Читать книгу The Case of the Most Ancient Bone - John R. Erickson - Страница 7

Chapter Two: Windmill Problems

Perhaps you’re asking yourself, “If it was an unidentified pickup, why didn’t the dogs bark at it?” Great question. As you know, barking at strangers is an important part of our job on this outfit, and very seldom do we miss an opportunity to do it.

This time, we did. Why? Too hot. But it would have been a waste of time anyway, because it turned out that it wasn’t an unidentified pickup after all. The pickup belonged to our ranch. Slim and Loper had come back to the machine shed for some supplies or equipment.

When they stepped out of the pickup, my keen eyes picked up an important clue: Loper was having a bad day. He looked mad and disgusted.

The moment his boots touched the ground, he growled, “The stinking windmill pumped all winter and never missed a stroke. When we didn’t need the water, it gave us water, water, and more water. Now it’s hot and what does it do? It quits pumping and we’ve got fifty cows, standing on their heads at the tank, trying to get a drink!”

Slim nodded and shifted his toothpick to the left side of his mouth. “It don’t seem fair, does it?”

“No! It makes me so mad . . .”

Slim waited to hear the rest of the sentence. When it didn’t come, he said, “But you know what? I think a hurricane might be worse.”

Loper turned halfway around and stared at him for a long moment. “What?”

“If we ranched down on the Gulf coast, we’d have hurricanes and then we’d have to worry about floods. Your cows might be swimming around and hung up in the tops of trees. You wouldn’t like that either.”

Loper turned his gaze to the ground and shook his head. “Slim, that is the dumbest thing you’ve said in two weeks.”

“No, it ain’t. All I’m saying is that a man shouldn’t complain about his problems, ’cause there might be worse problems in this old world.”

“Slim, this is my ranch and if I want to complain about a busted windmill in the middle of a heatwave, I’ll complain about it.”

“I know you will, ’cause that’s all you’ve been doing for the past thirty minutes.”

“The Constitution of the United States of America gives me the right to complain about ignorant windmills.”­

“Loper, every now and then, a man ought to stop whining and count his blessings.”

Loper gave him a ferocious glare. “Whining, huh? All right, buddy, I’ll count my blessings: one, two, three. There, are you happy?”

“No, you didn’t say what they are.”

Loper began slashing a finger through the air. “Blessing Number One is that you’re not twins. Blessing Number Two is that at the end of a long hot day, I don’t have to eat your bachelor cooking. Blessing Number Three is that I’ve got a radio in that pickup, so when you start yapping about blessings, I can turn up the volume. There!”

“Loper, you’re worse than a mule. You didn’t say a word about being grateful that we don’t have floods and earthquakes and bluebonnet plague.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m not. I’m mad at the windmill and I plan to stay mad until we get it fixed . . . speaking of which, do you suppose you could start gathering up our windmill tools?”

Slim shifted his toothpick over to the other side of his mouth. “Well, I probably could, but I still say . . .”

“Good!” Loper whirled around and headed for the machine shed. “We’ll need the block and tackle, a box of windmill leathers, a chain, wrenches, a socket set . . .” He vanished inside the barn, and his voice became a faint rumble.

Slim heaved a sigh and looked down at me. “His momma enrolled him in charm school, but he flunked out. Pooch, you want to go in my place and help Uncle Scrooge fix the windmill?”

Uh . . . no thanks. I had attended a couple of windmill-fixing episodes and that was plenty.

With great effort, Slim pointed his bony frame toward the barn and began walking. At the entrance, he glanced back at me and winked. “Watch this.” He turned toward the barn door and yelled out, “Loper, I just have a feeling this is going to be a wonderful day.” He flinched, waiting for the thunder and lightning.

It came. Inside the barn, Loper’s voice boomed, “Slim, when you get fired from this job, which could happen any day now, you can go into preaching full-time. Until then, please dry up and try to make yourself useful!”

Slim chuckled and shuffled into the barn, and for the next ten minutes, the air was filled with the sounds of clanging and banging as the men gathered up their tools. They made three trips from the barn to the pickup, lugging ropes and cables and heavy boxes of windmill parts.

Slim was still trying to make conversation. “Loper, do you know how many cowboys it takes to screw in a lightbulb?”

“No.”

“You’ll love this. It takes four—one to hold the lightbulb and three to turn the house. Heh.”

Loper dumped his load onto the pickup’s flatbed, jerked a red bandana out of his hip pocket, and . . . this was pretty amazing . . . stuffed the two ends of the rag into his ears. He gave Slim a fanged smile and went back into the barn for another load.

Slim dumped his tools onto the flatbed and shrugged. “I always liked that joke. It’s the only one I could ever remember.”

Moving at his usual pace (slow motion), Slim went sludging back into the barn. At that very moment, who should come walking up but Little Alfred, my most favorite pal in the whole world. On a normal day, I would have leaped to my feet and given him a few licks on the face, but today . . . I, uh, whapped my tail on the ground and called it good.

“Hi, Hankie. It’s kind of hot, isn’t it?”

Right. Very hot.

Slim and Loper came blundering out of the barn again, loaded down with gear. Alfred said, “Hi, Dad.” Loper didn’t hear, so the boy tried again, in a louder voice. “Hi, Dad!” Alfred looked closer at his dad. “He’s got a rag in his ears!”

Slim said, “Don’t pay him any mind, Button. He’s on a crusade to make this the worst day since the volcano went off at Palm Play. I tried to cheer him up with one of my best jokes but it only confused him.”

Alfred went to his dad and tugged on his pant leg. “Hey, Dad, you’ve got something in your ears.”

Loper looked down at him. “What?” He uncorked one of his ears. “Oh, hi, son.”

“How come you’ve got a rag in your ears?”

“I’m trying to gather up windmill tools, and I can’t concentrate with all the noise.” He jerked his head toward Slim. Slim stuck out his tongue and made a sour face.

Alfred brightened. “Can I go wiff ya’ll and help?”

Loper patted him on the head. “Not this time, son. It’s not likely to be much fun.”

Slim muttered, “We can bet on that.”

Loper shot him a dark glare. “Well, we’re burning daylight. Let’s get this over with.”

They loaded into the pickup, and Loper started the engine. Over the noise, we heard Slim say, “Loper, you know the trouble with you?”

“Of course I do. Poor help.” Then Loper turned up the volume on the radio, and they roared away.

Little Alfred drifted over to us. “Hi, doggies. Want to play?”

I gave him a wooden stare. Play?

“We could play Chase the Ball.”

Ha ha.

“We could go exploring. Want to do that?”

Exploring? I wanted to explore the inside of an ice-cold watermelon and stay there until the first snow of the season. Other than that, no thanks.

He pushed out his lower lip at me. “Come on, Hankie, you’re no fun.”

Right. Sometimes that bothered me and sometimes it didn’t. Right now, I just didn’t give a rip.

He made an ugly face at me and started down to the house. “You’re just a lazy bum.”

Exactly, and proud of it, too. Okay, I wasn’t proud of it. Being a lazy bum was nothing to be proud of but I couldn’t help myself, not in this heat.

Ho hum. Time crawled by. Half an hour later, we heard sounds of life down at the house. A door slammed. Someone had come outside. With great effort, I swung my head around and saw Sally May standing in the yard, spraying her flowers and shrubberies with the water hose.

“Drover, Sally May has come out of the house. One of us needs to go down to the yard gate and give her a greeting.”

“How come?”

“Because that’s what we do. It’s part of our job. When our people come outside, we’re supposed to greet them. Dogs have been doing it for thousands of years.”

“No wonder I’m so tired.”

“What?”

“I said . . . I’ll be derned. Which one of us will do it this time?”

I pondered that for a moment.” Actually, I was wondering if you might take it, Drover. It wouldn’t have to be anything fancy or special.”

“What would I have to do?”

“Not much, just our basic Howdy Routine—chug down to the gate, give her some wags and a smile, tell her that you care deeply about her life, and come right back. It would be an easy way for you to build up some points.”

“I guess I could use the points.”

“Exactly. It never hurts to build up a few extra points with Sally May.”

“Yeah, but I have a problem.”

I rolled my eyes. “All right, Drover, tell me about the problem.”

“Well, I hate to admit it. You’d probably think I’m a louse if you knew the truth.”

“That’s a risk we’ll have to take, I suppose. What’s the truth, and hurry up.”

“Well . . .” He glanced over both shoulders and whispered, “I really don’t care deeply about her life.”

I stared at the runt. “What? You really don’t . . . Drover, what kind of dog are you? I’m shocked and astamished that you’d even say such a thing.”

“See? I knew it! I never should have told you the truth, but it’s true. I just don’t care deeply about her life, not today.”

I took a breath of air and tried to absorb this astounding rulevation . . . revulation . . . revolution . . . I was shocked. “When did this start? When did you first notice it?”

“Well . . . about thirty minutes ago. I think it has something to do with the heat. I just don’t give a rip about anything, and I don’t think I can care deeply about her life right now.”

“What about last evening when it was cooler?”

“Oh yeah, I cared back then, but now . . . I just don’t think I could pull it off. It would be a big fat lie.”

“Hmmm. This is serious, Drover. It cuts to the very heart of what we are as dogs. I mean, if a dog doesn’t have deep feelings about his own people, what’s left?”

“I don’t know. Four legs and a stub tail, I guess.”

“That’s not much.” I jacked myself up off the ground. “All right, son, I’ll take this one, but I’m warning you. If we don’t see some improvement in your attitude, we’ll have to take some drastic measures.”

He gave me a sad look. “Thanks, Hank. I’ll do better when the weather cools down, I promise.”