Chapter Four: This Gets Pretty Scary

Slim crept out of the pickup bed and eased toward the door on the passenger side. The bull heard him, and here he came!

I needed to hide, but where do you hide in the cab of a pickup? I dashed back and forth across the seat and tried to dive out the half-opened window. Gulk. No luck there, so I hit the floor-board on the driver’s side and pressed myself against the door.

Maybe Slim wouldn’t notice me.

He came flying into the cab and slammed the door behind him, just as the bull arrived, snorting and roaring. Oh, and he started butting the right front tire, which caused the whole pickup to rock back and forth.

Slim mopped the sweat off his forehead and swung his gaze down to me. “Hankie, have you ever dreamed of being a hero?”

No.

“I’m sure you have, so you’ll be thrilled to hear this. We need a volunteer.”

Forget that.

“The boss is up a tree and I’m trapped in here, and we’re about ready to launch Plan B. We think you might be able to help.”

Ha.

“Here’s the deal. I’m going to chunk you out the window…”

No way, buddy!

“…and we’ll see what you can do. We’d be real proud if you could lure the bull into the trailer. Get that done and I’ll promise you Double Dog Food.”

Oh brother!

“Or just keep the bull busy, so we can get the boss-man out of the tree. You ready?”

Absolutely not! No!

He wasn’t kidding. He grabbed me by a hind leg and pulled me out of my hiding place, rolled down the window, and pitched me outside. “Go get ‘im, Hankie! This one is for the ranch.”

Yeah, right.

The bull was standing about ten feet away from where I landed. He’d been whamming his head against the tire, and when he heard me hit the ground, he turned in my direction.

Those eyes! They sent electrical shivers up and down my spine. I mean, you talk about UGLY! Those were the ugliest, meanest eyes I’d ever seen. I swallowed hard and tried to control the shaking of my legs.

“Hi, Mr. Bull. You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here, so let me explain. My employers have asked me to talk to you about…well, about your attitude. Everybody understands that you took a nasty spill this afternoon, but…why are you shaking your horns? Everybody understands…why are you looking at me in that tone of voice? Anyway, we were hoping that…”

Talking to a bull is a tee-total waste of time. You might as well try to reason with a tree. No, bulls are worse than trees, because they hate dogs and will sometimes try to destroy them. That’s what this one had in mind when he lowered his head and came after me. I mean, we’re talking about a freight train, a serious freight train.

At that point, I did what any normal, healthy American dog would have done. I delivered one stern bark and ran like a striped ape. I don’t know how many times we ran back and forth in front of the pickup and trailer. I lost count on three.

Whilst the big galoot was trying to skin me alive, Loper saw his opportunity to climb down out of the tree. Once on the ground, he yelled, “Lead him into the trailer, Hank! The trailer!”

The trailer? Was he joking? Hey, I was just trying to stay alive. But Loper’s yelling had one good effect: it alerted the bull that he had another target on the ground, so he went after Loper again. You never saw a cowboy shinny up a tree so fast. I mean, it was pretty funny.

At that point, Slim had worked up enough courage to venture out of the pickup. He found an empty feed sack and started shaking it and making his cattle call: “Woooo, bull, wooo! Come on, bully, come to feed.” Sometimes that works, you know. When you can’t drive an animal, sometimes you can coax him to come to a feed sack.

The bull came, all right, but not the way Slim had hoped. He came at about twenty-five miles an hour—head down, horns out, brush snapping, and clumps of dirt and grass flying off his hooves. Slim gave him the sack and went flying into the bed of the pickup. I, uh, seized the opportunity to squirt under the trailer.

So there we were: Loper up a tree, Slim in the back of the pickup, and me under the trailer, with the bull storming from one location to another, threatening to stomp the everlasting snot out of the first one that showed himself.

Slim found a shovel in the back of the pickup and whammed the bull between the horns several times. Loper pulled a dead limb off the tree and gave him a few whacks. Me? I barked, of course, and we’re talking about deep manly barks.

How much good did it do? Zero. This went on for ten minutes, and with each passing minute, we became more and more aware of the fact that...well, we looked pretty ridiculous. Slim was really disgusted.

He said, “Well, I’m glad Western Horseman ain’t here to do an article on The Great American Cowboy. This is the most pathetic farmer-looking deal I was ever associated with: two treed cow-boys and one dog under the trailer!”

“Well, do something!”

“Do what?”

“I don’t know, throw rocks at him! I’ve got a meeting at four o’clock.”

“Moe, Larry, and Curly, where are you?”

At that point, something amazing happened. You won’t believe this.

Okay, our ranch crew was in the process of receiving one of the most humiliating defeats in history. We had set out on a simple task, to load a bull, and the bull had ended up loading us.

I was embarrassed. Loper was mad. Slim was beyond mad. But then something really strange happened. A big yellow Labrador retriever stumbled out of some wild plum thickets on the south side of the road, and—this is the most amazing part, so pay attention—on his head he was wearing a BIRD CAGE!

I’m not kidding. A bird cage!

Slim was the first to see it. “Good honk, what IS THAT?”

Loper squinted his eyes and looked. I squinted my eyes and looked. Neither of us could believe what we were seeing. But here’s the best part: the bull couldn’t believe it either. He had no idea what that thing was that had just stepped out of the brush, but he’d never seen one before and he wanted no part of it.

He jerked his head back and forth, swished his tail, darted to the left, ran straight to the trailer door, and hopped inside. I’m not joking. I saw it with my own eyes. The bull loaded himself!

For several long seconds, we all stared and blinked back our astonishment. Then Loper yelled, “Don’t just sit there, shut the gate!”

Slim sprang out of the back of the pickup, rushed to the trailer, and closed the gate. His hands were shaking so badly, it took him fifteen seconds to secure the latch. If the bull had whirled around and hit the gate, old Slim would have been wearing it for a necktie.

But you know what? That bull—the same big oaf that had terrorized two cowboys and one top-of-the-line cowdog for thirty minutes—that one-ton hunk of pure meanness stood there like a lamb and didn’t move a hair.

Once Slim had gotten the gate latched, he almost fainted with relief. Loper climbed down from the tree and tried to put on a dignified face. Me? I rushed out from under the trailer and delivered a withering barrage of barking.

The three of us met at the rear of the trailer, and at that point, we turned our gazes upon the guy who had loaded our bull, the yellow Lab. There he stood, grinning at us and swinging his long, thick tail back and forth. He looked about as smart as a cord of wood.

Loper was the first to speak. “Nobody’s going to believe this story.”

Slim shook his head. “Where in the cat hair would a dog find a bird cage out here?”

“I have no idea. What’ll we do with him? He’s not wearing a collar.”

Slim mopped his face on the sleeve of his shirt. “Well, I’d say take him to the house and give him a good feed. He deserves it. He sure bailed you out of a mess.”

Loper grumbled something under his breath, went to the dog, and pried the bird cage off his head. It wasn’t so easy. The mutt had stuck his big head through a little door that had been built for canaries. Loper gave him a pat on the head and pointed toward the back of the pickup. “Load up. Jump.”

The big lug grinned and thrashed his tail. Apparently he didn’t understand “load up” or “jump,” so Slim had to pick him up (with much grunting and wheezing, I mean, that was a big dog) and pitch him in the back. I had planned on riding up front with the executives, but Loper’s mood had soured and he made me ride in the back.

Okay, fine. If they didn’t want my company…I leaped into the back and we headed for home. Up in the cab, the argument raged on.

Slim growled, “It sure makes me proud, working on a real cowboy outfit.”

“Oh, dry up, will you? If you’re such a hot-rod cowboy, how come you unloaded my bull in the middle of the county road?”

“Well, for the simple reason that the owner of this outfit forgot to latch the sliding gate.”

“And the head-cowboy never checks his equipment.”

“Are you ever going to admit that you caused this whole mess?”

“No, but I might dock your paycheck for putting skid marks on the livestock.”

“Loper, you are the stubbornest, hard-headedest, mule-temperedest man I ever met.”

On and on. Those two could argue for days about nothing. Tomorrow, they would pick another topic and argue about that.

I rode back to headquarters with Bird Cage. He faced the front and seemed to be perfectly content, letting the wind blow across his big floppy tongue. I didn’t try to make conversation. To be honest, I really didn’t care about the details of his life. He had stumbled into my world without being invited, and until we sent him down the road, he was going to be nothing but a problem.

Does that sound harsh and unfriendly? Maybe so, but I don’t care. Hey, this isn’t a dude ranch or a resort for lost dogs. We have work to do, and no time to entertain visitors.

Back at headquarters, we unloaded the bull in the corrals. He circled the front pen a couple of times, and stopped when he saw me sitting on the other side of the board fence. Down went his head and he started pawing up dirt again—the same silly routine we’d seen before.

As you might expect, I conducted myself as a mature gentleman. “Hey, jerk, do you think anyone around here is scared of you? Ha. You’re pathetic. If you’re so tough, how come we got you loaded in the trailer, huh? It was like loading sheep, easiest job I ever had. Oh, and that business about you taking a spill on the county road? Very shrewd, pal. You need to try that again sometime.”

Hee hee. I love tormenting bulls, and the more dirt they paw up, the better I like it. Of course, it helps to have a good stout fence between us.