LITMIR.BIZ

      It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. A coyote that came into the feed ground and ate with the cows? Ridiculous. Impossible. I didn’t believe one word of Slim’s story until . . . well, until I saw that coyote with my own eyes and she turned out to be a gorgeous princess who fell madly in love with me.

      But that comes later in the story. Forget I mentioned it.

      Where were we? Oh yes, the mystery began in the wintertime, as I recall, the first part of winter, maybe late November, because I had recently switched the ranch over to our Winter Routine.

      Have we discussed the WR? Maybe not. The Winter Routine is the routine we follow in the winter, and that’s why we call it . . . maybe this is obvious, but it’s not so obvious what we do in the Winter Routine. Are you ready to hear this? Pay attention.

      First thing, we send all the summer birds packing, your sparrows, larks, cardinals, robins, tweeties, and so-forth birds. Sometime in September or October, we give ’em the order to move out and fly south. Why? Because after putting up with them all summer, I’m ready to clean house and get ’em off the ranch.

      I mean, you talk about noisy! Around here, a dog can hardly sleep in the summertime for all the noise. They tweet, twitter, squeak, squawk, chirp, and chatter from sunup to sundown, and some of ’em don’t quit at sundown. They tweet and twitter half the night. Annoying? You bet.

      Another thing that annoys me is that they nest in ranch trees without permission. If they showed some respect and asked my permission, I’d probably give it. I mean, birds have to do something. They don’t have honest jobs, so they need a place to loiter and do their little nothings. But they don’t ask permission. They just move in, take over ranch trees, and start making noise. That really burns me up.

      On your average summer day, I have to spend an hour and fifteen minutes barking at the little dummies and trying to restore law and order. The Head of Ranch Security shouldn’t have to get involved with such silliness, but if I didn’t do it, who would? Barking at birds would make a nice little summer job for Drover, but he can’t be trusted. His mind wanders, you know.

      But the point is that by the middle of September, I’m sick of birds and I give ’em the order to shove off. You know what? It works every time. Those birds pack up their feathers and head south in droves, and we don’t see ’em again until the following spring. Pretty impressive, huh? You bet. Those birds don’t want to mess with the Head of Ranch Security.

      The other part of the Winter Routine comes when I issue a directive to ranch employees: “Attention please! The Security Division has been monitoring the nutritional needs of our cattle, and as of yesterday afternoon, the protein level of our pasture grass dropped below the minimum. Therefore, tomorrow morning all cowboys will initiate our Winter Feeding Program and will continue feeding until I issue another directive next spring. Any employees who don’t understand this directive, or who don’t agree with it, are invited to follow orders and keep their traps shut.”

      Are you surprised that a dog would be so deeply involved in the ranch’s Winter Feeding Program? Most of your ordinary ranch mutts don’t, but me . . . well, as I always say, no task is too small to be little.

      No task is too small to be big.

      No task is too big to belittle.

      No task is too . . . there’s a neat old saying that captures what I’m trying to say here, but at the moment . . . just skip it.

      Where were we? Oh yes, winter had come to the ranch and I had put our Winter Routine into action, which meant that we were . . . well, ready for winter. We had swept out another crop of pesky little tweet-tweets and I had ordered the cowboy crew back to work, feeding cattle every day. I knew they hated that, I mean, they had spent most of the summer tacking up fence and tearing up equipment in the alfalfa patch, goofing off and playing so-called practical jokes on us dogs, and now they had to load up sacks of feed every morning and actually do some work on the ranch.

      I heard them grumbling and complaining, but it didn’t soften my heart one bit. By George, I had sent down my orders and that was the end of it.

      Well, almost. On the morning of November 28, the very first day of winter feeding, a problem developed, a problem so serious that even I hadn’t antipisated it. At 8:07 that morning . . . anticipated . . . at 9:07 that morning, Slim’s old pickup quit working. It died right in front of the machine shed, and we’re talking about graveyard dead.

      Fortunately, I was on duty and ready to swing into action. Whilst Slim raised the hood and went through his usual checklist (scratching his head, scowling at the motor, wiggling two wires, and calling the pickup a piece of junk), I reached for the microphone of my mind and put out a call to the Elite Troops of the Security Division.

      “Hank to Drover, over. Report to the machine shed at once. We’ve got a mechanical failure up here, and Slim’s in over his head, over. Do you copy?”

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