Chapter Twelve: Another Amazing Conclusion

I was by George trapped, is what it amounted to, between a pack of murdering wild dogs and a pack of murdering wild coyotes.

Now, I could have whipped one group or the other. I mean, odds of four- or five-to-one were nothing out of the ordinary for me. In security work, we figger four-to-one is about a fair fight, five-to-one is a challenge, and six-to-one is a pretty good scrap.

“One riot, one cowdog,” is the way we put it.

But I hadn’t been training for seven-to-one, and the chances of me whipping and possibly annihilating both groups were pretty slim.

Very slim.

Out of the question.

Which made retreat an attractive option, except there was no place to go. I stopped. Buster and his boys stopped. Scraunch and Rip and Snort stopped. The coyotes glared at the dogs, and the dogs glared back at the coyotes.

Scraunch broke the silence. “Hunk belong to us. We not need fight everybody, only want Hunk.”

That gave me an idea—the only one I had left, as a matter of fact. “Did you hear that, Buster? He said you guys better pack up and get off this ranch. And in case you don’t know it, he’s a very important official in the coyote tribe—no less than the son of Chief Many-Rabbit-Gut-Eat-in-Full-Moon.”

Muggsie started laughing. Within seconds, they were all laughing. “What kind of two-bit foreign name is that! Many-Rabbit-Gut! Har, har, har!”

I turned to the coyotes. “There’s your answer, Scraunch. Buster says you guys are a joke and you’d better vanish before there’s a big fight.”

Rip and Snort might not have understood every word of this, but they did savvy the word fight. And all at once their eyes lit up and they started whispering.

Buster took a step toward me. “Why don’t you shut up. I can talk my own fights without any help from a yellow-bellied cowdog!”

“Did you hear that, Snort? He told you to shut up, and then he called you a yellow-bellied cowdog!”

The hair went up on Snort’s back, and he took two steps forward. “Snort not like big talk.”

Buster’s eyes moved from me to the coyote. “Oh yeah? Well let me tell you something, pal. Me and my boys got some business to take care of, so why don’t you just shove off?”

Snort and Buster glared at each other. Then Rip stepped out and swaggered up beside his brother.

Buster grinned. “Oh yeah? Hey Muggs, come here.” Muggs moved up beside Buster and curled his lip at the coyotes. “Give ’em a growl.”

Muggs puffed himself up and let out a deep growl. Rip and Snort looked at each other and started laughing. I mean, those guys had been in so many fights, the idea of running a bluff was a joke.

That didn’t sit too well with Buster. “Wise guys, huh? Ho-kay, whatever you think.” He looked back and jerked his head at the other two goons. “Come here, boys. We got a couple of wise guys here.” The two dogs came up and took their place in the line. Buster turned to Rip and Snort and grinned. “Now, like I was saying, why don’t you guys go chase a rabbit and we’ll tend to our business, huh?”

It was a stand-off. Both sides bristled and glared and snarled and stared, but neither one made a move. Then Scraunch came up. “Not need fight with many dog, only want . . .”

Buster’s head shot around. “Yeah, I bet you don’t want fight with many dog, Chief-Chicken-Guts-in-the-Moonshine.”

Muggs broke up on that. “Har, har, har! Chief-Chicken-Guts, har, har, har, in-the-Moonshine, har, har, har!”

Snort’s eyes bulged. “Not laugh at Scraunch!”

“Oh yeah?” said Buster. “Listen, pal, we’re taking over this ranch and my boys can laugh at anything they want, see? Go on, Muggsie, laugh for the bumpkins.”

“Har, har, h . . .”

That was one har too many for Snort. If you recall, he wasn’t a real bubbly sort and had a lousy sense of humor. He piled into Muggsie, Scraunch lit into Buster, and Rip took on the other two. And fellers, the fight was on!

Snow was flying, hair was flying, teeth were flashing in the sunlight. It took my coyote pals maybe thirty seconds to clean house on them junior thugs. I mean, you talk about a whipping! Buster and his boys got a very quick and very painful education on pasture fighting.

Buster was the first to put his education to good use. About thirty-five seconds into the fight, he broke away and went tearing down the county road, with Scraunch right behind him, taking a snap out of his tail every five steps.

When Muggs and the others saw their fearless leader running for his life, they tried to surrender. But Rip and Snort were just getting tuned up and didn’t care about taking prisoners, so Muggs and the boys broke away and lit a shuck down the county road, with Rip and Snort in hot pursuit.

“That’s what we do to calf-killers!” I yelled. “And the next time I catch you on this ranch . . .” They had already disappeared. That was the end of that.

I headed down to the house and met Slim and Drover in the pickup. They were coming out to the pasture to see what all the noise was about. Slim had his gun. I was real glad he didn’t get a chance to use it.

“Hank, what in the world . . . we thought we’d find you dead up here. What did you do to those brutes?”

What could I say? One riot, one cowdog.

“Good dog, good dog!” He got out and rubbed me behind the ears. “Get in and let’s go check the heifers.”

Just then I heard a voice from heaven: “Dang the luck! There goes our breakfast, Junior!”

I hopped into the cab and sat down beside Drover. He stared at me with eyes as big as saucers.

“How’s it going, son?”

“How’d you get out of that? You’re not even hurt!”

“Oh, I just read ’em the law, told ’em what was likely to happen if they stuck around here very long.”

“You just . . . no foolin’?”

“You saw the results. Need I say any more?”

He scratched his head. “I guess not.”

We checked the heifers, didn’t find evidence of another murder, and Slim was kind enough to give me the credit I so richly deserved.

Then we went back to the house. I got double dog food and for the rest of the day I was treated as a conquering hero and resident dignitary. I accepted it graciously, even though it was long overdue.

That night was Christmas Eve, and old Slim was feeling so generous and full of holiday cheer that he let me and Drover into the house again. In fact, he let me occupy the place of honor in front of the stove.

He’d cut a scrubby little cedar tree up in the canyons that afternoon. He set it up in a corner, and after he’d burned himself some supper, he started decorating the tree.

He cut some pretty pictures out of a magazine and tied them on with string. He wedged some apples and oranges against limbs and hung his spurs out on the ends of a couple of others. Then he took his foil chewing tobacco pouch and made a star out of it, and he put the star right up on tippy top of the tree.

Then he stood back and said, “What do you think, Hank? I believe we’ve got ourselves a Christmas tree.”

Looked okay to me.

Just then, we heard a knock at the door. Slim frowned and said, “Wonder who that could be,” and opened the door.

“Surprise! We decided to come on home.” Loper stepped inside and started stomping the snow off his boots.

Instead of going back to his little house down the creek, Slim bunked out on the sofa and I curled up on the rug in front of the stove.

It was a joyous, old-fashioned, cowboy kind of Christmas, the best Christmas I’d ever known. There was only one small incident that marred what was an otherwise lovely occasion.

Around nine o’clock on Christmas morning, Sally May found fleas in her bed.

Even though Slim had occupied that bed for several nights, guess who got blamed for the dadgum fleas. I was banished from the house.

But I couldn’t complain. A guy can’t expect to sit on the precious moments of this life and hatch them out into something better.

In the security business, you make your own bed and sleep in it. Every once in a while you have to expect a few fleas.