LITMIR.BIZ

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I’ve never heard of such a thing, and I’ve been to three county fairs and four rodeos.”

      Slim finished plugging the tire, filled it with air, and mounted it on the car. Deputy Kile thanked him and offered to pay him for his trouble, but Slim wouldn’t hear of it, so they shook hands and the deputy got back in his car.

      “Slim, these thieves might still be in the area, so keep your eyes open for anything suspicious. Are you and Loper going to be around the place?”

      “Heck yeah. I’m too broke to go anywhere, and Loper’s too cheap.”

      “Good. Let me know if you see anything.”

      The car pulled away, and Slim stood there for a moment, shaking his head. “Well, if that don’t beat it all, a monkey burglar.” He laughed to himself and went back to his welding job in the machine shed.

      When he had gone, I turned to Drover, who was gazing up at the clouds. “Did you hear that?”

      His eyes drifted down, and he gave me a grin. “Oh, hi. Did somebody just drive away?”

      “Drover, that was the deputy sheriff and he was here for thirty minutes. You didn’t hear anything he said?”

      “Well, let’s see. I heard something about . . . a tire. Did he have a tire on his car?”

      I let out a groan. “Of course he had a car on his tire! He had four of them.”

      “He had four cars?”

      “He had one car, four tires. Every car has four tires.”

      “How come?”

      “Because every car has four wheels.”

      “Oh. What if one fell off?”

      I gave him a withering glare. “Don’t start this, Drover, I’m not in the mood for one of your loony conversations. Deputy Kile gave us a very interesting report about a gang of burglars, but it’s obvious that you didn’t hear any of it.”

      “They steal tires?”

      “No, they don’t steal tires. They steal tools. If you see a strange vehicle driving around, let me know at once.”

      “A vehicle with four tires?”

      “Exactly.”

      “That wouldn’t be strange. You said they all had four tires.”

      “Stop talking about tires! What’s wrong with you?”

      He grinned. “I don’t know. All at once, I’m just . . . thinking about tires.”

      “Oh, brother. One last thing. If you see any unauthorized monkeys lurking around, I want to know about it.” He let out a giggle. “What’s so funny?”

      “It’s a joke, right? Tee hee. We don’t have monkeys around here.”

      “Drover, it’s no joke. This particular monkey is a burglar. If he shows up, we’ve got problems. Any more questions?”

      “What does he look like?”

      “Who?”

      “The monkey.”

      “How should I know? He looks like a monkey. If you see a monkey that looks like a monkey, it’ll be a monkey. At that point, you come and tell me you’ve seen a monkey.”

      He stared at the ground and gnawed on his lip. “Let’s see here . . . if I see a monkey that looks like a monkey . . . I think I’ve got it.”

      “Good. And in the future, I hope you’ll try to . . .”

      I had planned to give Drover a lecture on goofing off and not paying attention, but just then I heard footsteps approaching from the direction of the house. I turned and saw Loper plodding up the hill. Even at a distance, I could see that he was in a bad mood.

      Since he owned the ranch and was more or less in charge of things, this wasn’t particularly good news.

      Chapter Two: Loper and Sally May Go on a Vacation

      When Our People are feeling angry or depressed, we dogs notice it right away, and a lot of times we can fix the problem.

      When I saw Loper coming my way, with doom and gloom written all over his face, I trotted over to him. Flinging my tail back and forth in Happy Wags, I gave him a big smile that said, “Hey, Loper, great news. I’m here!”

      With his eyes fixed on the ground, he walked right past and didn’t even look at me. I mean, no “good morning” or “great to see you, Hank.” Nothing. What a grouch.

      He and his cloud of gloom disappeared inside the machine shed, and a moment later I heard the following conversation.

      Loper: “I’ve got some bad news. Sally May wants to take a vacation.”

      Slim: “What’s so bad about that?”

      Loper: “Well, it’s ridiculous. When you’re in the ranching business, you can’t just go waltzing off to the mountains. She wants us to go for a whole three days! We’ve got hay in the field, yearlings in the sick pen, fence to fix, windmills to check . . .”

      Slim: “Did you explain all that to Sally May?”

      Loper: “Of course I did.”

      Slim: “What did she say?”

      Loper: “She said that we’ve never had a vacation.”

      Slim: “Huh. And what did you say to that?”

      Loper: “I said that being married to me should be all the vacation a woman needs.”

      Slim: “Heh. How did that go over?”

      Loper: “Like a snake in the bathtub.”

      They stepped out of the machine shed, and I could see that Slim was trying to bite back a smile. “Loper, I think you got it backwards. Any woman who’d stay married to you deserves a trip to the mountains. And a million bucks.”

      Loper gave him a sour look. “What do you know about women? The last time I checked, you were still a bachelor, and I haven’t noticed any ladies lined up at your gate, trying to get in.”

      “They come during work hours when you’re taking a nap.”

      “I mean, your life is so simple, it’s pathetic. The only difference between you and a grasshopper is that you wear socks.”

      “I can sing too. That’s a big difference.”

      “I’ve heard you sing. Even the dogs can’t stand it.”

      Slim pulled a toothpick out of his hatband and slid it through his teeth. “Loper, just think of all the fun things you can do on vacation. Why, you can take Alfred fishing.”

      “That’s fun? I’d rather clean out the septic tank.”

      “Well, go see a movie.”

      Loper rolled his eyes. “Do you know what it costs to take a family to a movie? A fortune, and they charge two bucks for a dinky little sack of popcorn.”

      “Take some sunflower seeds.”

      “I don’t like sunflower seeds.”

      “Then take the kids to one of them water parks.”

      Loper glared at him. “Water! Do I need to drive three hundred miles to play in the water? We’ve got stock tanks all over this ranch, and two miles of creek.”

      Slim shook his head. “Loper, you make a mule look reasonable. You do all this bellyaching, and what’s the point? Tomorrow

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