The Disappearance of Drover

by John R. Erickson

I stormed away from the little lunatic, went all the way to the back of the pickup bed, as far away from him as I could get. There, I sat down and tried to reorganize the scattered papers of my mind.

  You know, there are times when I think that Drover has some kind of dark, mysterious power that can turn a normal situation into a disaster. I’d seen it before and it had alarmed me, but this latest outburst really gave me a jolt. Somehow, through some kind of hickery . . . excuse me . . . through some kind of trickery, he had managed to turn my lecture into rubble.

  I mean, when your lecture on hiccups turns into a full-blown case of hiccups . . . fellers, that’s creepy. I had no idea how he’d pulled it off, but one thing became very clear to me. The Security Division had no place for a mutt who went around sowing the seeds of chaos.

  As of that very moment, Drover was off the payroll, fired. Not only was he off the force, but I would never speak to him ahick . . . speak to him again.

  It was a tough decision and it brought me no pleasure, but it had to be done. If we allow the forces of chaos to hick . . .

  This is ridiculous.

  Where were we? Oh yes, Drover had been court-martialed and dismissed from the force. I remained on my end of the pickup bed and he stayed on his end, and I didn’t even look at him. My hiccups went away and my life returned to normal. I was ready to settle down for a nice long nap . . . when I heard Drover’s voice.

  “I wonder how old Mom’s doing. I haven’t seen her in ages.” I ignored him but he kept yapping. “The livestock auction reminds me of her. She made me come here and apply for a dog-job. Boy, that was a flop. I knew it would be and tried to tell her, but she’d got it in her head that I needed a job.”

  I cracked my eyes and lifted my head. “Are you talking to someone in particular or just blabbering?”

  His gaze drifted down from the clouds. “Oh, hi. Did you just get here?”

  “No. I’ve been here since last night. I spent the night in this pickup. So did you.”

  “Oh yeah. Boy, time sure flies.”

  “I was trying to take a nap, but you started yapping.”

  “I did?”

  “Something about your mother.”

  A dreamy look came into his eyes. “Yeah, good old Mom. I wish I could go by and see her.”

  “Yes, but you can’t. Slim gave us strict orders to stay in the pickup. He’ll be penning cattle for hours.”

  “She always hoped I’d become a good little doggie.”

  I heaved a weary sigh, pushed myself up to a standing position, and walked over to him. “Hello? Is anybody home?”

  “Oh yeah, she never leaves her yard.”

  “Drover, snap out of it. You can’t visit your mother, and I can’t sleep while you’re blabbering. Lie down and be quiet. One more outburst and I’ll have to write you up.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “Thank you.” I returned to my spot and flopped down.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Drover, please hush.”

  At last he zipped his mouth, and I was able to grab a few winks of wonderful sleep. Don’t forget that I’d been up half the night fighting badgers, so my body was . . . We’ve already discussed that.

  For a solid hour, I slept like a rock, but then I was awakened by a crazy dream. I dreamed that Drover and I were in town, in the back of Slim’s pickup, and he hopped out and went to visit his mother.

  Ha ha. It’s funny how your mind plays tricks, isn’t it? The odds of Drover doing something like that were somewhere between zero and nothing. I mean, the guy was a complete scaredy-cat, and he knew that town could be a dangerous place: traffic, strangers, and stray dogs. Oh, and don’t forget the dogcatcher who snatched up unwary mutts and hauled them off to prison.

  Drover wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shop, but he had a natural allergy to anything that carried the slightest whiff of danger, so I woke up laughing at my own silly dream. “Hey Drover, you’ll never guess what I just dreamed. Ha ha. It’s the craziest thing you ever heard. I dreamed . . .”

  I blinked my eyes and glanced around. Unless my eyes were deceiving me, the pickup bed was empty . . . well, except for me. “Drover?” Nothing, not a sound. “Drover, return to base immediately, and that is a direct order! If you don’t report back in one minute, you will be AWOL.” Still not a sound. “Drover, this isn’t funny. I’m going to count to three, and you’d better be front and center when I get done.”

  I yelled out the count and by the time I got to “three,” the awful truth had begun to soak in. The little mutt had done the unthinkable, and all at once my dream didn’t seem nearly as crazy as it should have been. Little Drover was now running loose in a huge city, and it was just a matter of time until . . .

  Well, all I could say was “Good-bye, Drover, and good luck.” There wasn’t a thing I could do about it. He had disobeyed orders and made one of the dumbest decisions on record, and now he would have to live with the results.

  I was pretty sure it would be bad. I just hoped it wouldn’t be fatal.

  And so it was that I began preparing myself for Life Without Drover. It would be peaceful and free of many annoyances. I wouldn’t have to listen to him wheeze and yip in his sleep, send him to his room, or make him stand with his nose in the corner.

  I wouldn’t have to keep track of all his Chicken Marks or dig him out of his Secret Sanctuary in the machine shed.

  Scrap Time would be a much more pleasant occasion, without the usual bickering. I would get his share of scraps, and that would simplify everything.

  When I went into combat against coyotes, coons, badgers, bobcats, and night monsters, I would know for sure that he wouldn’t be there to back me up. (He never was, but I had always clung to the foolish belief that some day he might be.)

  And best of all, I would be spared the tiresome ordeal of hearing about his allergies, his “stobbed ub dose,” and his so-called bad leg.

  In other words, Life Without Drover wouldn’t be such a bad deal. I had a feeling that I could get along just fine without him.

  Chapter Seven: Life Without Drover

  Once I had worked through all the pluses and minuses of Life Without Drover, I felt great. The only problem was that the good feeling lasted only two minutes, and at that point the whole thing fell to pieces.

  I found myself standing face-to-face with an awful truth: I was worried sick about the little goof, and I had to go find him before he got beat up, run over, or thrown in jail.

  Was I happy about this turn of events? No. It made me so mad, I wanted to bite nails and log chains. I leaped out of the pickup, fully aware that I was disobeying Slim’s orders and that I was about to risk my career for someone who probably wasn’t worth it.

  But what’s a dog to do? We’re more than the sum of our particles, and even the Head of Ranch Security has feelings. I might have wished that I had invested my feelings more wisely, but I couldn’t get rid of them.

  Slim would be penning cattle until the auction was finished. It usually lasted until four o’clock in the afternoon. I had about three hours to find Drover and deliver him back to the pickup. If I failed . . . I didn’t even want to think about it.

  The moment my feet hit the ground, I began searching for tracks, and I found plenty of them—tire tracks, about ten thousand of them, coming from every direction and pressed into the dust of the parking lot.

  No luck there, and it appeared that this case would yield no hard evidence. I would have to rely on what we call Speculational Analysis. Without hard evidence, I would have to make an educated guess: if I were Drover, where would I go? And the answer that flashed across the screen of my mind was “To his mother’s yard.”

  See, we had received a tip from our secret sources that he hadn’t seen his ma in a while and wanted to pay her a visit. I’m not at liberty to discuss those sources, and I’m sure you’
ll understand why. If our enemies ever cracked our secret codes and figured out how we gather and process information, it could be very bad.

  But back to the point. I had reason to suppose that Drover had gone to visit his mother, but only a vague idea of where she lived—in a fenced yard, somewhere south of downtown. I was in the process of weighing my options when my keen eyes picked up an object of interest.

  A dog was sitting under a tree near the south door of the auction barn. It wasn’t Drover (wrong color and shape), but I figured he might have some information I could use.

  As I drew nearer, I realized that I knew the mutt. Hey, it was Dogpound Ralph! Remember him? He was the dogcatcher’s pet basset hound and lived in a special cell at the dog pound. Ralph and I had served time together when I was on Death Row and . . . well, a special bond develops between dogs who serve time together. I knew he would be thrilled to see me again.

  When I approached, he was staring at the auction barn with his big, sad basset eyes, while his huge ears flapped in the breeze. “Afternoon, Ralph. What are you doing, holding down that tree so it won’t blow away?”

  He gave me a glance. Maybe he didn’t recognize me. “No, somebody said they were going to have a parade. I thought I’d come watch.”

  “This is the livestock auction. They have parades on Main Street.”

  “That’s too far to walk.”

  “Oh. Well, I’ll sit down and we’ll watch it together.” I sat down beside him and we both stared out at the parking lot. A tumbleweed clattered across the space in front of us. “Hey, this is great. There’s something inspiring about a parade, isn’t there?”

  For a solid minute, he didn’t say anything, then his mournful eyes swung around. “That ain’t a parade, it’s a weed.”

  “Well, it’s a nice weed.”

  “Are you trying to be funny?”

  “Yes, Ralph, I admit it. I thought a little humor might liven things up, but maybe I was wrong.”

  “Well, it ain’t funny to me. I went to all the trouble to get here, and I think I missed the parade.”

  “You did, Ralph. They had it on Main Street about an hour ago.”

  “How’d you know my name?”

  “I know your name because we served time together on Death Row.”

  He gave me a closer look. “Oh yeah, you’re Texie, right?”

  “I’m not Texie.”

  “Huh. Noodle?”

  “Hey, Ralph, you and I have a long history. We went on a Fling together, remember? You taught me all sorts of bad habits and got me arrested by the dogcatcher.”

  “I did? Huh. It don’t ring any bells.”

  My temper was beginning to rise. “You know, Ralph, I thought we had a special friendship, but I guess I was wrong. Sorry I bothered you. Good-bye.”

  I started to leave but he said, “Oh, don’t get your nose out of joint. Tell me your name one more time.”

  “Hank the Cowdog. I’m Head of Ranch Security on a huge outfit south of town.”

  “Oh yeah, it’s starting to come back now.” A little flicker of mischief appeared in his eyes and he grinned. “You want to go on another Fling?”

  “Absolutely not. I’m here on important business.”

  His smile faded. “Darn. I haven’t done anything naughty in three months.” He yawned. “What’s the important business?”

  “I’m on a mission to find a dog named Drover.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Small, short-haired, stub-tailed little mutt.”

  “Oh yeah, him.”

  “You saw him? Today?”

  “I think it was today. Hold on a second.” He hiked up his right hind leg and scratched his right ear. “Sorry, I had to scratch.”

  “I noticed.”

  “I’ve got big ears, and when they itch, boy, do they itch.”

  “So you saw Drover, today?”

  “I guess it was him. He sat right there where you’re sitting for, oh, half an hour. We missed the parade together.”

  “Did he talk?”

  “Oh yeah, talked my ear off.”

  “About what? Be specific.”

  “Butterflies. He said he likes to chase ’em.”

  “It was Drover.” I rose to my feet and began pacing. I could see that getting information out of Ralph wasn’t going to be easy. “Ralph, I need facts and details. Did he say anything about his mother?”

  “Yeah, he said he had one.”

  “Yes, yes? What else?”

  He yawned again. “Well, I told him I had one, too.”

  I whirled around and stuck my nose in his face. “Ralph, I don’t care about your mother. I’m working a case and you’re making it very difficult.”

  “You’re too pushy.”

  “Ralph, in my line of work, they don’t give awards to nice guys. I’m pushy because I have to be.”

  “You’re still too pushy.”

  “Too bad. Okay, you and Drover sat here and waited for a parade that didn’t happen. You talked about butterflies, then he left, right? I mean, he doesn’t seem to be here now.”

  Ralph glanced around. “I guess he did. Seemed like a nice little pooch.”

  “He’s a nice little lunatic. Where did he go?”

  “Well . . . ’scuse me a second.” He hiked up his back leg and hacked at his ear again. “That thing won’t leave me alone.”

  “Where did he go, Ralph?”

  “Who?”

  “Drover, the nice little lunatic who was talking about butterflies.”

  He stared at me for a long time. “Hey, I remember you now. You ate a bar of soap, and Jimmy Joe thought you had hydrophobia. Heh heh. Have you ate any soap lately?”

  I paced a few steps away from him and looked up at the sky. I didn’t want to scream at him, but he was about to drive me nuts. “Ralph, I know this is hard, but you must concentrate. Don’t talk about soap or parades or your mother. Think back. When Drover left, did he say where he was going?”

  Ralph scowled and rolled his eyes around. This time, at last, he seemed to be concentrating. “Yes, he did, sure did.”

  “Great. That’s all I need to know. Where did he go?”

  “Well sir, that’s the part I don’t remember. I think I nodded off to sleep, and next thing I knew, you showed up.”

  The air hissed out of my lungs as I stood there, looking down at this nincompoop of a dog. “Ralph, I have spent my whole career interrogating witnesses. Some of those interrogations were good and some were bad, but you’ve set a new record for . . .”

  His ears shot up. “Wait. I just remembered something. He went off to the south . . . and he was follered by two bad-looking dogs.”

  Those words hung in the air between us. Two bad-looking dogs? Uh-oh, unless I was badly mistaken, Drover was being stalked by Buster and Muggs.

  I rushed back to the spot where Ralph was sitting. “Ralph, that is very important information. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “Oh, didn’t think of it, I guess.”

  “We don’t have much time. If those two thugs get hold of him . . .”

  All at once my nostrils picked up the smell of steak fumes. What are steak fumes? They’re the odor, the powerful odor that fills the air when somebody is cooking steaks on an outdoor grill.

  Steak Fumity is one of several forces in the universe that are very predictable. Gravity causes a rubber ball to fall to the earth. Ungravity causes it to bounce back toward the moon, and Steak Fumity will snap a dog’s head around and get his attention. These forces never change, and we even have mathematical equations that describe them. You want to take a peek at our equation for Steak Fumity? Okay, pay attention. We don’t have all day.

  S+Fr x 2(HD) = Fm + SL

  Pretty impressive, huh? You bet. Do we need to go over the term
s and explain them in everyday language? Maybe so. Okay, S is the mathematical symbol for Steak, and Fr means fire. HD is Hungry Dog, and when we multiply it by two, it doubles the value, making it Very Hungry Dog. Fm stands for Fumes, and SL is the scientific term for Steak Lust.

  So there you have it: Steak plus Fire times Very Hungry Dog equals Fumes plus Steak Lust. See, that wasn’t so bad, was it? I get a kick out of playing around with Heavy Duty Mathematics. Most of your ordinary mutts sit around scratching fleas and figuring out new ways of saying “Duh.” Me? In my spare moments, I’m doing algebra and clackulus.

  Anyway, my nostrils were picking up powerful waves of Steak Fumity and fellers, those smells will focus a dog’s mind—not once in a while but every time. My body turned like the needle in a haystack . . . the needle on a compass, let us say, toward a plume of smoke about fifty yards away.

  In a low voice, I murmured, “Ralph, this case has taken a new direction. Someone is broiling steaks over there, and we need to check it out.”

  And as if by magic, my feet began carrying the rest of me toward the source of the delicious fumes.

  Chapter Eight: A Cowboy Cook

  See, the livestock auction had a little café, and every Wednesday during the sale, they served lunch. I’d heard Slim talking about their homemade cherry pie. As I recall, what he said was “It’s even better than mine.” I think that was some kind of joke, since he’d never made a pie in his whole life, and if he ever did, nobody would eat it. I sure wouldn’t.

  The café also served burgers and steaks, and it appeared that someone was cooking them on an outdoor barbecue grill near the back door of the café. That was the source of the steak fumes and that’s where my legs were taking me, straight toward the cloud of white smoke that combined the delicious smells of mesquite coals and broiling meat.

  Sniff sniff slurp.

  Fifty feet away, my mouth began to water as my mind projected pictures of hunks of beef hissing over a bed of glowing mesquite coals. The pictures were so vivid, I tried to snatch one of the steaks, but, well, pretty pictures in the mind are pretty empty and a guy finds himself biting thin air, is what happens. That’s not the sort of thing you want to do in public, go around trying to snap steak-mirages out of the air.