The Case of the Buried Deer. John R. Erickson
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Название: The Case of the Buried Deer
Автор: John R. Erickson
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Учебная литература
Серия: Hank the Cowdog
isbn: 9781591887737
isbn:
Wait. Should the word be “sprang” or “sprung?” You know me, I want to get it right. Why? The kids. We don’t want them going around, talking like a bunch of peanut-crunching chimpanzees. Here, let’s take a closer look at this:
Tic, tack, toe.
Rick, rack, roe.
Ting, tang, tongue.
Spring, sprang, sprung.
And there’s our answer. “Slim sprung out of his chair.” Wow, is this amazing or what? Your ordinary mutts know nothing about this stuff, and we’re talking about your town dogs, your poodles and your Chihuahuas. They’re pampered and lazy, and they never give a thought to the future of this nation. If the kids start talking like monkeys, they don’t care.
You know who cares? Cowdogs. Heads of Ranch Security. ME.
Now…where were we? Hmm. Bananas? Yes. When monkeys aren’t crunching peanuts and leaving shells all over the place, they’re consuming large quantities of bananas and speaking gibberish. This nation will never prosper as long as…
Wait. We were on the porch, right? And Slim Chance had sprung out of his chair and was walking barefoot toward the rain gauge, right? Now we’re on it.
You know, dogs see a lot of things we can’t talk about. Imagine this scene. In day’s first light, a full-grown, half-naked cowboy-scarecrow was walking barefoot across an expanse of mud, in an area that normal people would describe as “the yard.” Ha. See, most of the grass in Slim’s so-called yard had perished in the drought, leaving a few brave stalks of ragweed that were still clinging to life. Mostly, the “yard” was pure dirt, only now it had turned into mud.
The guy was walking barefooted through the MUD, on his way to the rain gauge, and he didn’t seem to care that mud was oozing up between his toes. I’m not kidding. Even on the porch, I could see it.
He made it to the gate and snatched the glass tube out of the rain gauge holder. He brought the tube close to his face and glared at it. “Twenty-five hundredths and a spider!” He turned a flaming pair of eyes toward the sky and shook his fist. “Sissy clouds! We need five inches and you give us twenty-five hundredths!”
And then…this was hard to believe…he drew back his arm and threw the rain gauge as far as he could throw it, which was pretty far. It sailed across the gravel drive and shattered against the south side of the saddle shed.
A ghoulish smile leaped across his mouth and he yelled, “There, by grabs, see how you like that!”
Amazing.
He stomped back to the porch and threw himself into his chair. Hard. He seemed to be expressing his anger by throwing his body into the chair, don’t you see, and never suspected that it would tip over backwards. Guess what? It did. His muddy bare feet shot up from the floor and arched above his head, and he and the chair went crashing into the wall.
What can you say?
I turned my gaze away from him and pretended that I didn’t notice. As I’ve said, we dogs have stories that must be locked away in the safety deposit box of our heart—stories we can’t share with anyone, and stories that nobody would believe anyway.
As Slim was picking himself off the floor, I went to Taps of Sympathy on the tail section and switched on a facial expression that said, “I saw nothing. Honest.”
He set the chair back where it belonged, brushed a briar patch of hair out of his eyes, heaved a sigh, and sat down, this time in a civilized manner. He threw one leg over the opposite knee and stared at his foot, which was caked with mud.
A heavy silence fell upon us, then he spoke. “A man gets a little crazy in a drought.”
Oh? I had hardly noticed.
“When we need a good soaking rain and get a stinking little shower…well, it hurts, pooch. You can understand that.”
Right, exactly, and I was doing my best to share his pain.
“My feet got muddy.”
Well…yes. Duh. When you walk barefoot through mud, your feet get muddy.
“Hank, I’ve got an idea on how we can fix that.”
Oh brother. I knew this was coming.
“Come here.” I went. “Lie down and hold still.”
I did as I was told. I lay there like a door mat, whilst he wiped his muddy feet on the hair of my back and ribs, and cleaned his toes with the flap of my left ear. Drover watched from the other side of the porch, out of harm’s way, and GRINNED.
“There! Good dog. Anybody who says you’re worthless just don’t know the full story.” He yawned and stretched. “I wonder what we could rustle up for breakfast.” He pushed himself out of the chair and looked down at me. “How’d you get so muddy?”
He thinks he’s funny.
He brushed some of the mud off my coat. “I guess you can come in, and I might even share my breakfast. How does that sound?”
Breakfast? I was no pushover, but…well, a good breakfast can heal a lot of wounds.
I followed him into the house, and I’m proud to report that Drover wasn’t invited. Good. He didn’t deserve to be part of our Inner Circle. Don’t forget that he had grinned while I was being used as a foot-scraper. That would go into his record—grinning at the misfortunes of a superior officer.
I followed Slim into the kitchen—a loyal dog preparing to share Precious Breakfast Moments with his cowboy companion. He gave me a wink. “How ‘bout some bacon and eggs?”
Slurp. Perfect. Yes!
He opened the ice box door, bent over, and looked inside. “Well, I see that we’re out of bacon, but that’ll work, ‘cause we’re out of eggs too.”
Oh brother.
He reached inside. “Wait. Lookie here, pooch, some left-over boiled chicken gizzards.”
Chicken gizzards! For breakfast?
He brought out a plastic bread bag containing three pounds of gizzards that he had boiled up who-knows-when. He dumped them out on a paper plate. I guess that was his idea of “food presentation,” dumping a mess of cold grayish-green chicken gizzards onto a paper plate.
Have you ever looked at a bunch of boiled gizzards in the morning? Let me tell you something, it’s shocking. A cold gizzard reminds you of something that came out of a dead chicken, and you have to wonder…what kind of man eats those things for breakfast? And why?
I mean, this is the modern age and we have grocery stores. СКАЧАТЬ