The Almost Last Roundup

by John R. Erickson

  He stormed into the machine shed, which produced more banging and clanging. Alfred drifted over to the trailer and picked up the wheel bearing. He looked at it for a while, then laid it on the fender of the trailer—not where he’d found it.

  Uh oh.

  When Slim came out of the machine shed, his teeth were clinched and his face had turned red. “How can I keep the machinery running on this ranch when the boss carries off all my tools?”

  He flopped himself down on the bucket and glanced around. “Now, what did I do with that bearing? I set it down right there. I thought I did.” He got up and went back into the machine shed. We heard clanging, banging, and muttering. He came out shaking his head. “What did I do with the dadgum bearing?”

  He walked around the trailer, looking everywhere but on the fender. He shook his head in despair. “I’m losing my mind, and I didn’t have much to start with.”

  Well, this seemed to be a time when a loyal dog could make a contribution. I mean, I knew exactly where the bearing had gone, so I barked.

  “You hush.”

  Fine. I could hush. By George, if they don’t want help from their dogs, they can do things the hard way. What a grouch.

  He sat down on the bucket and tried to remember what he’d been doing before he stopped doing what he’d been doing and had started doing something else. “Now where’d the socket go?” He picked up the can of grease and stared into it. “Who put the grasshopper in the…Alfred!”

  The boy came over, looking as innocent as a lamb. Slim pointed to the grasshopper. “Is this some of your work?”

  Alfred nodded. “He needed some gwease.”

  “He needed some grease. Did you steal my wrenches?”

  The boy nodded. “I dug a hole.”

  “You dug a hole. Okay, here’s the bonus question. Did you haul off my wheel bearing?” Alfred bobbed his head and pointed to the bearing.

  Slim’s lips moved but no words came out. He slapped his hands on his knees and pushed himself up to his full height. “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop. Y’all are fired, both of you. Get out of here, scat! If you come around here again, I’m going to haul you both to the dog pound.”

  I think that business about the dog pound might have been a joke, but he was on such a snort, I didn’t want to test it, and neither did Alfred. As we walked away, the lad whispered, “I was just trying to help.”

  Yes, I understood. The harder you try to please some people, the more they don’t appreciate your effort. On this outfit, no good deed goes unseated.

  No good deed goes unpunished, let us say.

  Anyway, Little Alfred and I had gotten fired, so we had to find something else to do. But what? That’s a problem on long, hot summer days. See, we lived twenty-five miles from town and there wasn’t a whole lot going on.

  We drifted over to a spot of shade on the west side of the water storage tank, and there we joined…guess who. Mister Half-Stepper. He was lying in the shade like the Great Sphinx, only he wasn’t even close to being great. A sawed-off, stub-tailed little mutt, is what he was, but I had to admit that he had a talent for finding good shade.

  “Move.”

  I pushed him out of the way and took his spot beside the storage tank, which always stayed cool in the summertime. Alfred flopped down beside me, hugged his knees with both arms, and looked out at the heat waves on the horizon. The minutes dragged by.

  Then the boy cocked his head and grinned. “I know what we can do. Oh, this’ll be fun!”

  He leaped up and trotted down to the house.

  I thought about leaping up and trotting beside him, but…hey, it was hot, and we’re talking about succotashing heat. Suffocating heat, let us say. Succotash is some kind of food dish, right? It has nothing to do with heat unless you warm it up in the oven, but even then…never mind.

  As I was saying, broiling heat makes a dog want to homestead a shady spot beside the water storage tank. Don’t get me wrong, I had no desire to be a lazy bum like Drover, but there are times when…well, bumhood is kind of appealing, and I’ll have to give the runt credit for one thing. He’d found the best piece of shade on the whole ranch, and I appreciated that he’d invited me to share it with him.

  Okay, he didn’t exactly invite me, and we didn’t exactly share. I pulled rank and took the shady spot. Heh heh. That’s one of the perks of being Head of Ranch Security, don’t you see. We get first dibs on the shade. Naturally, he moaned and whined.

  “You took my shade.”

  “All our lines are busy. Call back in an hour.”

  “I’m hot.”

  “Winter will be here before you know it.”

  “What if I get heat stroke?”

  “I’ll send flowers.”

  “I don’t think you even care.”

  “You could be right.”

  “It’s not fair.”

  “Right again. Hush.”

  Some dogs need more ignoring than others, and Drover requires constant ignoring. We call it “Drover Deaf.” I let him blabber all he wants. He feels better, complaining, and I feel better, ignoring everything he says.

  I had drifted off into a great little snooze, when a sound reached my ears and brought me back to the world of worry, care, and responsibility. From somewhere in the distance, I heard the voice of a child, calling out, “Here, Pete! Here, doggies! Food!”

  Huh?

  Chapter Five: An Unscheduled Food Event

  As you know, we dogs are very sensitive to any sound that might suggest Scrap Time: the slamming of the screen door at the house, the scrape of a fork over a plate, the squeak of the hinges on the yard gate, or any mention of “food.” Any one of those sounds will grab our attention. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing at the moment. We head for the house to check things out.

  Scrap Time brings meaning and purpose into a dog’s life, don’t you see, especially on a hot summer day. But don’t forget that Alfred had said more than “food.” He had also called Pete. In other words, there appeared to be some danger that he would GIVE OUR FOOD REWARD TO THE CAT!

  I guess you know my position on that issue. Giving scraps to the cat is more than a waste of our precious natural resources. It’s immoral and unpatriotic. It rewards our local cat for being a moocher and leads to corruption at the lowest levels of ranch society.

  Sorry, I don’t mean to rave, but this issue really gets me worked up. We’re talking about greed and gluttony. It’s a matter of principle, high principle, and when I heard Alfred calling the cat to our Food Event…well, someone needed to put a stop to this outrage, and to make sure that Sally May’s little crook of a cat got no scraps.

  None. That’s our policy: zero scraps for the cat, and if we have to administer a thrashing and run him up a tree, so much the better.

  I turned to Drover and was about to give the order to Launch All Dogs, when I noticed that…hmm, the little mutt had curled up in a ball and was taking a nap. He hadn’t heard anything and…well, all at once it became clear that I should let him sleep.

  He needed his rest, no kidding. I mean, he had a limp, right? Limping around all day uses up a lot of energy, and don’t forget his allergies. Sneezing and sniffling will sure drag you down.

  Yes, my assistant had worn himself out, and seeing him in this state of deep fatigue touched me all the way to the bottom of my stomach…all the way to the bottom of my heart, let us say. The little guy needed the healing tonic that can only come from a period of peaceful sleep, so I, uh, crept away on tiptoes, so as not to disturb his scraps.

  So as not to disturb his slumber.

  Only then did I hit Full Flames on all engines and go streaking down to the scene of the crime, although no crime had been committed…yet. It was my job to see that it didn’t happen.

  Crime Prevention is what we call it, and I knew that if Drover had been awa
ke and alert, he would have been cheering me on. That was one thing I had always appreciated about the little guy, his tireless support of our many Crime Prevention programs. No kidding.

  I went streaking down the hill and arrived just as Little Alfred was coming out of the yard gate. It appeared that I had gotten there just in the nickering of time: no cat. I hit Air Brakes, slid to a stop, sat down on the ground, and went into a little program we call “I Might Perish If I Don’t Get Some Scraps.”

  At the same time, I checked his hands to see if…well, I expected to see him carrying a fork and a plate. Fork + Plate = Scraps. I mean, that was the whole point of my being there, right? Scraps.

  I saw no plate or fork. Instead, he was carrying some kind of large round plastic container. Rats. Nobody on this ranch had ever delivered scraps in a large round plastic container, and my spirits took a plunge into the dark pit of…something.

  It’s hard to describe the gloom that falls upon a dog when he finds himself facing a day with no scraps. And to make the day even gloomier, Drover arrived at that very moment, huffing and puffing.

  I melted him with a glare. “What are you doing here? I thought you were asleep.”

  “Well, I was, but I heard the gate squeak. How come you didn’t wake me up?”

  “I thought you needed your rest. I did it for my own…I did it for your own good. You’ve been acting sickly.”

  “Yeah, by dose is stobbed ub, but I’m dever too sig for scrabs.”

  “Well, you wasted your time. There are no scraps.”

  “No scraps?” His face collapsed. “Gosh, what’ll we do?”

  “We’ll think about all the scraps we didn’t get. For twenty-four hours, our lives will lose all meaning and purpose.”

  “Oh drat. I’m not sure I can stand it.” A look of desolation came over his face. “My life didn’t have much meaning to start with, and now this!”

  “I know, but try to be brave. We’ll just have to trudge on with…” Suddenly my nose shot upward and began pulling in air samples. Unless I was badly mistaken, my instruments were picking up the smell of something…sweet.

  I did a wide scan with Snifforadar and zeroed in on that plastic thing in Alfred’s hands. He had removed the lid, don’t you see, and I noticed an interesting twinkle in his eyes. He said, “My mom baked a cake.”

  Oh, so that was it! His mom had baked a cake and she’d given him a piece, and now he was going to share it with his doggie friends. What a fine young man and what a great idea!

  You know, we dogs don’t get too many chances to enjoy cake because…well, our people are kind of stingy with their baked goods. Might as well be honest about it. They’re generous with all the stuff they don’t want, the corn cobs and baked potato hulls, but seldom do we ever see a slice of cake.

  So what we had here was a major event in the history of our ranch, a boy and his dogs sharing a slice of cake. The water works in my mouth began pumping and my tail flogged the ground. I inched closer and directed my nose toward…

  He pushed me away. “No no, Hankie. We’re all going to share one little piece, but you have to be nice and wait your turn.”

  Share? Be nice? Bummer. Oh well, if being polite was the price for a bite of cake, so be it, but could we hurry up? There’s a limit on how long we can do Nice Doggie in front of a piece of…

  I looked closer and, holy smokes, that wasn’t just a slice of cake. He’d brought the WHOLE THING, a beautiful angel-food cake with thick, creamy icing!

  “It’s my dad’s birthday cake.”

  I stared at him. WHAT? That was his dad’s birthday cake…and he had smuggled it out of the house?

  I backed away. What we had here was an explosion waiting to happen. Boredom had pushed this kid beyond the reach of common sense. Just think about it. Number One, he would get caught. He always got caught, because his mother had Radar For Naughty Behavior. She saw everything.

  Number Two, when she figured out what was going on, any member of our ranch community who had crumbs or icing on his mouth would be…wow, I didn’t even want to think about it.

  Which brings us to Point Three: you should never give a dog more temptation than he can handle. I was reminded of this when I noticed Drover’s sudden transformation. The little mutt was showing all the signs of Cake Convulsions: wild eyes, dripping chops, tongue hanging out the left side of his mouth, the whole nine yards of CC.

  In a crazy voice, he said, “He brought a whole cake!”

  I moved into position to block his view of the cake. “Get hold of yourself, son. We’ve been lured into a very dangerous situation and the Security Division is going to walk away from it.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “There’s nothing for us here but trouble”

  “There’s an angel-food cake, and I love cake!”

  “I know you love cake and so do I, but there are times when we must use our training and discipline to avoid a catastrophe. Do an about-face. We’re going to march back to the office.”

  He pointed a paw and stammered, “C-c-c-c-cat!”

  “Exactly. Cat-as-tro-phe. It’s a four-cylinder word that means disaster, and it’s something we don’t need. Let’s go.”

  “No, it’s the cat!”

  Huh?

  I whirled around and saw Trouble rubbing its way down the yard fence, its insolent little tail sticking straight up in the air. Can you guess who it was? Mister Kitty Moocher, and he had come to mooch a piece of our cake.

  That would never happen, not as long as I was running the Security Division, not as long as I still had a breath of body left in my air. By George, if anyone on this ranch mooched some cake, it would be a dog, not a scheming little cat…only we dogs weren’t going to get involved in it, so neither would the cat.

  The entire world went red at that moment, and I turned to face the approach of the cat. I had no idea that events were fixing to sweep us all away like a raging river.

  You’ll never guess what happened, so you’d better keep reading. I guarantee that you’ll be shocked.

  Chapter Six: There Are No Teensie Weensie Temptations

  As the cat approached, my lips curled into a snarl and I delivered a Warning Bark. “That’s far enough, Kitty. This is a private meeting and you’re not invited.”

  Did he take the hint? Of course not. Cats don’t take hints, and here he came, slithering down the fence. After he had rubbed all the rust off the hog wire, he came to the open gate. There, he ran out of something upon which to rub on which.

  At that point, he batted his eyes, pranced through the gate, cranked up his purring machine, and flashed that annoying little smirk that drives me nuts.

  “Well, well! It’s Hankie the Wonderdog.”

  Things began happening in the control room of my mind. Lights flashed and gongs gonged and buzzers buzzed. A voice came over the radio. “The target has closed to three yards. Speed five knots. Bearing oh-two-zero-five. Flood tubes one and three. Arm the weapons. We have a solution light. Stand by to launch!”

  I rose to my feet and swung the bow into the wow…into the wind, let us say. My head and neck formed a deadly straight line, aimed directly at the target. The hair rose on the back of my neck. I went to Lift-up on the Tooth Shields and heard a rumble deep in my throat. We were ready to launch.

  But then…a voice. “Hankie!”

  Huh?

  The boy was scowling at me. “Don’t be mean to the cat.”

  Me? Hey, I hadn’t even touched the little snot. Okay, something about my body language might have, uh, revealed my thoughts, but strictly speaking, I hadn’t done anything.

  Alfred shook a finger at me. “We’re gonna have ourselves a picnic and eat some cake, but y’all have to be nice.”

  I moved closer to the boy and used my eyes, ears, and tail to deliver an urgent message. “Alfred, listen to a friend. T
his is a BAD idea. It was a bad idea even before the cat showed up. Take the cake back to the house. Cancel the picnic.”

  Did he receive the message? It was hard to tell. He held up some kind of silver tool. Okay, it was a cake knife. “We’ll share one teensie weensie, little bitty piece, that’s all. My dad won’t care.”

  His dad might not care, but his mom would blow a fuse. I knew her and I could guarantee it. Furthermore…this next part was hard to express, but I had to try. I moved closer.

  “Alfred, son, there are things you don’t understand. In my world, there’s no such thing as a Teensie Weensie Temptation. Temptation comes in one size: HUGE. You need to trust me on this.”

  I searched his face and saw that he wasn’t getting it. How could he NOT get it? All he had to do was look at Drover, who was still going through convulsions. We’re talking about burning eyes, dripping tongue, frothy mouth, the whole nine yards of frenzied cake desire.

  The cat too. By that time, the little pest had caught the scent of the cake and a weird, wild look had come into his eyes. So far, I had managed to keep a tight rein on my own symptoms, but…let’s be honest here. I was getting worried about this.

  “Drover, quick, let’s get out of here.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Don’t argue with me. Back to the barracks. Move!”

  I gave the runt a hard shove and we marched away from this disaster-in-the-making. Whew! I knew that Little Alfred was fixing to get himself into a boat-load of trouble, but at least I wouldn’t be…

  Then it happened. When the greedy little cat saw that Law Enforcement was pulling away from the scene, he seized his opportunity to rob the bank. He climbed up Alfred’s pant leg and dived right into the middle of the cake.

  “Pete, no!”

  Too late. I whirled around, just in time to see the tragedy unfolding. The plastic container slipped out of Alfred’s grasp and fell. The cake rolled out onto the ground and the thieving little cat jumped right in the middle of it, while the boy watched with a look of horror on his face.