“Oh shucks. Well, if you’ve got a case of puppy love, what do you do about it?”
I gave that some thought. “Suffer, I think. Suffer quietly. But that’s not so bad, Drover, because it’s a well-known fact that suffering builds character.”
“No fooling?”
“That’s right. As odd as it may sound, the more you suffer, the stronger you become.”
“So if I suffer for a couple of hours, maybe I’ll be ready for Beulah?”
“Uh . . . no. These things take weeks, sometimes months. Your assignment is to suffer quietly, build up your character, stay out of my way, and basically shut up. Can you handle that?”
“Well,” he scratched his ear, “if I can remember all of that. Let’s see: The suffering you are, the character it hurts. Did I get it right?”
“Close enough, Drover. We can’t expect perfection the first day. Come on, let’s make tracks. There’s a certain woman down the creek who’s waiting for her life to begin.”
We followed the creek for another half-mile or so, until we came to the water gap. We slithered under the bottom wire and came out on Beulah’s ranch.
“Hold it right here,” I said. “Take a deep breath, Drover. Don’t you think the air smells sweeter and more excruciating over here?”
Drover put his nose up in the air and filled his lungs. Then he started coughing. “Oh my gosh, Hank, something’s dead around here!”
“What?” I tested the wind and smelled nothing. “You must be mistaken, Drover. I’m not picking up a thing.”
“You can’t smell that? It must be a dead horse. It’s awful!”
“Hmm. All right, we’ll mark this spot with an X and start walking in opposite directions, making a large circle. This may turn out to be something routine, or . . . it could be the first clue in the Case of the Dead Horse. Let’s move out, and call out your readings every now and then.”
We put our tails together over the X, and on my command, we began marching in opposite directions. Funny, I still wasn’t getting a reading on my smellometer, but every now and then I would hear Drover call out, “It’s getting weaker!”
I couldn’t ignore the possibility that Drover was getting a false reading because of his sinus problem, but in this business you have to follow up every lead—even the ones Drover comes up with.
Each of us walked out a semicircle, and before long we were moving toward each other. I was still drawing a blank, but Drover began picking up signals again. “It’s getting stronger, Hank. Stronger. Stronger. Pew!”
We met and I marked another X in the ground. “All right, Drover, we’ve established the two points of discombobulation. We’ll call this X Point Baker and the other one Point Abel.”
“Okay.”
“We’ll draw an imaginary line of intersection between the two points.”
“Okay.”
“And we’ll concentrate our search between Point Abel and Point Baker. I have a feeling that this is going to lead to a very surprising discovery. We could have a murder on our hands.”
“Oh my gosh!”
“Now, if my calculations are correct, all we have to do is find the midpoint between the two X’s, and there, Drover, we will find the murder victim. Let’s go.”
We moved out in a straight line, running our sensory equipment at full capacity and checking behind every weed and bush. When we reached the midpoint, I called a halt.
“This is it, Drover,” I whispered. “Are you still getting the signals?”
“Gosh yes! But Hank . . .” He rolled his eyes around. “I think it’s a dead skunk.”
“Ah ha! Now we’re getting somewhere. I had my doubts about that dead horse business all along. It just didn’t fit. Now listen very carefully to your instructions. Close your eyes and turn your head in a full circle.”
“I don’t think it’ll go in a full circle, Hank. It starts hanging up about halfway around.”
“Then turn your entire body, just whatever works. When you get the strongest reading, stop and hold your position. Ready? Go.”
He closed his eyes and started turning in a circle. “Hank, I’m getting dizzy.”
“Tough it out, son. There could be a promotion in this thing if you can crack the case.”
“Okay, I’ll do my best.”
“Your best is the very least you can do, Drover.”
He turned in a full circle and stopped. “There it is, Hank! It’s right here in front of my nose!”
“You’re pointing at me, you dunce. Somehow you’ve managed to bungle another . . .” Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle began fitting together. “Wait a minute. Did you say you were picking up dead skunk signals?”
“Yeah. That’s got to be what it is, Hank, because nothing smells deader or skunkier than a dead skunk.”
“Okay, relax. I’ve got it worked out.” I told him about how Rip and Snort and I had rolled on the skunk. “So once again, you’ve wasted our valuable time and made a mockery of serious detective work.”
“Well . . .”
“Dead horse!”
“Well . . .”
“The trouble with you, Drover, is that you’re wrong only ninety-five percent of the time. If you were more consistent, I could ignore everything you say.”
“Okay, Hank, but I . . .”
“As it is, I get duped every now and then, and the result is always the same: You end up making a fool of yourself. I’m telling you this for your own good.”
“I appreciate it, Hank.”
“Come on, let’s move on to the romance department.”
“Are you going to bathe first? You don’t smell too good.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Drover, you have missed the entire point. The fragrance of dead skunk is an ancient love potion, known only to tribes of wild coyotes.”
“I sure didn’t know that.”
“Nobody expected you to, son. What you don’t know about women would fill several large holes.”
He looked up at the clouds. “Sure glad you’re not courting me.”
“That makes two of us, Drover.”
Chapter Ten: The Perfume Flunks Out, but All Is Not Lost
We traveled in silence, following the creek past those high bluffs just east of the water gap, around the big horseshoe bend, and through a place where the bottom had grown up in willows and small cottonwoods.
I noticed that Drover stayed upwind from me and kept his distance. That just goes to show what a crude instrument his nose was. He couldn’t appreciate the coyote love potion, which was fine because it wasn’t meant for jugheads like him.
Around noon, I altered course and turned south. We made our way through the underbrush and came out just below the ranch house, a long cement building with a flat roof.
It was a good thing that I had already disposed of Rufus. Otherwise I would have been challenged at this point and would have been forced to whip the ranch’s number one guard dog—not an impossible feat, by any means, but it would have distracted me from my primary mission.
Up ahead, in a wide grassy flat, I saw a dog. My heart leaped with joy—until I realized it as Plato, not Beulah. It appeared that he was out practicing his bird stuff—pointing, I guess they call it.
He was creeping through some tall grass, had his nose stuck out on one end and that long tail of his stuck out on the other, and he was paying no attention to ranch security.
I decided to give him a little thrill. I gave Drover the sign for “shut up and stay behind me” and we started sneaking up behind the bird watcher. Plato had just gone into his point and froze, with his tail throwed out like a stick, his ears cocked, and one front leg up in the air, when I walked up behind him.
“CHIRP!”
“Ahhhhhheeee!” His point fell apart, he flew in five different directions at once, squal
led, and barked once as he headed for the house. He’d sprinted about fifteen yards when he figgered it all out, and then he came back.
“Oh, thank heaven it was you, Hank!”
“What did you think it was, a giant bird?”
“That thought did cross my mind, but my main concern was that Rufus might have come back on the place. He’s an awful brute and often torments me when I’m out . . .” He lifted his nose and sniffed the air. “Do you fellows smell something dead? Or is it a skunk?”
“It’s Hank,” said Drover. “He’s wearing some new perfume ’cause he came over here to . . .”
“I’ll do the talking, Drover. You work on suffering.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Well, thank heaven it’s not a skunk,” said Plato. “I simply refuse to get involved with those things and yet I feel so guilty when one comes on the place. Do you see my point?”
“Where’s Beulah?”
“I beg your pardon? Oh, Beulah. Yes, I know where she is, but in all candor, Hank, I’m not sure . . .”
I showed him some fangs and let a growl rumble up from my throat. “Where is she?”
“Do I hear you saying that you want to see Beulah, is that it? My only point is that she might not want to see you, Hank, I’m sure you . . .” I growled again, louder this time. “Okay, I think we understand each other. You’ll find her over by that big elm tree.”
“Thanks.”
“But I hope you’ll try to understand my position, Hank.”
I started walking off, but then I stopped. “Exactly what is your position?”
“Well, briefly stated, Hank, and taking it one point at a time: number one, it appears to me that . . .”
“Never mind. We’ll study on that some other time.”
“That’s fine, Hank. I’ll be over here working out and if there’s anything I can do, just let me know.”
Plato went back to his bird-pointing and I headed for the elm tree. All at once I noticed that Drover was following me.
I told him to scram and go work on his character development.
“Oh Hank, just let me go over and say hello to Beulah.”
“Promise you won’t make a spectacle of yourself? You’ll say hello and then get lost?” He promised. “Okay, just this once.”
We trotted over to the tree. I didn’t see her at first, but then there she was, over on the shady side, and mercy, my poor heart went off like a string of firecrackers! There was that fine collie nose, the perfect ears, the small brown eyes, the soft breeze blowing her flaxen hair.
I had to stop a minute to rest, and Drover, dang his soul, went streaking over to her. He started jumping up and down and spinning in circles.
“Hi Beulah, gosh you’re so pretty I can hardly stand it, I came all the way over here just to see you, I think I’m in love with you and if you think you might love me . . .”
It only took me a few seconds to restore order, once I got there, but by then the damage had already been done. Drover had made a fool of himself, and naturally that was a reflection on me. I growled him off and sent him on his way.
Then I turned to the lady of my dreams. “Hi, Beulah.”
“Hello, Hank.” Our eyes met and I knew that the old magic was still there. And in that honey-smooth voice of hers, Beulah said, “He’s cute, isn’t he?”
“Huh?”
“Drover’s such a darling little . . .” Her eyes widened. She lifted her nose and moved her head in a half-circle. “Do you smell something?”
Heh, heh. I had her now. She would be putty in my hands.
“Yes, Beulah, and I can reveal its source. What you smell is an exotic love potion, known only to the wild coyote tribes and passed down from generation to generation since the dawn of time. Risking death and fates too horrible to mention in polite company, I stole the secret formula from a band of savage coyotes—and Beulah, I did it just for you.”
“Oh Hank, you,” she moved upwind, “you shouldn’t have done that. Why, you might have been . . .”
“Killed? Maimed?” I moved upwind. “Dear lady, to die in your service would be an honor of which I am unworthy of which.”
She scooted around upwind. Guess she was afraid of being overwhelmed. “But honestly, Hank, fighting coyotes! Why, they’re very . . .”
“Dangerous? Deadly? Ferocious? Yes, my lady, all of those things.” I slipped around upwind. “But with the memory of your lovely face etched on my heart, my only fear of death is that I might not see you again.”
“Oh Hank, you do carry on, don’t you?” She moved upwind.
“Yes, my dear lady. It isn’t my usual nature to be loving and poetic.” I moved upwind. “As you very well know, my years of combat and detective work have given me the outward appearance of steel, but beneath that shell of armor lie the gentler emotions known to ordinary dogs.”
She got up and moved upwind. “Hank, are you feeling all right? You don’t have a fever, do you?”
“Yes, I have a fever, Lady Fair, and I admit it without shame.” I moved upwind. I mean, I had to give that perfume a chance to do its stuff. “It’s a fever of the heart, and some people would even describe it as . . . LOVE!”
“Oh my, how . . . nice. But Hank, I must admit something to you.” She got up and moved.
“I know what you’re going to say, my petunia. How many tortured nights have I spent dreaming of the time you would say those words to me? Ach, there’s no pain to compare with the ache of unblemished love!”
She moved upwind. “Hank, I don’t know how to say this.”
“Yes, my tulip, I have the same problem.” I moved. “We spend so little time speaking the language of the heart that we find it hard to say those three simple words. Am I right, my perfect rose, three simple words?”
“Yes, Hank, three simple words, but . . .” She moved.
I moved. “Just say them, Beulah, out with them and we’ll go plunging into the unknown!”
“All right, Hank, here goes: You smell awful.”
“HUH?”
She moved upwind. “I’m sorry, Hank, I wish I could think of a nicer way to put it, but you don’t take hints. And I just can’t relax and enjoy myself when I feel I’m sitting beside a skunk.
“Yes, I see. Then you might say that the magic perfume hasn’t worked on you.” She nodded. “Which might explain why you’ve been moving around so much.” She nodded. “Almost as though you were trying to, well, stay upwind of me.”
She gave me a sad smile. “I’m sorry, Hank. I know you went to a lot of trouble to get your secret potion, but it just doesn’t work.”
“That’s bad news, Beulah. I was counting on it.”
“But you don’t need secret potions. What I like about you is you. Can’t you see that?”
I hung my head. “No, I can’t, I really can’t. I mean, I’m such a big lunk. I’m awkward and clumsy. I never know what to say around a woman.”
“I think you do very well.”
“No I don’t. My tang gets tungled when I try to talk to you and everything comes out wrong. And I know there are other dogs in the world who are much better looking.”
“Now you stop talking that way!” She gave me a stern look. “You’re talking about a good friend of mine. You’re . . . well, maybe you are a little awkward sometimes, but I know you’re sincere. And yes, maybe there are dogs with, uh, more refined manners and features, but in your own rough, country way, you have a certain, well, charm.”
I studied on that for a minute. “You know, you’re right, Beulah. I really do have a lot of charm, and I had it a long time before I tried rolling on a derned skunk.”
“Yes but . . .”
“And one of the things I’ve always admired about you, my peach blossom, is that you look beneath the surface and find the fruit amidst the thorns, so to speak.”
“But Hank, I must tell you . . .”
“Hush, my cactus flower, you needn’t expose those fragile words to the hot winds of this unfeeling world.”
“Hank, you had better listen . . .”
“I am listening, my prairie winecup, to the strains of a song that has been echoing through the corridors of my soul for many months. And now you will hear it, sung for the first time by the dog who wrote it for . . . for his one and only true love.”
She let out a sigh and gave me an odd smile. “Very well, Hank. If you wrote a song for me, the least I can do is listen to it.”
Chapter Eleven: Beulah’s Song
I have the strangest dream, Beulah my dear,
I’m standing close to you and holding you near.
I feel electric shock, just being close by,
Touching your flaxen hair and seeing your eyes.
I don’t understand this thing! Is it a lark?
I wake tossing and turning and yearning alone in the dark.
And hearing my bark again.
These feelings are strange to me, I can’t explain
What makes me feel ten feet tall but brings me such pain.
It’s bound to be sorcery, Beulah, my dove,
Some trick of the sleeping mind . . . or could it be love?
But I don’t have time for love or poetry or song!
Protecting my ranch from dangerous forces, I’ve got to be strong!
But maybe I’m wrong again.
Beulah listened, wearing that same sad smile on her lips. It seemed that a mist came over her eyes, and then she sang to me:
Hank, you’re a handsome dog, heroic and bold.
You’re what we talk about when stories are told.
But heroes are restless ones, they’re here and they’re gone.
Their ladies wake up alone to greet the new dawn.
Plato is not like you, he’s meek and refined.
Sometimes I think I should follow my heart instead of my mind!
Faded Love Page 6
