The Return of the Charlie Monsters

by John R. Erickson

  I was glad to see my pal excited, and I sure didn’t want to stomp on his idea, but as far as me going to town…well, that didn’t sound very practical. I went to Slow Caring Wags on the tail section, to let him know that I appreciated the invitation.

  He looked into my face and smiled, and you know, that kid had the sweetest smile. Sometimes his grin showed an ornery streak, but this time…just innocence and little-boy sweetness, and he said, “Hankie, I wish you’d go with me. The other kids would love it. You’d be the star!”

  The star? Me? No kidding? Wow, what could I say?

  Hey, I don’t go around trying to make a big deal out of myself, but…the star, huh? I had to admit it was kind of an interesting idea. How many dogs get a chance to be the star of anything? Very few.

  One of the things that comes with the title of Head of Ranch Security…and this is something we have to cope with…one of the things that comes with the so-forth is that, well, a lot of people and dogs see us as something special, out of the ordinary, a kind of celebrity…even a star.

  Yes, it was a pretty interesting idea, but…

  The lad tossed a glance toward the house and lowered his voice. “I don’t think my mom would mind.”

  Oh? I wasn’t so sure about that. I mean, Sally May was pretty particular about who got to ride in her car and I couldn’t remember ever being invited. Also, we’d had some, uh, tension in the relationship that very morning.

  A twinkle came into his eyes. “She doesn’t have to know.”

  Yeah, well, there was a little problem with “she doesn’t have to know.” His mother had several Mommy Sensing Devices that included radar for dogs and X-ray vision for little boys, and somehow she always seemed to know everything about everything.

  “You could hide on the floor in the back. It could be our very own secret.”

  Hmmm. I hadn’t thought of that, hiding on the floor, beyond the reach of Mommy Radar. That was pretty clever.

  “Please, Hankie? Please, please, pleeeeeeze!”

  You know, a lot of dogs don’t pay attention to the bupp…excuse me, to the kids, and consider them little nuisances. I guess if those mutts had their way, they’d choose to live in a world without messes and noise and all the other stuff that comes with kids.

  But let me tell you something about cowdogs. We care about the children. When they’re in danger, we’re ready to rumble. When they’re unhappy, we’re unhappy. When they’re having a bad day, we’re having a bad day. When they cry, we cry. And when they go to town…

  I get a little choked up, just talking about this stuff. I mean, the burp of loyalty between a boy and his dog is so powerful, it actually shorts out the rational mind. For a few moments in time, we can’t think of anything except keeping a smile shining on the faces of our little pals.

  And think about this. One day, Alfred would grow up and none of this would be important to him, but now, today, he wanted to share his life and experiences with me. Even more touching, he wanted to share ME with the less fortunate children of Twitchell.

  Would I volunteer for this mission? Yes. Of course. Absolutely. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away. Anything for the kids!

  I communicated these thoughts through ears, eyes, tail wags, and a loud bark, and we sealed the deal with a hug.

  But then…uh oh. We heard sounds coming from the house. The door opened and closed. Footsteps swished on the sidewalk. The yard gate squeaked. Sally May was coming.

  I looked at the boy and he looked at me. He whispered, “Quick, in the car!”

  Roger that!

  I dived into the car and assumed a Stealth Position on the floor. Alfred dived in right behind me, slammed the door shut, and became a statue of The Perfect Little Boy: good posture, hands clasped in his lap, eyes straight ahead, a smile stamped on his mouth, and his feet on the floor.

  Actually, his feet were on top of me, but that was okay. Anything for the kids.

  Sally May settled Baby Molly into her car seat, closed the door, and walked around the back of the car. Then…gulp…the sound of her feet on the gravel stopped. She was looking into the left rear window. I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped…

  “Oh, there you are. Ready to go?”

  In a stiff, unnatural voice, the kid said, “Yes, Mother, all set to go.”

  She entered the car and closed the door. “When did you start saying, ‘Yes, Mother’? It almost makes me…well, I appreciate that I didn’t have to go looking for you. We’re already running late.” She twisted the rear view mirror and looked at her face. “The idiot.”

  “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  “Your dog bashed me in the face and I’m getting a black eye. I tried to cover it with make-up, but it still shows.”

  The boy’s mouth dropped open and we exchanged a look of, well, alarm. The thought had just struck him that…uh…taking me to Bible School might not be such a great idea, not today, not with all the, uh, bad feelings and so forth.

  He swallowed hard. “Hey Mom, I need to tell you something.”

  “Not now, sweetie, we’re already late.”

  She started the car and we went ripping away from the house. You can always tell when she’s “running late.” Tires spin and gravel flies. Dogs, cats, and chickens had better get out of the way.

  Borp.

  Good grief, I was sealed inside an automobile, swaying back and forth, racing toward town, and something scary was going on in my gizzardly depths. Remember that rotten egg? I remembered it. And you know what else? There’s a condition called “car sickness.” It’s caused by the rocking motion of a vehicle, and made worse when the vehicle is warm and stuffy.

  By the time we reached the highway, the air inside the car seemed very warm and very stuffy. I pushed myself up to a standing position and glanced around, looking for…I don’t know what, a door, an exit, an open window, anything that would allow me to escape this…

  Uh oh.

  My head began moving up and down. I had been through this before and knew what it meant. Powerful, unseen forces had taken control of my body.

  Ump. Ump. Ump.

  Little Alfred’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “Hankie, no!”

  I gave him a Tragic Look. Sorry.

  “Hey Mom, you need to stop!”

  “Stop?”

  “Hank’s back here…and he’s fixing to throw up!”

  “Hank? Oh my word! No, please, not today!”

  “Hurry, Mom!”

  She must have heard my “umps” and figured out that this was no joke. She pulled off the highway and hit the brakes.

  “Alfred Leroy, how did that dog get in my car?”

  The boy stared straight ahead and shook his head, and tears began flowing down his cheeks. “I don’t know, Mom.” He burst out crying.

  Well, I felt bad for the boy, but a whole lot worse about the convulsions in my stomach. I mean, we’re talking about an explosion in the boiler room, big-time trouble.

  She got the car shut down, dived outside, and jerked open Alfred’s door. “Hank, out, quick, hurry!”

  You know, if she’d pulled over just five seconds sooner, we might have…I mean, it all happened so fast. I leaped out of the car, but the damage had already…it lay on the floor.

  She leaned into the car and stared at the, uh, material on the floor. “Green?” At that same moment, she caught a whiff of it and…this is really painful. The sound that leaped out of her mouth was something between a shriek and a squeak. “Aaaah! What is that? Alfred, honey, get out of the car. Hurry, and don’t breathe the fumes!”

  She gagged, clapped a hand over her mouth, and jerked her son out of the car, then ran around to the other side and rescued Baby Molly.

  And there we stood, a homeless family on the side of the highway. The car had become an abandoned, contaminated, toxic, radioactive piece of
junk. Alfred wailed and boo-hooed. Sally May tried to console him, while holding Molly, shaking her head, rolling her eyes, and muttering dark syllables under her breath.

  I felt terrible. Actually, I felt quite a bit better, physically speaking, but I’m talking about the emotional burden of the so-forth. I couldn’t help feeling that, well, I had been partly responsible. In fact, I felt such a rush of sorrow, I was about to lick Sally May on the ankles, but a tiny voice inside my mind whispered, “Don’t do that.”

  Good advice. I skipped the Ankle Wash and slithered under the car.

  So there we were, stranded and adrift on the endless plains of the Texas Panhandle. The silence was terrifying. At last, Alfred said, “What do we do now, Mom?”

  “I don’t know. What was that dog doing in my car?”

  “I wanted him to go to Bible School.”

  “You wanted…how could you do this to your own mother!”

  They both seemed on the virgil of tears, but just then, we heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. It slowed down and pulled off the highway. It stopped. Two doors opened and closed. Footsteps approached. I dared to peek out and saw…holy smokes, it was Loper and Slim, and halleluiah for that!

  Chapter Nine: Big Trouble

  They walked up to the car and glanced around. Loper said, “Hi, Hon. What happened to your eye?” This brought a poisonous silence, broken only by Alfred’s sniffles and the sounds of Sally May about to…well, either burst out crying or explode. Loper and Slim exchanged glances. “What’s going on here?”

  The flood gates opened and out it came. The turkeys. The collision between my head and her eye. Late to Bible School. A dog in the back seat. And the unfortunate incident that had brought us to this awkward moment—the Poisoned Egg Event.

  She wrapped it up by saying, “I have a black eye, my car is ruined, and I’m late to my Bible School class!” Loper and Slim burst out laughing. Her eyes flamed. “AND IT’S NOT FUNNY!”

  Loper went to her and gave her a hug. “Hon, I know it’s not funny, but it really is. Look, nobody’s hurt. We didn’t have an earthquake or a hurricane or a car wreck, and everything’s going to work out fine. I’ll take you and the kids to town in my pickup. You’ll be a little late, but God will understand.”

  At last she managed to squeeze up a little smile. “Well, I hope He does. But my car smells horrible. I don’t know what that dog ate…”

  “Not a problem, hon, don’t give it a thought. Slim can drive it back to the ranch and give it the full treatment.” He turned to Slim and said, “In this time of crisis, I need to be with my family.”

  Slim gave him a frigid glare. “Yeah, and you’re a low-down skunk.”

  Loper winked. “Be happy in your work. And don’t forget to take the dog.”

  The family seemed to be in a better mood when they climbed into the pickup, but Slim wasn’t anywhere close to being in a good mood. When the pickup pulled onto the highway and sped off to town, he glared after it with smoldering eyes, and yelled—this is an exact quote—he yelled, “I hired onto this outfit as a cowboy. Nobody said anything about cleaning up dog drool!”

  Boy, he was really steamed. He stood there for a moment, boiling and fuming, then saw a paper cup on the side of the road. He stomped over to it and kicked it with all his might.

  It was a great kick. His right leg went high in the air. The cup crunched and flew all the way across the ditch. The sad part was that Slim put so much passion into wrecking the cup, he pulled the hamster muscle in the back of his thigh. The hamstring muscle, I guess it should be, and it must have hurt like crazy.

  He let out a howl, grabbed his leg with both hands, bent over like a turkey, and started hopping around. Well, I hadn’t planned on putting in appearance this soon, but what’s a dog to do? We’re loyal to the little children, and we’re loyal to our cowboy companions. Cowdogs and cowboys go together like…I don’t know, like nitro and glycerin, I suppose. Or like salt and pepper. Or bacon and eggs.

  Forget the bacon and eggs.

  The point is that my cowboy had wounded himself, and never mind that he’d done it in a display of childish, bone-headed behavior. One of the reasons dogs get along so well with cowboys is that…well, we understand childish, bone-headed behavior. You might even say…never mind.

  So would I leave the safety of my position under the car and rush out to give comfort to my cowboy companion? You bet I would! I rushed out to give him aid and comfort, and it wasn’t my fault that he tripped over me. He had eyes. I was just trying to…

  “Get away from me!”

  Fine. If he wanted to hop around like a one-legged goose on the side of a major highway and bring disgrace to every member of our ranch community, it was no skin off my nose. Let him make a spectacle of himself.

  You know, the relationship between cowboys and their dogs has been exaggerated. A lot of times, when they do silly things, we would rather not be associated with them.

  I slithered back under the car and watched him limp and moan. At first, it seemed merely childish and bizarre, but it turned funny when the driver of a passing car saw the drama…and stopped.

  It was Chief Deputy Kile of the Ochiltree County Sheriff’s Department. He got out of his squad car and walked toward Slim. “What’s wrong? You hurt?”

  Slim hobbled over to the car and leaned against it. “I kicked a paper cup and pulled a hamstring.” Deputy Kile waited for the rest of the story. “Never mind. Stick your head inside the car and take a deep breath.”

  Deputy Kile did that…and jumped back. “What is that?”

  Slim straightened up and tested his leg. “Bozo barfed on the way to town and Loper stuck me with the job of cleaning it up.”

  The deputy laughed. “Oh. Well, I’ll see you around.” He started back to his car.

  “Coward! Wait! Are you carrying a shovel?”

  “Yes, but it needs an operator.”

  “Bobby, it’s so sad, what’s happened to this country. Nobody cares about anybody but theirselves. Here I am, injured on the side of the road…”

  “I’ll loan you the shovel, but I want it back, clean.” He fetched a small, square-blade shovel out of the trunk of his car and handed it to Slim.

  He snatched it. “In America, people used to help their friends and neighbors.”

  “Yep, but that was long ago.”

  Slim went to work on the, uh, cleaning project, and this seemed a good time for me to say hello to Deputy Kile. You know, there’s always been a bond between cowdogs and law enforcement officers. In many ways, we’re involved in the same line of work, don’t you see. I crept out from beneath the car and gave the deputy a friendly smile.

  “Hello, Hank.” He reached down and rubbed me on the ears. “How’s it going, buddy?” From inside the car, we heard a series of odd sounds. It appeared that Slim was, well, gagging on the fumes. The deputy chuckled. “It’s awful noisy out here, isn’t it? Used to be, the countryside was quiet and peaceful, but any more…”

  Slim dashed around to the back side of the car and…gee, what was he doing? His voice fractured the silence. “Earl!”

  Deputy Kile cackled. “Any more, you can’t find peace and quiet, even in the country. If it’s not an airplane making noise, it’s a cattle truck or some cowpuncher throwing up on the side of the highway.”

  Slim returned, looking a bit pale. “That dog ate a rotten egg!”

  “I’ve got a HAZMAT suit in the trunk.”

  Slim gave him a scorching glare. “Bobby, Baxter Black’s a comedian. You ain’t even close. Stick with what you do best, although I can’t think of what that might be.”

  The deputy chirped a laugh. “Well, try to hold down the noise. Me and Hank have things to talk about.” Slim went back to his job, and the deputy and I continued our conversation. “So how’s everything at the ranch, Hank? Have you eaten any good eggs lately?�
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  “Earl!”

  We had a nice visit, Deputy Kile and I, in spite of all the noise. At last Slim finished the job, cleaned the shovel with dirt, and handed it back to the officer.

  “Thanks for nothing.”

  The deputy reached into his shirt pocket and handed Slim a business card. “We’re here to serve. Call me any time, day or night.”

  Whistling a tune, Deputy Kile walked back to his car. Slim glared after him. “Bobby, the citizens of this county get to vote on the sheriff. Tell your boss that he just lost the cowboy vote, and it was all your doing!”

  The deputy waved goodbye and drove off. Slim glared down at me. “Well, I got rid of one pain in the neck, but I’ve still got you. Get in, and you can ride in the back with what’s left of your breakfast.”

  Gee, what a grouch. Fine. I could ride in the back with my so-called breakfast. He had scooped out the worst of it, so I figured…gasp, arg! It still smelled awful back there, but Slim rolled down all the windows and it was bearable, much better than sitting up in the front seat with the man I had thought was my friend-to-the-end. Obviously, I had been misinformed about that.

  But sitting alone in the back seat didn’t spare me from Slim’s weird sense of humor. You know what he did? Oh brother. See, the man thinks he’s a songbird, a famous singer who’s missed his chance to be famous, so he makes up these corny songs, and guess who has to listen to them.

  The dogs.

  He sings them when we’re trapped inside a vehicle and can’t jump out, so we have to sit there and suffer through them.

  Can you believe a grown man would make up a song called “Don’t Haul a Sick Dog in the Back of Your Car”? Well, you can believe it or not, but I’m here to tell you that he did. I know, because I had to listen to the whole thing.

  I’m sure you wouldn’t want to hear it. I mean, it was so childish and dumb! Oh well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to let you listen to it. Hang on.

  Don’t Haul a Sick Dog In the Back of Your Car