Chapter Nine: Drover Gets a Promotion

I had done nothing, but it appeared that I was in trouble again, and let’s face the facts. This wasn’t a great time for me to be in trouble. I mean, the Donut Fiasco had done some serious damage to my reputation and I’d gone to a lot of trouble to redeem myself—less than an hour ago. The timing here was bad, very bad.

I hung my head and waited for the storm to hit. To my amazement, it didn’t come. Slim wasn’t even mad! In a croaky voice, he said, “That canyon up yonder drops twenty feet straight down. If this new pickup had gone over the edge, Loper would have wrung my neck. Let’s try not to do that again, what say?”

Whew! I could have hugged him. I hadn’t done anything in the first place, but I took a Pledge never to do it again.

With a shaky hand, he pushed a shock of hair back from his forehead. “I forgot about the electric winders. They ought to outlaw them things for ranch trucks.”

Exactly. Windows that rolled themselves up, doors that locked for no reason. It was scandalous, shameful, outrageous. Slim and I were furious. This pickup was booby-trapped and not safe for innocent dogs.

When Slim had calmed down enough to start the pickup, we drove back to headquarters and loaded twenty sacks of feed onto the bed of the pickup. Then we headed east on the Wolf Creek Road to feed some more cattle. Slim seemed to be in a better mood now and so was I.

There was only one small dark cloud that blocked the sunshine in the clear sky of my horizon. The window on the Shotgun side was rolled up, see, and I wasn’t able to do my Fresh Air Procedures. Maybe you think that’s not a big deal, but for a ranch dog, it’s a big deal. I needed some air.

But what’s a dog to do? I had to sit there in the Shotgun position, looking out at the world through a sheet of glass and breathing stale air. Have we discussed Air Quality? Studies have shown that dogs who breathe stale air for long periods of time become . . . well, stale. Dull-minded. Lazy. Legargic. I mean, look at what stale air had done to Drover.

I definitely needed some fresh air, and that’s when I noticed that the window on Slim’s side was rolled down. Would he mind if I . . . well, eased over to his side and shared the window with him? Maybe he wouldn’t notice, and even if he did, I felt pretty sure that he would understand that we were experiencing a Bad Air Alert inside the pickup.

Would he want the Head of Ranch Security eking out a miserable existence breathing stale air? Heck no. I was pretty certain that he would want me to share the window with him.

Even though I was following Slim’s wishes on this deal, I had a feeling that I would need to do it in a . . . uh . . . how should I say this? In a stealthy manner, let us say. Slowly. Delicately. I mean, your ordinary run of low-class mutts wouldn’t have given a thought to delicacy. They would have just blundered across the seat, plopped themselves in the driver’s lap, and stuck their drippy mouths out the window.

That’s not the way I do business. If we can’t do it properly, by George, we don’t do it at all.

I began the procedure by studying Slim’s fose in prayfile . . . face in profile, let us say. His mind seemed far away, lost in thought. This was good. I reached for the keypad of my mind and punched in the commands for a procedure we call Slow Creep. I began inching my enormous body across the seat while at the same time keeping a careful eye on Slim.

Pretty impressive, huh? You bet.

Slim suspected nothing, but I knew there was little chance that I could slip past Drover without provoking some kind of comment. Sure enough, when I tried to slither myself through the tiny space between him and the seat, he noticed.

“Where are you going?”

“Shhh, not so loud. My window’s rolled up and I’m about to gag on the stale air.”

“When I said that, you told me to count my blessings.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah, I counted to one and quit.”

“Well, do a recount. You must have missed something.”

“Sunshine’s all I could think of.”

“There are more blessings, Drover, hundreds of them. You just have to look for them in all of Life’s crannies and nannies. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

At last, he moved out of the way. “Well, it doesn’t seem fair that you always get the fresh air and I have to sit in the middle.”

I heaved a sigh. “Okay, Drover, remember that little promotion we talked about? As of this moment, I am promoting you to the Shotgun Position.”

His eyes lit up. “Oh goodie, Shotgun! I’ve always dreamed of riding Shotgun.” He dashed over to the right side of the seat, and there his smile faded. “Yeah, but . . . the window’s rolled up.”

“Drover, I deal in large concepts, not tiny details. You’ll just have to work it out for yourself.”

I resumed my Stealthy Scoot across the seat. By this time, I had made contact with Slim’s right leg. I paused and did another quick scan of his face. It came back negative, so I mushed on to the most delicate part of the procedure, entering the Lapalary Region of his lap. If a guy trips an alarm, this is where it happens, as he snail-crawls over that first leg and oozes himself toward the window, threading the upper portion of his body through, around, and between the driver’s two arms.

It’s a toughie, let me tell you, and there are very few dogs who can pull it off. What usually happens is that the dog gets careless, presses too hard, sets off the motion sensors, and gets tossed to the other side of the pickup.

But, heh heh, you’ll be pleased to know that I pulled it off. After minutes and minutes of slow, delicate creeping, I oozed myself onto the Lapalary Region and plunged my nose into the stream of crisp, clean fall air. YES! Oh, sweet air! Oh, happy lungs! It was delicious, well worth all the pain and suffering I had endured to get there.

At that point, I moved rapidly into the next phase: resetting all the switches for Face, Tail, Ears, Eyes, and Mouth, and reconfiguring the system to produce an expression we call “I’ve Been Here All Day, No Kidding.” That’s a pretty important part of the procedure because, sooner or later, the driver is going to figure out that . . . well, he’s got a dog in his lap. The idea is to have “I’ve Been Here” ready to roll.

It took Slim a while to respond, longer than I’d expected. I think I might have strung it out a little longer, but I made a poor calculation on Weight Distribution and pressed too hard with one of my hind paws. Also, I was sitting within the circle of his two arms, between his chest and the steering wheel, and I guess he was having a little trouble . . . well, seeing the road.

Don’t forget, I’m a pretty big guy. Huge body, enormous shoulders, muscular thighs, the kind of body that causes the eyes of lady dogs to pop out of their heads.

Anyway, he noticed. “Hank, you’re sitting in my lap.”

Right. Yes. I was aware of that, and it was pretty touching, wasn’t it? I mean, out of all the laps of all the cowboys in the whole world, I had chosen to sit on his. A cowboy and his loyal dog, going off to feed cattle. Very touching.

“I can’t drive like this.”

Oh? Well, gee, I’d been there all day . . . most of the day. He hadn’t noticed?

“Reckon you could move?”

Well, I’d gone to quite a lot of trouble to get there, to be honest, and the air was really nice on his side of the pickup. So the bottom line was . . . no, I couldn’t see that moving was a very good option. Not anytime soon. Maybe later.

“If I roll down the winder on your side, will you move?”

Actually . . . actually I was more and more impressed with the Air Quality on his side. It seemed fresher, cleaner, and sweeter than the air on the other side. It seemed better in every—

“Move!”

Yikes. Suddenly and all at once, he flexed his body muscles and sent me flying out of his lap. Gee whiz, he didn’t need to be such a brute about it, I mean, if he’d wanted me to move, why hadn’t he just come right out and said so? I could take a hint.

I tucked up my tail, lowered my ears, and beamed him an expression we call “Dog Rebuked.” I was disappointed that it caused him to laugh.

“Do you want me to have a wreck and get us all killed?”

Well . . . no, since he put it like that.

Just then, something magical happened. By George, the Shotgun window rolled itself down! Slim noticed it too, and he said, “There. Stick your nose out that side . . . and Hank, try not to chop off your head. Remember them buttons.”

Buttons? Why was everyone on the ranch talking about buttons? And what did Slim know about buttons anyway? He was a bachelor and I happened to know that half of the shirts he wore were missing at least one button.

I marched over to my window and shoved Drover onto the floor. “Time’s up. Scram.”

“Yeah, but . . . I thought I got a promotion.”

“You’ve been fired.”

“Fired! I just got here. What did I do?”

I beamed him a gaze of purest steel. “You’ve been wasting oxygen, Drover. You had your chance and you blew it. Sorry.”

He whined and moaned, but I ignored him. I mean, oxygen is very precious and we couldn’t allow him to go on squindering it.

I plunged my face and nose into the rushing river of fresh air, closed my eyes, and let the wind flap my ears and tongue, flutter my whiskers, and tickle my chin. OH YES! Fellers, this was very close to Life’s True Meaning and Purpose.

And you know what? I decided that the air was sweeter on my side after all. If Slim wanted to be such a greedy goat, he could keep his old window . . . and ride the rest of the way without my warm presence in his lap.

Pretty stern punishment, huh? You bet, but these people have to learn.