Epiglottis

We had just passed the east side of the machine shed when I heard a familiar noise: the scraping sound a fork makes when it is pulled across a dinner plate. I called a halt and we crouched down in the weeds and looked toward the sound.

Sure ’nuff, there was Sally May leaning over the yard fence and scraping supper morsels into Pete’s dish. We waited in silence. Sally May said a few words to Kitty-Kitty and went back into the house.

When the coast was clear, I pushed myself up, went into my stalking position, and crept down the hill. Speaking of greed and gluttony, Pete was so busy making a hog of himself that he never got the news until I whacked him across the backside and sent him flying into the fence. He hissed and yowled and sprinted for the nearest tree.

Drover and I fell on the scraps and devoured them. Then Drover pointed to something on the ground. “Hank, look! It’s a . . . it’s a Priceless Corncob!

I went over to it and sniffed it out. It was in­deed a corncob. “Yes, Drover, but we’ve already learned our lesson.”

“Which lesson?”

“The lesson of the corncob. It was a curse, Drover. It brought trouble and misery to everyone who touched it. No, we won’t even be tempted this time, will we?”

“I guess not.”

“Come on, we’ve got a night patrol to make.” I started down to the saddle shed but stopped when I realized Drover wasn’t behind me. I looked back. There, in the blue glow of the mercury vapor yard light, Drover was staring down at the corncob, a wild and crazy expression in his eyes.

“Oh my gosh, I’M RICH!!”

“Whoa, hold it right there, stop, halt!” I went back and pushed him aside. “I can’t allow you to do this to yourself.”

“I saw it first!”

“Yes, but I saw it second, and furthermore, you’re just lucky there’s someone on this ranch who cares enough about you to take it off your hands and . . .”

You ever get the feeling that some stories go on and on and on, repeat themselves, come up over again, and never end? I get that feeling sometimes.

So how do you end an unending story? You run out of paper, which is what I just did.