Chapter Four: A Pirate Comes Out of the House
Okay, maybe I wasn’t exactly wounded and bleeding, but my pride had suffered a terrible blow.
Drover came rushing up. When he saw the brown stain upon my face and head, he—you won’t believe this—he started laughing.
I turned to the dunce and melted him with a flaming glare. “Drover, it really hurts to see you making a mockery of my misfortunes. Just for that, I’m going to put three Irreverence Marks into your record.”
“Oh drat.”
“And another one for using naughty language on the job.”
“Oh fizzlebloomers.”
“There’s another one! Go ahead, son, get all the poison out of your system.”
“Oh . . . bonkeywhoofer.”
“That’s cute, Drover, and that brings you up to a grand total of six marks against your record. You want any more?”
He grinned. “No, I’m out of naughty words.”
“Good. Great. Maybe you’ve cleansed your internal organs of all their grime and filth.”
“Yeah, but you’ve still got tobacco juice on your face.”
I glared at him. “Okay, smart guy, just for that, we’ll make it seven marks! That last one is for speaking an Unauthorized Truth.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
I did Dives in the Grass and wiped the gunk off my face and head. “And let that be a lesson to you. When I want to know the truth about my appearance, I’ll let you know.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“Go to your room. Immediately!”
“Yeah, but . . . that spy’s down there with the turkeys, and I’m scared of spies.”
I gave that some thought. “Hmmm. Good point. Okay, maybe sending you to your room is too harsh, but, Drover, we must do something about your . . .”
“I wonder what’s in the box.”
“Quiet. I’m not finished. We must do something to improve your—what did you just say?”
“I wonder what’s in the box.”
I stared into the deep emptiness of his eyes. “It’s not a box. It’s a spy, a very dangerous spy.”
“Yeah, but . . . the mailman delivered a box.”
“Oh, that. Are you saying there’s a spy in the box? Hurry up, Drover, what’s your point?”
“I just wondered . . .” All at once, he burst out crying. “I don’t know what I’m saying! You’ve got me so confused, I don’t know if I’m coming or going!”
I heaved a sigh and patted the little mutt on the shoulder. “Try to control yourself, son. I think I can help.”
He stopped crying and stared at me with tear-shimmering eyes. “Really? No fooling?”
“Yes. Here’s the answer you’ve been seeking all these years, and I hope you’ll pay close attention.” I leaned down and whispered, “The reason you can’t tell if you’re coming or going is that you’re going insane, and I’ve seen it coming for a long time.”
He gave me a silly grin. “Oh. Is that all? Gosh, thanks. I feel better already.”
I held him in my gaze for a long minute, as he grinned and hopped around in circles. He seemed as happy as a little bird in a birdbath. Sometimes I wonder . . . oh well.
“That’s enough, Drover. We need to find out what’s in that mysterious box.”
And with that, we left Drover’s personal problems and went streaking over to the yard gate. There, we set up a Forward Position and began monitoring the sounds and so forths that were coming from the porch.
Little did we know or even suspect—but we mustn’t get the horse in front of the donkey.
We listened and watched, is the point. Little Alfred was busy, tearing at the paper that was wrapped around the box and in which the box was wrapped. Alfred was good at this sort of thing—tearing and wrecking. And you could tell that he loved his work. His eyes were sparkling.
Just then, the door opened and out stepped—oops—out stepped his mother. Sally May. And all at once I felt myself consumed with . . . well, uncomfortable feelings. A wooden smile came to my lips, I cut my eyes from side to side, and my tail . . . well, it started tapping on the ground, almost as though it had a mind of its own.
Do you see what she does to me? There I was, a model of perfect dog behavior . . . a sincere dog, a dog who did his job and tended to his business, a dog who had done nothing wrong and who had never even thought about doing anything wrong, and yet . . .
When she came onto the scene, I began to fidget and grovel and grin, and suddenly I felt consumed by terrible feelings of guilt, almost as though . . .
She saw us there at the gate, but I knew she wasn’t looking at Drover. She was looking at ME—looking at me, into me, through me with those . . . those heartless eyes of hers, the eyes that see into the souls of dogs and little boys and always find . . . NAUGHTY THOUGHTS.
And the crazy thing was that I didn’t have any naughty thoughts! Hey, I’d just gotten out of bed. I hadn’t done anything yet. I hadn’t even thought about—okay, maybe I’d barked at the mailman, but that was part of my job, right? But other than that, I was as innocent as the driveled snow.
But that didn’t matter. Her eyes walked into the house of my soul and began . . . looking under the beds, lifting the lids on all the cooking pots, peering into the closets of my mind . . . and suddenly I was squirming with horrible feelings of GUILT.
In the glare of her eyes, I squirmed and fidgeted and tapped my tail and squeezed up a desperate smile which said, “Hey, Sally May, I can explain everything. It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it. Honest. No kidding.”
Whew! It must have worked, because at last she let me off the forks of her gaze and looked down at Little Alfred. Only then did I dare relax.
“What is it, sweetie?” she asked.
Alfred was still ripping his way through the paper. “It’s my costume! It finally came.”
Sally May smiled. “Let’s take it inside. I don’t want those papers blowing all over the yard.”
They went inside. I heaved a huge sigh of relief and noticed that Drover was staring at me.
“Why are you staring at me in that tone of voice?”
“Well . . . you were acting kind of funny.”
“For your information, Drover, I wasn’t acting, and it wasn’t funny. Perhaps you weren’t paying attention and didn’t notice that Sally May was frisking me with her eyes.”
“I’ll be derned. I feel kind of frisky myself. I guess it’s this nice fall weather.”
I glared at him. “Drover, it’s not fall. It’s May. It’s spring.”
“I’ll be derned. I guess I’m not as frisky as I thought.” He yawned. “In fact, I’d kind of like to take a little nap.”
“Sorry, no naps. You might recall that we’re in the middle of an investigation. Were you listening when Little Alfred said what was inside that mysterious box? Did you hear what it contained?”
He rolled his eyes around. “Well, let’s see here. A costume?”
“Exactly. Now put the clues together.”
“Okay, here we go. Box. Costume.” His eyes popped open. “Oh my gosh, you don’t reckon . . .”
“Yes, Drover, now we know where Murphy’s getting his disguises. That box contains a turkey costume!”
Drover let out a gasp and shook his head. “Oh my gosh! So you think Alfred’s part of Murphy’s . . . I think I’m confused again.”
I cut my eyes from side to side. “It is confusing, isn’t it? But let me remind you, Drover, that we must have the courage to follow the evidence to its logical conclusion, no matter how ridiculous it seems to be. The final proof will come soon.”
“You mean—”
“Exactly. If Little Alfred appears on the porch, dressed as a turkey, we’ll know the awful truth.”
Drover gasped and covered his heart with a paw. He just couldn’t bring himself to face the possibility that Alfred, our little pal, might be part of a huge conspiracy that involved . . .
The door opened. Drover and I swung our eyes around, as each of us tried to prepare our respective selves for . . .
HUH?
What we saw coming out of the house wasn’t Little Alfred. It wasn’t even Little Alfred wearing a turkey disguise. It was . . . a total stranger, a man we’d never seen before! And unless I was badly mistaken—hang on, this will come as a terrible shock—he was a . . .
PIRATE!
Oh, I know what you’re thinking. “It couldn’t have been a pirate, not on a ranch in the Texas Panhandle. Pirates sail ships and the ranch just didn’t have enough water to support a huge three-masted sailing ship. So it couldn’t have been a pirate.”
That’s what you were thinking, right? Go ahead and admit it. Well, you’ve raised a few good points, but I’m sorry to report that you’re wrong. That guy was a pirate, no question about it, and Drover and I were staring, bug-eyed and terrified, at the evidence. Here, check this out.
Evidence #1: He was dressed in pirate clothes, including one of those funny-shaped hats that pirates wear.
Evidence #2: In his right hand, he carried a sword. And in fact, he was slashing the air with it.
Evidence #3: He had a black patch over one eye.
Evidence #4: Finally, and most shockingly, the guy had . . . a wooden leg!
Now, you add up all those clues and tell me he wasn’t a pirate.