Chapter Six: I Trick the Cat, Hee Hee

Here’s what happened. The tank filled up and gasoline splashed out on Loper’s hand. Slim said, “Tank’s full.”

“Thanks.” He hung the nozzle on a loop of baling wire and looked at his hand, which had been pretty thoroughly splattered. He glanced around. “Here, dogs. Hank, come here!”

Huh?

I had been sitting nearby, and by the time I figured out what had happened, it was too late to run for cover. Drover, on the other hand, had somehow…I don’t know how the little slacker always disappears when it’s time for the cowboys to wipe a dipstick or clean their hands, but he does, and we’re talking about POOF, gone without a trace.

So, once again, I had been called up for service to the ranch. I squared my shoulders and moved closer to the boss, and soon became his grease rag. He mopped his hands on my back and sides, then scrubbed his fingernails on my ears.

What did I get out of it? A pat on the ribs and, “Thanks, pooch, you do good work.”

Yeah, right, and for the next thirty minutes, I would have to do Dives in the Grass to get rid of the stench.

Loper started back to the house. “Oh, and feed the cat. I’ll call you tonight to check on things. Good luck.”

“Don’t call me tonight. You won’t have anything to say and neither will I. Everything’s going to be fine. I know you think this ranch falls apart every time you leave, but you’d be surprised how well things work when we get you off the place.” Just as Loper went through the yard gate, Slim cupped a hand around his mouth and yelled, “Oh, by the way, yesterday morning, I saw a bear in the road.”

Over his shoulder, Loper yelled back, “Don’t drink on company time,” and went into the house.

Slim grinned and shook his head. “Boy, that man’s got a thick skull, and I think he needs a hearing aid too.”

He seemed to be speaking to me, as though I might have had some interest in their conversation. I didn’t. I was still preoccupied with rubbing the gasoline stench off my coat.

Slim drifted down to the corrals and began his morning chores. He fed the horses, checked some yearlings in the sick pen, and threw out some grain for the wild turkeys. Loper and Sally May finally got their luggage and children loaded in the car, and left in a cloud of dust.

When they’d gone, Slim and I walked down to the house. Before going inside to make sure Sally May had turned off all the appliances and hadn’t left any water running, Slim put out a bowl of Kitty Krumbles for Sally May’s little sneak of a cat. He set the bowl on the porch and went inside to do his walk-around of the house.

When the door closed behind him, I realized that…well, Sally May and her broom were on their way to Glorieta, and nobody was watching the yard, the cat, or me.

Guess what naughty thoughts entered my mind. Hee hee.

I dived over the fence and went creeping toward the porch. Pete was already there, of course, gobbling and slobbering over the Kitty Krumbles—a brand of cat food that was about five-times better than he deserved. In fact, it was the most expensive brand on the market.

You think this world isn’t in sad shape? The cat does nothing around here and gets high-dollar, tuna-flavored tidbits shaped like stars and donuts. We dogs put in eighteen hours a day and work ourselves into the ground, and we get Co-op dog food, hard lumps of something that has the flavor of wood shavings.

Do you know why they give the cat high-dollar food? Because he won’t eat the cheap stuff, and apparently somebody cares. If I’d been in charge, I would have bought the cheapest ration money could buy, and told him to eat it or go hungry. But nobody around here listens to the dogs.

Anyway, kitty was “dining,” shall we say, when I rolled up to the porch. He lifted his gaze and gave me his usual insolent smirk. “My goodness, it’s Hankie the Wonderdog. Let me guess: you’re here to ask if I saw the bear.”

I stared into his scheming little eyes. “What bear?”

“Slim saw a bear on the road.”

“Oh, that. Yes, I know all about it. He didn’t see a bear, he saw a burro, a donkey. We don’t have bears on this ranch.”

Pete rolled his eyes around. “What would you say if I told you I saw him too?”

“I would say that you’re up to your usual tricks. I would laugh in your face.”

“I saw the bear, Hankie. He walked through headquarters at daylight this morning.”

“No kidding? In that case,” I stuck my nose right in his face and pressed the Ha Ha Button. “Ha ha ha ha ha!”

Pete hated that. He flatted his ears and beamed me a smoldering glare. “Very well, Hankie, you’ve been warned.”

“Thanks for the warning, and here’s one for you. Back away from the bowl. I need to run some tests on your food.”

The cat glared and twitched the end of his tail. “Hankie, if you want a bite, I’m willing to share.”

“Share? Ha ha. Sorry, Pete, but sharing with cats isn’t something we do on this outfit. Go chase your tail.”

He backed away from the bowl. “It’s not as good as you think.”

“It’ll be better than I think, and do you know why? Because I’m stealing it from you. Buzz off.”

Heh heh. I got him told, didn’t I? You bet, and it was true, every word of it. The best food in this world is what you can conflagrate from a greedy little ranch cat. Confiscate.

Pete vanished and I went to work on his Kitty Krumbles. Great stuff, nice and crunchy, with the delicate flavor of broiled tuna. I had crunched my way through several mouthfuls when I heard a voice behind me: Drover. He was standing at the yard gate.

“Oh, hi. Can I have some cat food?”

“No.”

“Drat. Is it pretty good?”

“It’s excellent, delicious. It’s a crime to waste it on a cat.”

“I’ll be derned. That’s what Pete said about our dog food.”

My head came up and I stopped chewing. “He’s eating our dog food?”

“Yep, he’s up at the machine shed right now.”

“Good. Nobody deserves Co-op more than Pete.”

“Yeah, but he loves it. He says it’s too good to waste on dogs.”

I marched over to the gate. “Let me get this straight. Pete is eating our food, and loves it, and you stood there and watched him eat?”

“I didn’t figure you’d care.”

“What ever gave you that idea?”

“Well, you’re always complaining about it.”

“Drover, food isn’t the issue here. We’re talking about Ranch Rules. Cats are not allowed to mooch our dog food, period.”

“Yeah, but…”

I leaped over the fence. “Never mind, I’ll handle it.”

“Can I have some cat food?”

“Sure, help yourself. It tastes like dead fish.”

Drover hopped over the fence and scampered to the bowl of cat food on the porch. I stormed up the hill and rumbled over to the cat. “Okay, Pete, this has gone far enough. Hands up, back away from the bowl.”

“But Hankie…”

“Move!”

He backed away from the bowl. “Hankie, I’m confused. First, you wanted my cat food, and now you want your dog food.”

“Well, you got one thing right, kitty: you’re confused.”

“Shall I go back to my cat food? Will that make you happy?”

“When you vanish, I’ll be happy.”

Pete heaved a loud sigh. “Well, I guess I’ll go back to my pitiful bowl of cat food.”

“You do that, and the next time I catch you stealing dog food, you won’t get off so easy. Scram.”

Kitty scrammed and I took a bite of good honest American dog food, which had no hint of fishy taste. Okay, sometimes it reminded me of wood shavings and sawdust, but give me sawdust any day over dead fish. Co-op isn’t dainty, just solid and honest, like the dogs who eat it.

I was crunching a delicious bite of Co-op when Drover came up the hill, huffing and puffing. “Hank, you said I could eat the cat food, right? Well, Pete came back and said it was his, and wouldn’t let me eat any more.”

“So what? Let the little crook have all he wants. The important thing is that he would rather be eating our dog food, but he can’t. It’s forbidden.”

“You know, I think he got what he wanted.”

That grabbed my attention. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, he’s laughing his head off, ‘cause he tricked you into eating your own food.”

I went nose-to-nose with the runt. “He didn’t trick me. I tricked him.”

“What was the trick?”

“The trick was…” I turned my gaze toward the house. Pete was sitting on the porch, gobbling cat food. He saw me, grinned, and waved a paw. I spit the last of the Co-op out of my mouth. “This stuff tastes like peanut shells.”

“Yeah, that’s what he said.”

“Stop telling me what he said. Drover, it’s becoming clear that we’ve been conned by the cat.”

“You were.”

“What?”

“I said…what a crooked little cat.”

“Exactly my point. He used slimy, underhanded tricks to…to do something.” I rose to my full height and rolled the muscles in my massive shoulders. “And he’s fixing to get a painful education. Let’s go down there and teach him some manners.”

“Oh, I think I’ll stay here. I’m kind of hungry.”

I gave him a scorching glare. “The Security Division has been sandbagged by the cat…and you’re hungry? What kind of dog are you?”

“Oh, the kind that gets hungry, I guess.”

“Fine. Stay here and eat slop, but I’m warning you, this will go into my report.”

“Works for me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said…go git ‘im, Hankie, beat him up!”

“Thanks. That’s exactly what I have in mind.”

I turned my nose toward the house and hit the ignition button on Engines One and Two. Moments later, I was roaring down the hill. The cat would pay a terrible price for his treachery.

I didn’t even pause at the fence, but went flying over…BAM…okay, our instruments gave us a faulty reading about the height of the fence, but those things happen in the heat of combat.

The important thing is that I’m no quitter. I picked myself off the ground, went soaring over the fence, and rushed to the porch, where I had every intention of wrecking the…hmmm, the cat had vanished, which was fine. Wrecking the cat would have been fun, but my main objective was to recapture his…huh?

The cat food was gone!