Chapter Six: We Are Arrested by the Canadian Mounties

I heard the sound of a car door opening, then the sound of the door as it slammed shut. The crackle of the police radio. Footsteps approaching the pickup.

My mouth was dry. I felt needles of fear moving down my spine bone and out to the end of my tail. The long arm of Sally May had finally caught up with me.

Us, I should say. The long arm of Sally May had finally caught up with us.

I turned to Drover. “Drover, no matter what happens here, I want you to know that this was mostly your fault. If you’d been a true friend, you would have told me to leave those steaks alone.”

He was almost in tears by now. “All these weeks and months I’ve felt so guilty about something, and now I know what it was! I feel terrible!”

“I understand, and if it would make you feel better to take the rap for this, I guess that would be all right with me.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to go to jail!”

“You should have thought of that months ago. Part of growing up and becoming a mature dog is accepting the consequences of my own behavior. I’m sorry.”

“But what about my leg?”

“You’ll just have to take it to jail with you. And always remember . . .”

I wasn’t able to give Drover his Lesson for the Day, because . . .

The footsteps drew closer and closer. I could hear our hearts and livers pounding. We dogs closed our eyes and waited to hear those dreaded words that would change our lives forever: “Come out with your hands up! In the name of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, you dogs are under arrest!”

But you know what? That’s not what we heard. What we heard was, “Morning. May I see your driver’s license please?”

And then Slim’s voice said, “Shore. Let me see, it’s s’posed to be here in my wallet . . . good honk, there’s that rodeo ticket I couldn’t find two years ago. Here we are.”

Officer: “Thank you. Slim, is this your current address?”

Slim: “Well, it was until about an hour ago. I sort of retired from my ranch job and was on my way to Alpine. Thought I might find some cowboy work down there.”

Officer: “I see. Well, Slim, I’ve got some bad news.”

Slim: “Uh-oh. What did I do this time?”

Officer: “Well, the taillights don’t work on your pickup.”

Slim: “I’ve been meaning to . . .”

Officer: “And the tag’s expired.”

Slim: “Oops.”

Officer: “And your inspection sticker expired two years ago.”

Slim: “The same year I lost my ticket to the rodeo. Boy, time gets away, don’t it?”

Officer: “So you’re driving a vehicle that’s about as illegal as it can be. I guess you won’t be going to Alpine for a while.”

Slim: “Do they feed good at the jail?”

Officer: “Ha. There’s no need for that, but dang it, Slim, if you’re going to drive a vehicle on Texas highways, you’ve got to follow the rules.”

Slim: “Yes sir, I know you’re right, but I’ve got a little problem. I’ve got just enough cash to buy gas to Alpine, and that’s it.”

Officer: “Well . . . that’s a problem, sure enough. I guess you’d better park this thing here in Cana­dian­ and find a job. With fines and fees, you’re going to need about a hundred bucks—and that’s with me giving you warning tickets instead of citations.”

Slim: “I’m mighty grateful.”

The officer spent the next ten minutes writing out Slim’s warning tickets. Slim didn’t say a word. Neither did we dogs. We kept still, even though I was feeling a whole lot better about this deal. Do you see what this meant? Sally May hadn’t sent the law after us after all, and we wouldn’t be spending the rest of our lives behind bars! Boy, what a relief.

Well, the officer wrote out the tickets and handed them to Slim and said, “Well, are you planning a big Christmas?”

“Oh yeah. Huge. Thanks, officer. I’ll park this thing, like you said.”

“Fine. Oh, and Slim, if you’re going to be in town for a spell, I’d advise you to get tags for your dogs.”

“Dogs? What dogs?”

Slim opened the door and stepped out. All at once we noticed . . . that is, we became aware of his, uh, face peering over the edge of the pickup bed. He didn’t look very happy, to tell you the truth, and all at once I felt a powerful urge to . . . well, switch my tail over to Slow Whaps. And I squeezed up a little smile that said, “Hey, Slim. Bad day, huh? Well, at least you’ve got us dogs.”

The officer got into his car and drove away. Slim stood there for several minutes, shaking his head and moving his lips. Then he turned his glare back on us.

“You birdbrains. Didn’t I have enough trouble without y’all . . . oh brother. Loper probably thinks I stole his dogs.”

He looked so pitiful, I hopped out of the pickup and went to him. He reached down a hand and stroked me on the ears. “Didn’t I tell y’all you couldn’t come? See, I had to leave the ranch. They couldn’t afford to keep a hired man on the place but they didn’t have the heart to fire me. I just couldn’t stand the thought of being a burden. Now you’ve made a mess and . . . and I don’t know what to do.”

He stood there for a long time, shaking his head and talking under his breath while cars and trucks whizzed by on the highway. He sure looked lost and alone. I jumped up on him and nuzzled my face into his hands.

At last he spoke. “Now, here’s the way it looks to me. I’m gonna have to live in this pickup until I can find me some work. I’ll find a pay phone and call Loper and tell him about you dogs. Now we’re cookin’. We’ve got us a plan.” He hitched up his jeans and looked down at me. “Well, let’s load up. I guess we’re gonna be together for a while, for better or worse. Get in the back, Hank.”

I jumped into the back and joined Mister Moon Eyes. “Drover, at last I’ve got this thing worked out. Listen closely so that I don’t have to repeat myself.”

“What?”

“I said, repeat this closely so that I don’t have to listen to myself. Are you ready?”

“I guess.”

“Okay. We were on our way to the Alpine Alps but we didn’t make it because Slim meant to do something but didn’t. We’re in Canadian but that has nothing to do with Canada. Is that clear?”

“Not really. What about all those penguins and Mounties?”

“They were fignewtons of your imagination.” The pickup lurched out into the street, throwing us toward the back. “Any more questions?”

“What about Sally May’s steaks?”

Slim put in the clutch and shifted gears, which threw us against the cab.

“They’re still missing, Drover, and we’ve gone back to our original theory. They must have been stolen by a chicken hawk, a sneaking, thieving chicking ­hawk.”

“Oh good. The guilt was about to get me down.”

Slim shifted again, throwing us toward the back.

I raised my voice over the roar of the engine. “I wish he’d learn to drive this thing! It’s hard for a dog to carry on an intelligent conversation back here!”

He slammed on his brakes and sent us tumbling forward. I found myself standing nose-to-nose with Drover.

He grinned. “Oh, hi. It’s hard to stand up back here, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it certainly is, and just for that, I think I’ll lie down.”

“Yeah, me too. That’ll teach him.”

And so it was that we lodged our protests against the driver by flopping down. That put an end to all our sloshing around and claw-scraping. It also ended our conversation, which was fine with me. I had explained our situation as clearly as I could, and it was now up to Drover to make sense of it.

Slim drove into the center of town, made a left turn at the stoplight, and drove up the main street, which was built on a steep hill. Halfway up, he tried to shift down to a lower gear but missed. The pickup chugged and died, and we began rolling back­ward down the hill.

I leaped to my feet and barked. “What the heck is he doing now?”

Lucky for us there weren’t any cars back there, so we weren’t killed in a wreck. What happened was that, after rolling back down the hill fifty feet or so, Slim slammed on his brakes, which sent me crashing nosefirst into the tail endgate. Did it hurt? You bet it did. Try it sometime and see if it doesn’t hurt.

Through watering eyes, I beamed a gaze of righ­teous anger toward the cab. Slim stuck his head out the window and gave me a big grin. “Hang on, dogs! We’ll give ’er one more try.” He stuffed the gear shift lever up into grandma low, and off we went.

At this point, the G-forces became so powerful they caused Drover to come sliding down to the end­­gate. He gave me his patented silly grin. “Oh, hi. We move around a lot, don’t we?”

“Yes, and I’ll tell you something else, Drover. Sometimes I get the feeling that Slim doesn’t show us the proper respect when we ride in the back. He may even be doing it on purpose. Can you believe a grown man would show so little respect to his dogs?”

“Yeah, and he’s lucky to have us.”

“He certainly . . .” By then, we had made it to the top of the hill. Slim pulled into a parking spot in front of the courthouse . . . and would you like to guess what he did? He slammed on his stupid brakes and sent me flying against the cab again! Drover was still sitting, and he slid all the way to the front.

Okay, that did it. I was outraged. When he stepped out of the cab, I met him with a glare of purest steel. I wanted him to know what I thought of his childish, infantile behavior.

Do you think he took the hint—that it’s hard for a dog to maintain his dignity when he’s staggering around in the back of his own pickup? Do you think he showed even the smallest shred of shame or remorse? Ha.

Would you like to hear what he said? Here it is, word for word.

He said, “Pooch, if you’re gonna be a ranch dog, you need to learn how to ride in the back of a pickup.” And then he chuckled.

He thinks he’s so funny. Well, he’s not. It would have served him right if I had . . . but then he tore off a piece of beef jerky and pitched it to me, and what the heck, he wasn’t such a bad guy after all. I caught it in midair and wolfed it down.

I won’t say that the jerky totally healed my wounded pride, but it helped a bunch. One of us had to show some maturity in these deals, and as long as the supply of jerky held out, I figured I could handle it.