The Case of the Measled Cowboy

by John R. Erickson

  “Hi, boys. I guess I’m stuck.”

  I had a feeling that most of her smile was meant for . . . well, for ME, you might say, and I rushed over to the window to give her my warmest greeting. I mean, Miss Viola was my very most favorite lady friend and . . . okay, maybe I forgot about Slim sitting there when I rushed to the window and I guess my tail whacked him on the face and, well, knocked his glasses down on his nose. And maybe my hair was a little wet, but he sure didn’t need to . . .

  “Hank, for crying in the bucket, will you get away from me?” He shoved me back on the other side and fixed his glasses. “I know which one of us stinks now.” He turned to Viola again. “I tried to tell you not to come.”

  “I know you did, Slim, but I don’t always listen to you.”

  “Uh-huh, I noticed.”

  “How do you feel? You look terrible.”

  “Thanks. Looks tell it all, I reckon.”

  “Well, you don’t have any business being out in this storm. Do you want to try to pull me out?”

  Slim gave that some thought. “Don’t think so. I just don’t have any strength, Viola. I’m as weak as a poisoned pup, and I keep falling asleep. Why don’t you get in and drive this thing? We’ll pull you out when the storm breaks. By then, I’ll either feel better or be dead.” He turned to us dogs. “Now, I’m fixing to move myself over to the shotgun side, and any dogs that don’t get out of the way are going to get smashed.”

  Okay, fine. Gee whiz, he didn’t need to . . . Drover and I moved ourselves down to the floor and cleared the seat for Slim, while Miss Viola climbed in on the driver’s side. Slim slid across, slumped against the door, closed his eyes, and laid his head against the window.

  “Try not to get stuck this time. If you do, just open the door and roll me into the ditch and leave me for the coyotes.” And with that, he was asleep.

  Viola got in and sat behind the wheel. She found a place where she could turn around without getting stuck, and we made the long slow drive back to the house. Several times, she had to stop in the middle of the road. The snow was blowing so badly, she couldn’t even see the hood of the pickup. The snow appeared to have stopped falling from the sky by then, and in fact we could see the sun popping through every once in a while, but the wind continued to blow the snow that had already fallen.

  There’s a name for this, by the way. It’s called a “ground blizzard.” You’re probably amazed that I knew that, and maybe you wonder how I knew. Easy. Viola called it that.

  It must have taken us ten or fifteen minutes to make it back to the house. Viola kept the pickup in second gear and crept along, following the tracks we had made in the snow, and at last we arrived at headquarters. She parked the pickup beside the yard gate and turned off the motor.

  She beamed us a smile, her glorious bright sunshine smile, and said, “Well! That was fun, wasn’t it.” Then she tried to wake up The Measled Cowboy by calling his name. It didn’t work. Alfred tried too, and got the same response—nothing. It appeared that I needed to step in and take charged of this deal, so I hopped up on the seat and went right to work licking Slim on the face and left ear.

  After a few juicy licks, his eyes slid open. He cut them from side to side, then turned his head enough so that he could see me. His eyes were bloodshot and looked none too friendly, and in a croaky voice he said, “Hank, if you don’t quit licking me, I might be forced to pull your tongue out by the roots and feed it to the buzzards. Quit.” He pushed me away and sat up. “Well, I reckon we survived the trip. Nice work, Viola. I don’t know what you would have done without me.”

  That was a joke, I guess, and Miss Viola was kind enough to laugh at it. “I’m sorry to cause you all this trouble. You were right about the road. I shouldn’t have tried it but I did, and now I’m here. Can you walk to the house?”

  “Heck yes, I ain’t an invalid. One more little nap’ll bring me around.”

  We all climbed out of the pickup and started toward the back door. I noticed that Viola’s gaze fell upon the broken fence. “Should I ask what happened to the fence?”

  “Wind must have blowed it down,” said Slim.

  Her brows rose. “That must have been quite a wind. It even left tracks in the snow.”

  Heh. Old Viola was ranch-raised and she’d been taught to notice tracks. It wasn’t easy to fool her, and Slim didn’t.

  We made it to the back door. Slim stamped the snow off his boots and opened the door. “Button, I think the time has come to let them dogs . . .” Zoom! In the twinkling of an eyeball, Drover and I squirted through door. By the time Slim figured out what was happening, we had taken our positions on the rug in the utility room, had curled up into little furry balls, and were looking as innocent as dogs could possibly look.

  I mean, the utility room needed guarding, right? And we had a lady visiting us and we sure as thunder didn’t want to risk . . . something. You never knew what manner of stranger or monster might try to break into the house and . . .

  Slim’s eyes narrowed into cruel slits. Without lifting my head off the rug, I rolled my eye so that I could meet his gaze. In my deepest secret heart, I knew that we were fixing to be tossed out into the snow. He opened his mouth to speak, but just then . . .

  The phone rang.

  Slim’s eyes blanked out. “Now, who could be calling at a time like this? I hope it ain’t who I think it is.” He went into the kitchen. His face was tense when he put the phone to his ear, but then it showed relief. “Why yes, howdy. Yep, she made it.” He covered the phone and winked at Viola. “It’s your daddy. No, all’s well. Have you heard any weather? Good, good. I hope so. It was kind of a nasty little storm. Yes sir, we’ll keep in touch. Bye.”

  He hung up the phone and heaved a sigh. “Boy, that was lucky. There for a second I thought it might be Loper or Sally May, calling to find out . . .”

  By then, Viola had wandered into the kitchen. A look of horror filled her eyes. “What on earth happened in here?”

  Slim dug his hands into his pockets and looked up at the ceiling. “Two dogs and one little boy, is all I can tell you.”

  She blinked several times. “Oh my. Sally May is going to . . .”

  The phone rang again. Slim swallowed hard. “Uh-oh, I sure hope this ain’t . . .” He wrapped his hand around the phone and put it to his ear. “Hello. Yes. Yes. Who? Well, I’ll be derned. Hello, Sally May.”

  Chapter Twelve: A Happy Ending, but Just Barely

  The whole house fell silent. All eyes and ears went to Slim, whose face had suddenly turned as pale as oatmeal. From my position in the utility room, I strained to hear every word of the conversation.

  “Yes, we had a little snow, we sure did, but tell Loper . . . he’s been listening to the weather report, huh? I had a feeling he would, but tell him . . . no, the wind’s blowing but the snow’s quit, and y’all don’t need to . . . you are? YOU ARE?” His eyes rolled up into his head. “Huh? No, no, everything around here is . . . normal. No problem. Yes ma’am, he’s fine, been a perfect little . . . lad. No, them measles haven’t bothered him at’all. Yalp. Okay. Bye.”

  He hung up the phone and slumped against the wall. “I knew it. They got as far as Anson and derned Loper heard we was having a storm. They’ve turned around and they’re coming back like a horse to the barn. They’ll be here soon.”

  An awful silence spread through the house, as each of us tried to imagine . . . gulp. Slim broke the silence.

  “Viola, I don’t know how this house got in such a state . . . well, yes I do, and I know who’s going to get blamed for it too. I was a-wondering . . . what are the chances that a guy could hire you to do a little cleanup work?”

  “A little cleanup?”

  “Okay, a whole bunch. I ain’t a wealthy man, but you could pretty well name your price.”

  A sly smile twitched at her mouth. She cocked her head and studied hi
m for a moment. “I’ll tell you what, Slim Chance, I’ll bail you out of this wreck—on one condition.”

  “Go ahead, I’m at your mercy. Take anything but my saddle.”

  “Frankie McWhorter is going to play a dance in Twitchell this Saturday night. I’d just love to go.”

  “Uh-huh, and if I could dance, I’d just love to take you.”

  “That’s my price.”

  “I dance like a cow on skates.”

  “You can learn.”

  “You’re a hard woman, Viola, hard and mean and cruel.”

  “Take it or leave it.”

  He swallowed. “I think I’ll take it.”

  “Good! I can hardly wait. Now, you go back to bed.” Slim lifted one finger in farewell and departed for his sickbed. Viola removed her coat and hat and hung them up in the closet. “All right, Alfred, let’s get started on . . .” She knelt down and studied something on the floor. “Is this . . . honey? And flour?” He gave his head a solemn nod. “Oh boy. I may have priced myself too cheap on this job. Well, let’s get to work. We’ll need buckets of hot water for this—hot water and elbow grease.”

  She found a plastic bucket and started filling it with hot water and soap. She pulled some rags and sponges out of the cabinet under the sink.

  Alfred watched. “What’s ebbow gwease?”

  “You’re fixing to learn, young man.” She pitched him a rag. “Elbow grease means ‘scrubbing,’ lots of hard scrubbing.”

  He made a sour face. “My mom thinks I’m not old enough to help cwean house.”

  “Does she? Well, she’ll be so surprised. Down on the floor, son. Scrub. All that honey has to be wiped up or you’ll have ants. Where does your mother keep the vacuum sweeper? Never mind. The power’s still off. Okay, where does she keep the broom and dustpan?” Alfred pointed to the pantry. “I’ll start sweeping up the flour and . . .”

  She parked her hands on her waist and looked down at the boy. “How did this happen? And where was Slim? I mean, is it possible that a grown man could . . .” She swiped her hand through the air. “Never mind. Men. Down on your hands and knees and scrub.”

  Alfred thought he was too young to scrub counters and mop floors? Heh. He sure got proved wrong on that. He didn’t work cheerfully, but under Miss Viola’s stern gaze, he did learn to scrub and mop. It went on for hours, and it involved many fresh buckets of hot soapy water.

  Drover and I observed it all from our position in the utility room. Well, actually I observed it all. Drover slept—and grunted and whistled and wheezed and contributed nothing. I observed and . . . well, felt a few moments of guilt. If I couldn’t actually help clean up the mess I had, uh, helped create, at least I could show a few signs of guilt and remorse and so forth.

  I did that, and you know what? It was a pretty good deal. Showing a little remorse beats the heck out of scrubbing floors. Heh, heh. I’ll take it every time.

  Well, along about four o’clock in the evening they finished cleaning up the kitchen. By then, the sun was shining, the snow had started to melt, and the wind had died down. The storm had blown itself out, and it was hard to believe that only hours before, we had been in the grisp of the grasp of a howling blizzard. That’s Panhandle weather for you.

  Anyways, along about four they finished the so forth and Viola put away all the cleaning supplies. It was amazing, what she’d been able to do. The house, which had seemed unfixable and uncleanable only hours before, was now restored to its previous condition. I was impressed.

  Viola leaned against the counter and removed the bandana she had tied around her head. She seemed satisfied . . . but she wasn’t finished.

  “Alfred, it’s time to wake up Slim. We’ve got one more job to do, and not much daylight left.” When Alfred protested that he was worn out, she smiled. “Cleaning up these messes isn’t as much fun as making them, is it? Now you know what your mother goes through every day.”

  Alfred pooched out his lip. “Well, it was Hank that made most of the mess, and he didn’t have to cwean up anything.”

  “I’ll bet. Go wake up Slim. We’ve got to fix that piece of yard fence . . . that the wind blew down.”

  Alfred flashed her a devilish grin. “It wasn’t the wind. I dwove the pickup into it, but don’t tell my mom.”

  “No, really? I never would have guessed it was you.”

  Alfred went to fetch Slim, and Viola turned her . . . boy, she had the prettiest brown eyes I’d ever seen, and when she turned them on me, I just melted. What a fine gal! She understood dogs, she liked dogs, she . . .

  “Boys, I hate to tell you this, but it’s time for y’all to move out. I don’t think Sally May would approve.” Alfred and Slim appeared just then, and Viola aimed a finger at the boy. “Alfred, I’m putting these dogs out. Don’t let them back inside, and Slim Chance, don’t you let them in either. This house is clean and I want it to stay that way.”

  Slim nodded. “Yes ma’am. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I worry about both of you, all four of you. One’s just as bad as the others. Now, what do we need to fix the fence?”

  Slim scratched the top of his head. “Well . . . posthole diggers, hammer, tamping bar, shovel, some steeples, wire stretchers, a couple of fresh posts. Sure sounds like a lot of trouble, don’t it.”

  “Yes. Let’s get on with it.”

  Slim muttered and shook his head and went slouching toward the back door. “You’re a heartless woman, Viola, and you dogs are officially banished from the house—forever. Out!” He pushed open the door and jerked his head toward the outside. Drover and I made a dash out the door. As I flew past, Slim gave me a kick to the tail section and said, “You birdbrains.”

  Was that necessary? Hey, I was trying to . . . oh well. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I was still Miss Viola’s very favorite dog. So there.

  Well, once we were done with all the kicks and insults, we flew into the task of repairing the fence. Miss Viola was there to supervise, so this wasn’t a typical Slim Chance Repair Job. She made him fix it right, so that when Sally May drove up, she wouldn’t notice that the fence had been repaired. That was pretty smart.

  Oh, and you know what else she made Slim do? She made him get a shovel and fill in the muddy tracks that led down to the fence—fill ’em in, smooth ’em out, and cover ’em up with snow! Old Slim howled at that—howled and griped and complained every step of the way. But when he was done, he leaned on the shovel, looked it over, and admitted that she’d been right. Well, that was progress.

  By the time Slim had put up all the tools and stuff, it was after five o’clock. We all hopped into the pickup and drove over to Miss Viola’s pickup and pulled it out of the snowdrift. Slim thanked her for saving our lives, and then he promised to make good on his deal—to take her to Frankie’s dance on Saturday night. And then we all said our good-byes and she drove off. Watching her leave, we all felt . . . well, a little sting of sadness.

  And Slim said, “Boys, that’s a pretty fine gal right there.”

  Yes, she certainly was, but there was something Slim didn’t know about, and something I would never tell him. When she left, Miss Viola gave ME an extra special smile and wink. I was pretty sure she wanted me to go to the dance with them. Why not? Heck, I figured I could dance as well as Slim.

  But just then, we heard the hum of a car motor in the distance, and that brought our thoughts back to earth. Slim turned the pickup around and we met Loper and Sally May just as they reached the mailbox. Slim pulled up beside them and rolled down his window.

  Loper studied our faces. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, nuthin’ much. We were just checkin’ out the snow.”

  “It wasn’t as bad as the radio said.”

  “Nope.”

  “Alfred feeling okay?”

  “Yalp.”

  “Any wrecks or disas
ters?”

  “Nope.”

  Loper scanned our faces. We held our breaths. “Huh. That’s a miracle. Well, I guess we could have gone on to Abilene.”

  “Yalp, but that wouldn’t be you.”

  “What’s wrong with your face? It’s all red and you look awful.”

  “Thanks. Your kid gave me the measles.”

  “Huh. Sorry. You want to come up to the house for supper?”

  “No thanks. I’m going home to bed. If I don’t show up in two weeks, call the undertaker.”

  Loper laughed. “I’ll check on you in the morning. Sleep’s the best medicine.” Loper studied us with questioning eyes. “Is there more to this story?”

  “Yalp, but you ain’t going to hear it today. Maybe next week. Or next month.”

  And that was about it. Alfred jumped into the car with his folks and they drove down to the house. We turned around and headed for Slim’s shack. As we chugged along the Wolf Creek Road, Slim let out a big breath of air and gave us dogs a grin.

  “Well, boys, we dodged a bullet on this deal.”

  Yes, thanks to Miss Viola, we had dodged a major bullet. Sally May didn’t hear the full story until two days later, and by then . . . well, it was already too late to kill us, and all she could do was laugh and shake her head.

  Case closed.

  And Miss Viola really was crazy about me, no kidding.

  Further Reading

  Have you read all of Hank’s adventures?

  1 The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog

  2 The Further Adventures of Hank the Cowdog

  3 It’s a Dog’s Life

  4 Murder in the Middle Pasture