The Quest fort the Great White Quail

by John R. Erickson

  The boy narrowed his eyes and looked at the end of my nose.

  “Uh . . . Alfred, I don’t want to rush you, but . . . yes I do! Don’t just stand there looking at my nose! The clock is running and I can feel the poison spreading through my body. Fifty-five minutes, that’s all we have left. Hurry, call your mother!”

  Why was he grinning? Was there something funny about the family dog being attacked by an eight-foot diamondback rattlesnake? Hey, I’d gotten a good look at the thing, and he was at least ten feet long, biggest snake I’d ever seen.

  What? He was laughing now! “Hankie, did Pete scratch your nose?”

  I stared at him in disbelief. PETE? Was I dumb? Was I blind? Didn’t I know the difference between a shrimpy little ranch cat and an enormous rattlesnake? Pete had nothing to do with it. I’d been attacked by . . . I turned toward the bush and pointed my throbbing nose toward . . .

  HUH?

  Okay, let’s relax a moment and try to, uh, put this all together. Tension does strange things to a dog’s mind, to everyone’s mind actually, and if you’ll remember, we had been working under a heavy load of tension. Sometimes a guy’s mind gets so focused on the work at hand . . . sometimes the burden of tension grows so heavy . . .

  Phooey. You’ve probably figured it out anyway. Okay, maybe it was the cat, but let me hasten to point out that snakes often crawl into the yard and lie in the shade of bushes and shrubberies, and if a dog ever stuck his nose into one of those . . .

  I whirled away from Alfred and stormed over to the cat. “Idiot! You just slapped me across the nose!”

  I glared into the face of my least-favorite character on the ranch, in the entire world. Pete the Barncat. He was smirking, of course. He always smirks, and it drives me nuts.

  He fluttered his eyelashes. “Well, Hankie, don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  I stuck my nose right in his face. “I’ll put my nose . . .” BAM! Tears of pain rushed to my eyes, causing Pete’s face to swim out of focus. “You just slapped me again!”

  “I know, Hankie. Want to try for three in a row?”

  Would I fall for this trick? Yes, by George, and do you know why? Because I had a right to stick my nose anywhere I . . .

  BAM!

  . . . wanted. And having made my point, I withdrew from the field of battle, so to speak, and walked back to Little Alfred. I went to Short Rapid Wags on the tail section and beamed him an earnest look that said, “Alfred, your mother’s cat is out of control. I was just trying to be friendly and the little snot slugged me—three times! It was an unprovoked attack and I wish you’d . . .”

  I stormed back to the cat. “Pete, I was conducting an important search of the yard and trying to help this boy find his lost truck. But do you care about children? Do you care about anyone but yourself? Pete, you make me sick!”

  He drummed his claws on the ground and stared at me with his weird yellow eyes. “Hankie, if you push this, I’ll yowl and screech, and guess who will come flying out of the house with her broom.”

  I glared daggers at the little pestilence. Since there was more than a shred of truth in his pack of lies, I, uh, decided to soften my tone and take the Road of Maturity.

  “Pete, there’s no need for that. It’s a sad day when the citizens of this ranch can’t get along with each other.”

  He heaved a sigh and turned his gaze up toward the sky. “Hankie, there’s a very simple solution to this. Leave my yard and we’ll get along fine.”

  “Your yard? This is your yard now? Ha ha!”

  He grinned and nodded his head. “Um hm. Or if you’d rather, I can call Sally May and we’ll let her handle it.”

  The laughter died in my throat. “Okay, kitty, you’re holding the high cards this time, but don’t think . . .”

  “Good-bye, Hankie.”

  “Don’t think you’ve heard the last of this. I’ll come back, and when I do, Sally May won’t be around to save your skin.” With that stinging reply, I whirled around and marched away, leaving the cat in the shambles of his own ruins.

  Chapter Five: The Milk Jug Episode

  Holding my head at a proud angle, I stormed away from the cat and headed straight for the gate. There, I caught sight of something out of the cornea of my eye. I stopped and took a closer look: Sally May’s garden trowel with a red plastic handle was sitting beside the fence.

  Plastic! My mouth began to water and I had to send out my tongue to mop up several drips. I’d never chewed a garden trowel before, but all at once my enormous jaws closed around the plastic handle. I was about to go sprinting away from the scene of the scenery, when suddenly my blood was frozen by a voice.

  “HANK! Put down my trowel!”

  Huh? Was that the voice of the Dreaded She? I cut my eyes from side to side and lifted both ears to Full Gathering Position.

  The voice came again: “And get out of my yard! Now!”

  There, you see! What did I tell you? The woman never sleeps, never closes her eyes, never shuts down her radar.

  “Alfred, get my trowel away from that nincompoop before he chews it up!”

  Nincompoop? This was an outrage! Once again, she had witnessed only the tip of the ice cube and had rushed to judgment, accusing me of a crime I hadn’t committed yet or even thought about committing.

  Okay, maybe I’d thought about it, but there’s no crime in thinking about a crime. By George, this is still America!

  Little Alfred came trotting around the side of the house, heading toward me. I began flipping switches on the console of my mind, activating Slow Wags, Wounded Eyes, and Dispirited Ears.

  “Hankie, that’s my mom’s shovel and you can’t have it.” He seized the trowel and tried to snatch it out of my mouth.

  You know, if he’d asked nicely or shown any interest in reaching some kind of negotiated settlement, I would have gone for the deal, but when he grabbed it . . . well, I just acted on impulse. I held on tighter. He jerked and I jerked back. And all at once, things got out of hand. The harder he pulled, the more determined I was to hang on.

  “Hankie, give it to me!”

  It’s sad when old friends get sucked into ugly confrontations, but I wasn’t ready to give up the trowel, and I, well, snatched it out of his hands and made a dash for the machine shed.

  Behind me, I heard him wail, “Mom, he took your shovel!”

  “HANK!”

  Okay, forget the stupid trowel. I dropped it and sprinted up to the machine shed. It wasn’t worth a confrontation with Sally May and her broom. She and I had enough problems without getting into a fight over a silly little garden tool.

  I had planned to take refuge in the machine shed but decided not to. Drover would be there and I had no interest in spending any more time with him, so I headed for the shelter belt, just north of the machine shed. There, hiding behind a line of cedar trees, I was alone with my thoughts and could . . .

  Hmmm. It appeared that a plastic milk jug had blown out of the garbage barrel and lodged itself against the trunk of one of the cedar trees. Was this just a random event or did it point to some deeper pattern in the universe? I mean, plastic milk jugs are made of plastic, right? And plastic had become a major issue in my life, and all at once it seemed perfectly clear . . .

  I glanced over both shoulders, just to be sure that I was alone, and began . . . well, chewing the milk carton. Why not? It didn’t belong to anyone and, by George, I wanted to chew some plastic.

  “Oh, hi. What are you doing?”

  Huh? I froze and spit several pieces of plastic out of my mouth. Slowly, I turned my head and saw . . . Drover. “I’m doing nothing, and even if I were, it wouldn’t be any of your business.”

  “I’ll be derned. There for a second, I thought you were chewing plastic . . . or something.”

  “Once again, Drover, you have taken a tiny shred
of data and pumped it up into a wild generalization.”

  “Yeah, but I see shreds of plastic, and that makes me think you might be . . . well, sort of shredding up the milk carton.”

  “With only three shreds of evidence, you’re going to leap to the conclusion that I’m chewing plastic? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Well . . . I wondered.”

  I cut my eyes from side to side. My mind was racing. “All right, you little snoop, maybe I’m chewing a milk jug. I’m out of bones and I don’t chew wood. What’s a dog supposed to do in his spare time?”

  “Well, you told me . . .”

  “Drover, I told you that it was wrong to chew up children’s toys. I said nothing about milk cartons. It’s an entirely different situation.”

  “Yeah, but somebody chewed up Little Alfred’s truck, too. I just saw the pieces, right over there behind the machine shed, and I didn’t do it.”

  Those words sent a jolt down my spine. “What? Are you serious? Why wasn’t I informed of this? Come on, son, we need to check this out!” We rushed over to the north side of the machine shed and, sure enough, there were the ruins of Alfred’s truck, two hundred pieces of red plastic.

  I studied the evidence. “I’m seeing a pattern here. Notice the size of the tooth marks?”

  “Yeah, they’re pretty big.”

  “They’re very small, Drover. Whoever did this had small spiky teeth. Hmmm. What sort of animal has small spiky teeth? Wait! Cats have small spiky teeth. We’re making progress, son. Can you think of any cats who might have done this?”

  He gave me a blank stare. “Well . . . I know a cat, but I don’t think those tooth marks came from a cat.”

  I stared at him in astonishment. “What?”

  “They’re too big. They look more like . . . dog teeth.”

  I marched over to one of the fragments and gave it a closer inspection. “Hmm. You’ve got a point. Those puncture holes do indeed match the ballistics of dog teeth.” I drifted a few steps away and gazed off into the distance. “Drover, this case has taken a sudden turn for the worse. The shadow of suspicion has fallen upon someone we know.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”

  I whirled around and faced him. “I never would have dreamed you would do such a thing!”

  His eyes bugged out. “Me! I thought it was you!”

  I began pacing a circle around him, a technique I often use when I’m interrogating a reluctness witling . . . a reluctant witness, let us say. “Consider the evidence, Drover. Those plastic fragments show the marks of dog teeth. Are you a dog?”

  “Well . . . yes.”

  “And tell this court, do you have teeth in your mouth?”

  “Well . . . I guess so.”

  “Therefore, we have established that you have in your possession the very weapon that was used in this crime: dog teeth! Is that correct?”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “And tell this court who stole the truck in the first place. And who was suffering from an out-of-control Chewing Disorder?”

  The force of my interrogation had reduced him to jelly. He collapsed into a pile and let out a groan. “I didn’t do it! Honest, I didn’t do it!”

  I strolled over to him and beamed him a look of righteous anger. “Drover, the mark of a crook is that he always denies his guilt. If you had told this court that you were guilty, we would have known that you were innocent.”

  “All right then! I did it!”

  A cunning smile rippled across my mouth. “No further questions, your honor. The witness has admitted his guilt.”

  His head shot up and he stared at me with wide eyes. “Yeah, but I didn’t do it!”

  “Well, that’s too bad because you’ve already confessed. This court is now adjourned.”

  I walked away from him, proud that I had won the case. But then I heard him say, “Hank, you did it and that’s why Little Alfred couldn’t find his truck. You chewed it to smithereens, didn’t you? Tell the truth.”

  Tell the truth. Drover’s words hung in the air like buzzards and for several throbbing moments, our eyes were locked in a deadly struggle. Thoughts raced through my mind until, all at once, it was clear to me what I had to do: beat him up. My lips curled into snarl, my eyes narrowed into slits, I moved toward him like a bulldozer, and . . .

  I stopped. My head sank. “All right, you little squeakbox, now you know my darkest secrets.”

  “So . . . you really did it?”

  “Of course I did it! Furthermore, I enjoyed every second of it and I absolutely love chewing plastic.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Right. Uh-oh. It seems that I’ve developed an incurable lust for plastic, and I caught it from you!” Again, I began pacing. “Drover, all my life I’ve seen objects made of plastic and had no in­terest in them, none. But then you showed up with that plastic truck and started gnawing on it and . . . look what you’ve done to me!”

  His lower lip trembled. “So it’s my fault?”

  “Of course it’s your fault! Chewing plastic is the dumbest thing I ever heard of. On my own, I never would have thought of doing it.”

  “Yeah, but you did.”

  “I did, Drover, because you did it first.”

  “Yeah, but I quit. Maybe you should quit.”

  I stopped in my trucks . . . stopped in my tracks, let us say, and turned to face him. “Quit? Is that what you said?” I marched back to him. “That’s crazy! Don’t you get it? I love chewing plastic, and love is what makes this world go ’round. Do you want the world to stop going around?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Drover, if the world suddenly stopped spinning on its axels, birds would be thrown out of trees. Clouds would crash into each other. The machine shed would fall into splinters, our dog-food bowl would go flying all the way to China, and we would starve. Is that what you want?”

  He shook his head and let out a moan. “I’m so confused, I don’t know what to think!”

  “Well, quitting plastic is not the answer.”

  “Yeah, but what is?”

  There was a long moment of silence as each of us tried to deal with this crisis. At last I said, “I have a suggestion. I won’t tell anyone you stole the truck if you won’t tell anyone I ate it.”

  “I guess that’ll work.”

  “Good. Now, regarding the milk carton . . . let’s chew it together. If we’re going to be afflickened with a Chewing Disorder, at least we can do it as a team and celebrate the joy of behaving like lunatics.”

  “Yeah, but I already quit.”

  “Well, un-quit. Good habits are hard to break, but it can be done.”

  He blinked his eyes and smiled. “You really think so?”

  I marched over to him and placed a paw on his shoulder. “I’m sure of it, son. It won’t be easy, but I’ll be right beside you every step of the way. If you need a shoulder to lean on, I’ll be here.”

  His smile widened and he fluttered his stub tail. “You know, I think I can do it!”

  “That’s the spirit. Drover, I’m proud of you. Come on, let’s chew some plastic!”

  And with that, we indulged ourselves in one of the joys of being a dog, chewing a plastic milk jug into a thousand pieces.

  Chapter Six: Miss Beulah Pays Me a Call

  Boy, you should have seen us! We jumped into the middle of that milk carton and had ourselves a blast. We tore and chewed and spit, then did it all over again, until we had reduced the carton to shreds. At that point, we stood together, two proud members of the Security Division Elite Guards, admiring our work.

  “Well, what do you think, Drover, was that fun or what?”

  “Yeah, I can’t believe I ever gave up plastic.”

  “Yes, well, this is just the beginning, son. There’s more where that came from. I
n fact, I’ll tell you a secret. Just a while ago, I spotted an awesome garden trowel in the yard.”

  His eyes blanked out. “Yeah, but I don’t eat shovels.”

  “No, no, not the shovel part. It has a plastic handle, see, red plastic that’s just as soft and chewy as . . .” I noticed that his gaze had wandered toward something in the distance. “Are you listening?”

  “Oh my gosh! It’s Miss Beulah!”

  HUH?

  Miss Beulah, on our ranch? That was impossible. She wasn’t the kind of dog who strayed off her own place. Furthermore, she had never paid us a visit by herself, never.

  “Drover, you need to get your eyes checked. I don’t know what you’re seeing out there, but . . .”

  “It’s a lady dog.”

  “It may be a lady dog, son, but I can promise you . . .” I turned my gaze toward the northeast and . . . hmmm, saw what appeared to be an un­iden­tified dog some three hundred yards away, coming in our direction. And the evidence suggested that she might be of the female variety. “Okay, maybe it’s a lady dog, but . . .”

  “Oh my gosh, I think I’m in love!” ZOOM! In a flash, he was gone, running toward the stranger.

  “Drover, come back here! It’s not Miss Beulah, and you’re not in love. Drover, I’m ordering you to stop!”

  There was no calling him back. The runt seemed to have lost what little mind he had left and was streaking toward the stranger. Whoever that was out there would get her first impression of our ranch by meeting Drover, and that would be a terrible shock.

  I narrowed my eyes and looked closer. Drover had reached the stranger, and now he was . . . well, hopping like a grasshopper and rolling around on the grass, almost as though . . . I had seen this type of behavior before, and it became obvious that I needed to check things out myself.

  I went ripping out into the pasture to save the lady-stranger from the shock of meeting Drover, when all at once I noticed that I was . . . well, hopping up and down, diving through the air, and doing rolls in the grass. Do you see the meaning of this?