Chapter Seven: Life Without Drover

Once I had worked through all the pluses and minuses of Life Without Drover, I felt great. The only problem was that the good feeling lasted only two minutes, and at that point the whole thing fell to pieces.

I found myself standing face-to-face with an awful truth: I was worried sick about the little goof, and I had to go find him before he got beat up, run over, or thrown in jail.

Was I happy about this turn of events? No. It made me so mad, I wanted to bite nails and log chains. I leaped out of the pickup, fully aware that I was disobeying Slim’s orders and that I was about to risk my career for someone who probably wasn’t worth it.

But what’s a dog to do? We’re more than the sum of our particles, and even the Head of Ranch Security has feelings. I might have wished that I had invested my feelings more wisely, but I couldn’t get rid of them.

Slim would be penning cattle until the auction was finished. It usually lasted until four o’clock in the afternoon. I had about three hours to find Drover and deliver him back to the pickup. If I failed . . . I didn’t even want to think about it.

The moment my feet hit the ground, I began searching for tracks, and I found plenty of them—tire tracks, about ten thousand of them, coming from every direction and pressed into the dust of the parking lot.

No luck there, and it appeared that this case would yield no hard evidence. I would have to rely on what we call Speculational Analysis. Without hard evidence, I would have to make an educated guess: if I were Drover, where would I go? And the answer that flashed across the screen of my mind was “To his mother’s yard.”

See, we had received a tip from our secret sources that he hadn’t seen his ma in a while and wanted to pay her a visit. I’m not at liberty to discuss those sources, and I’m sure you’ll understand why. If our enemies ever cracked our secret codes and figured out how we gather and process information, it could be very bad.

But back to the point. I had reason to suppose that Drover had gone to visit his mother, but only a vague idea of where she lived—in a fenced yard, somewhere south of downtown. I was in the process of weighing my options when my keen eyes picked up an object of interest.

A dog was sitting under a tree near the south door of the auction barn. It wasn’t Drover (wrong color and shape), but I figured he might have some information I could use.

As I drew nearer, I realized that I knew the mutt. Hey, it was Dogpound Ralph! Remember him? He was the dogcatcher’s pet basset hound and lived in a special cell at the dog pound. Ralph and I had served time together when I was on Death Row and . . . well, a special bond develops between dogs who serve time together. I knew he would be thrilled to see me again.

When I approached, he was staring at the auction barn with his big, sad basset eyes, while his huge ears flapped in the breeze. “Afternoon, Ralph. What are you doing, holding down that tree so it won’t blow away?”

He gave me a glance. Maybe he didn’t recognize me. “No, somebody said they were going to have a parade. I thought I’d come watch.”

“This is the livestock auction. They have parades on Main Street.”

“That’s too far to walk.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll sit down and we’ll watch it together.” I sat down beside him and we both stared out at the parking lot. A tumbleweed clattered across the space in front of us. “Hey, this is great. There’s something inspiring about a parade, isn’t there?”

For a solid minute, he didn’t say anything, then his mournful eyes swung around. “That ain’t a parade, it’s a weed.”

“Well, it’s a nice weed.”

“Are you trying to be funny?”

“Yes, Ralph, I admit it. I thought a little humor might liven things up, but maybe I was wrong.”

“Well, it ain’t funny to me. I went to all the trouble to get here, and I think I missed the parade.”

“You did, Ralph. They had it on Main Street about an hour ago.”

“How’d you know my name?”

“I know your name because we served time together on Death Row.”

He gave me a closer look. “Oh yeah, you’re Texie, right?”

“I’m not Texie.”

“Huh. Noodle?”

“Hey, Ralph, you and I have a long history. We went on a Fling together, remember? You taught me all sorts of bad habits and got me arrested by the dogcatcher.”

“I did? Huh. It don’t ring any bells.”

My temper was beginning to rise. “You know, Ralph, I thought we had a special friendship, but I guess I was wrong. Sorry I bothered you. Good-bye.”

I started to leave but he said, “Oh, don’t get your nose out of joint. Tell me your name one more time.”

“Hank the Cowdog. I’m Head of Ranch Security on a huge outfit south of town.”

“Oh yeah, it’s starting to come back now.” A little flicker of mischief appeared in his eyes and he grinned. “You want to go on another Fling?”

“Absolutely not. I’m here on important business.”

His smile faded. “Darn. I haven’t done anything naughty in three months.” He yawned. “What’s the important business?”

“I’m on a mission to find a dog named Drover.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Small, short-haired, stub-tailed little mutt.”

“Oh yeah, him.”

“You saw him? Today?”

“I think it was today. Hold on a second.” He hiked up his right hind leg and scratched his right ear. “Sorry, I had to scratch.”

“I noticed.”

“I’ve got big ears, and when they itch, boy, do they itch.”

“So you saw Drover, today?”

“I guess it was him. He sat right there where you’re sitting for, oh, half an hour. We missed the parade together.”

“Did he talk?”

“Oh yeah, talked my ear off.”

“About what? Be specific.”

“Butterflies. He said he likes to chase ’em.”

“It was Drover.” I rose to my feet and began pacing. I could see that getting information out of Ralph wasn’t going to be easy. “Ralph, I need facts and details. Did he say anything about his mother?”

“Yeah, he said he had one.”

“Yes, yes? What else?”

He yawned again. “Well, I told him I had one, too.”

I whirled around and stuck my nose in his face. “Ralph, I don’t care about your mother. I’m working a case and you’re making it very difficult.”

“You’re too pushy.”

“Ralph, in my line of work, they don’t give awards to nice guys. I’m pushy because I have to be.”

“You’re still too pushy.”

“Too bad. Okay, you and Drover sat here and waited for a parade that didn’t happen. You talked about butterflies, then he left, right? I mean, he doesn’t seem to be here now.”

Ralph glanced around. “I guess he did. Seemed like a nice little pooch.”

“He’s a nice little lunatic. Where did he go?”

“Well . . . ’scuse me a second.” He hiked up his back leg and hacked at his ear again. “That thing won’t leave me alone.”

“Where did he go, Ralph?”

“Who?”

“Drover, the nice little lunatic who was talking about butterflies.”

He stared at me for a long time. “Hey, I remember you now. You ate a bar of soap, and Jimmy Joe thought you had hydrophobia. Heh heh. Have you ate any soap lately?”

I paced a few steps away from him and looked up at the sky. I didn’t want to scream at him, but he was about to drive me nuts. “Ralph, I know this is hard, but you must concentrate. Don’t talk about soap or parades or your mother. Think back. When Drover left, did he say where he was going?”

Ralph scowled and rolled his eyes around. This time, at last, he seemed to be concentrating. “Yes, he did, sure did.”

“Great. That’s all I need to know. Where did he go?”

“Well sir, that’s the part I don’t remember. I think I nodded off to sleep, and next thing I knew, you showed up.”

The air hissed out of my lungs as I stood there, looking down at this nincompoop of a dog. “Ralph, I have spent my whole career interrogating witnesses. Some of those interrogations were good and some were bad, but you’ve set a new record for . . .”

His ears shot up. “Wait. I just remembered something. He went off to the south . . . and he was follered by two bad-looking dogs.”

Those words hung in the air between us. Two bad-looking dogs? Uh-oh, unless I was badly mistaken, Drover was being stalked by Buster and Muggs.

I rushed back to the spot where Ralph was sitting. “Ralph, that is very important information. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Oh, didn’t think of it, I guess.”

“We don’t have much time. If those two thugs get hold of him . . .”

All at once my nostrils picked up the smell of steak fumes. What are steak fumes? They’re the odor, the powerful odor that fills the air when somebody is cooking steaks on an outdoor grill.

Steak Fumity is one of several forces in the universe that are very predictable. Gravity causes a rubber ball to fall to the earth. Ungravity causes it to bounce back toward the moon, and Steak Fumity will snap a dog’s head around and get his attention. These forces never change, and we even have mathematical equations that describe them. You want to take a peek at our equation for Steak Fumity? Okay, pay attention. We don’t have all day.

S+Fr x 2(HD) = Fm + SL

Pretty impressive, huh? You bet. Do we need to go over the terms and explain them in everyday language? Maybe so. Okay, S is the mathematical symbol for Steak, and Fr means fire. HD is Hungry Dog, and when we multiply it by two, it doubles the value, making it Very Hungry Dog. Fm stands for Fumes, and SL is the scientific term for Steak Lust.

So there you have it: Steak plus Fire times Very Hungry Dog equals Fumes plus Steak Lust. See, that wasn’t so bad, was it? I get a kick out of playing around with Heavy Duty Mathematics. Most of your ordinary mutts sit around scratching fleas and figuring out new ways of saying “Duh.” Me? In my spare moments, I’m doing algebra and clackulus.

Anyway, my nostrils were picking up powerful waves of Steak Fumity and fellers, those smells will focus a dog’s mind—not once in a while but every time. My body turned like the needle in a haystack . . . the needle on a compass, let us say, toward a plume of smoke about fifty yards away.

In a low voice, I murmured, “Ralph, this case has taken a new direction. Someone is broiling steaks over there, and we need to check it out.”

And as if by magic, my feet began carrying the rest of me toward the source of the delicious fumes.