Chapter Five: I Rescue Slim from a Burning Pants Leg

Drover’s words hung in the air like words hanging in the air.

“Bite him? Are you crazy?”

We watched as the flames on his cuffs grew larger. “Hank, you’d better do something, and quick!”

I heaved a sigh and rose to my feet. “Okay, I’m going in—not because he deserves it but because . . . I don’t know why. Because this is what dogs do. You come in the second wave.”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know, spit on the flames or something. Lend a hand, break a leg.”

“I already did.” He limped around in circles and fell over. “There it went! Oh, my leg!”

I stepped over his twitching body and prepared for action. This would be one of the most dangerous missions of my entire career and I knew there was a good chance that I would run into trouble. To get Slim’s attention, I would have to bite him hard enough to get his attention, and he wouldn’t like that. Oh well, it had to be done.

I entered all the targeting information and locked it into the computer. The target was acquired. We were ready to launch. I rolled the muscles in my enormous shoulders and pointed my nose directly at the target. While Drover squeaked and quivered, I launched the weapon.

“Charge, bonzai!”

Boy, old Slim was sure surprised! I mean, there he was, a happy bachelor cowboy doing his fix-up job on the cow chute, all alone in his little world under the welding hood, and totally unaware that his pants were on fire, when all at once a four-legged cruise missile came out of nowhere and took a bite out of his hip pocket.

SNAP!

I knew right away that I had gotten his attention. “Eeeeee-YOW!” He jumped about five feet straight up, banged his head on a chute lever, and then everything became a blur of motion. Off came the welding hood, off came the leather gloves. Welding rods, slag hammer, marking chalk, tape measure, and electric cords went flying in all directions.

He grabbed his hiney with both hands and with a very astonished expression on his face, he screamed, “IDIOT! YOU BIT ME!”

Right. And your pants are on fire.

His face had become a mask of rage. He lunged toward me, and this time he wasn’t playing games. I think he had plans for twisting my head off, but then he began to feel the heat from his flaming pants.

He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the fire coming up his leg. His mouth dropped open and I heard him say, “Good honk, I’m on fire!” Then he started dancing a polka and slapping at the flames. “Hyah, hyah!”

Well, glory be, he’d finally figured it out. These guys take a lot of patience, but once in a while we’re rewarded with a successful mission.

He moved with a kind of speed we’d never seen before. After he’d stomped out the fire in the weeds, down came the zipper on his coveralls. He wiggled his shoulders and flopped his arms and waggled the top half of his body around, dropped to the ground and kicked his legs until the coveralls finally came flying off.

They landed in a heap nearby and roared up into a blaze big enough to roast a couple of goats and a bunch of marshmallows. Slim just sat there and watched, stunned and amazed, while his welding uniform went up in smoke.

After a bit he chuckled and turned his eyes on me. “Pooch, it ain’t polite to bite your friends, but I’m kind of glad you did this time. I guess I owe you one. Thanks.”

Yes, he certainly “owed me one” and I waited for the awards ceremony to begin. What would it be? A big juicy steak? A package of frozen hamburger from the deep freeze? Or maybe a whole gallon of ice cream, all to myself? Any of those items would have been fine with me or, what the heck, all of them would have been even better.

I mean, let’s look at the facts. My rescue had been so rapid and well-timed, the fire hadn’t even burned his jeans, much less his leg, so, yes, this seemed a perfect time for him to give me a huge reward.

He reached two fingers into his shirt pocket and dug around. He frowned. “Well, I thought I still had a piece of beef jerky but I guess I ate it for lunch. Will you take an IOU?”

What? An IOU? No! I wanted my steak! Our dog bowl had been empty for two weeks! Okay, twelve hours, but it had been empty.

He grinned. “Thanks, pooch, I knew you’d understand. An IOU from an honest man is almost as good as a sack of gold.”

Oh sure, and an IOU from a crook was almost as good as a sack of gold without the gold.

He yawned. “Well, it’s quittin’ time anyway. You want to stay down at my place tonight?”

No, I certainly did not. I had better things to do and better friends to do it with. I turned my back on him and went into a Deep Sulk.

“Hey, I’ll give you a bite of my mackerel and ketchup sandwich.”

No. I was hungry but not desperate.

He shrugged. “No? Well, I’ll think of you when I’m eating my supper. Nighty night.”

And with that, he slouched off to his pickup and drove away, leaving me in the ruins of a shattered steak dream.

You know, if dogs wrote the history books, there would be a lot of embarrassed humans. We would tell all about their childish pranks and bonehead mistakes, about how they goof off and play robot on company time and catch their clothes on fire.

Oh well. Darkness was approaching, and Drover and I made our way back to our office/bedroom underneath the gas tanks. It had turned into a pretty strenuous afternoon, with all the monster reports, fire alarms, and shattered dreams, and I was ready for some shut-eye. As I was scratching up my gunnysack bed, I noticed Drover staring at me.

“What?”

“Oh nothing. I was just thinking.”

“That’s scary. About what?”

“You sure saved old Slim. What a hero!”

“Right, what a hero, and what did it get me? A pat on the head. At the very least, he should have given me a steak dinner.”

“Yeah, but he’s too cheap.”

My head shot up and so did my ears. I gazed out into the darkness. “Did you hear that?”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“Well, I did. It was that same bird we heard earlier.”

He giggled. “Oh, you mean ‘cheap’?”

Slurp.

“Yes. You heard it, too?” I leaped to my feet. “Drover, unless I’m badly mistaken, there’s a young, tender chicken out there in the darkness!”

“No, it was just me. I said—”

“I can’t stand this any longer. Every time I try to relax, I hear chickens! They’re everywhere and it’s driving me crazy.” I turned my fevered gaze upon my assistant. “I have to settle this thing, once and for all.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Don’t wait up for me, son. This could turn into a late night.”

“Yeah, but—”

I didn’t stick around to hear the rest of his “yeah, but.” I went plunging into the darkness of night, in search of . . .

I know what you’re thinking: I had become possessed with the thought of eating a chicken. Go ahead and admit it. You think I had turned into some kind of chicken-killing fiend, right?

Okay, maybe you’ve got a point, but let’s look at it from another angle. We’re not talking about a whole bunch of chickens, just one, and who would miss one little chicken? Nobody. Chickens come and go, right? They have accidents and, well, sometimes they just vanish without a trace. It happens all the time.

And don’t forget that the people who operate the ranch had forgotten to refill our dog bowl. Was that my fault? What’s a dog to do? I mean, we sit around all day, listening to the wildcats growling in our stomachs and watching as two-legged dinners walk around in front of us, and what are we supposed to think about? The weather? Volcanic activity in Washington State? Fungus and algae?

Look, dogs aren’t saints. When we’re hungry, we think about FOOD, and when we see plump juicy chickens . . . slurp . . . walking around all day, we begin thinking the unthinkable.

And don’t forget that I hadn’t been paid for my heroic rescue of Slim. I deserved a special treat, and by George . . .

Yes, I’ll admit that inviting one of Sally May’s chickens to supper involved . . . uh, certain risks, shall we say. But I had a plan and it didn’t involve Sally May’s approval . . . or knowledge.

Heh heh. Hide the feathers and they’ll never know. Heh heh. Yes sir, I was a dog with a plan. I can’t reveal it at this time (it’s highly classified), but you’ll see.

Oh, one last thing. You’re probably disappointed that I was taking this swerve into anti­social behavior. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I never pretended to be a perfect dog. Through the years, I’ve tried to be a good dog, but even good dogs yield to temptation every once in a while, and there’s no temptation like a plump, juicy . . .

Slurp.

That’s all I’m going to say about it. If this next part gets unbearable, just skip a couple of chapters and we’ll see you on the other side.