The Case of the Most Ancient Bone

by John R. Erickson

  “Yes sir.”

  The man extended his hand. “David Wilkens. I’m an archeologist.”

  Alfred shook his hand. “I’m Alfred and this is my dog, Hank. What’s an arkimolgist?”

  “Well, I study things that are very old: tools made of flint, prehistoric houses and storage pits, clay pottery, shell beads, bones, things like that.”

  Bones? My ears shot up. All at once, I was interested in this conversation.

  Little Alfred dug his hand into his pocket and came up holding something in his fingers. “I have an arrowhead. My dad found it yesterday.”

  Mr. Wilkens slipped a pair of glasses on his nose and studied the arrowhead, turning it around in his fingers. “It’s a nice little Washita point from the Plains Village period, made of good-quality Alibates flint. It’s eight or nine hundred years old.”

  “Older than my dad?”

  Mr. Wilkens laughed. “Well, I haven’t met your dad, but I’d say so, yes. Now, here’s what I want you to do, Alfred. I want you to put this in a plastic bag and tell your dad to record the location where he found it on a piece of paper, and keep them together. An artifact without site information is no good to anyone. Can you do that?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Good. When your dad finds another artifact in that location, he can put it in the same bag, and one of these days, when I come back and ask to see your collection, you’ll have some information I can use.”

  “Is arkimology fun?”

  Mr. Wilkens tugged on his chin. “It’s fun if you’re curious about the past, but it involves a lot of hard work.”

  Alfred showed off the muscle in his right arm. “I bet I could do it. I’m pwetty stwong.”

  “I’ll bet you are. Maybe your mother can bring you over to the site and we’ll put you to work screening dirt.” He glanced down at the pitcher. “You got any lemonade left?”

  “Yes sir. You’re our first customer.”

  Mr. Wilkens peered into the pitcher. “It’s only half-full. What happened to the rest of it?”

  Oops. Alfred’s gaze slid around to me and his eyes seemed to be asking, “What do I say now?”

  With my eyes, I sent back a reply. “If you want to lose a customer, tell him your dog drank out of it. If you don’t want to kill the business . . . how can I say this? Tell him a tiny falsehood—not a big whopper, mind you, but a tiny restructuring of the truth, let us say.”

  The lad got the message and gave me a secret grin. He turned back to Mr. Wilkens. “Oh, I got thirsty and took a dwink.”

  There we go! Just right. Not a huge whopper but a slight restructuring of the facts. Alfred gave me a wink and I winked back. Heh heh. We had dodged a bullet. Pretty clever, huh? You bet.

  Mr. Wilkens continued to study the pitcher. “You must have been pretty thirsty.”

  “Sir?”

  “It’s a two-quart pitcher. If it’s half-empty, it means you drank a quart of lemonade. I’m surprised your stomach could hold a quart.” He narrowed his eyes and looked at Alfred’s stomach. “And your abdomen doesn’t appear to be distended.”

  Alfred’s smile vanished. “Well, I . . . I . . . I . . . I . . .”

  “Maybe you spilled some of it.”

  “Yes sir, that’s it. I almost forgot.”

  “Or . . . ” Suddenly, with no warning, his eyes swung around and . . . yipes . . . came at me like bullets. “. . . maybe someone else took a drink.”

  Me? Hey, I knew nothing about this deal, almost nothing at all. And besides, dogs don’t drink lemonade. We drink water, plain water. Honest.

  There was a long throbbing moment of silence. Then Alfred gave me an elbow in the ribs. “Hankie, see what you did! Now you’ve ruined my business!” The boy swallowed hard and looked up at Mr. Wilkens. “My dog stuck his head into the pitcher and . . .” He covered his face with his hands. “I told you a big fat lie and now I can’t sell you any lemonade!”

  Alfred hid his face and I squirmed, as our new business went sliding toward the brink of bankrubble. I felt terrible, but don’t forget who’d told the fib. It wasn’t me. Okay, maybe I . . . never mind.

  Alfred peeked out between his fingers. “How did you know?”

  “Your dog has drops of lemonade on his face.”

  Huh? Drops? I sent the old tongue out to, uh, mop up the evidence. Slurp.

  Mr. Wilkens looked off in the distance. “There’s a lesson here, Alfred. Two lessons, actually. Lesson One: Never tell a lie. It’ll always come back to bite you. Lesson Two: If you just have to tell a windy tale, don’t tell it to a professional archeologist. Do you know why?”

  “No sir.”

  “Because, my boy, we are detectives. We have to draw conclusions from tiny bits of evidence, and very little escapes our notice.”

  Alfred nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  The man gave him a hard look. “Are you sorry that you got caught or sorry that you told a fib?”

  “I’m sorry I told a fib.”

  Mr. Wilkens clapped his hands together. “Good, that settles it. Now we can get on with our business. I’ll take the rest of your lemonade.”

  Alfred dropped his hands and stared at him. “But my dog . . .”

  “Son, in this heat, I wouldn’t care if your dog took a bath in it, as long as it’s wet and cold.” He went to his pickup and came back with a thermos bottle. “Fill ’er up. What do I owe you?”

  “You can just have it for free.”

  Mr. Wilkens reached for his wallet and came out with a bill. “How about five bucks? Will that cover your expenses?”

  Alfred’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “Five bucks! Hankie, we’re rich!” The boy took the money and waved it in the air.

  That was good news, all right. We’d saved the business and made a fortune in the lemonade market, but all at once I had lost interest in sudden wealth. You know why? Because my gaze had wandered over to the back of Mr. Wilkens’ pickup, and there, to my complete astonishment, I saw . . . you won’t believe this part, so hang on . . . I saw the most gorgeous lady dog I’d seen in weeks. Months. Years. My whole life.

  We’re talking about killer good looks, drop-dead good looks. Golden hair. Long dignified nose. Proud head. Deep brown eyes. Ears that seemed to flow like a frozen waterfall of sorghum syrup.

  WOW! You talk about eyes bugging out of your head! Fellers, my eyes popped out so far, I had to grab ’em out of the air and stuff ’em back where they belonged.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’m not the kind of dog who gets silly about the ladies, but this gal appeared to be something special and all at once, I lost all interest in the lemonade business. See, she was standing up in the back of the pickup and I was pretty sure that she was looking at . . . well, at ME, might as well come out and say it.

  In fact, she appeared to be staring at me, and we’re talking about eyes that shouted, “Oh dear, oh me, oh my! I’m looking at the handsomest, bravest dog in all of Texas!”

  Well, what can I say? I don’t go around advertising my charms, but she’d picked them up right away. In addition to being beautiful, she was obviously very intelligent. I needed to check this out.

  Chapter Seven: I Charm a Lady Dog from Boston

  I slipped away from the store and swaggered my big bad self over to the pickup. I didn’t speak right away. Instead, I marched around the pickup three times, sniffing the tires and, you know, giving her a chance to notice . . . well, my long cowdog nose, the rippling muscles in my enormous shoulders, the proud angle of my tail . . .

  After giving her a few minutes to check out the goods, so to speak, I stopped and let my eyes drift up to her. Then, in my most startling voice, I delivered my opening line. “Hi there.”

  This seemed to take her breath away, but she managed to say, “Hi.”

  “You, uh, live around here?”

 
; “Austin.”

  “That’s up north, right?”

  “South.”

  “I’d be the last one to argue with a lady, but I’m pretty sure it’s north of here.”

  “It’s south.”

  “Well, then, how do you explain all those lobsters?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Lobsters, ma’am. Austin is famous for its lobsters, and it’s common knowledge that lobsters live in cold northern waters. Therefore, you can’t possibly live south of here. I’m sorry to be so blunt but, well, facts are facts.”

  “We don’t have lobsters in Austin.”

  I had to chuckle. “Well, you might never have seen them unless you did a lot of exploring on the seashore.”

  “We don’t have a seashore.”

  “Of course you do. Austin is a very old and famous port city. Maybe you seen the sawshore but didn’t recognize it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said, maybe you shaw the she sore . . . maybe you saw the she shore . . . maybe you saw the seashore but didn’t recognize it. She shores have lots of water, sand, seaweed, jellyfish, and lobsters. Lobsters are red and have pinchers. Does any of that sound familiar?”

  She took a slow breath of air. “Maybe you’re thinking of Boston. I live in Austin. Austin is in Texas.”

  “It is?”

  “Austin is the capital of Texas. It’s exactly five hundred and fifty miles south of here.”

  “No kidding? And you don’t have lobsters in Austin?”

  She leaned toward me and, well, she seemed a little peeved. “We do not have lobsters.”

  I paced a few steps away and tried to gather my thoughts. “Ma’am, it’s becoming clear that we’ve gotten some bad information. This happens all the time. Our enemies are constantly trying to confuse us by planting corrupted data into our systems, so let me give you an update.” I whirled around and faced her. “Austin and Boston are two different places, even though their names rhyme, and you can forget about the Lobster Report. That was bogus information.”

  She stared at me for a long moment. “Who are you?”

  Heh heh. This was going great. Already she was begging to know my name.

  I gave her a bow wow. Wait, let me rephrase that. I gave her a bow, and wow, this was getting very interesting.

  “I figured you’d get around to my name. Heh heh. Hank the Cowdog, ma’am, Head of Ranch Security. You’re on my ranch and you have nothing to fear. You’re my guest and I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that your stay is safe and comfortable.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  “Think nothing of it, but now I must ask you a few questions.” I leaned in her direction, dropped my voice to a raspy whisper, and wiggled my eyebrows. “What’s your name?”

  “Saffron.”

  “My goodness, I’ve known thousands of lady dogs but I’ve never met one named . . . what was it again?”

  “Saffron. Saff-ron.”

  “Right. I’ve known Suzies and Saras and Sallies, but never a . . . what was it?”

  “Saffron!”

  “There we go. What kind of name is that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  I figured this might be a good time to inject a little humor, so I said, “It doesn’t mean ‘lobster,’ does it? Ha ha.”

  Yipes, maybe that was the wrong thing to say. Her nostrils flared out. “Will you please stop talking about lobsters!”

  “Okay, sorry. I was just . . . look, you have to admit that it’s an unusual name.”

  She shrugged. “I’m from Austin. What do you expect? Well, it was nice meeting you.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I thought you were leaving.”

  “Ha ha. Not at all, my lovely daffodil. This is your lucky day. I’ve got all the time in the world.”

  “Oh great.”

  I glanced over both shoulders. “What would you think if I, uh, leaped up into the pickup and sat beside you, hmm?”

  Her gaze drifted toward the horizon. “To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure what I would think.”

  “But it might be pretty exciting, huh? Maybe we ought to give it a try.” I went into the Deep Crouch Position and sprang upward with a mighty burst of . . . didn’t quite make it over the tailgate, but I’m no quitter. I hooked my front paws over the top and shifted both back legs into Scramble gear. “Don’t worry, I’ll be there in just a second.”

  “If you scratch my boss’s pickup . . .”

  “Here I come!” It would have been better if I hadn’t landed on top of her head. I knew that, but I went flying over the tailgate and . . . well, there she was. BAM! “Oops, sorry. Here, let me help you up.”

  She pushed me away. “Oaf! You almost broke my neck!” She picked herself off the floor and staggered toward the front. The thought that I had caused her some pain touched my heart and I rushed to her side. “Here, let me . . .”

  “AAAAAAA! Get off my tail!”

  “Did I step on your tail?”

  “Yes, you stepped on my tail!”

  “Ma’am, I’m terribly sorry, but I was so concerned about your neck . . .”

  “Get off my foot!”

  “Me? I stepped on your foot?”

  She backed herself into a corner and held up one paw. “Please! I’m fine, don’t try to help, don’t do anything. Just stay back.” She rolled her head around. Crack, pop, snap.

  “How’s the neck?”

  “It’s fine, everything’s fine.”

  “What a relief! You know, I landed pretty hard on top of your head.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Oh yes, I’m a big guy and I had some momentum built up. Listen, how about a poem?”

  She stared at me. “What?”

  “A poem. You know, sometimes when we’re not feeling our best, a poem can lift our spirits. And, well, I’m a pretty awesome poet.”

  “Maybe some other time.”

  “Okay, how about a few tricks? You ever see a dog do a back flip with a half-twist?”

  She rolled another kink out of her neck. “Listen, I know you mean well, but I really don’t have time for this. We’re doing an excavation at the lake and we need to get back to the site.”

  “You do arkansology? Wow, what a coincidence! You won’t believe this, my little sweet pea, but I am a genius at bones, and here’s a great idea.” I moved toward her.

  “No, please, don’t come any closer.”

  “Right, sorry. Anyway, I just had the greatest idea and you’re going to love this. How’s about if I . . .”

  “Hankie? Here Hankie, come on!”

  Huh? My ears had just picked up a message from Little Alfred, calling me back on duty. What lousy luck. I heaved a sigh and turned toward the lady of my dreams. “Ma’am, I have some terrible news. My outfit has just been reactivated. I must go.”

  “Good-bye.”

  “I know, I hate it, too, but when you’re Head of Ranch Security, you march to the drum of a different beet. But I want you to know that this time we’ve spent together has caused my heart to soar.”

  “Right. I’m sore all over.”

  “Exactly, but this won’t be our last time together. I have a feeling that we’ll meet again.”

  Wearing a cute little smile, she came to me and touched my cheek, causing a flash of electrical current to course through my entire body. Then, in a soft whisper, she said, “You know what? I have a feeling that we won’t.”

  My heart banged inside my chest as I moved closer and looked into the depths of her eyes. “My dearest, if it’s the last thing I ever do . . .”

  “Get off my foot!”

  Alfred’s voice tore through the silence. “Hankie, come on! Here, boy!”

  I snapped to attention. “They’re
calling me and I must leave, but I shall find you again, oh beloved, if it’s the last . . .”

  “Good-bye.”

  “. . . thing I ever do. Until we meet again . . . good-bye, Sardina!”

  I leaped out of the back of the pickup before she could call me back, before my heart could break into a hundred pieces. I mean, you talk about a sad farewell! It was a ripper and I didn’t dare look back. Why, the sight of her sobbing might have . . . I couldn’t even allow myself to think about it.

  Chapter Eight: A New Assignment

  Pretty emotional scene, huh? You bet. I’m not the kind of dog who loses his head around the womenfolk, but this gal had turned me wrong-side out, upside-down, backward, and every which way but loose.

  Who could forget those first words she’d said to me, as we looked into each other’s eyes: “Hi.” I would keep those words—well, that one word—forever locked away in the little cigar box of my heart.

  But I had been called back into service, and I had to put all those perfumed memories behind me. Holding my head at a stern professional angle, I marched away from the sobs of my Newly Beloved and set a course that would take me straight to Little Alfred.

  He was still standing beside the mailbox, beside Mr. Wilcox . . . Williams . . . whatever he called himself . . . Wilkens, there we go, Mr. Wilkens . . . and his eyes were shining with delight. Alfred’s eyes were shining with delight, that is. Mr. Wilkens’ eyes were . . . why was he staring at ME? Hey, I had washed my face and removed all traces of the lemonade, so maybe he could stare at somebody else for a while.

  Make one little mistake around here and they never let you forget it.

  I marched up to my little pal and gave him a stiff salute. “Reporting for duty, sir.”

  The boy seemed breathless with excitement. “Hankie, I get to go over to the lake and help Mr. Wilkens dig up an old house! We’re going to camp out and sleep in a tent!”

  Mr. Wilkens smiled. “Now, slow down, son. This is still in the planning stage. We have to get your mother’s permission and she might have other things for you to do. Let’s drive down to the house and see what she says.”