on my teeth. “How does it look now?”

He squinted his eyes. “You got it that time.”

“Good, good. We certainly don’t want to go around with dirty teeth, do we? Ha ha. No siree. Listen, how’s your Chewing Disorder?”

He beamed a silly grin. “You know, it’s much better. Those Words of Healing really helped.”

“Great. Well, stick with the routine, son, and don’t forget to brush your teeth.” I lifted one ear and heard voices down at the house. “So Alfred can’t find his truck, huh? I left it right there by the gate. Tell you what, I’ll trot down there and help him out.” I gave Drover a secret wink. “Kids.”

“What’s wrong with your eye?”

“What?”

“You’ve got a twitch in your eye.”

I gave him a withering glare. “Nothing’s wrong with my eye. I was giving you a secret wink so that we could share a little laugh about how kids are always misplacing their toys.”

“Oh. Hee hee. Yeah, that was a good one.”

“Just skip it, Drover, I’m sorry I mentioned it. Good-bye. I’m off to help a child in distress.”

And with that, I left the dunce and went streaking down to the yard gate to, uh, help Alfred find his missing toy.