Chapter Five: The Cold Weather Cowdog Blues
Don’t get me wrong. Sleeping outside in the dead of winter was no big shucks to me. I mean, my attitude is that if you go into security work, you take the bad with the awful. You take the worst they can throw at you, chew it up, spit it out, and go back for more.
I’d slept in cold, snow, rain, blizzard, sleet, ice, you name it. In my years of security work, I’d slept in everything but comfort, and that was okay because I’d never wanted to be anything but tough.
And as for having someone to talk to at night, I never needed that either. Most of my heavy and dangerous work comes in the night and I never found much time or need for talking on the job.
On the other hand, I’m only flesh and blood. It’s hard to remember that, but it’s true. Inside every cowdog there’s a heart and a liver and a gizzard—well, I’m not sure about the gizzard, but we definitely have hearts and livers. And where you find a heart and a liver, you’ll find the same basic emotions that exist in ordinary dogs.
I mean, we cowdogs have tremendous pride and we have to struggle every day with our emotional side. When you make your living doing battle against evil and darkness, you find it hard to admit that you have feelings. I don’t remember who said it, but “Steel crieth not.”
Maybe I said it. Even so, it’s true.
Steel crieth not.
I’m trying to prepare you for a shocking revelation. On that particular evening, December 22 I believe it was, when I saw Slim and Drover go into the house, when I saw the warm yellow light coming from the kitchen window, when I looked up at the smoky dark sky, when I felt the chill rising from the snow, when I heard the whisper of the wind, when I went down to my cold gunnysack bed—fellers, I didn’t feel very much like steel anymore.
I hate to admit it, but I was lonesome and blue. I wanted to be in a warm house. I wanted to see light and hear laughter. I wanted to curl up in front of that big Jotul stove and watch the logs burn down to red embers. I wanted to hear the rocking chair squeak on the old pine floor. I wanted somebody to reach down and scratch me behind the ears.
I tried to shake it off. I went on patrol and made my evening rounds, down to the cake house, over to the feed barn, the calf shed, the saddle house, the sick pen, up to the chicken house, and then to the machine shed.
Everything was quiet and there I was again, looking down at the light in the window.
I didn’t figger there was much chance of me talking my way into the house. I mean, Sally May had been pretty clear that she didn’t want “Hank McNasty” in her house, and I think she meant ME when she said that. On the other hand, Sally May wasn’t around, and as the saying goes, “When the cat’s away the dogs try to get in by the fire.”
It was worth a try.
I loped down the hill, hopped over the fence, and took up a position right under the kitchen window. I could see Slim plain as could be. It appeared that he was standing over the sink, peeling potatoes. I tuned up and sang him a mournful song.
Well my bed is cold and I’m feelin’ kind of old,
I got the cold weather cowdog blues.
My bones are achin’ and my whole body’s shakin’,
I got them cold weather cowdog blues.
Don’t tell me that I’m a guard dog.
Don’t tell me I’m sposed to be tough.
’Cause I’m lonesome and I’m blue and I’m cold as a frog
And I just can’t handle that stuff
Tonight.
It would sure be nice just to thaw my ice,
And curl up by the wood burning stove.
I got the sleepin’ outside, layin’ in the snow,
I got the cold weather cowdog,
The lonesome as a hound dog,
The cold weather cowdog blues.
Real bad.
Well, I performed the song (my own composition, by the way) in the snow under the kitchen window, and naturally I throwed in some whining and heavy begs at the end.
Slim was listening. I could see him through the window, even though the screen was rusted and had some green paint spots on it (typical cowboy paint job). Then he left the window and I heard his boots on the floor. He was coming to the back door.
By George, it had worked!
He opened the door and stepped outside.
“What’s wrong, Hankie? You hear some coyotes out there?”
No.
“You miss old Drover?”
No. Well, maybe a little.
“Say, it’s cold as a witch’s refrigerator out here! I don’t know how you can stand this cold.”
Right.
“Well, old pup, I’ve got the solution to that problem.”
It takes time but they’ll come around.
“Here, try this.” It was then that I noticed the smoking frying pan. He scraped the contents into the snow. “I got to fooling around and kind of scorched my taters. That’ll warm you up. Night night.” He went back inside.
I sniffed his taters, which were sending up gray smoke. Did he say “kind of scorched”? He kind of burned them to a cinder, is what he kind of did, and I’d never met a dog that would eat such garbage. I mean, if he couldn’t cook any better than that, he sure didn’t need to worry about me begging at his table.
Well, I had no choice but to increase the volume and intensity of my, uh, presentation, so to speak. I howled. I moaned. I cried. I gave him the full load. This went on for fifteen or twenty minutes, until at last he came back outside.
He leaned against the door jamb and crossed his arms. “Hank, you’re making an awful lot of noise.”
Yep.
“Is this gonna go on all night long?”
Yep.
“It’s pretty cold, ain’t it?”
Yep.
“Would it help if I let you come inside?”
Yep.
“Will you dogs stay in the utility room?”
Yep. Cross my heart and hope to die.
“I mean, you ain’t one of Sally May’s favorite pets.”
Nope.
“And she’d skin me alive . . . oh what the heck, come on in.”
I shot the gap between his legs and by the time he had the door shut, I was curled up on the rug beside Drover. Drover raised his head and stared at me.
“What are you doing in here?”
“What’s it to you? I got my rights. You’re not the only privileged character on this ranch. Just go on about your business and don’t try to take more than half this rug.”
“Oh. Okay.” He went back to sleep. I’m sure he needed it since he’d only logged about fifteen hours of rack time out of the last twenty-four.
Myself, I wasn’t sleepy. For a long time I watched Slim working in the kitchen. I could barely see him through the smoke. Judging by the smell, I calculated that he was burning newspaper and cardboard boxes, though I found out later that he was actually cooking another batch of potatoes and a hamburger steak.
He scraped the “food” into a plate and walked into the living room to eat. Well, it got kind of quiet and boring in the utility room. Drover twitched and wheezed in his sleep. I got tired of it and decided to move around a little bit.
I tiptoed into the kitchen and peeked around the corner. There was Slim, sitting in the big wooden rocker in front of the wood stove, eating his supper. I dropped down on my belly and started inching my way toward the living room.
I did this very carefully and Slim didn’t notice me until I was at his feet in front of that nice warm stove. He was eating with his fingers and he looked down at me.
“Where do you think you’re going, pup? That old stove feels pretty good tonight, don’t it?” I whapped my tail on the floor. He tore off a piece of cinderized hamburger and handed it to me. “Here, sink your teeth into this.”
I tongued it, gummed it, rolled it around in my mouth, and then, well, spit it out on the floor, you might say.
He scowled. “Why you hammerheaded dog, what’s wrong with you?”
What’s wrong with me is what’s kept me alive all these years: I never eat poison.
“You got no taste.” He picked the meat off the floor, wiped it on his jeans, and ate it. Then he wiped his hands on his jeans, pushed himself out of the chair, went into the kitchen, and put his plate and two frying pans into the refrigerator.
He must have noticed that I was watching him. “It’s an old cowboy trick, Hank. If you put your dirty dishes in the ice box, they won’t get moldy in the sink.”
I thought that was pretty sharp. Maybe old Slim couldn’t cook, but at least he was clean.
He came back into the living room with two glasses. One had soda pop in it and the other was empty. He threw a couple of hackberry logs into the stove and sat down in his chair again. He took a bite off his plug of tobacco and sat there, one leg throwed over the other, looking at the fire.
He had his soda pop glass in one hand and the empty glass in the other. He drank out of one and spit into the other. I watched him for a long time, wondering if he would get them mixed up. He didn’t, and I finally fell asleep.
Then I heard his boots hit the floor. He flew out of the chair and ran into the kitchen and held his mouth under the water faucet.
“Well, I think I’ll leave it with you, Hank.” He pointed a finger at me. “Now look, dog, I’ll let you stay by the fire but if I hear you roaming around and acting silly, I’ll throw your tail back out into the snow. You got that?”
Yes sir. I whapped my tail extra hard on the floor.
“Sweet dreams.” He went into the bedroom, shucked off his clothes down to his red long johns, turned off the light, and went to bed.
Hey, it was great sleeping there by the warm fire. That was as close to heaven as I’d been in a long time, except that wood floor got awful hard along about midnight. I scratched around and changed positions but I just couldn’t get comfortable.
I sat up, yawned, scratched a couple of fleas, and wondered what I ought to do. Should I go out to the utility room and sleep on the rug—and put up with Drover’s wheezing and twitching? Should I roam around the house? Should I hop up on Sally May’s sofa and run the risk of getting my throat cut?
No. But there was one last alternative. As quiet as a panther, I slipped into the bedroom, one step at a time. At the foot of the bed, I stopped and listened. Nothing but Slim’s heavy breathing—snoring, actually.
I lifted one paw and eased it up on the bed. Then I lifted the other paw and laid it on the bed. I listened. Nothing. Very carefully, I shifted the weight of my body from my hind legs to my front legs and pulled myself up on the bed. Then I froze and listened. Nothing.
I scooted myself across the full length of the bed until I reached the pillow beside Slim’s head. Heck, that was good enough for me.
I closed my eyes and shut her down for the night.