Slim's Goodbye - John R. Erickson Hank the Cowdog

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he was there, and the next he was gone. I made a dash up the hill and caught up with him. “Drover, wait, we’re not finished with the lesson. Stop, halt!”

      He stopped. “Yeah, but it’s Scrap Time.”

      “I know that, and congratulations on figuring it out. But you forgot to make the last step in the procedure.”

      “I did?”

      “Yes, you did. Don’t you remember? After put­ting all the clues together and coming up with the right answer, you have to return to the gas tanks and touch base.”

      “I do? How come?”

      “Because that’s the way it’s done. You have to touch base to restart the system.”

      “I’ll be derned. I didn’t think of that.”

      I gave him a fatherly pat on the shoulder. “That’s why I’m here, son, to remind you of things and to help you along. Now go tag up.”

      “Okay, and what’ll you do?”

      “I’ll, uh, wait here and cheer you on.”

      “Okay, here I go!”

      He went zooming down to the gas tanks. I gave him one loud cheer and then, heh heh, hurried up to the yard gate to check out the scrap business. It proved to be pretty interesting.

      I was pleased and excited to see Little Alfred standing on the back porch. I was even pleaseder when I saw the plate in his hand.

      I made my way to the yard gate, sat down, and shifted into a routine we call Loyal Friend Waiting Patiently for Scraps. I knew it would work on the boy. We were the best of pals, don’t you know, and he had always shown excellent judgment when it came to giving the scraps to me instead of to his momma’s precious kitty. Pete, that is.

      Pete didn’t happen to be in sight at that moment, but I knew it was only a matter of time until he showed up. He always showed up when he wasn’t wanted. Throw a picnic and the flies will come out of nowhere. Show up on the back porch with breakfast scraps and Mister Kitty Moocher will come slinking out of the iris patch.

      But if we hurried this deal along, heh heh, maybe there wouldn’t be anything left for him, heh heh, or for Drover. And so I turned up the Urgency Knob and caught the boy’s attention. He saw me and waved.

      “Hi, Hankie. Want some scwaps?”

      Oh yes, please! I hadn’t eaten in months . . . okay, hours . . . I hadn’t eaten in hours, had shrunk down to skin and bones, and was in desperate need of food. Anything, just any little morsel he could spare, such as . . . well, juicy fatty ends of bacon, a piece of fried egg white, a scrap of toast sopped in egg yolk . . . just any little scrap he happened to have on the plate.

      He came toward me and opened the gate. “Come on in the yard, Hankie, and we’ll pway Catch the Scwap.”

      Well, I . . . maybe that wasn’t such a great idea. I mean, I loved playing Catch the Scrap with the boy. We’d played it many times and I had proved myself to be one of the best scrap catchers in all of Texas, but Sally May, his mommy, had rules against dogs in the yard. It was a silly rule—also terribly unfair to us dogs—but I had no wish to get involved, so to speak, with Sally May first thing in the morning. Or any other time.

      Alfred grinned, tossed a glance over his shoulder, and whispered, “Mom’s inside feeding my sister. She’ll never know you came into the yard.”

      Ha! Was he kidding? Sally May knew everything. She had radar. She had eyes in the back of her head. She had STP . . . PDQ . . . whatever it is when you know things and see things that others don’t know or see.

      No, as much as I would have enjoyed playing Catch the Scrap in the yard . . .

      He shouldn’t have held that piece of bacon in front of my nose. I have very few weaknesses, very few clinks in my armor, but bacon held up in front of my nose is one of them. It seems to melt my iron discipline and turns me into a . . . something. A robot who can think of nothing but yummy bacon, I suppose.

      Alfred knew that, but he did it anyway. He held that bacon in front of my nose and lured me through the open gate and across the line into Sally May’s Forbidden Yard. I couldn’t help myself. The bacon vapors filled my nostrils and took control of my mind, and I had no choice but to follow that bacon wherever it led.

      He had duped me, tricked me, used my weakness against me, forced me to break the First Rule of Ranch Law, and when he pitched the bacon into the air, I snagged that rascal and gulped it down. No dog in history had ever enjoyed breaking the law more than I, and as far as I was concerned, we could play Catch the Scrap for the rest of the . . .

      HUH?

      I heard a creak as the back door opened. My ears flew up. I froze and found myself staring into Alfred’s eyes, which had grown big and round. Then I heard him utter some shocking words: “Oops. It’s my mom.”

      I knew it. I’d tried to tell him. She always showed up at the very worst times. She had radar for naughty thoughts. A dog wasn’t safe on that ranch until she went to town, and even then a guy couldn’t get over the feeling that she was still there, watching and listening and lurking around the next corner.

      In a flash, I transformed myself into Rocket Dog and flew back across the line, struck a calm, relaxed pose on the Dog Side of the fence, and, uh, worked my face around so that it showed . . . well, mild surprise on seeing her come out of the house, delight that she had decided to, uh, join us, and above all, perfect innocence.

      I gave her my most sincere cowdog smile, as if to say, “Oh my goodness, it’s Sally May, my very favorite ranch wife! What a pleasure to see you this morning. Alfred and I were just . . . well, doing nothing really, just listening to the chirping of the birds and enjoying the, uh, beauty of the morning . . . so to speak. Nothing else. Really. No kidding.”

      She saw us at once. Her eyes speared me. She came down the sidewalk toward us. Alfred had begun to whistle and was looking up at the sky. I studied her face to see if our program was selling. I couldn’t tell.

      Chapter Two: I Play Mind Games with the Cat

      Sally May stopped and loomed over us like a thunder­head cloud. Her gaze went from me to Alfred and back to me. When it was on me, I could feel the heat of it. It was hard for me to keep up my casual smile, but somehow I managed to do it.

      “Well. What have we here?”

      “Oh, hi, Mom. We were just . . . goofin’ awound.”

      “Goofing around. Did you happen to notice that the gate is open?”

      Alfred’s eyes turned to the open gate. “Gosh. The wind must have bwone it open.”

      Her left eyebrow rose. “The wind did not blow it open. You opened it and you were trying to feed Hank in my yard, weren’t you?”

      The boy’s head sank into his shoulders. “Well, he was hungwy.”

      “Of course he was hungry. He’s always hungry, but you can’t feed him in my yard.” Her eyes swung around to me. “No dogs in the yard. Period. Ever. Is that clear, Hank?”

      I felt myself melting under the beam of her eyes. Yes ma’am.

      She turned back to the boy. “Is that clear, Alfred Leroy?”

      “Yes ma’am. But I think it was the wind.”

      A thin smile slid across her mouth. “Don’t try to tell whoppers to your mother. I know boys and I know dogs. What one of you doesn’t think up, the other one will. Oh, and save some of the scraps for the other animals. It isn’t fair for

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