The Case of the Three Rings

by John R. Erickson

  Yes, I knew that but…well, I really wanted to go with him and I was pretty sure that, deep in his heart, he wanted me to go too.

  He picked up a big rock and threw it with all his might. It missed me but did something to his back. He started walking like…I don’t know, like a crab or something, and screamed, “Now look what you’ve done!”

  Well, I was sorry he’d hurt his back, but maybe he should stop throwing rocks at his dog.

  He rubbed his back, shook his head, kicked a weed, rolled his eyes up to the sky, opened the door, and pointed inside. “Get in here!”

  Oh happy day! I dashed to the pickup and leaped inside, taking my usual place of honor beside the shotgun-side window.

  You’d have to say that the atmosphere inside the cab was a little frosty for the first two miles. Slim’s glare went back and forth, from the road to me, and I could hear him fuming under his breath. I knew he would find his voice eventually and that I would have to listen to him gripe and roar. Sure enough…

  “One of these days, pooch, you’re going to pull that trick and I ain’t going to stop. You’ll follow me five miles and get tired, and then you’ll be lost, and I won’t go looking for your sorry hide. You know what I’ll do?”

  Uh…no.

  “I’ll celebrate! Yes sir, I’ll invite all the neighbors and cook a goat, and after we’re done eating, I’ll stand up on a chair and make a speech. I’ll say, ‘I’m proud y’all could come and help me celebrate this happy occasion, ‘cause today I have got rid of a dog that wasn’t worth eight eggs.’”

  He snapped his head at me, then went back to his main job, keeping the pickup out of the ditches.

  Well, he’d vented his spleen, all right, and it had sounded pretty stern, but I knew something about Slim that he didn’t know about himself. An hour later, he would have forgotten the whole thing and he’d be glad to have me along.

  I’m not saying that a dog should make a habit of being disobedient or that it’s a good pattern to establish. It’s not. All I’m saying is that sometimes our people don’t know what’s good for them, and a dog has to…well, take charge.

  So off we went to Uncle Johnny’s place. He lived up on the flat country, about fifteen or twenty miles northwest of our ranch. Most of the snow we’d gotten on Christmas day had melted off, leaving just a few drifts in the ditches.

  Uncle Johnny and his wife Marybelle had a tidy place that consisted of a small white house, a steel round-top barn, and a set of working corrals. We turned off the highway and drove down a lane with barbed wire fences on both sides.

  Uncle Johnny, you might recall, was Sally May’s uncle, a small, feisty man who carried some age, maybe seventy years or more. When we got there, he was sitting in an old flatbed pickup, smoking a pipe and reading the Twitchell newspaper.

  Slim got out of the pickup and gave me a glare. “If I let you out, can you act halfway civilized?”

  Oh yes sir, no problem. I was honored to be there and sure didn’t want to be a burden.

  “Okay, get out and try not to act your IQ. If they’ve got any chickens, buddy, you’d better leave ‘em alone. Aunt Marybelle might not be as soft-hearted as I am.”

  Yes sir. I hopped out and switched all circuits over to Perfect Dog.

  Slim walked over to Johnny’s pickup, his spurs jingling on the gravel. They exchanged greetings and talked about the weather and the price of feed. Then Slim said, “Johnny, before we get started, I want you to know that I have to be gone from here at three o’clock. I’ve got a meeting tonight and can’t be late.”

  Johnny folded up the paper and pitched it up on the dashboard. “Who has meetings on New Year’s eve?”

  “It don’t matter. The point is, I have someplace to go.”

  Johnny chuckled and gave Slim a sideways glance. “What’s her name?”

  “Yankee Doodle Dandy. Now, what’s this job I’m supposed to help you with? Loper said something about a calf.”

  Johnny nodded and pointed the stem of his pipe to the north. “Bull calf found a hole in the fence and went neighboring. I see you brought a horse.”

  “That’s what the boss said to do.”

  “We won’t need a horse. This calf’s as gentle as a pup. We call him Winkie. I raised him on a bottle and he’s kind of a pet. We can show him a feed sack and he’ll follow us all the way home. Get in, we’ll take my pickup.”

  “What about Hank? I didn’t invite him but he came anyway.”

  Uncle Johnny looked down at me and smiled. “Bring him. We like dogs around here. He can ride up front with us.” And off we went to find Winkie.

  Chapter Five: We Lock Winkie In The Barn

  We had driven a mile to the north, when Johnny stopped the pickup and pointed to a herd of black cows in a pasture. “There he is, the brown one.”

  Slim squinted his eyes and studied the cattle. “Hey Johnny, that’s not a calf. He’s bigger than the cows.”

  “Yes, well, Winkie grew up. When you bottle-feed ‘em twice a day, you don’t notice.”

  “Uh huh. Well, you’re right, Winkie grew up.” Slim leaned forward and took a closer look. “Hey Johnny, that thing looks like…a buffalo!”

  “Oh yes, he’s my pet buffalo. Loper didn’t tell you?”

  For a moment, Slim seemed lost in thought. “I’m sure it just slipped his mind. So we’re fixing to gather a full-grown buffalo bull, is that right?”

  “Well, he’s only two years old and still has some growing to do.”

  “But he weighs about fifteen hundred pounds and has a real big set of horns.”

  Johnny swatted the air with his hand. “Oh, don’t worry about them horns. He never uses ‘em for anything but scratching at flies.”

  Slim stared off into the distance. “I just figured out how come Loper was so anxious to feed cows today.”

  Uncle Johnny pointed to a wire gate. “Open that gate and leave it open. We’ll be coming back this way.” He must have noticed that Slim’s expression had soured. “Now Slim, don’t fret. This won’t take long, and it’ll be easy as pie. You’ll see.”

  Slim opened the gate and we drove north to the herd of cows—and got a good look at Winkie. He might have been “a cute little bottle calf” at one time, but what we saw was a shaggy beast with a huge head, a hump in his back, a set of sharp horns, and a pair of deep black eyes that were looking us over when we came to a stop.

  Uncle Johnny glowed with pride. “That’s my Winkie. Watch this.” He got out of the pickup and held out two pellets of feed in the palm of his hand. Winkie lumbered over, sniffed his hand, and ate the feed. Johnny laughed. “What do you say now, Slim? Didn’t I tell you?”

  Slim said nothing, but I could see that he wasn’t convinced. Neither was I.

  Uncle Johnny told Slim to drive the pickup back to the house, while Johnny sat on the tail gate and held out cubes of feed. Sure enough, Winkie trotted along behind us, through the wire gate, down a mile of dirt road, and all the way back to Uncle Johnny’s corral.

  An hour after we’d arrived, Uncle Johnny’s pet buffalo was standing in the corral, munching cubes of feed and swishing his short tail. Uncle Johnny was tickled. He rubbed his hands together and said, “Now, wasn’t that easy?”

  “Yes sir. In fact, it was so easy, it makes me wonder how come you needed me.”

  “Well, I needed someone to open the gate and drive the pickup.” He frowned and pulled on his ear. “And sometimes Winkie don’t like to stay penned up.”

  Slim stared at him. “Oh really?”

  At that very moment, we heard a crash behind us. We all turned toward the sound and saw that Winkie had just built a new gate in Johnny’s corral—he’d jumped into the middle of a panel made of tube steel and had left an impression of his body in the two top rails. In other words, he’d pretty well destroyed a steel panel, and he’d done it without much
effort.

  And now he was trotting north down the road, going right back to the pasture where we’d found him. Johnny wagged his head. “I never dreamed he’d do that twice in a row.”

  “He did it before?”

  “Oh yeah, that’s how he got with those cows.”

  “I thought you said he ‘went through the fence’. You didn’t mention that he wrecked it.”

  Johnny shook his head. “He was always such a nice calf. I never dreamed…I guess he just don’t like being in a pen.”

  “I guess he don’t. Now what?”

  Uncle Johnny rubbed his chin and gave it some thought. “Well sir, my neighbor sure wants Winkie out of that pasture. I mean, the man is seriously upset. We may need to use that horse after all.”

  “Johnny, this might sound like a dumb question, but if we get Winkie penned again, what’s to keep him from going over the corral fence again?”

  Johnny grinned and tapped himself on the temple. “I’ve already got that covered. This time, we’ll put him in the barn and close the door.”

  Slim grunted and checked the angle of the sun. “What time is it?”

  Uncle Johnny squinted at his watch. “I don’t have my glasses.”

  Slim grabbed his wrist and looked at the watch. “It’s one o’clock. At three, I’m gone. Let’s get this done.”

  And with that, we all loaded into Slim’s pickup-trailer rig and drove north, following the elusive Winkie.

  We arrived at the pasture where the cows were grazing, just in time to see Winkie jump over the neighbor’s barbed wire fence, and we’re talking about a flat-footed jump without any kind of a running start. One second, he was sniffing the five-wire fence and the next second, he was on the other side, trotting toward the cows. And he didn’t even touch the top wire.

  Uncle Johnny smiled. “It’s kind of amazing, how he can do that.”

  “Yes it is, and Johnny, it brings to mind a question.” Slim gave him a hard look. “What in the world are you doing, trying to keep an animal that can flatfoot a five-wire fence? There ain’t a fence in the whole Panhandle that could turn Winkie, if he didn’t want to be turned.”

  Johnny heaved a sigh. “Well sir…I’m attached to him and can’t bear the thought of giving him up.”

  Slim shook his head and gazed out the window. “Well, what’s your plan this time?”

  Johnny gave that some heavy thought. “Unload your horse and ride around behind him. Maybe you can ease him away from the cows. I’ll drive the pickup and honk the horn. With me in front and you behind, maybe we can steer him back home.”

  “Should I take the dog?”

  Johnny’s eyes popped wide open. “Oh no, don’t show him a dog. Winkie don’t like dogs at all. I mean, he goes nuts around a dog.”

  Yipes. Well, that was good to know, and it didn’t even hurt my feelings, seeing as how I didn’t have any use for a buffalo. Winkie and I would get along just fine, with me in the pickup and him outside.

  Johnny opened the wire gate and we drove out into the pasture, where Winkie had rejoined the cows. Slim unloaded his horse, tightened the cinches, stepped up into the saddle, and rode north in a trot.

  Once in the herd, he slowed to a walk and went to work. Uncle Johnny and I watched him. Slim was good at this and had a soft touch with livestock. He eased his horse through the herd, never got out of a long walk and didn’t get the cattle stirred up. One by one, he eased the cows out of the herd and pushed them north, until Winkie was all by himself.

  That’s when Slim’s horse took a closer look at the animal he was about to drive back to the barn. When he caught a whiff of Winkie’s scent, he snorted and tried to quit the country. I mean, he was no dummy and he knew that shaggy thing wasn’t a normal cow. Slim had to calm him down and do some persuading with his spurs.

  Then he raised his right hand and made a circular motion. It meant, “Roll ‘em!” Johnny started the pickup, honked the horn, and we drove south, back to the barn, watching Slim and the buffalo in the side mirror. Winkie trotted along behind us, with Slim bringing up the rear, just in case Winkie got any funny ideas.

  Johnny nodded and smiled. “Now, that’s how it’s done. Old Slim makes a hand.” His gaze landed on me. “I just wonder who he’s got a date with tonight. I’d pay five dollars to know, but he’ll never tell. I’ll bet it’s old Woodrow’s daughter, you reckon?”

  I gave him a blank stare and thumped my tail on the seat. Hey, if Slim wasn’t talking, neither was I. We dogs know how to keep a secret—and believe me, we have plenty of them. If dogs wrote the history books…well, never mind, but it would make pretty interesting reading, and it would raise a lot of eyebrows.

  That drive back to the barn was long and slow. We crept along at about five miles an hour, but at last we made it to the lane. Johnny kept a close watch in the side mirror and when he saw that Slim and the buffalo had gotten into the lane, he sped up and parked in front of the barn.

  When he stepped out, he leaned into the open window and gave me a hard glare. “You stay inside, Shep. We don’t need any wrecks.”

  Well, sure, and neither did I. I had plenty of things to do without getting crossways with a buffalo.

  Johnny hurried into the barn and came out with a bale of hay. He cut the twine and scattered the hay in a line from outside the barn, through the big overhead door, and then inside. By that time, Slim had arrived with Winkie, and right away the buffalo caught a whiff of the hay.

  Johnny called him, making a cattle call: “Wooooo! Come on, son, come to feed, fresh bright alfalfa.”

  The buffalo went to the hay and started eating. Uncle Johnny eased toward the beast and patted him on the shoulder, then flashed a grin at Slim. “He’s big but he’s just some old cow’s calf. Well, that’s it, we’ve closed the deal. You hold him here. I’ll park your rig at the end of the lane, block the road, see, just in case he tries to go back to the cows.”

  Slim nodded that he understood the plan. Johnny drove the pickup north and parked it sideways in the road, blocking it to all traffic. Once again, he told me to stay in the pickup. Maybe he thought I wasn’t smart enough to remember that he’d already told me that.

  Of course I would stay in the pickup! When my life gets so dull that I need some excitement, I’ll chew on an electric wire. I WON’T parade myself in front of a buffalo bull that hates dogs. Sometimes these people…oh well.

  Johnny hiked back to the barn, and together, he and Slim eased Winkie through the overhead door and into the barn. Johnny pulled on a rope that was attached to the door and it came sliding down. He turned a handle that locked it in place, brushed his hands together, and beamed a smile at Slim, who was still ahorseback.

  “There it is, Slimbo, that’s how you gather a buffalo.”

  Well! We had finished our job. Winkie was safe in the barn, I was alone in the pickup, and my reason for staying cooped up had just expired. See, I’d been in there a long time and all at once I had begun to notice…well, “the call of nature,” as Slim would say.

  Uncle Johnny had been kind enough to leave the window down on the driver’s side, so I hopped up on the window ledge, balanced myself for a few seconds, and made a graceful dive to the ground.

  There, I made a dash to the left front tire and gave it a thorough sniffing. While I worked, I listened to the men talking in the distance. They were fifty yards away, but I could hear their voices as clear as a bell.

  Uncle Johnny said, “Didn’t I tell you it would be easy as pie?”

  “I admit I had some doubts.”

  “With buffalo, it’s all about how you approach ‘em. You can’t crowd ‘em, see, ‘cause when a buffalo don’t want to be somewhere, he won’t be there for long.”

  “I see,” said Slim. “And how do they feel about barns?”

  “Slim, as long as I keep hay and water in there…”

&nb
sp; I didn’t hear the rest of Uncle Johnny’s Lesson on Buffaloes, and neither did anyone else, because at that very moment, his voice got lost in a loud CRASH. It was so loud, I jumped two feet in the air and, well, sent Secret Encoding Fluid spraying in all directions.

  I whirled around, looked toward the barn, and witnessed an incredible spectacle.

  Chapter Six: Maybe I Shouldn’t Have Barked

  Something large, brown, and shaggy had just walked out of the barn, and it appeared to be WEARING HALF OF THE BARN DOOR ON HIS HEAD!

  Have you figured it out? That was Winkie, Uncle Johnny’s pet buffalo, and I guess he didn’t like staying in the barn. He’d walked right through the overhead door and had a big section of sheet metal skewered on his horns. He was as blind as a bat and tossing his head to get rid of the piece of the door that was stuck to his horns.

  But that was only the first part of the drama. The second part was…can you imagine what a young horse would think if he saw a buffalo clanking around with a barn door on his head?

  Socks was pretty calm by nature and had a nice, quiet disposition under ordinary circumstances, but he got over that real quick. When he saw Winkie clanking around and coming towards him, he lost his mind. His ears shot up, his eyes bugged out, he snorted and ran sideways, flattened Aunt Marybelle’s yard fence, and went to bucking like a National Finals bronc—through the yard and around the house.

  Well, you know me. When my cowboy gets caught in a storm, I don’t just stand around looking simple. I hit Turbo Six and went streaking up the road to the barn, but you’ll be proud to know that I didn’t bark. See, when a horse blows up, a barking dog very seldom helps the situation.

  Oh, and don’t forget what Uncle Johnny had said: Winkie wasn’t fond of dogs, so I, uh, felt this would be a good time to keep silent.

  Anyway, Socks bucked across the front lawn and was heading round the south side of the house. The front door flew open and out stepped Aunt Marybelle, Uncle Johnny’s wife. She stared in open-mouth amazement and let out a scream. “Slim Chance, get that horse out of my yard!” Then a look of horror came over her face. “Slim, watch out for the clothesline!”