The Case of the Measled Cowboy

by John R. Erickson

  He twisted the thing as far as it would go to the left . . . right . . . he twisted the thing as far as it would go and it started ticking. He set it on the kitchen table, and to reach the table he had to walk across . . .

  More honey tracks. She was going to kill us. She was going to come home from Abilene, march us out into a snowbank, and shoot us all. I’m no fuss-budget about cleanliness, but even I could see that we were wrecking her house beyond all repair. And when I say WE, I mean HIM. He was going to get us all shot by his very own mother.

  I mean, a dog can lick up a few spots here and there, but our tongues were never intended to be mops, for crying out loud. Have you ever tried to mop a whole house with your tongue? It’s impossible, it’s . . .

  Oh well. There was nothing I could do about it. I would try to enjoy my last days upon this earth. I’d had a pretty good life. I’d always thought it might be a little longer, but . . . boy, the thought of seeing Sally May when she walked into that house gave me the shivers.

  We could run away from home. Yes, Alfred and I would pack a lunch and flee into the blizzard, become savages and live off the land. He could dress himself in . . . something. Leaves or rabbit skins. We’d find a cave and make it our home. After a couple of years, maybe Sally May would simmer down and take us back.

  On the other hand, that old wind was sure howling out there, and the more I thought about running off into a blizzard, the less excited I felt about trying it.

  Well, once Alfred had set the timer, we had nothing to do but . . . wait. You know about me and waiting. I hate it. Once a guy has developed an active mind, it’s hard for him to adjust to the slow rhythms of . . . and you know what made it worse? The ticking of the derned timer. It made time pass even slower than it would have otherwise.

  Ho hum.

  Well, I figured I might as well start mopping the floor. It had to be done, and I had good reason for thinking that Alfred wouldn’t get around to doing it. He was an expert on making messes, but not so good at cleaning them up.

  I started licking honey tracks. It was kind of pleasant work, actually. I mean, if a guy’s going to lick the floor, honey tracks are a pretty good thing to lick. The problem was that they were all over the place. How could . . . oh well . . . the job seemed overwhelming.

  I had been mopping for, oh, ten or fifteen minutes when Alfred broke the silence. “Hankie, the house is getting code.”

  I mopped stopping, I mean stopped mopping, and glanced around. He was right. The power hadn’t come back on and the house was losing heat. I gave him a look that said, “Right. So . . . what can we do about that?”

  “If the ewectwicity stays off, the pwumbing might fweeze.”

  Yikes, I hadn’t thought of that. Have we discussed Frozen Plumbing? Maybe not, but it’s about the worst thing that can happen in the winter. I had been through this a time or two down at Slim’s place, so I guess we could say that I was . . . well, something of an expert on Ranch Plumbing.

  See, when your heater goes off, the temperature inside the house begins to drop. If it drops far enough, the water pipes freeze. Do you know what happens to water pipes when they freeze? They bust. Burst. Break. Whatever. Even pipes made of steel will break, and then when they thaw out, guess what they do.

  They leak. They spurt water in bad places, such as under the house, under the sink, in the attic, and boy, you talk about an unholy mess! Busted pipes could ruin a house.

  Yes, we had a problem here, and to show my concern, I began sweeping my tail across . . . that is, my tail got hung in some of that honey on the floor and I found it impossible to do Slow Sweeps, so I was forced to rise to my feet and go to Slow Thoughtful Wags.

  Yes, we had us a problem.

  Alfred chewed his lip, whilst I attended to the Slow Wags.

  “Do you weckon we ought to build a fire in the woodstove?”

  By ourselves? Without Slim? Uh . . . no, bad idea. Better let Slim do it.

  The boy thought for a moment. “We need the fire, Hankie. I’ll go tell Swim.”

  Good thinking.

  He went into the bedroom and I heard the murmur of their voices. When the boy returned, he said, “Swim said for me and you to bwing in the wood, then he’ll get up and wight the fire.”

  And so it was that we launched ourselves into the task of loading up the woodstove.

  Chapter Eight: The Red-Eyed Mummy Monster Appears

  Oh, there was one other problem I forgot to mention: Little Alfred’s furry slippers.

  You might recall that he’d been walking through honey with them, and they were . . . well, you can imagine. Furry slippers + honey is a real bad combination. They were a mess, and every time he took a step, he spread the mess to other parts of the house.

  It wasn’t easy, but I managed to get the point across to him that he needed to park those dadgum slippers, and maybe even burn ’em in the stove. It took all my vast skills as a communicator to convince him of this—an unusually large number of wags and whimpers and nose-pointings, but at last he figured out that honeyed slippers leave tracks.

  Whew. That was a toughie.

  He changed into his boots, pulled on his coat, and we went out the back door to bring in some firewood. Oh, and when Alfred opened that back door, a gust of cold wind greeted us and I had to listen to Drover whimper and cry. He was curled up in a little white ball on the rug, and shivering. Do you suppose he offered to help, lend a hand, join the cause? Oh no. He moaned and complained and said he was freezing to death.

  The little weenie. Sometimes I think . . . oh well. That was typical Drover—helpless in a crisis and worthless to the end.

  We went outside, Alfred and I, and fellers, it didn’t take us long to figure out that this was a vicious storm. That wind was so strong and cold, it took our breath away, and we could hardly see through the swirling snow.

  It was hard to believe that the day had begun warm and clear, that only hours ago, we had enjoyed a calm fall day. But that’s the way it is with storms on the prairie. They come out of nowhere, without warning, and strike with the fury of a demon. That’s how people in the old days froze to death. I guess.

  What do I know about the old days? Forget it.

  We staggered through the drifts that were beginning to pile up in the yard, stumbled through the swirls of snow.

  And yes, it was a little scary. I mean, I’m not the kind of dog who often feels small and insignifi­cant, but the raw brutal power of that storm made me feel . . . well, small and insignificant. Alfred noticed it too. I felt his hand searching for me, and he held me close as we made our way to the woodpile.

  He made a cradle of his arms (he’d seen his dad do it many times) and loaded it with several sticks of . . . whatever kind of wood it was. Hackberry, chinaberry, cedar, cottonwood. Slim and Loper cut up all the dead trees on the ranch, see, and used it for stovewood, so a guy was never sure what kind of wood he might be throwing into the stove.

  As you might have guessed, I wasn’t able to carry much wood, just one small branch of kindling in my mouth. The boy had to do most of the heavy work on this deal, but I led the way back to the house. We dropped our wood on the utility room floor and went back for another load.

  And yes, Drover sat up long enough to complain about all the cold air we were letting into the house.

  Back and forth we went, until we had a fair-sized pile of wood inside the house. By that time, we were both plastered with snow and exhausted from the effort.

  When Alfred had closed the door for the last time, he heaved a sigh and shook his head. “Miss Viowa’s never gonna make it. It’s awful.” The ends of his mouth turned down. “Hankie, I’m scared. I wish my mommy and daddy were here.”

  His cheeks were red from the cold, and I had to lick some of the snow off his face. Yes, it was a scary time, and all of us wished his folks were there. But they weren’t, and we ha
d to buck up and be brave and do our jobs.

  We needed to get that fire going in the stove.

  Alfred carried several sticks of wood through the house and into the living room, where the big cast-iron stove was located. I tried not to notice all the tracks we left on the floor, but we left plenty of them—mud and melted snow. I made a mental note to go back later and clean up the mess.

  As we passed through the kitchen, we paused to look at the timer. Forty-five minutes had passed. Miss Viola hadn’t made it yet.

  Alfred opened up the door of the stove and looked inside. “How does my dad start the fire?”

  We studied the situation together. I wasn’t sure. I mean, I had been in the room when Slim had fired up his stove, and I knew there were some tricks to building a fire in a cold stove. But what were the tricks?

  Wait. Something about . . . the draft.

  Yes, that was it, the draft. You had to get a hot fire going so that the smoke and so forth would go up the chimney. A cold chimney didn’t draw air as well as a hot one, so we needed . . . newspapers. That’s what they started with, wadded up newspapers, and once they got the newspapers to burning, they added small sticks of kindling.

  Newspapers, kindling, then logs. Alfred made a little teepee of kindling around the paper. Now all we needed was Slim to approve our work and do the final honors of striking the match. Alfred went for him. It took a while to wake him up, but at last he appeared at the door—red-eyed, scowling, hair down in his eyes.

  He looked . . . pretty bad.

  He came over to the stove and studied our work. “Huh. Not bad for an orphan child and a souphound. She ought to light, if that wood ain’t too wet.”

  He struck the match and lit the newspaper. A little yellow flame began nibbling at the papers. We held our breath. It grew and grew . . . but then a big gust of wind came down the chimney and blew it out. Smoke came back into our faces and into the room.

  Slim tried it again, and this time the smoke began curling up the chimney. He added more paper and kindling. The wood hissed and sizzled. Everything was wet from the snow. It wasn’t going to burn. But then, with a little pop, the kindling caught fire and began to glow and grow.

  Slim looked down at us with his soggy eyes. “I’m going back to bed. Come get me in five minutes and I’ll add some bigger chunks. You done good, boy.” He went back to bed. We were a couple of heroes, no question about it.

  We were sitting there, watching the fire and feeling proud of ourselves, when a heavy gust of wind rattled the house. It came down the chimney and started filling the room with smoke. And fellers, we’re not talking about a little puff of smoke, the kind we’d had before. This was a whole CLOUD of smoke that filled the living room and moved into the rest of the house.

  We both coughed and gasped and ran into the kitchen. Guess who met us there. Drover.

  “Oh my gosh, Hank, I think the house is on fire. Help, murder, mayday, fire, fire! Oh my leg, let me out!”

  I watched him squeak and run in circles. “Drover, please try to control yourself. The house is not on fire.”

  “Then what’s all this smoke doing in here? Where there’s smoke, there’s bound to be a fire. Help!”

  “True up to a point, Drover. There is indeed smoke and there is indeed fire, but it happens that the fire . . .” I found myself coughing “. . . it happens that the fire . . . hark, hack, honk . . . it happens . . . arg, honk . . . skip it, Drover, I can’t breathe.”

  “Yeah, ’cause the house is burning down.”

  “The house is not . . . hark, honk!”

  “What’ll I do? If I stay in here, I’ll fry.”

  “Then go outside.”

  “I’ll freeze.”

  “Stand on your head. Sit on a tack. I don’t care what you do.”

  “See? I knew you didn’t care.”

  “I care. What more can I say?”

  “Well . . . you could say the house isn’t really on fire.”

  I looked into the vacuum of his eyes. “I already told you that.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t believe you.”

  “If I said it again, would you believe me?”

  “Well . . . I don’t know. I guess we could try.”

  “Fine. Drover, the house is on fire and you’re going to get fried like the weenie you really are.”

  His jaw dropped and he stared at me.

  “Do you believe me or not?”

  “I . . . think not.”

  “Great. We solved that one. Go back to bed.”

  He gave me a puzzled look, shrugged, and trotted back out to the utility room, curled up, and went back to sleep. You know, that is the weirdest little mutt I ever saw, heard, or dreamed of.

  Well, disposing of Drover brought us some peace and quiet. Unfortunately, the smoke cloud remained—and in fact, it had gotten thicker and worse. Alfred’s eyes were watering and he grabbed a tea towel and covered his nose and mouth with it.

  “Hankie, I think we did something wong wiff the stove, ’cause it nots ’posed to make all this smoke.”

  Right. Hark! Yes, we’d obviously missed a step somewhere. I couldn’t imagine what it was but . . .

  HUH?

  The last thing I expected to see just then—and I mean the VERY last thing in the whole world I expected to see just then—was a . . . Red-Eyed Mummy Monster . . . a huge Red-Eyed Mummy Monster wrapped in a sheet. And I couldn’t be a hundred percent certain that he planned to eat me and Little Alfred, but he certainly gave me that impression.

  You think I’m kidding, don’t you?

  You think I was seeing things or exaggerating, don’t you?

  Ha! I wish.

  This was not only the first Red-Eyed Mummy Monster I had ever seen, but it was the first one who had ever offered to eat me—bones, hair, toenails, eyeballs, the whole shebang.

  Chapter Nine: Alfred Shouldn’t Have Tried to Drive the Pickup

  He stared at me.

  I stared at him.

  The hair on my back shot up. His fell over his forehead and into his horrible red eyes.

  A growl leaped into the deepest lurch of my throatalary region. He answered with a . . . I wasn’t sure what it was. A growl. A grunt. A groan. It wasn’t a bark, but it was enough to convince me that I needed to get out of there.

  We’re talking about Rapid Exit, fellers. I didn’t know where I was going and I didn’t know how I was going to put distance between me and that Mummy Monster when my feet were spinning on the slick limoleun floor, but I was fairly determined to GET THE HECK OUT OF THERE!

  Real determined.

  I didn’t know what Little Alfred planned to do, but I made a dash for the cabinet under Sally May’s . . . BONK . . . sink, only the stupid door was closed and, okay, I had no choice but to leap up on the counter and then dive through the window, I mean, I was that scared and that determined to get away from that horrible awful Mummy Monster.

  So I went into a deep crouch and then ex­ploded upward, landed on the counter with all four . . . honey? Okay, I landed in the honey puddle with all four feet, but at least I was on my way out of that scary place, and once on the counter . . . once in the stupid honey puddle . . . I had tried to warn Little . . .

  But we had no time for that, no time to mourn over what might have been or should have been, fellers, I wanted out, OUT, O-U-T. So once I had enscumbered myself upon the counter, I turned and began the process of targeting my huge enormous body toward the window and plotting my . . .

  YIPES!!

  He was slouching in my direction, staring at me with those . . . those . . . those horrible squinty puffy red eyes that were filled with . . . I don’t know what, but here he came, slouching and slumping in my direction like . . . like . . . like the corpse of a dead-bodied mummy, is what he looked like to me.

  And without bothering
to look where I was going, I slammed the old gear shift up into Road Gear and went flying . . . into a canister of flour, and what a dumb place to put a canister of flour!

  Who had been so careless as to put a canister of flour on the kitchen counter? This was an outrage, and I couldn’t be held responsible for the, uh, flour mess that occurred when the, uh, canister flew off the counter and hit the . . . well, the floor.

  A huge omnivorous silence fell upon us, as all of us, even the Monster Mummy, stared at the . . . gee, what a mess, but I refused to be held . . .

  He spoke. The Mummy Monster spoke. Here’s what he said: “Did y’all happen to notice the house is full of smoke?”

  The voice sounded . . . sort of . . . familiar. Okay, maybe . . . forget the business about the Mummy Monster. What we had here . . . it was just Slim, see, wrapped up in a sheet, but he sure looked . . .

  He continued. “The house is full of smoke be­cause some birdbrain forgot to open the damper.” Alfred and I exchanged glances. “Under the circumstances, I’ll have to give myself credit for that mess, but this . . .” He shot out a bony finger at the . . . uh . . . flour and so forth. “Somebody’s neck is liable to get wrung over this deal, and it ain’t going to be mine.”

  Just then we were saved by the bell. No kidding. Remember the timer Alfred had set down on the kitchen table? Well, just at that very exact moment, it went off, causing Slim to jump. He stared at it, then sank into a chair and dragged some of the hair out of his eyes.

  “What’s that for?” Alfred told him. He nodded. “I tried to tell her. Stubborn woman. And like I said, I ain’t got the energy to go lookin’ for her. He heaved a sigh. “Button, for future reference, you can’t build a fire in the stove without the damper open.”