The Case of the Tender Cheeping Chickies

by John R. Erickson

  Things that are fit to eat come in small packages, such as your steaks, your chops, your roasts, your bacon, and your Little Piggie Sausages. We dogs are never offered food items that come in small packages. Is that fair? No, but that’s the way life is lived out here in the Real World.

  Our primary ration, Co-op Brand Dry Dog Food, is purchased at the Co-op Feed Store, where it sits in a big echoing warehouse, in a stack of sacks five feet tall and five feet wide. Several times each month, Slim visits the feed store, strolls into the warehouse, and perhaps notices sparrows fluttering around in the rafters. The birds are not supposed to be there but they are, and you can guess what they leave on the sacks below.

  Slim pulls a rumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, squints at the items scrawled on it, and calls out the order to a sleepy-eyed laborer who has been rousted from his afternoon nap.

  “Jerry, I’ll take four horse feed, ten stock salt, two whole corn, and five sand-mix cement. Oh, and one dog food.”

  The laborer yawns. “Active or Semi-active?”

  “Pardon?”

  “What do the dogs do? Hunt, work . . . ?”

  This provokes a laugh. “They sleep and bark. Do you have a Sleep and Bark ration?”

  “Nope. Active or Semi-active.”

  “Semi.”

  And the laborer shuffles through the dusty warehouse, loading sacks onto a two-wheel dolly. He pushes the dolly to the loading dock and heaves the sacks into the back of the ranch pickup.

  Does this sound appetizing? Does it make you want to rush up to the machine shed and devour a bowl of Co-op dog food kernels? Oh, and don’t forget that we don’t even have a respectable dog bowl. They put our food in an overturned Ford hubcap.

  Now I ask you this. If the people on this outfit went out to eat at a restaurant, would they sit down in a big warehouse with sparrows swooping around overhead, and order something that came out of a fifty-pound sack? Oh no. But when it comes to their dogs . . .

  Oh well. There’s no sense in getting worked up over the injustice in the world.

  I went to the dog bowl, which was heaped high with yellowish kernels, and gave it several sniffs. One sniff would have been enough to inform me that my dreams of Little Piggie Sausage had vanished into thinnest air, gone forever like dewdrops on the morning spring.

  Dewdrops in the springtime on blades of . . .

  Spring drops of dew on the morning . . .

  Phooey.

  The sausage was gone, is the point. I loaded my mouth with dry tasteless kernels and went straight into the Crusher Program.

  When we’re running the CP, there is a period of fifteen to thirty seconds when we have to listen to all the noise in the Crusher Compartment. (Ordinary dogs sometimes call it “the mouth.”) Crack! Snap! Crunch! It’s very loud. If you happen to have a headache, it makes you think that you have a jackhammer inside your head.

  Oh well. Limestone rocks or tree bark might taste worse, and might even be harder to chew. I paused a moment to be thankful for Co-op Brand Semi-active Dry Dog Food kernels.

  As I was grinding up my morning nourishment . . . oh, and speaking of nourishment, did you happen to notice that the cowboys buy the cheaper brand of dog food? Maybe you missed that. Semi-active is cheaper than Active, and that’s why they buy it. It has nothing to do with the schedules or work routines of the Security Division. Semi-active is cheaper, period.

  Where were we? Oh yes. As I was laboring to grind up and crush my morning so forth, three adult males and one boy strolled out of the machine shed. I looked up from my work and recognized Slim, Loper, and Maurice (the adult males), and Little Alfred (the boy). Did I care? No. I was busy, grinding rocks of dog food and trying to forget that they weren’t sausage links.

  Maurice said, “Well, thanks for the bolt. That saved me a trip back to town. Oh, by the way, I’m going to be the poultry superintendent at the county fair this year. That boy ought to show some chickens. It’s a good wholesome project for these kids.”

  Loper looked down at Little Alfred. “What do you say, young’un? Would you like to show chickens at the fair?”

  Alfred nodded. “Sure! Maybe I could win a wibbon.”

  Loper turned back to Maurice. “Sounds like you’ve started something.” He gestured toward several hens pecking grasshoppers in front of the chicken house. “Would those do?”

  Maurice rocked up and down on his toes and dug his hands into his pockets. “Not exactly. Your show chickens come from special stock, like show calves and sheep, and they need to be raised from baby chicks.”

  “Huh. Well, we’ve got no baby chicks, so . . .”

  Maurice beamed a smile. “I happen to know a lady who raises ’em. I talked to her this morning and she’s got five left. Betty.”

  “Your wife?”

  “Yep, and she says they’re the best of the whole lot. She’ll give ’em up for five bucks apiece. And we deliver.”

  “Five bucks! Maurice, you can buy a grown chicken at the grocery store for five bucks, and it’s already cut up.”

  Slim entered the conversation. “Yeah, or you can get ten pounds of frozen turkey necks.” Loper and Maurice stared at him. “Well? I eat ’em all the time. They’re good, and they’re easy to fix, too. You just boil ’em in a big pot for twenty minutes.”

  Loper shook his head and turned back to Maurice. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s a bachelor. Five bucks for a baby chick is too much.”

  Maurice pursed his lips and went into deep thought. “Okay, two and a half, just for you, just for the sake of this boy, just because I want him to win grand champion at the fair.”

  Loper smiled. “Sold. And you deliver?”

  “You bet. We deliver ’em in a special cardboard box.”

  “Good.”

  “To the front door of my house.”

  Loper’s brows shot up. “We have to pick ’em up? Maurice—”

  “Loper, you’ll have to buy chicken feed anyway. You can do it all in one trip.”

  “We’ve got chicken feed.”

  Maurice shook his head. “Nope. You need a special show ration. You don’t feed regular chicken feed to show birds.” Loper groaned. A gleam came into Maurice’s eyes. “But you’re in luck, because I happen to be the local dealer for Cruncho Feeds.”

  Loper and Slim exchanged glances, and Loper said, “I never heard of Cruncho Feeds.”

  “That’s because you buy the cheap stuff, Loper. I’m sorry to put it that way, but facts are facts.” Maurice reached into the front pocket of his overalls and brought out . . . something made of paper. “Here. Would you like to read a brochure on Cruncho Feeds?”

  “No.”

  “Well, they’re the best. They’re not cheap, but they’re the best. And for that fine boy there, I know you’ll want the best.”

  Loper rubbed the back of his neck and scuffed the ground with his boot. “All right, Maurice, we’ll take five chicks and one sack of your hot-rod chicken feed. Add it all up, and I’ll write you a check.”

  “One sack goes pretty fast, Loper.”

  “All right, two sacks. Figure it up.”

  Maurice seemed deep in thought. “Loper, I don’t usually give out this information, but . . . for the past three years, the grand champions in all classes have fed”—he whispered this information behind his hand—“crushed Peruvian oyster shell!”

  Loper sighed. “Great. What is it?”

  “Well, poultry needs gravel—”

  “Gravel for the gizzard, I know all that, Maurice, and we’ve got miles and miles of sand, rock, and gravel here on the ranch.”

  Maurice shrugged. “Well, I guess it just depends on what a guy wants. If he wants his child to win a blue ribbon at the fair, he uses the very best gravel money can buy. If he don’t care, if an ugly yellow ribbon is good enough—”

 
; “We’ll take one sack. Figure it up.”

  Maurice whipped out a pencil and paper and did some figuring, while Slim grinned and Loper scowled. But then Maurice’s head came up. “Oh. I guess you’ve got a special baby chick self-waterer.”

  “No. What’s wrong with a pie pan?”

  “Well” —Maurice gave his head a sad shake—“sometimes the chicks fall in and drown. I just happen to carry—”

  “How much?”

  “Nineteen ninety-five, plus tax. It’s a dandy, sure is.”

  “Figure it up.”

  Maurice smiled. “Oh, and we’ve got liquid vitamins. You put it in their water. You’ll sure want those vitamins. Everybody’s using ’em.”

  Loper’s face had turned red by this time. “What did chickens do for vitamins back when God was raising them? No vitamins! Figure it up and get out of here.”

  Maurice figured up the bill and handed it to Loper, whose face turned an even deeper shade of red when he saw the total: $87.49.

  Maurice grinned. “Just make the check to Happy Chick Cruncho Feeds.” Maurice turned to Slim. “A guy never regrets buying the best.”

  Slim nodded and was biting back a smile. “Boy, that’s true. If it had been me, I would have bought them vitamins—a whole case.”

  Loper shot him a killer glare but said nothing.

  He ripped the check out of his checkbook and thrust it out to Maurice. “Here. I deducted a buck ninety-five for a hardened steel bolt. That’s what it cost me at the John Deere place. And the next time you break down, go somewhere else.”

  Maurice folded the check and slipped it into his front pocket, climbed up into the cab of the grader, pushed his dog out of the seat, and waved good-bye. “Betty’ll have the chicks ready for you. See you at the county fair, Alvin!”

  He slammed the door, revved up the motor, and drove off to grade the roads. He seemed proud of himself, and appeared to be telling his dog about it.

  Loper glared at the grader, and muttered, “Slim, if you make one smart remark about this, you’re fired.”

  Slim shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think it’ll be a great little project for . . . Alvin.”

  Slim hurried into the machine shed, leaving Alfred and Loper alone. Alfred was wearing a puzzled expression. “Dad?”

  “Yes, son.”

  “How come everyone’s calling me Alvin?”

  Loper looked deeply into his eyes. “They’re not very smart. Let’s go tell your mother what we’ve done.”

  And they walked down to the house, leaving me alone to pulverize my breakfast.

  Chapter Nine: Something Strange in Sally May’s Car

  There were parts of that conversation I didn’t understand, but one part came through loud and clear. Did you happen to notice that Loper bought the best, most expensive hotshot feed for Alfred’s chickens—mere birds that nobody had even laid eyes on? Yet when it came to buying food and nourishment for the elite forces of the Security Division . . .

  Oh well. As I’ve said before, in some ways this is a lousy job.

  Around four o’clock that afternoon, Little Alfred skipped out the back door of the house, followed a moment later by Sally May. She was carrying Baby Molly and wearing a long face.

  Sally May was wearing a long face, that is. Baby Molly wore a short face because she was a baby and babies have small heads and therefore . . . skip it.

  On the porch, Sally May looked down at her son and said, “I don’t know about this. You and your daddy . . .” That’s all she said.

  They climbed into the car and drove away. Two hours later, they returned, pulled up into the driveway behind the house, and got out. Sally May was the first to step out of the car. She looked . . . frazzled, shall we say. She wore a dark expression and her hair seemed a bit . . . uh . . . stringy, windblown, disshoveled.

  Once outside the car, she muttered, “Why did the air conditioner choose today to quit? Idiot.” She slammed the door.

  Well! That was all I needed to know. Sally May was in a bad mood.

  Suddenly I moved my business away from the yard gate and took cover in some tall weeds.

  Why would I do such a thing? Well, it’s hard to explain. No, it’s easy to explain. Sally May and I have had our share of . . . how can I say this? We’ve had our share of dark times, let us say, and I’ve learned to pay close attention to her moods. When she’s angry, annoyed, unhappy, disgruntled, or irritated, I’ve found that it’s often best if I just . . . well, vanish. Disappear. Hide.

  You’d think that the presence of a loyal, friendly, loving dog would improve her mood, but for some reason, it doesn’t always work that way. To be honest, there have even been times when I’ve gotten the feeling that . . . well, she just doesn’t like me.

  Hard to believe, huh? You bet. And maybe I’ve been wrong about that. I mean, how could Sally May NOT respond to a dog who is . . . well, loyal, obedient, loving, caring, trusting, courteous, kind, extremely intelligent, perceptive, sensitive, and handsome?

  It hardly seemed possible, come to think of it, and suddenly I felt this . . . this call in the far corners of my mind, a tiny voice that told me that Sally May was having a bad day and needed a caring, loving dog to share her distress.

  Pretty amazing, huh? You bet. I mean, some dogs are sensitive to the needs of their people and some aren’t. Those who aren’t—your ordinary run of mutts—spend their whole lives stumbling around, grinning, and saying, “Duhhhh.” Well, I’ve never been that kind of dog, and if Sally May needed me for Special Caring Duty, by George, I would answer the call.

  I left my hiding place in the weeds and trotted down to the gate. There, I sat down and waited to minister to her needs. I swept my tail across the ground and went into a program we call “Here I Am.”

  She went around to the other side of the car and opened the door for Little Alfred. “No, we will not keep them in the house.”

  “But, Mom, they’re just wittle bitty, and Dad said—”

  “Honey, your father is a wonderful man, but I happen to know that when it’s time to clean up a mess, he’ll be somewhere else—far, far away.” She opened the back door of the car and kept talking. “We’ll keep them outside in the yard, where animals belong.”

  “But, Mom, what if . . .”

  I had been listening to this conversation, trying to figure out what they were talking about. None of it made much sense. But then, suddenly, it dawned on me that Sally May had opened the back door of the car . . . and had left it open, almost as though . . . gee, was it possible that she had opened it for . . . well, for ME? She wanted me to make a penetration of the car and check something out?

  I studied her face and searched for clues that would tell me what I should do next. She went right on talking to Alfred, and seemed hardly even aware of my . . .

  Cheep. Cheep. Cheep.

  HUH?

  Did you hear that? Maybe not, because you weren’t there, but I heard it, and let me tell you, fellers, it got my full attention. I switched off the Here I Am Program and went to Full Liftup on all ears. I had two of them.

  The point is that my ears shot up. I made tiny adjustments on the Tuning Knob, moved both ears into alignment, and brought the mysterious sound into focus.

  Cheep. Cheep. Cheep.

  There it was again! Hey, we had some kind of unidentified Something in the back of Sally May’s car, and it was alive and making strange sounds! Mice, perhaps? Well, you know where I stand on the issue of Vehicle Security. I’m in charge of all that stuff, securing all the ranch vehicles, and I’m especially concerned about any vehicle used to transport women and children.

  Did we allow mice to run loose in Sally May’s vehicle? Heck no.

  Once again, I turned to Sally May, looking for a sign. She was still talking to Alfred, about a cage or something, and . . . maybe she di
dn’t know she had nasty mice lurking inside her car. Okay, I had no choice but to follow this up on my own. There were . . . uh . . . risks involved. I mean, dogs weren’t exactly welcome to enter Sally May’s car, but it appeared that the situation demanded a bold plan of action.

  Stealthily and stalkingly, I crept toward the open door and peered inside. My goodness, what was going on there? The backseat was loaded down with . . . what was all that stuff? Sacks of feed? Why would . . .

  Wait, hold everything, stop right here. Chicken feed! Remember? Maybe you’d forgotten all about the chickens. Not me. Okay, yes, I’d forgotten all about it, to be honest, but that conversation between Loper and Maurice had occurred hours ago.

  Don’t you get it? Sally May and Little Alfred had driven to the house of Betty and Maurice, and they’d bought some special Cruncho chicken feed. Is it coming back to you now? But the real zinger was that if they’d bought chicken feed, it meant they’d also bought . . .

  Cheep. Cheep. Cheep.

  . . . it meant they’d brought home . . . slurp, slurp . . . something else.

  Uh. Mice. You know how mice love . . . chicken feed.

  A cunning squint formed upon my eyes, shall we say, and my gaze drifted over to Sally May. She wasn’t watching. Hmmm. I turned back to the interior of the car and, uh, hopped my front feet up on the seat.

  Hmmmmm!

  There, my eyes fell upon a box, a cute little cardboard box . . . with holes in the sides. And coming from inside the cute little box were . . . uh . . . cute little chirping sounds. Gee whiz, I wondered what could be causing those, uh, sounds. I mean, I had encountered many cardboard boxes in the course of my career, but never one that . . . well, cheeped and chirped.

  I cast one more glance toward the, uh, people . . . Sally May and Alfred, shall we say, and they were still deeply involved in their conversation about cages and so forth, and obviously had no time to be bothered with . . .

  I inched my way deeper into the car, this time daring to bring my hind legs off the ground and onto the floorboard. I pointed my nose toward the box. Slurp, slurp. The waterworks of my mouth were suddenly . . . I had to activate Tongulary Pumps to clear out all the water from . . .