The Case of the One-Eyed Killer Stud Horse

by John R. Erickson

  In fact, why don’t you send them to bed so we can talk this thing over in private. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

  Okay. All the kids gone now? Check to make sure they’re in bed and asleep. Sometimes they play possum, you know. They’ll pretend to be asleep, see, but then they’ll sneak out of bed and put their little ears to a crack in the door and listen.

  Okay. Here we go. Here’s the Dreadful Truth.

  I ain’t real proud that I left the field of battle under what we might call hasty circumstances. Even though the enemy was deadly and dangerous, even though I managed to turn it into a moral victory, it had all the markings of a blind retreat.

  Indeed, an outside observer might have said that it WAS a blind retreat and . . . all right, maybe . . .

  This is very painful, see. A dog spends his whole life trying to do the right thing, trying to build up a good reputation, trying to teach the kids to be courageous and bold, and then, in just a matter of seconds, everything he’s worked so hard to build up goes to pot.

  Okay, let’s get it over with. I ran from Tuerto because I was scared of him, and all that stuff about winning a moral victory was just fluff and soap bubbles.

  I didn’t just run a few feet, fellers, I went streaking all the way back to the house. Sally May’s car was parked out front, and I admit that I dropped down on my belly and crawled underneath. It was at that point that I discovered Drover had gotten there first.

  He gave me his usual silly grin. “Hi, Hank, what you doing here?”

  “No, the real question, Drover, is what are you doing here, but don’t bother to answer because I already know.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. You ran from the field of battle and left me to be mauled by a dog-eating maniac.”

  “No, I ran from that horse.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about, you dope.”

  “Oh. Well, I sure ran, I won’t deny that.”

  “Of course you won’t. You’ve been caught in the act.”

  “Sure looks like it. Gee, I thought this was a pretty good hiding place. Did you run the horse off!”

  “I uh . . . you might say that.”

  “Okay. Did you run the horse off”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes, I think he probably ran.”

  “You whipped him, huh? Good old Hank! Boy, I wish I could just go out and whip a horse any time I wanted to.”

  “All it takes is practice, Drover. Practice and guts and skill and brains.”

  “Yeah. If it wasn’t for this leg of mine . . .”

  “Drover, that so-called leg of yours is just a crutch.”

  “No, it’s a real leg. See, it’s hooked on up here.” He pointed to his armpit.

  “I think you missed the point.”

  “Oh.”

  “The point is that this so-called problem with your so-called leg is just a psychological crutch.”

  “That sounds pretty serious.”

  “Indeed it is. Only a crippled mind needs a psychological crutch, Drover, and you may have one of the most crippled minds I ever ran across.”

  “Gosh, thanks, Hank.”

  “That’s nothing to be proud of. Sometimes I even think you’re a hypocardiac.”

  “No fooling? Mom always said we were just soup hounds.”

  “It’s possible to be both a soup hound and a hypocardiac. Both are the result of poor breeding.”

  “I sure like soup, I know that.”

  All at once I noticed that his eyes had widened to the size of small plates, and that his eyeballs had crossed. “Something’s wrong with your eyes, Drover.”

  He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but no words came out.

  “This could be another symptom of your hypo­cardia. Yes, of course it is. First the mind goes, then the legs, then the eyes. It’s all fitting to­gether.” He moved his mouth again, and again nothing came out. “Relax, Drover, don’t try to speak. You’ve had an attack of . . .”

  “Hank, there he is again!”

  “Who? What?” I tried to follow his gaze but that wasn’t so easy since his eyes were crossed. “You must be seeing things, Drover. Just try to . . . HUH?”

  At that point I saw one of the things he was seeing: a huge mouth armed with huge teeth. It belonged to Tuerto the Killer Stud Horse, and it appeared that he was trying to crawl under the car with us.

  I bristled and growled and leaped into the air, forgetting for the moment that we were under Sally May’s car, which meant that instead of leaping into the air, I leaped my head against the muffler. It hurt.

  “Bark, Drover, we’re under attack, this is Red Alert!”

  I tuned up and went into some serious barking, while Drover crawled around in circles and squeaked. “Oh Hank, what if he gets under here with us, oh my gosh, time out, king’s X, tell him not to bite!”

  I could hear Tuerto’s wicked voice: “Come out, duggies, come out and play weeth me. I weel bite your tails.”

  “Don’t let him in, Hank, tell him we’re not here, oh my leg . . .”

  “Quit squeaking and get control of yourself! And bark.”

  I barked and growled and snarled and snapped. By this time it had occurred to me that a horse which stood sixteen hands at the withers couldn’t possibly crawl under a car that stood only three hands at the running board.

  You probably think I should have known that all along. Well, let me tell you something. When you see a monster mouth and two rows of monster teeth coming at you beneath a car . . . never mind.

  My courage began to return and I grew bolder in my counterattack. I not only bristled and barked, but I inched forward on my belly and bit him on the soft part of the nose.

  Hey, that got his attention. You think that big lug wasn’t shocked? He jerked back and all at once we saw no more of his flappy mouth, so I crawled forward through the dirt and poked my head out from under the car and cut loose with another withering barrage of barking.

  Hmm. High Loper was out there, ahorseback. He took the double of his rope and laid a stroke across Tuerto’s back. That got his attention! (Course, I had already softened him up with that slash to the nose.) Tuerto snorted and pawed the air with his front hooves, and Loper laid another stroke across his back.

  I barked louder than ever. No question about it, me and Loper made a dangerous team. Yes sir. We didn’t fool around with these two-bit cocky hot-rod horses. We worked ’em over and sent ’em home, is what we did.

  And, as you might have already guessed, Tuerto pointed himself toward the home ranch and got the heck away from us. I mean, that horse was scared.

  I had my head poked out from under the car, and now that it was all over, Drover crawled up beside me. Loper looked down at us, and I gave him a big cowdog smile. I knew he was proud.

  “Well, there’s Laurel and Hardy, protecting my ranch,” he said. (Laurel and Hardy must have been famous guard dogs.) “You kept him out from under Sally May’s car, didn’t you?” (Yup, we done that, all right). “Sure makes me proud that I spend thirty bucks a month on dog food.” (Told you he was proud). “That’s what I call throwing money down a rat hole.”

  He turned his horse and rode off, coiling up his rope.

  I crawled out from under the car and shook the dust off my coat. Drover stayed where he was.

  “Hank, what did he mean, throwing money down a rat hole?”

  “You don’t know, really?”

  “No, don’t have any idea.”

  I walked over to him and looked down into his empty eyes. “It’s very simple, Drover. I’ll explain it to you one time and I’ll expect you to remember it.”

  “Okay. Fire away.”

  “All right. Pay attention. If you knew you had a very important, very valuable rat on your ranch, and you wanted to reward him for his outstanding work, would you throw m
oney down a skunk hole or a rat hole?”

  “Let’s see.” He squinted one eye and chewed on his lip. “A rat hole?”

  “That’s correct, Drover, because rats live in . . . what?”

  “Uh . . . rat holes?”

  “Exactly. And skunks live . . . where?”

  “Uh . . . in skunk holes?”

  “Correct again. This may be a new record for you, Drover, three right answers in a row, and all in the same month. And now you understand what he was saying.”

  “I guess so.” He crawled out and scratched his left ear. “But Hank, can I ask you one more question?”

  I checked the location of the sun. “I believe we have time enough for one more question. Go ahead.”

  “Who were those guys you were talking to out in the pasture?”

  “Guys? What guys?”

  “When we were out fighting the horse, you kept calling for Mark and Roger. I never did see ’em.”

  Well, we needn’t waste any more time with Drover’s nonsense. The important thing is that, once again, we had rid the ranch of a menace and had taught Tuerto the One-Eyed Killer Stud Horse a lesson he wouldn’t soon forget.

  (This chapter turned out better than I ex­pected, so if the kids want to read it, go ahead and let ’em. And don’t pay any attention to that part about me being scared of Tuerto. I was misquoted, that’s all.)

  Chapter Nine: Sally May Returns on Crutches

  It must have been several hours later when I heard a car rumble over the cattle guard between the home pasture and the horse pasture.

  Drover and I had spent the last of the morning and the early part of the afternoon winding down from our confrontation with Tuerto the One-Eyed Killer Stud Horse. We had gone up to the machine shed and crunched some Co-op dog food, then stretched out in the sun there on the south side of the shed.

  In the fall of the year, the south side of the machine shed is one of the preferred sleeping areas on the ranch. The shed takes the sting out of the north wind and that old sun warms a guy up and makes him want to stretch out and take a nap—especially if he’s spent all morning fighting killer horses.

  I mean, that’ll wear a feller down to a nubbin about as quick as anything.

  Anyway, I’d caught myself a little nap and refreshed myself and was in the process of yawning and stretching the kinks out of my back, when I heard a car rumble over the cattle guard.

  Well, you know me. My ears shot up and I told Drover to prepare himself for a lightning dash up to the county road, because I suspected that our old enemy, the mailman, had just made another encroachment of our territory.

  We went ripping around the east side of the machine shed and had shifted into Barking Mode One when I saw Grandma’s car turn at the mailbox and start down toward the house. In the blink of an eye, I reversed all engines and slid to a stop.

  “Hold it, son, shut her down! I’ve got a feeling that this would be a good time to hide out and become scarce.”

  “How come?”

  I told him about Sally May’s unfortunate accident, that she had twisted her ankle and had gone into town to see the doctor, and that she might not be happy to see . . . well, a certain un-named ranch dog so soon after she had tried to strangle him.

  “She tried to strangle you, no fooling?”

  “That’s correct, with her bare hands. I mean, that old gal may wear perfume and curl her hair, but once she gets down in the dirt and throws a few punches, she’s meaner than nine junkyard dogs with a bellyache.”

  “Gosh, that doesn’t sound like the Sally May I know.”

  “Whatever you think, Drover. If you want to run the risk of getting impaled on a crutch, just go on and meet the car. But I’m warning you, she’s dangerous.”

  “I think I’ll go down and welcome her back to the ranch.”

  “Fine. Go say hello and we’ll see what happens, but if you come back wearing a crutch through your rib cage, don’t expect to get any sympathy from me.”

  “Okay, Hank. Here I go!”

  He scampered away to meet the car, while I slipped off to the north and established an observation post amongst the pine, spruce, bodark, and Russian olive trees in the shelter belt.

  The car pulled around to the back of the house, with my sawed-off, stub-tailed, pea-brained assistant scampering along behind. The doors flew open and three children jumped out—Little Alfred and his two girl-cousins. Grandma got out, went around to the passenger side, and opened the door for Sally May.

  As I had predicted, her ankle was wrapped up in a big white bandage and she was on crutches. Drover went up to her, wagging his stub tail and groveling in the dirt and doing this thing he often does to make points—he lifts his lips and shows his teeth, and people just love it because they think he’s smiling.

  If I tried that, they’d accuse me of showing fangs and making threatening gestures. Drover does it and wins points and everybody laughs and says, “Oh, isn’t he cute!”

  That’s okay. I never wanted to be cute anyway. But it does kind of irritate me that . . . oh well.

  Sally May was smiling and seemed to be in a much better humor. She and Grandma talked about baking pies and taking the wild turkey out of the deep freeze.

  This was the same wild turkey Loper had brought home a couple of weeks ago. His story, as I recall, was that the turkey had run into his pickup and broken its neck. Ho, ho. I happened to be in the back of the pickup that afternoon and I can reveal here, for the first time, the true and uncensored story.

  We drove up on a group of wild turkeys along the creek, don’t you see, and this being the holiday season, Loper decided that he needed one. What that turkey ran into was not the pickup but a .22 bullet, which was slightly illegal since Loper hadn’t bought a hunting license that year.

  I can also reveal that Loper picked the turkey down at the feed barn, stuffed all the feathers into a paper sack, and buried it in the sand along the creek. Sounds pretty suspicious, huh? Yes, indeed.

  I could go even further and reveal that, while he buried the feathers, I stayed behind and, uh, stood guard over the nice, plump, juicy turkey which was hanging by a piece of baling wire from a corral post, and boy, it was a good thing that I stayed behind to guard it because, well, any old stray dog who happened along could have hopped up on his hind legs and made himself a meal—and I mean a good meal—on that nice, plump, tender, juicy . . .

  As I said, I could reveal this little episode, but I won’t, for various reasons. But as you can see, there was more to the turkey story than the general public knew about. I mention it here, not because I’m one to go around blabbing, but only to point out that Old Hank isn’t the only one on this outfit who is guilty of naughty behavior.

  Anyway, where were we? Oh yes. Drover had tested the temperature of the water, so to speak, and had found it to be something better than ice cold, so I decided, what the heck, maybe I ought to go on down and patch things up with Sally May.

  Yes, I know. She’d called me terrible names and screeched at me and tried to strangle me, but I’ve never been one to carry a grudge.

  I mean, beneath all the hair and muscle and armor plating that a guy needs in this line of work, I’m very warm and forgiving and expressive and loving, bold and courageous and as stout as an ox, a hard worker, good with children, devilishly handsome, if you believe the ladies, and . . .

  I decided to go down and make peace with Sally May, is the basic point.

  I left the shelter belt and headed down to the yard. Sally May was halfway between the gate and the back door when she glanced around and saw me coming.

  The smile wilted on her mouth. Dark clouds, so to speak, gathered on her brow. Her eyes narrowed and she said, “Here comes that oaf of a dog!” Upon hearing which I did a quick about-face and returned to the shelter belt.

  That was okay with me. I have never depended o
n the approval of small minds for my happiness. If she wanted to play freeze-out with me, we’d just by George play freeze-out.

  Time passed very slowly in the shelter belt. I got bored. I bore easily. When you’re accustomed to lots of excitement and action, it’s hard to adjust to the humdrum existence that ordinary dogs accept as normal. I didn’t have any important cases to work on, it was just a tad too chilly for a dip in the sewer and . . .

  Ho hum. I watched the kids playing with Drover and Pete. They seemed to be having fun. Having fun has never been a big deal with me. A lot of dogs think that’s what this life is all about—having fun all the time, one big party after another—and what the heck, I didn’t figger it would hurt me or anybody else if I went down and had a little fun myself.

  I pushed myself up, shook the grass off my coat, checked all points of the compass to make sure that Sally May wasn’t lurking in the evergreens with a butcher knife, and padded down to donate my presence to the little children.

  They were nice kids, after all, and they de­served a break.

  Chapter Ten: Thank the Lord for Making Gals!

  At first I sat down beside the yard gate and watched them playing. I didn’t want to ap­pear too anxious, see. Also, I wasn’t sure I wanted to get involved in playing Beauty Shop or Dress Up.

  I mean, when you’re Head of Ranch Security, you’ve got to protect your dignity. Seemed to me that Beauty Shop and Dress Up weren’t exactly right for me.

  Now for Drover, those games were all right. He didn’t have a public image to maintain, and Pete—well, who cares about a cat anyway?

  Amy, one of the girl-cousins, must have been, oh, I’d say nine or ten years old. She had hair the color of a field of ripe wheat. I’d guess Ashley’s age at eight, and she had the prettiest blue eyes you ever saw, same color as the sky on a still afternoon in the fall.

  We’d never had any little girls on the ranch and I wasn’t sure how I’d get along with them. I stayed outside the yard and watched them dressing up Drover and Pete in doll clothes. They stuffed Drover into a pair of striped overalls and had Pete rigged up in a nightgown. They both looked goofy.