Chapter Five: We Survive a Dangerous Night

Okay, there we were. Slim turned and stared at the horrible scene on the wall. Drover and I held our breaths and waited for…I don’t know, for him to grab a gun and start shooting, I suppose.

Hmmm. That was odd. The corners of his mouth began to curl upward and he said, “Is that what you’re barking at?”

Well…yes, of course. Get the gun!

He uttered a grunt that sounded a bit like a chuckle. Yes, it was a chuckle, and it grew louder, turning into laughter. He staggered over to his big easy chair and flopped down, buried his face in his hands and moaned, “All I want to do is sleep. Is that asking too much?”

Drover and I exchanged glances. This was very strange.

He sat there for a moment, then uncovered his face and sat up straight. His smile dropped dead and his gaze slid around to…well, to me, it seemed. “Hank, I know it’s hard to function in the normal world when you’ve got the brain of a grasshopper.”

I…I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I tapped my tail on the floor. Tap, tap, tap.

He went on. “I understand, I really do, but this has got to stop.” He rose from the chair and walked over to the wall. He pointed to the bears. “These things are shadows of you and Stub Tail.” He bent at the waist and drilled me with his eyes. “You’re barking at your own shadows. Am I getting through?”

Huh? I narrowed my eyes and studied the...okay, maybe…hey, they had sure looked like bears to me, and Drover had thought so too.

“Quit barking at shadows. Quit barking at anything. Quit drinking out of the pot. It’s four-o-dadgum-clock in the morning and you’ve woke me up twice. If it happens one more time, I’ll become an angry, violent person. Your little tails will get kicked out that door yonder and you will spend the rest of the night in the cold, cruel world. Is there any part of this you don’t understand?”

Gulp. Yes sir. Message received. I couldn’t make any promises about Drover, but I would be as quiet as a little mouse.

Shaking his head and muttering under his breath, he went back to his bedroom. The storm had passed and we had survived.

I turned to Drover and saw that he was wearing a silly grin. “What are you grinning about?”

“We were barking at our own shadows. That’s pretty funny.”

“It’s not funny at all.”

“That’s what I meant.”

“The fact is, our sensing equipment gave us faulty information. We went into combat with a bogus report.”

“Yeah, I sure got fooled.” His grin vanished and he looked around with wide eyes. “Do you reckon it could happen again?”

“Oh no, not in a thousand years.” There was a moment of silence. “Why do you ask?”

I noticed that he was doing something odd with his eyes, rolling them around and directing his gaze toward the…yipes…toward the south wall and two creepy, shadowy images.

I felt the hair rising on the back of my neck. “Drover, don’t start this again. We don’t have bears on this ranch.”

“Yeah, but what about monsters?”

I swallowed hard and tried to conceal the quiver in my voice. “We do have monsters, hundreds of them. What are you suggesting?”

“I’m not sure. If we bark again, Slim’ll throw us out of the house.”

“Exactly, but if we don’t bark…Drover, some of those monsters eat dogs.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m getting a real bad feeling about this. Maybe we ought to hide.”

My gaze swept the room, looking for a monster-proof bunker. “Yes, but where?”

“Under Slim’s bed.”

His words echoed through the corregidors of my mind, and just for a second, I had an uneasy thought: wasn’t there some reason why we might not want to hide under the bed? Maybe so, but I couldn’t think of it. You know how it is when you’re under tremendous pressure.

“Under the bed, great idea. Quick, to the bunker!”

We went ripping down the hall and wiggled ourselves beneath the bed. Only then were we able to relax. I heard Drover’s voice in the darkness. “We made it! We’re safe.”

“Yes, and I don’t think the monsters followed us. Nice work, son. Now let’s try to get some sleep.” I took a big yawn, then…

“Hank?”

“What?”

“It stinks under here. And there’s something wet.”

“Wet?”

“Yeah, we’re lying in it.”

I sat up and noticed…huh?

Anyway, Drover and I talked it over and decided that…well, Slim wouldn’t mind having two warm dogs in bed with him, and we felt that we would be happier too. It gets cold under those beds, don’t you know, and you sure have to watch out for spiders.

That was the main thing. We were concerned about spiders. No kidding.

We were able to enter the bed without arousing Slim. That wasn’t an accident. In the first place, he had fallen into a deep snoring sleep, but also we followed our Bed Entry Procedures to the letter: front paws on the bed, pull upward, back paws on the bed, and lie down at the feet of the host.

We had a few tense moments when our host began talking in his sleep, but after a while, he quit and the operation turned out to be a huge success. Not only did we provide warmth and comfort to Slim’s feet, but we slept better, knowing that we were safe from spiders. And from monsters and bears.

Anyway, we got a good night’s sleep. About thirty minutes before daylight, we awoke and initiated the second phase of the procedure: Leave the Bed.

It’s very important that we do the second phase, don’t you see, because if we don’t leave the bed in a stealthy manner…well, we get caught, and let’s be honest. Our people don’t necessarily rejoice when they find dogs in bed with them. Hencely, we’ve found that everyone is happier if we vanish before daylight.

On paws that made not a sound, we oozed ourselves off the bed and tiptoed back to the living room. By the time Slim came down the hall and greeted the day, we were curled up in front of the stove, two of the nicest, best-behavedest little doggies Texas had ever produced.

When Slim entered the living room, I sat up straight and gave him a bright Good Morning smile. He grunted something about “dogs barking all night,” and went into the kitchen to start his coffee.

Whew. We had made it through another dark and dangerous night, and you know what? Slim never figured out what was causing that odd smell in his bedroom. Heh. He thought it came from his boots.

Well, after Slim drank his morning coffee, we loaded up in the pickup and prepared for another work day on the ranch. When we pulled into headquarters, we found Loper in front of the gas tanks, filling Sally May’s car with gasoline. That seemed odd, because Loper rarely drove the car.

Odder still was the set of clothes he wore—not his usual jeans and a work shirt, but some strange costume with matching pants and jacket made of bright colored material. On his head, he wore a red knitted cap with a little puff of yarn on the top.

Slim looked him up and down. “Good honk, did you run out of clothes?”

“I don’t want to hear about it.”

“What is that?”

Loper forked him with a hostile glare. “It’s a ski outfit. My wife bought it when I was looking the other way, and it wasn’t cheap.”

“It should have been. I wouldn’t even wear it on a dark night.”

“Well, you have no taste in fashion. And you have no wife. If you ever get one, you’ll spend the first six months eating your own words. I’ll be glad to furnish the salt and pepper.”

A nasty little smirk slithered across Slim’s mouth. “Does this mean you’re fixing to go on a ski trip?”

“What do you think? A group from the church is going to Glorieta. I fought it for three months.” He glanced at his watch. “We should have left thirty minutes ago.”

“You’ll have a great time, I know you will.”

“I will NOT have a great time. I’ll spend every minute thinking about my banker.”

“Is he going?”

“No, he’s too cheap. He’ll be sitting in his office, looking at my loan papers.”

“Oh, good. A man wouldn’t want his banker to see him wearing…” Slim snorted a laugh and turned away. “…that.”

Loper’s face had turned a dangerous shade of red. “You go right ahead and laugh all you want, mister. We’ll be gone three days and you’ll have the whole ranch to take care of, and the weather report says a big cold front is heading this way.”

“I can handle it.”

“You’ll have to chop ice on all the stock tanks.”

“I can handle it.”

“Make sure the plumbing doesn’t freeze in your house. Throw out some grain for the wild turkeys. Give the cattle plenty of feed, but not too much. That feed’s gotten higher than a cat’s back.”

Slim gave his head a shake. “Give the cattle plenty of feed, but not too much. That’s about as clear as mud.”

“Well, maybe you can figure it out. The main thing is, try not to do anything stupid while I’m gone. Any questions?”

Slim slouched against the side of the car. “Are you actually going to get on skis? Last time I checked, you had trouble walking on your own feet.”

“They give lessons. I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep the peace.”

“Well, you look real cute, and you’ll look even cuter on crutches.” Slim chuckled at his own humor. Loper remained stone-faced. “Oh, quit being such a grouch. You might as well try to act human for a few days. You might even surprise yourself and have fun. I know you’re against fun, but you ought to try it.”

Loper gazed off into the distance and shook his head. “You just blow like the wind. What do you know about fun?”

“Well, I’ve read about it in the magazines, and one of these days, I’m going to try it myself.”

“Bachelors. Your life is so simple. Well, like it or not, I’m going to the slopes with a wife and two kids. When we leave, walk through the house and make sure everything’s turned off and okay.”

Loper had forgotten about his main job, filling the gas tank, and you’ll never guess what happened next. Keep reading.