The Case of the Measled Cowboy

by John R. Erickson

  Boy, what a nice surprise, and an even bigger surprise was that this spring came bubbling out of the ground into a big white bowl. I mean, it was the perfect height for dogs to drink out of. In fact, I began to suspect that it had been put there for this very purpose. Can you believe that? Sally May had developed this nice little spring, just so her son’s loyal dogs could get a drink when they came into the house.

  She was a pretty fine old gal, that Sally May.

  Anyways, I hopped up on my back legs, stuck my head into the bowl, and started lapping. Lap, lap, lap. Great water, and yes, I’d been pretty thirsty, even though . . .

  HUH?

  All of a sudden . . . well, you’ll see.

  Chapter Six: We Fix Slim a Nourishing Lunch

  Someone or something had turned on the light. All at once I found myself staring into . . . well, into this big white porcelain urn, out which I had been drinking, and then I heard a voice behind me that said, “Hankie! Get out of the bathroom. Don’t dwink out of the pot!”

  Huh? Okay, it appeared that I had . . . it wasn’t exactly a spring, see, but in the gloominess of the darkness I had . . .

  Well, where’s a dog supposed to drink in the house? If they don’t put out pans of water, what’s a poor thirsty dog supposed to do, get a pitcher of orange juice out of the ice box? I mean, water’s water, whether it comes out of the ground or out of the pot, and I didn’t see anything wrong . . .

  Nevertheless, I felt embarrassed on being caught and exposed, and I darted past Little Alfred and returned to my rug on the utility room floor. I sure didn’t want him to think . . .

  Drover met me with his usual silly grin. “Did you get in trouble for drinking out of the pot?”

  “Yes, I did, and I hope you’re happy, since you’re the one who started the whole thing.”

  “I was?”

  “Yes, by moaning and complaining about how thirsty you were. I wasn’t thirsty at all until you started moaning about it. Now look what you’ve caused.”

  “Yeah, I feel terrible about it.”

  “Good. I hope the guilt eats your liverwurst.”

  “But you know what? I’m not thirsty anymore. After what you said about self-discipline, I decided I could wait. I guess you were right, ’cause it worked. Are you proud of me?”

  I studied him with narrowed eyes. “Drover, sometimes I think you’re trying to make a mockery of my position as Head of Ranch Security, and I’m afraid this will have to go into my report.”

  “Gosh, did I do something wrong?”

  “No. You did something right, and it has thrown everything out of balance. You need to work on consistency. How can I run this ranch . . . just skip it.”

  We curled up in our respective spots on the rug and settled back into the business of being Good Dogs in the House. The minutes crawled by. Drover fell right off to sleep and began his usual concert of weird sounds—grunting, squeaking, and wheezing. I couldn’t sleep. Who could sleep with such noise?

  I lifted my head and happened to glance out the window. Good grief, it was SNOWING, and we’re talking about big flakes and a lot of ’em. I crept over to the window and looked out. Yes, by George, it was snowing hard, and that wind was already whipping it up into drifts.

  The lights blinked. Uh-oh, that was a bad almond. Omen. Whatever. If that old wind kept blowing the electric lines around, it could knock out the power to all the houses along the creek. No power, no lights. No power, no heater for the house. I wondered if Slim knew . . . no, of course he didn’t. He was sick and asleep in the other room.

  It occurred to me that I had better go check this out. I mean, with Loper and Sally May gone to Abilene, and with Slim sick in bed . . . gee, that left me and Little Alfred in charge of things. In my deepest heart, I knew that Sally May would want me to leave the, uh, utility room and venture into other parts of the house to, well, give aid and comfort to her little boy.

  And so it was that I crept to the door that led into the kitchen and peeked inside. There was Little Alfred, standing on a chair and doing something on the counter beside the sink. I crept forward, one step at a time, on paws that were trained to make no sound at all, until I reached the middle of the kitchen. There, I sat down and assumed a pose that we call “I’ve Been Here All Along and You Just Didn’t Notice Me.”

  It must have worked. He saw me out of the corner of his eye and said, “I’m making Swim some cowboy hash. He’s too sick to get up.”

  Sure enough, he had opened a can of . . . something . . . hash, it appeared, and was spooning it into a cooking pot. What a nice idea, and what a clever lad. These ranch kids will surprise you. In hard times, when they’re called upon to . . . it smelled pretty yummy, that hash, and I found myself sniffing the air and more or less inching my way closer to his, uh, location.

  Anyways, these ranch kids are pretty resourceful and that hash was smelling better by the second, and I continued to inch my way in Alfred’s direction. By this time my ears were perked and I was licking my chops and wondering about the possibility of . . . well, testing the hash, so to speak. I mean, your better cooks and chefs do that. They call in impartial judges to try out a certain dish or recipe, just to make sure . . .

  I laid my head and nose upon the seat of the chair, right beside his feet, and gave my eyes an upward roll. Oh, and I also went to Helpful Taps on the tail section, just to call his attention to the fact that . . . well, I was there and ready to lend a hand in the task of, uh, feeding the sick and wounded.

  He must have heard the tapping. He grinned down at me and said, “You want a bite?”

  Well, I . . . I certainly didn’t want to intrude into his . . . I mean, I realized that he was very busy, but one little bite . . . or what the heck, one big bite might be, uh, very nice.

  Yes.

  He put the spoon in front of my nose. My eyes sprang open and my ears leaped upward, but you’ll be proud to know that I resisted the temptation to gobble the hash. That’s what your ordinary run of ranch mutts would have done—gobbled and slobbered and wolfed it down. Not me, fellers. This was Sally May’s house and her good influence was still present in the atmosphere, guiding and directing me toward a more refined and mannerly approach to, uh, the eating of hash from a spoon.

  I ate it in the most dainty fashion you can imagine, using my front teeth, tongue, and lips. This was no gobbling deal, and I think even Little Alfred was impressed. I did spill one piece of hash . . . two small pieces . . . okay, several fragments of hash fell to the floor, but I had ’em cleaned up in no time at all. Sally May would never know.

  And yes, that was some pretty awesome hash, great stuff and . . . could we try that again, just one more time?

  I filled the space between Alfred and me with Looks of Longing. I laid my chin upon his foot and tapped my tail on the floor. He laughed and said, “No more, Hankie. I’m making this for Swim.”

  Well, yes, sure, I knew that, but . . . and I would have been the first to admit that Slim deserved the biggest portion of it, I mean, him sick and everything, but still . . .

  No sale.

  He picked up a bottle of ketchup and hammered on the bottom of it until a big blob of it . . . oops, he missed the pan and the ketchup went on the floor, but that was no problem. Hey, I was there to help, and cleaning up little ketchup spills was no big deal to me.

  I shined the floor with my tongue. Ketchup wasn’t exactly my favorite food. It’s made out of tomaters, don’t you know, and a lot of your ranch dogs wouldn’t touch the stuff, because it doesn’t have any meat in it, but I licked it up, every drop of it, because . . . well, because of my deep feelings of loyalty to Sally May. We sure didn’t want her coming home to a house that was all splattered with ketchup splots.

  Alfred gripped the spoon in his fist and stirred the ketchup into the hash. Then he tasted it. “Mmmmm. Swim’s gonna wike this.”

 
He climbed down from the chair, scooted it across the floor to the stove, climbed up on the chair again, and turned on the front burner. Whilst he was doing all this, he . . . uh . . . set the pot of hash down on the floor, don’t you see, and he wasn’t watching and I saw no great harm in . . . Heh, heh. He didn’t notice.

  He picked up the pot, climbed up on the chair, and set the pot on the burner. Good idea. A little shot of heat would help the taste. It was exactly the sort of thing Slim never would have done, he being a bit of a lazy chef, but warm hash was always better than cold hash.

  Whilst the hash was warming on the stove, Alfred scooted the chair over to one of the cabinets above the sink. He opened the cabinet door and reached on tiptoes for a plate. Gee, this WAS a fancy deal. Slim was going to eat his hash on a real plate! That was another thing he wouldn’t have done. He would have eaten right out of the pot, because washing plates was too much . . .

  CRASH!

  Uh-oh. In the process of pulling a plate out of the cabinet, the boy must have bumped a jar of . . . what was that stuff? The jar hit the countertop, see, and the lid flew off and now something thick and yellowish was spreading across the counter and oozing down the cabinets.

  I moved toward it and sniffed. My goodness, it seemed that we had us a little spill of honey, and it was a derned good thing I happened to be there. I went right to work on it and . . .

  Smoke? Where was all that smoke coming from? Oh, the hash. Alfred had left the burner on high, it appeared, and the hash had begun to hiss and pop. I barked the alarm, and Alfred pushed his chair . . . oops, right through some of the honey . . . pushed his chair back over to the stove and got the fire shut down.

  Through the smoke, I saw his grin. “I hope Swim wikes barbecued hash.” He stepped down . . . oops, right in some more of the honey and pushed the chair back over to the . . . I guess he wasn’t paying attention to the honey mess, and he sure was making it worse.

  Anyways, he finally succeeded in spooning the barbecued hash onto the plate, and at that point he beamed me a big smile. “There. Swim’s gonna be pwoud of this.” Carrying the plate in front of him like a chef, he marched through the house and presented it to our fallen comrade.

  I don’t suppose he noticed the honey footprints, but I did, and I went right to work scrubbing Sally May’s floor. I cleaned up most of the mess on the limoleun . . . limoneum . . . lino . . . whatever . . . on the floor in the kitchen, but I didn’t know what to do about the tracks on the carpet. Maybe no one would notice.

  That’s the great thing about carpet. You never have to clean it. Mud, dirt, honey, dog hair. It never shows. Great stuff, that carpet.

  Anyways, I guess Slim was pretty hungry and was glad to get the grub, even though it was a little scorched in spots. I heard the spoon clanking on the plate and heard Slim say that it was the best hash he’d ever eaten.

  But just then, several things happened. First, the electricity went out and the house fell into semidarkness. Second, the phone rang. Back in the depths of the house, I heard Slim grumble, “No, I’ll get it. I ain’t that sick.”

  A moment later he dragged himself into the kitchen and snatched the phone off the wall. He looked . . . pretty bad. His face was splotched with red, his eyes were puffy and had a pinched look, his hair stuck up in the back and fell over his brow in the front. He looked weak and tired and . . . well, sick.

  “Hello. Yes. No, she ain’t here. They went to Abilene. Yalp. Uh-huh. Who is this? Viola? I’ll be derned. I never would have expected . . . hold on a minute, Viola.”

  I was busy scrubbing floors, but when his voice trailed off, I lifted my head. I noticed that his eyes were locked on . . . something. Something on the kitchen counter, near the sink. The empty hash can?

  He blinked his eyes and turned to Alfred. “Button, is that the can you got my hash out of?” Alfred nodded. “Hey Viola, I just ate a plate of dog food.”

  Chapter Seven: Oops

  Dog food?

  I took a closer look at the can. So did Little Alfred. Until this very moment, neither of us had noticed the picture of a German shepherd on the label, but there he was. Well, it sure fooled me, and it sure fooled Slim too. Don’t forget, he’s the one who’d said it was the best hash he’d ever eaten.

  Well, this was a strange turn of events. Neither I nor Alfred knew quite how to respond to it. Under different circumstances, we might have gotten a big laugh out of it, I mean, you must admit that it was pretty funny. But with Slim sick to start with and talking on the phone to his lady friend . . . well, it just didn’t seem the proper time to go into fits and gales of laughter.

  Slim wasn’t laughing. After giving me and Alfred some hot glares, he returned to his phone conversation.

  “Hello? Viola, you still there? Yes, I’m serious. Button opened up a can and thought it was hash, only it was dog food. Uh-huh, every bite. Well, I thought it was pretty good, until I seen the can. Yes, I feel a little sick, but I felt sick before I ate it. Oh, just a little cold, is all. Button thinks it’s the measles but I’m sure it ain’t. Grown men don’t get . . .”

  He scowled. “They do? Pretty bad, huh? Well, that part fits. I’d have to feel better to die. Red spots? No, I don’t have any.”

  Alfred was listening to Slim’s end of the conversation, and his face showed astonishment. “Swim, you do too have wed spots!”

  “Shhh. Just hush. We don’t want to get her all stirred up. Huh? Oh, I was just talking to my chef. After feeding me dog food hash, now he’s trying to play doctor. He thinks I’ve got red spots but I’m pretty sure . . . Mirror? Well, yes, I reckon there’s . . . I’ll be derned, I’m standing right in front of one.”

  He squinted into the mirror. His eyebrows jumped. “Viola, you still there? What would it mean if a guy’s whole face was splotched with red? Huh. I’ll be derned. Well . . . supposing a feller had measles, what would he do for ’em?” He gave a wooden laugh. “Well, we can skip over that part, I ain’t going to the doctor. Me and doctors don’t . . . no.”

  He held the phone away from his ear for a few seconds, then went back to it. “You still there? No, it ain’t that I’m stubborn and mule-headed. It’s just . . . okay, I’m stubborn and mule-headed, and I ain’t going to the doctor.” His gaze went to the window. “Good honk, did you know it’s snowing outside? Well, there’s my reason right there. I ain’t going to town in a snowstorm. Huh? Well, if it quits snowing, I still ain’t . . .”

  His expression darkened. “No, I wouldn’t hear of it. No, I ain’t sick, I’m feeling better already. Honest. Them red spots are just about gone. Viola? Hello?” He hung up the phone and gave us a scowl. “Arguing with her is like arguing with petrified wood. I reckon she’s going to try to drive up here in her daddy’s pickup, and I ain’t got the energy to fight her. And you know what else? When she gets that thing stuck in a snowdrift, I ain’t going to have the energy to go pull her out. I’m going to bed—in the bedroom.”

  Dragging his feet across the floor, he started toward the bedroom. All at once he stopped, picked up one foot, and felt it. “What’s that sticky stuff on the floor?” Silence fell over the room, as Alfred and I studied the, uh, patterns and so forth on the, uh, wallpaper. “Never mind. I don’t want to know, but you knotheads just remember: if Sally May comes home and decides to kill me, y’all will be next on her list.”

  With that, he dragged himself through the darkened house. We could hear him muttering to himself. “I don’t know how I get in these messes. And Viola’s out running around in a snowstorm. Stubborn woman.”

  We heard the bed squeak as he collapsed into it. Alfred and I exchanged worried glances. Then he jerked his head toward the bedroom and we went creeping through the . . . yes, that floor was pretty sticky, all right, and I sure hoped we’d have time to clean it up.

  We crept into the bedroom. There was Slim, stretched out, with the covers pulled up to his chin. His eyes were
shut. Alfred’s gaze went from Slim to me, then back to Slim.

  “Hey Swim, are you asweep?”

  His eyes drifted open. “Not yet, just driftin’ that way.”

  “I’m sorry I fixed you a pwate of dog food. I didn’t mean to, honest.”

  A faint smile dashed across Slim’s mouth and he waved his hand through the air. “I know you didn’t, Button. Don’t worry about it. What’s good for a ranch dog can’t be too bad for a cowboy, I reckon. And to tell you the truth, it tasted better than what I’m used to.”

  The boy’s lip began to tremble. “Swim, I don’t want you to be sick, and I’m scared.”

  “Well, don’t be scared. Maybe Viola’ll make it. You watch the clock, Button. If she ain’t here in an hour, you come wake me up, hear? Maybe I can . . .”

  His eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep. The boy bit his lip and we went back into the kitchen. He cast a worried glance at the big flakes of snow that were swirling at the west window, then turned to me.

  “Hankie, I can’t tell time on a cwock. Can you?”

  Me? Heck no, I was just a dog.

  He thought about it for a minute, then his eyes lit up. “I know. My mom’s got a timer. She uses it for cooking, and when you turn the dial all the way awound, it means one hour.”

  He ran for his all-purpose ladder (the chair) and scooted it over to the sink. He climbed up onto the counter and . . . hey, watch out for the . . . SPLOSH . . . he stepped right into a pool of honey on the counter, opened up the cabinet door, and plucked the timer from the highest shelf. He held it up and gave me a smile.

  Great, but I wondered what he would do about that . . . he didn’t do anything, except pull his foot out of it and climb back down to the floor. I found myself staring the, uh, sticky honey track on the floor. I tapped my tail several times, hoping he might get the message about the mess, but he didn’t. It went right over his head. I guess he was so excited about solving the timer problem that he didn’t notice anything else.