The Case of the Hooking Bull. John R. Erickson

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      Oh yes, one last detail.

      All at once Baby Molly began to cry. Loper bounced her around in his arms, then handed her over to Sally May. “Here, Ma, your daughter’s calling you.”

      Sally May took the baby and got her settled down. Then she turned a pair of steely eyes on Slim. “Slim, I’ll be honest. I have some misgivings about leaving you in charge of my house and child.”

      He nodded. “Yes ma’am, I can understand that, sure can.”

      “You will feed my child something while I’m gone, won’t you?”

      “Oh yes ma’am.”

      “Vegetables?”

      “You bet, lots of vegetables.”

      “He needs to take a bath tonight and brush his teeth after every meal.”

      “You bet.”

      “At bedtime, I usually read him a story.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “And then I tuck him in and we say our prayers.”

      “Yalp.”

      “Sometimes he wants a glass of juice at bedtime.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “So if you want to make him a glass of orange juice, that will be fine.”

      “Okay, orange juice.”

      “Slim, can you remember all this?”

      “Oh yeah, you bet.”

      “Maybe I should make a list.”

      Loper eased her down the sidewalk toward the car. “Everything’ll be fine, hon. Old Slim might not look very smart, but he’s really pretty stupid.”

      “This is no time for joking.”

      “Sally May, we’ll only be gone for two days.”

      “Pompeii was destroyed in fifteen minutes.”

      “Hon, Slim can’t even find his hip pocket in fifteen minutes.”

      “I’m not feeling any better.”

      “Shall we go or shall we stay home?”

      By this time they were standing right beside the car. Their feet, ankles, etc. were only a matter of inches away from my nose. Sally May was wearing a dress, don’t you see, which meant that her ankles were sort of bare.

      For some strange reason . . . it was just an impulse, see, a sudden impulse that happened before I could think about it . . . all at once it occurred to me that I should, well, lick Sally May on the ankle, you might say.

      Maybe she hadn’t seen me under the car and maybe she wasn’t expecting anyone to lick her on the ankle, because she sure took it the wrong way.

      “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

      Yes, I’m almost sure it caught her by surprise, the way she jumped back and kicked the car door all in one rapid motion. It appeared to hurt her foot, but the good news was that she missed my nose.

      “What’s wrong, hon?”

      “Something licked me on the ankle, and I have a pretty good idea who it was.” Her face appeared upside down in the little slot of daylight between the car and the ground.

      I, uh, whapped my tail several times upon the, uh, gravel drive and tried to squeeze up a big, friendly cowdog smile, as if to say, “Oh, I guess that was, uh, your ankle, right?”

      “STOP LICKING ME! I have to go to a wedding this afternoon and I don’t want to smell like a sewer!”

      Okay, fine. If that’s the way she felt about it, by George, I would just pack up my licks and take them somewhere else. But she didn’t need to screech at me like that.

      Dogs have feelings too.

      In many ways, we’re very sensitive, and all that screeching and yelling and so forth has a dilapidating effect on our . . . something. Inner being, I guess.

      So after having my inner being smashed and crushed, I crawled out from under the car and went slinking off with my tail between my legs and sat down beside the fence, some ten yards away from Sally May, and proceeded to beam hurt­ful looks at her.

      She didn’t notice the hurtful looks. Instead, she turned to Slim and said, “And speaking of dogs, I don’t want any dogs in my yard while I’m gone.”

      “Yes ma’am.”

      “And I don’t suppose we need to discuss dogs in the house.”

      Slim shifted his weight to his other leg. “Now, I’m pretty strict on that, Sally May. These dogs don’t get away with much around me, they sure don’t.”

      Sally May took a deep, slow breath. “This is probably a mistake. I’ll probably regret this for the rest of my life, but if we’re going to make the wedding, we’d better go.”

      Loper turned to Slim. “Can you run that bull out by yourself or would you rather wait until I get back?”

      Slim smiled. “One riot, one Ranger.”

      “Well, watch him. He’s big enough to hurt somebody.”

      “So am I.”

      Loper opened the back door and started pitching luggage inside. Sally May called Little Alfred away from his chicken roping, and he came down the hill for the Final Ceremonies.

      Holding the baby in the curve of her left arm, she bent down and hugged the boy with her right. “Alfred, I want you to promise me that you’ll be a good boy while Mommy’s gone.”

      “I pwomise.”

      “And that you won’t do anything Mommy wouldn’t want you СКАЧАТЬ