The Case of the Blazing Sky

by John R. Erickson

  As I marched past him, I turned my head and gave him a glare that said, “Thought you could sneak down here and run the welder in violation of Title Five of the Fire Code, huh? Bad news, fella. We’re here to investigate.”

  Pretty impressive, huh? You bet. I got him told and the guy was left speechless. I mean, what could he say in the face of such . . .

  Huh?

  He lowered the welding hood, covering his face. His arms rose slowly in the air and his hands . . . yipes, his fingers spread into gnarled clawlike claws and . . .

  I heard Drover squeak behind me. “Hank, I remember now. We were down here a while ago and he turned into a robot monster!”

  “Roger that, but maybe it’s just a trick. He’s done this before, you know. We will now make an orderly retreat to the west fence and try to remain calm.”

  We suspended the parade and withdrew our troops about fifty feet to the west, where we huddled against the corral fence and . . . well, continued to monitor the situation. I was pretty sure this was Slim playing pranks again, but when a guy’s in charge of the safety of his troops, he can’t afford to take chances.

  I was thinking mainly of Drover. You know how he is.

  Pressing our bodies against the fence, we waited and watched. The creature raised the hood and . . . see, I told you. The face belonged to Slim Chance, and he was grinning like . . . I don’t know what. Like a possum. Like a monkey.

  He said, “Hi, puppies. Did I fool you again? Tell the truth.”

  I beamed him a scorching glare that said, “You did not fool us, we know all about your silly pranks, and we’d appreciate it if you would stop goofing off!”

  At last he did. He had to. After you’ve done the same trick five times in a row, the audience loses interest. I was embarrassed for him. I mean, what can you say about a grown man who wastes half the afternoon trying to terrorize his dogs? It was pathetic.

  Slim lowered his hood and started welding again, only this time I was there to supervise his every move. I studied the red and yellow sparks that were landing around his feet, while the drone of the welding motor echoed through my ear canals.

  Let me tell you something about welding. For a while it’s kind of interesting—you know, the smoke cloud, the flash of light, the shower of sparks and so forth—but after about five minutes, time begins to drag. A lot of dogs would close their eyes and star fall sleep and snicklefritz hog report on Tuesday . . .

  Huh? Sorry, my wand mandered . . . my mind wandered there for a second and I almose driffled off to puddle murfing snork burf snizzle piffle sponk . . . zzzzzzzzz.

  Huh? Okay, I was having a little tribble coping my eyes eepen . . . a little trouble keeping my eyes open, let us say. I mean, all at once my eyelids seemed to have lead weights attached . . . zzzzt . . . lead eyes attached to my doorknobs and my head kept dripping down on my checkerboard . . . my head kept dropping down on my . . . zzzzzzzzz.

  Huh? Where was I? Okay, welding. You want the straight story on welding? It’s nothing a dog would ever do because any dog with an active mind would die of boredom in ten minutes. Duty demanded that we maintain a presence with Slim while he was working, but I muss admip that . . . zzzzzzzzzzzz.

  “Hank, you’d better wake up!”

  Had I heard a voice? Yes. Had I wanted to hear a voice? No. Therefore, the voice I had heard was not a voice at all. It had actually been some kind of . . . carrot cracker pumping happy squash bugs . . .

  “Hank, wake up! There’s something you need to see.”

  I cranked open one eyelid. It weighed five thousand pounds. I held it open long enough to see . . . who was that? I summoned a burst of energy and cranked open the other eye, revealing the same guy I’d seen with the first eye.

  Okay, it was Drover. I blinked several times and glanced around. “Drivver, somebody was calling my name.”

  “Yeah, it was me.”

  “Okay, that checks out because, well, there you are.”

  “Yeah, but my name’s Drover. You called me Drivver.”

  “I did not call you Drivver. My splurch was sleed . . . my speech was slurred, that’s all, and why are you bothering me in the middle of my nap?”

  “Well, there’s a fire, right over there.”

  I hauled myself up to a standing position and shook the vapors out of my head.

  HUH? “Drover, I don’t want to alarm you, but those dry weeds around the cow chute seem to be burning.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Ignited by sparks from Slim’s welder.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was trying to tell you.”

  I whirled around and gave him a ferocious glare. “Drover, the weeds at Slim’s feet are on fire and he doesn’t know it! Why didn’t you wake me up and tell me?”

  “Well, I think I just did.”

  I shook more vapors out of my head. “Well, someone should warn Slim, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “Then do it! What are you waiting for?”

  “Well . . .” He took a couple of limping steps. “To tell you the truth, this old leg’s been giving me fits again.”

  “Oh brother! Never mind, you little faker, I’ll handle it myself.” I pushed him out of the way and hurried over to the cow chute. I waited a moment, figuring that Slim would notice me. He didn’t and I could understand why. I mean, the welder was roaring so loud he couldn’t hear anything, and he was working inside that hood and couldn’t see much either.

  I didn’t want to interrupt his work, but the fire at his feet was growing larger by the moment and, well, someone needed to take some action. I took a deep breath of air and barked. No response. I moved closer and barked again, louder this time.

  “May I have your attention please! We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin. Fire Patrol has located a small fire in the vicinity of your boots. At the present time it’s not causing any great damage, but that could change at any moment. Hello? Do you read me?”

  I waited. The welder roared, sparks flew, and Slim was off in another world. Okay, I would have to crank up the barking. I inched closer, filled my lungs with a huge gulp of air, and cut loose with a burst of Rude and Intrusive Barking.

  Oof!

  You won’t believe this. The guy was standing in a circle of fire, but when I tried to give him a warning, he reached out his big ugly steel-toed boot and kicked me! Okay, that did it. I marched away and joined Drover at the corral fence.

  He gave me a worried look. “Gosh, I wonder if his pants legs could catch on fire.”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  “His cuffs are kind of ragged. See all those strings?”

  “I see the strings, Drover, and if I were wearing those coveralls, I would be worried, but I’m not. When these people ignore their dogs, they have to take the consequences.”

  We watched and, sure enough, one of the strings on Slim’s ragged cuff caught fire. Then another. In seconds, the whole cuff burst into flames. Drover turned to me with a look of alarm.

  “Hank?”

  “Drover, I did my best and nothing worked. It’s hopeless.”

  “There’s one thing left.”

  I stared at him. “What’s left?”

  “Bite ’im!”

  Chapter Five: I Rescue Slim from a Burning Pants Leg

  Drover’s words hung in the air like words hanging in the air.

  “Bite him? Are you crazy?”

  We watched as the flames on his cuffs grew larger. “Hank, you’d better do something, and quick!”

  I heaved a sigh and rose to my feet. “Okay, I’m going in—not because he deserves it but because . . . I don’t know why. Because this is what dogs do. You come in the second wave.”

  “And do what?”

  “I don’t know, spit on the fl
ames or something. Lend a hand, break a leg.”

  “I already did.” He limped around in circles and fell over. “There it went! Oh, my leg!”

  I stepped over his twitching body and prepared for action. This would be one of the most dangerous missions of my entire career and I knew there was a good chance that I would run into trouble. To get Slim’s attention, I would have to bite him hard enough to get his attention, and he wouldn’t like that. Oh well, it had to be done.

  I entered all the targeting information and locked it into the computer. The target was acquired. We were ready to launch. I rolled the muscles in my enormous shoulders and pointed my nose directly at the target. While Drover squeaked and quivered, I launched the weapon.

  “Charge, bonzai!”

  Boy, old Slim was sure surprised! I mean, there he was, a happy bachelor cowboy doing his fix-up job on the cow chute, all alone in his little world under the welding hood, and totally unaware that his pants were on fire, when all at once a four-legged cruise missile came out of nowhere and took a bite out of his hip pocket.

  SNAP!

  I knew right away that I had gotten his attention. “Eeeeee-YOW!” He jumped about five feet straight up, banged his head on a chute lever, and then everything became a blur of motion. Off came the welding hood, off came the leather gloves. Welding rods, slag hammer, marking chalk, tape measure, and electric cords went flying in all directions.

  He grabbed his hiney with both hands and with a very astonished expression on his face, he screamed, “IDIOT! YOU BIT ME!”

  Right. And your pants are on fire.

  His face had become a mask of rage. He lunged toward me, and this time he wasn’t playing games. I think he had plans for twisting my head off, but then he began to feel the heat from his flaming pants.

  He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the fire coming up his leg. His mouth dropped open and I heard him say, “Good honk, I’m on fire!” Then he started dancing a polka and slapping at the flames. “Hyah, hyah!”

  Well, glory be, he’d finally figured it out. These guys take a lot of patience, but once in a while we’re rewarded with a successful mission.

  He moved with a kind of speed we’d never seen before. After he’d stomped out the fire in the weeds, down came the zipper on his coveralls. He wiggled his shoulders and flopped his arms and waggled the top half of his body around, dropped to the ground and kicked his legs until the coveralls finally came flying off.

  They landed in a heap nearby and roared up into a blaze big enough to roast a couple of goats and a bunch of marshmallows. Slim just sat there and watched, stunned and amazed, while his welding uniform went up in smoke.

  After a bit he chuckled and turned his eyes on me. “Pooch, it ain’t polite to bite your friends, but I’m kind of glad you did this time. I guess I owe you one. Thanks.”

  Yes, he certainly “owed me one” and I waited for the awards ceremony to begin. What would it be? A big juicy steak? A package of frozen hamburger from the deep freeze? Or maybe a whole gallon of ice cream, all to myself? Any of those items would have been fine with me or, what the heck, all of them would have been even better.

  I mean, let’s look at the facts. My rescue had been so rapid and well-timed, the fire hadn’t even burned his jeans, much less his leg, so, yes, this seemed a perfect time for him to give me a huge reward.

  He reached two fingers into his shirt pocket and dug around. He frowned. “Well, I thought I still had a piece of beef jerky but I guess I ate it for lunch. Will you take an IOU?”

  What? An IOU? No! I wanted my steak! Our dog bowl had been empty for two weeks! Okay, twelve hours, but it had been empty.

  He grinned. “Thanks, pooch, I knew you’d understand. An IOU from an honest man is almost as good as a sack of gold.”

  Oh sure, and an IOU from a crook was almost as good as a sack of gold without the gold.

  He yawned. “Well, it’s quittin’ time anyway. You want to stay down at my place tonight?”

  No, I certainly did not. I had better things to do and better friends to do it with. I turned my back on him and went into a Deep Sulk.

  “Hey, I’ll give you a bite of my mackerel and ketchup sandwich.”

  No. I was hungry but not desperate.

  He shrugged. “No? Well, I’ll think of you when I’m eating my supper. Nighty night.”

  And with that, he slouched off to his pickup and drove away, leaving me in the ruins of a shattered steak dream.

  You know, if dogs wrote the history books, there would be a lot of embarrassed humans. We would tell all about their childish pranks and bonehead mistakes, about how they goof off and play robot on company time and catch their clothes on fire.

  Oh well. Darkness was approaching, and Drover and I made our way back to our office/bedroom underneath the gas tanks. It had turned into a pretty strenuous afternoon, with all the monster reports, fire alarms, and shattered dreams, and I was ready for some shut-eye. As I was scratching up my gunnysack bed, I noticed Drover staring at me.

  “What?”

  “Oh nothing. I was just thinking.”

  “That’s scary. About what?”

  “You sure saved old Slim. What a hero!”

  “Right, what a hero, and what did it get me? A pat on the head. At the very least, he should have given me a steak dinner.”

  “Yeah, but he’s too cheap.”

  My head shot up and so did my ears. I gazed out into the darkness. “Did you hear that?”

  “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Well, I did. It was that same bird we heard earlier.”

  He giggled. “Oh, you mean ‘cheap’?”

  Slurp.

  “Yes. You heard it, too?” I leaped to my feet. “Drover, unless I’m badly mistaken, there’s a young, tender chicken out there in the darkness!”

  “No, it was just me. I said—”

  “I can’t stand this any longer. Every time I try to relax, I hear chickens! They’re everywhere and it’s driving me crazy.” I turned my fevered gaze upon my assistant. “I have to settle this thing, once and for all.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Don’t wait up for me, son. This could turn into a late night.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  I didn’t stick around to hear the rest of his “yeah, but.” I went plunging into the darkness of night, in search of . . .

  I know what you’re thinking: I had become possessed with the thought of eating a chicken. Go ahead and admit it. You think I had turned into some kind of chicken-killing fiend, right?

  Okay, maybe you’ve got a point, but let’s look at it from another angle. We’re not talking about a whole bunch of chickens, just one, and who would miss one little chicken? Nobody. Chickens come and go, right? They have accidents and, well, sometimes they just vanish without a trace. It happens all the time.

  And don’t forget that the people who operate the ranch had forgotten to refill our dog bowl. Was that my fault? What’s a dog to do? I mean, we sit around all day, listening to the wildcats growling in our stomachs and watching as two-legged dinners walk around in front of us, and what are we supposed to think about? The weather? Volcanic activity in Washington State? Fungus and algae?

  Look, dogs aren’t saints. When we’re hungry, we think about FOOD, and when we see plump juicy chickens . . . slurp . . . walking around all day, we begin thinking the unthinkable.

  And don’t forget that I hadn’t been paid for my heroic rescue of Slim. I deserved a special treat, and by George . . .

  Yes, I’ll admit that inviting one of Sally May’s chickens to supper involved . . . uh, certain risks, shall we say. But I had a plan and it didn’t involve Sally May’s approval . . . or knowledge.

  Heh heh. Hide the feathers and they’ll never know. Heh heh. Yes sir, I was a dog with a plan. I can’t reveal it at this
time (it’s highly classified), but you’ll see.

  Oh, one last thing. You’re probably disappointed that I was taking this swerve into anti­social behavior. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I never pretended to be a perfect dog. Through the years, I’ve tried to be a good dog, but even good dogs yield to temptation every once in a while, and there’s no temptation like a plump, juicy . . .

  Slurp.

  That’s all I’m going to say about it. If this next part gets unbearable, just skip a couple of chapters and we’ll see you on the other side.

  Chapter Six: A Plunge into Darkest Darkness

  Okay, where were we? Oh yes, I had stormed out of the office and had entered the world outside where darkness and temptation lurked behind every bush and tree. I felt the darkness, both inside and out, and believe it or not, all at once I began hearing a creepy song in the back of my mind. No kidding. Here, listen to this.

  Chickens

  Chickens . . . all I see are chickens.

  It really is the dickens

  When the mind plays clever tricks,

  Projecting colored pictures

  Of a bird upon a plate.

  Such a cruel fate!

  Dinners . . . all I see are dinners.

  Just exactly what a sinner

  Doesn’t need. It’s so frustrating

  To see roasted birds parading

  Down the Broadway of my mind.

  Destiny’s unkind!

  On the other hand, it’s really kind of neat to have these visions.

  It provides a little break between decisions.

  Don’t forget, a guy needs rest,

  A break from all the stress

  Of working day and night to earn his pay.

  Sleeping . . . Sally May is sleeping.

  And while she sleeps I’m creeping

  Like a panther through a park,

  At ease in total darkness.

  A phantom in the night,

  But still aware it isn’t right.

  Lurking . . . images are lurking.

  I hear the sounds of slurping