LITMIR.BIZ

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but they did quite a bit of speaking to the machinery, which was spread out in a thousand parts on the cement floor.

      Here’s what I mean:

      Slim: “Stupid sickle blades! The way they break off, you’d think we’d been mowin’ redwood trees instead of alfalfa.”

      Loper: “The guy who engineered this mess must have been drunk for two months.”

      Slim: “Too bad there ain’t a Tooth Fairy for busted sickle blades. We’d be rich.”

      Loper: “The way this piece of junk eats bearings, we ought to buy stock in Timken.”

      Slim: “I’m sure proud I signed on with a COWBOY outfit.”

      Yes sir, the atmosphere was pretty tense. I was lying down just outside the door, watching Slim as he kicked and talked to various parts of the mower, and wondering if Loper knew that he had a big smudge of grease on the end of his nose, when all at once the cat arrived on the scene.

      I glared at him and noticed that the folds of skin that covered my teeth had begun to twitch. I can’t explain why that happens, but every time Pete enters the picture, my mouth and lips move into Snarling Mode.

      Have I mentioned that I don’t like cats? I don’t like cats, have no use for ’em at all. They’re about as useless as a hog in a hospital. All they do is eat and purr and rub and make a nuisance of themselves.

      Well, old Slim was bent down over the sickle bar, whamming on it with a ball-peen hammer. A fly was buzzing in his ear and big drops of sweat dripped off the end of his nose. Pete came gliding across the floor, purring like a refrigerator and holding his tail straight up in the air, and he started rubbing up against Slim’s leg.

      “Get away, cat.”

      As you may know, cats don’t take hints. They seem to think that everybody loves them and is just waiting around for a chance to become a rubbing post. Pete rubbed and purred and meowed.

      “GET AWAY, CAT.”

      Slim picked him up and pitched him over in Loper’s direction. Loper was squatted down on the floor, staring at his project of the moment, which looked like what you’d have if you stuck two sticks of dynamite in a bearing housing and lit the fuse. His lips were forming words but no sounds came out.

      Any dog with a brain in his head would have read the warning signs and kept his distance, but do you suppose Pete saw any of that? Oh no. What he saw was something else to rub on, and that’s just what he did.

      I sure liked what Loper did. Instead of yelling at the cat or erupting in a childish outburst of temper, he reached for the air wrench nearby, hit the button with his finger, and tried to unscrew Pete’s tail with a 3⁄4-inch socket.

      Hee hee, ha ha, ho ho! I loved it. I’d never realized that Pete could move so fast, but he sure did. The last we saw of the cat, he was heading south at a high rate of speed.

      Slim looked up from the mess he was making with the sickle blades and said, “Loper, you ain’t much for fixing hay equipment, but I believe you own the patent on fixin’ cats.”

      I barked and thumped my tail on the floor. Loper’s eyes came up and speared me. “Hush, Hank, you might be next.”

      I, uh, decided to keep my opinions to myself.

      It was then that my ears picked up the sounds of an approaching vehicle. By the time I could scramble, bark, and move into the Hair Lift-Up procedure, the trespasser’s pickup had already pulled up in front of the machine shed.

      I hate being surprised and caught off guard, so to make up for lost time, I threw all my reserves of extra energy into the barking maneuver.

      In that kind of situation, the very future and survival of the ranch often depends on the courage of its Head of Ranch Security. It’s no place for a shrunken violet, I can tell you that, and it’s no place for a chicken-hearted little nincompoop like Drover, even though he had beat me to the punch and was out there yipping at the intruder.

      But mere yipping is no substitute for the kind of deep ferocious barking that is something of a specialty with me, and when the intruder dared to step out of his pickup and walk toward my machine shed, well, hey, I bristled the hair on my back and bared my fangs and . . .

      I’m not going to tell you what happened next, because it wasn’t funny AT ALL.

      You’ll just have to wonder about it, forever and ever.

      Chapter Two: Okay, Maybe I’ll Tell, If You Promise Not to Laugh

      What a cheap trick. If Loper had wanted me to stop barking, couldn’t he have just said so? I would have been glad to . . . but no, he being a comedian and a humorist and a childish prankster, he had to sneak up behind me and BUZZ ME ON THE BOHUNKUS WITH THAT STUPID AIR WRENCH!!

      I thought I’d been shot with a death ray, and no, it wasn’t funny when I tried to escape and ran into the side of the machine shed.

      It wasn’t funny at all, and if I catch you laughing at my misfortune, I’ll . . . I don’t know what I’ll do.

      Yes I do. I’ll hold my breath until I’m dead, grave­yard dead, and then you’ll be sorry. Nobody ever misses a good loyal dog until he’s gone, and then they cry and wish they could take back all the mean and hateful things they did to him, but they can’t because it’s too late.

      It was a cheap, shabby trick, and I left a print of my nose in the side of the machine shed, and yes, it did hurt.

      How much sympathy did I get from the smallminded people who had witnessed the tragedy? You can guess. Very little. None. I thought Slim and Loper would pass out from lack of oxygen, they laughed so hard.

      Had I laughed at their problems? Made fun out of their pathetic attempts to fix up the mower? No, but that didn’t stop them from . . . oh well.

      This job pays the same, whether they’re patting you on the head or making you the butt of their laughingstock.

      In typical childish cowboy fashion, they found great pleasure in my misfortune. Fine. I didn’t care. Through watering eyes, I glared daggers at them. Someday they would be sorry, and until then . . .

      Drover arrived at that very moment. “Hi Hank. Did you just hear a loud crash?”

      I gave him a withering glare. “I WAS the loud crash, you moron, and you’re just lucky I wasn’t killed.”

      “Boy, that was lucky. What happened?”

      “The owner of this dismal place set off an air wrench under my tail, and I came within inches of destroying the entire south side of the barn.”

      “I’ll be derned. That’s quite a tale.”

      “Thanks. It’s the best one I’ve ever had.”

      “Oh, I don’t know. You’ve had some pretty good ones.”

      “No, this is the original equipment, Drover. It’s been through some hard times, and there’s a tale behind every misfortune it’s seen.”

      “Yep, there’s a tail behind every dog.”

      “Exactly. But dead dogs have no tales.”

      “Yeah. I wonder what they do with all of ’em.”

      “Oh, they’re passed down from generation to generation and become part of our collective folklore. One of these days, Drover, our children will be telling of our adventures.”

      “I don’t have any.”

      “That’s because you’re too chicken.

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