Chapter Eight: We Play Tom Sawyer

As we marched down the hill and past the gas tanks, guess who came out to join us. Drover. I studied him out of the corner of my eye. He was grinning and prancing along and wiggling that stub tail of his and looking very chirpy about things.

“Well, what brings you out of bed so early? It’s only three o’clock in the afternoon.”

“Oh, there was a hard spot on my gunnysack and I couldn’t sleep.”

“It wasn’t bothering you this morning at four-thirty when I left to go help Slim pull a calf. You seemed to be sleeping very well, but you always do when there’s work to do.”

“Thanks. Yeah, I love to sleep, and it helps my allergies.”

“What allergies?”

“Oh, I’ve got terrible allergies, and they sure drag me down. I need lots of sleep.”

“You don’t sound stopped up to me.”

He grinned. “Yeah, when I get plenty of rest, they don’t bother me, so I guess it works.”

“Drover, if you don’t show any symptoms, then maybe you don’t have allergies. Had you thought about that?”

“Doe, ’cause every wudce id a wile, by dose gets stobbed up ed I ket breathe. See? It just hid be. Baby I deed bore sleeb.”

“Drover, I have a feeling that you’re allergic to work and Life’s harsh realities.”

“I sure get stobbed up, I doe that.” Just then, he lifted his nose and sniffed the air. “What’s that I smell?”

“It’s probably your own rotten attitude.” I tested the air myself. “I don’t smell anything in particular. You must be hearing things.”

He sniffed again, and I noticed that his ears perked up. “No, I smell something, and I think it’s . . . meat, fresh meat.”

I lifted my nose and conducted a more thorough test of the atmosphere and so forth, and . . . hmm, by George, there was an interesting smell hanging in the air. And yes, it did bear a faint resemblance to the fragrance of . . .

“Drover, I don’t want to alarm you, but I’m picking up the smell of fresh meat.”

“Oh, that doesn’t alarm me, ’cause I smelled it first.”

I shot him a piercing glare. “Who’s in charge around here, me or you?”

“Well, let’s see.”

“And which of us has a severe allergenic condition—and therefore can’t smell?”

“Oops. Well, by does sure is stobbed up.”

“And therefore it follows from simple logic that you couldn’t possibly have gotten First Whiff of the Mysterious Fresh Meat. Hencely, and following the same path of simple logic, we arrive at the only possible conclusion, that when I locate this stash of fresh meat, I will get First Dibs.”

“Oh drat.”

“And we don’t need any of your naughty language.”

“Oh fiddle.”

“That’s better. Now, let’s see if I can get a fix on this . . . my, my, that’s an exciting aroma, isn’t it?”

“I ket sbell a thig.”

I switched all instruments over to our Locater Program, and within seconds all the data were pointing to a white package which Little Alfred appeared to be carrying . . . hmm, on top of his tackle box. I, uh, tossed a glance at the boy and saw that he wasn’t watching, so I quickened my pace just a bit and suddenly found my nose right next to the . . .

WOW!

I turned to Drover. “Holy smokes, Drover, do you realize what we’ve been smelling?”

“Well, let’s see. Fresh liver?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I thought you couldn’t smell. If you can’t smell, what made you think it was fresh liver?”

“I didn’t say fresh liver. I said fish lever, and doe, I ket sbell a thig.”

“Hmmm, I wonder . . . but never mind. The impointant point is that Little Alfred smuggled a package of fresh liver out of his mother’s kitchen, and no doubt he brought it for us. Or to frame it up from another direction, he brought it for ME.”

“I just wish I could sbell.”

I turned away from Drover and his hypocardiac complaints, and directed my full attention to the package of fresh liver. It was all coming clear now. No doubt the boy realized that he had eaten a “good nourishing lunch” (his mother’s very words, right?) and that everyone else on the ranch had eaten a “good nourishing lunch,” but that his faithful dog, his dearest friend who had waited for him outside the prison walls—that same dear and faithful friend had not eaten in days.

Well, in hours maybe, but it had seemed much longer than that—days and days, weeks and weeks of slow hunger and starvation. Ribs showing. Backbone protruding. Constant dreams about food and rhubarb pie and . . . fresh liver.

Have we ever talked about fresh liver? Wonderful stuff, I love it. Give me a choice between fresh liver and fresh T-bone steak and I’ll take the liver every time, especially on fishing trips when, heh-heh, steak isn’t on the menu.

No contest at all. “Give me liver or give me death!” I don’t remember who said that, but he was a famous American, and he sure knew his liver.

It has a dark red color, liver does, and a dark red taste, and you don’t even have to chew it. Just bite off a hunk and let ’er slide down the old guzzle. Great stuff, and I was so touched and happy that my little pal had brought me . . .

Maybe he’d been planning a little picnic down by the creek, but I saw no reason to postpone the instant graffication of . . . that is, once we reached the creek, we’d be busy catching fish and so forth, much too busy to stop for a picnic, so in the interest of time . . .

I, uh, eased my nose over the edge of the tackle box and managed to snag the package with that long tooth on the upper righthand side of my mouth. Then, very carefully I tugged and pulled it into the embrace of my full set of teeth, until I had it in the grisp of my grasp, and then I . . . uh . . . dropped out of the marching formation, shall we say, and let Little Alfred go on without me.

I unslackened my jaws and let the package fall to the ground. There it was! It was mine, all mine, and now all I had to do was remove the papers and . . .

WHACK!

Huh?

Some strange outside force had just struck me on the hinalary region. I uttered a squeak and leaped high into the air and landed several feet away. Once back on earth, I whirled around and . . .

Okay, relax. It was Little Alfred. He had discovered my . . . uh . . . my plan for the Pre-picnic Picnic, and maybe that hadn’t pleased him . . . or something. Anyways, he had whacked me across the tail section with his fishing pole, and now he was shaking a finger in my general direction.

“No, no, Hankie. Don’t eat my bait.”

Oh. Bait. Well, I had never dreamed . . . if he’d only said that it was bait . . . sure, no problem. Yes sir, if that was bait, we sure didn’t need to be . . . uh . . . snacking on it, you might say. One of the first rules of fishing is “Never eat your bait.” Right?

No problem, no big deal. We’d just had a little mixup in, uh, communications.

The boy placed our package of liver bait back on his tackle box and we resumed our march. I found myself marching next to Drover. I noticed that he was staring at me.

“Yes? You have something to say?”

“Oh, not really. I just wondered what that was all about.”

“It was all about bait, Drover. You might have warned me that the purpose of the liver was bait.”

“Gosh, I never dreamed that liver had a purpose.”

“It does, but the question that faces us now is, Do you have a purpose?”

“Well, I never thought about that.”

“You should think about it. You should think about it long and hard. How does it make you feel that a lowly package of liver has a purpose in this life, and you don’t?” He didn’t answer. “Hello?”

“Oh, hi. Where do you reckon we’re going?”

“We’re going fishing, Drover.”

“Oh good, how fun. I guess that’s why Little Alfred brought his fishing pole and some bait— ’cause we’re all going fishing.”

I held the runt in the sideward sweep of my eyes for several seconds as I tried to think of an appropriate response. Nothing came to mind, so I just let it drop. That was fine with me. Talking to Drover never leads anywhere. Sometimes I think . . .

Never mind.