Chapter Ten: A Sound in the Dark

Armed with the one flashlight on the ranch that worked, Slim went out on the porch to check the thermometer. It didn’t take him long. He came flying back inside, hugging his arms and gasping for breath.

“Holy cow, you can’t believe how cold it is! The temperature’s down to ten degrees, and I’ll bet the wind chill is twenty below zero. Everything’s going to freeze up tonight.”

Well, it was going to be a long night: no lights, no water, wind screaming, house groaning and popping, windows rattling, and tree limbs banging on the side of the house.

Slim fixed himself a sad little supper out of a can: sardines embalmed in mustard. He laid one of the dead fish on a stale cracker. It was so bad, he gagged on it, which explains his sudden burst of generosity. “Here Hankie, you want a bite?”

Was he serious? I’d been sitting there, watching him gag on the stuff, observing his face as it became a pinched prune, and now he was going to share it with ME?

Ha. No thanks. I’d had a few dealings with his sardines. I lowered my head, tucked up my tail, and went slinking into the living room. Behind me, I heard him grumble, “Dumb dog.”

Fine. As we dogs often say, “Some cowboys need more ignoring than others.” I would take dumb over sick any day.

Speaking of sick, he still hadn’t found the deposit I’d left under his bed, but on the other hand…sniff, sniff…you know, sardines smell pretty bad at first, but after you get used to the first blast of dead fish smell…I found myself drifting back to the kitchen.

I mean, you never know. Past experience isn’t everything. Just because every sardine you’ve tried was toxic doesn’t mean that you won’t become best friends with the next one.

I met Slim in the kitchen door. “Too late, Mister Fuss Budget, I ate ‘em all.”

Anyway, as I was saying, we dogs have to be very cautious about the stuff our people try to feed us, because they will give us any kind of garbage. One of the keys to success in the Dog Business is to choose your food with care, and be very suspicious of anything that smells like a dead fish.

Your sardines are a high risk food category, don’t you know, and the best answer to a sardine is Iron Discipline. So, yes, once again, Iron Discipline had saved me from a bad food experience.

It’s pretty impressive that a dog could exercise so much self-control, isn’t it? You bet.

Even though the stove was running at full blast, the house was getting colder. The icy wind penetrated every seam and crack, and you could feel a draft moving across the floor. Slim settled into his easy chair, covered up with a wool blanket, and started reading a book by the light of the kerosene lamp. Drover and I moved as close to the stove as we could, without starting a hair fire on our backs.

The wind roared. The house creaked and groaned. Tree branches scratched on the side of the house like frozen claws.

And then we heard a banging noise outside. That was the first indication that…well, I guess you’ll find out, if you decide to go on with the story. To be honest, I’m not sure you should. I’m not at liberty to reveal any details at this point, but I must warn you that we’re about to leave the gentle and easy parts of the story and move into…well, troubled waters, so to speak.

It gets scary, that’s all I can say. You’ll have to be the judge on whether you go on or not.

I sat up and glanced around. Drover was asleep. Slim was reading. He hadn’t heard the sound, so I barked. His eyes rose from the book and stabbed me like a two-pronged fork. He was about to tell me to knock off the noise (I know him so well), but then he heard it too. He cocked his head and listened.

Bam. Bam. Bam.

“What in the world is that?” He threw off his blanket and went to the north window, parted the faded, dusty curtains, and looked outside. “The saddle shed door blew open.” He scowled and rubbed his chin with a finger. “I know I closed it. I think I closed it. Huh.”

You know the one thing he didn’t think about? You’ll find out soon enough. I didn’t think about it either.

Even though it wasn’t a long walk to the saddle shed, he put on his warmest winter clothes: a heavy wool coat with a fleece collar, his wool Scotch cap with the ear flaps, insulated gloves, snow boots, and a silk wild rag tied around his neck. The man was dressing himself for the coldest weather we’d ever seen on the ranch.

Good. I was proud of him for going to all that trouble, and I really wished him the best, because I had no intention of going with him. I mean, somebody needed to stay and guard the stove, right? You bet, and besides, I wasn’t the one who’d left the door unlatched. That was one careless mistake he couldn’t pin on his dogs.

Bundled up like a robot, he lumbered to the door. His hand closed around the knob and he pulled the door open. Frigid air rushed in and I could hear the roar of the wind outside. I moved closer to the stove and wished he would hurry up and shut the door.

He turned and looked at…well, he seemed to be looking at me, and that didn’t exactly cause bells of joy to start ringing in my heart. I flattened myself against the floor, hoping that…well, that maybe he wouldn’t see me and might forget that I was there.

“Hank, come on. You too, Stub Tail. Y’all need to make a pit stop, and a little exposure to that wind might tell you what a couple of pampered mutts you are.”

Pampered mutts! I couldn’t believe he’d said that.

“Hurry up, let’s get this over with. Out!”

Oh brother. For several seconds, I studied my options: hide under the coffee table; dash down the hall and hide in his bedroom? No, any of those diversions would have merely inflamed the situation and made it worse.

I rose to my feet and gave Drover the boot. “Get up, soldier, we’re going on a forced march. Rattle your hocks.”

You never heard such moaning, whining, whimpering, squeaking, wheezing, groaning, and griping. “It’s freezing out there! This leg’s killing me! My tail’s so cold, it’ll hardly wag! Help, murder, my leg!” And so forth.

It did no good. Slim was waiting at the door, his face as stern as granite. He wasn’t going to give us a pass on this deal.

When I stepped out on the porch, the wind hit me like a wall of ice. I’d experienced my share of cold winds before. I mean, this was the Panhandle, not Port Isabel, and we were accustomed to harsh winters. But THIS! Fellers, it was more than cold, more than bitter cold. It took my breath away and left me stunned.

This was killer cold.

Slim stepped off the porch and went trudging off toward the saddle shed, following the beam of his flashlight. I could have stayed on the porch with Mister Squeak and Moan, but the thought of listening to his noise just…I don’t know, it overwhelmed me, I guess. I didn’t think I could stand it.

And besides, going with Slim was the right thing to do. Slackers can sit on the porch and whine, but your top-of-the-line cowdogs stay with their people, through thick and thicker.

I stepped off the porch and caught up with him. He was humped over and trying to protect his face from bullets of ice, and every breath made steam in the air. He gave me a weak smile and said, “Pooch, this is how people froze to death in the old days.”

Right. And there I was, right beside him, even though he’d hogged all the sardines.

These people have no idea how hard we work to please them.

By the time we reached the saddle shed, I was already half-frozen. We needed to get the door secured and return to base, but while we were there, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to do a quick check of the shed. I mean, sometimes coons will sneak into a shed and get into mischief, right? You bet, and coon mischief can be very destructive. So while the door was in the open position (it had been banging open and shut, don’t you see), I darted inside.

Familiar smells reached my Noseatory Sensors, mostly alfalfa hay and horse feed, but I noticed another smell that wasn’t so familiar, a kind of musky, oily smell. I sent that information to Data Control and while I was waiting for the results to come back, I saw a hairy, roundish, shadowy form sitting behind a bale of hay. Oh, and I could hear it chewing on something.

When the report came back from DC, I put the clues together and knew we had a Bingo. We had caught a thieving raccoon in the barn!