LITMIR.BIZ

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all day and all night on that gunnysack bed.”

      “J.T. . . . ”

      “A rooster would get fired for laying around all the time. We’ve always got things to do—bugs to chase, gravel to peck, and don’t forget who crows up the sun around here. Me.”

      I gave him a snarl. “Quit yapping and tell me what was going on in here tonight!”

      “Well, all right, fine, if you’re going to get all hateful about it! What was a-going on in here tonight?”

      “Yes, that’s the question.”

      “Well . . .” He glanced around the room. “You’ve got to promise you won’t go blabbing this all over the ranch.”

      “Hurry up.”

      “Well . . . you see, we was . . . talking . . . having a discussion.”

      “Go on. What were you discussing?”

      “Well, it was a pretty deep discussion. It might be over your head.”

      “Try me.”

      J.T. narrowed his eyes and whispered, “You know, pooch, chickens have been on this earth for a long time.”

      “Right. What’s the point?”

      “Huh? The point? Well sir, the point is that our ancestors have walked this earth and pecked gravel for thousands of years.”

      “This isn’t another heartburn story, is it?”

      “No, it sure ain’t, and if you’ll hush up, maybe I can tell you what it is.”

      “Hurry up.”

      “I’m a-hurrying. You see, pooch, for thousands and thousands of years, and for centuries and centuries, and for decades and decades, our ancestors have walked this earth. They’ve helped rid the world of grasshoppers and crickets, beetles and pillbugs, and other pests that don’t even have a name. But through all their suffering and hardship, there remained one great question that no chicken was able to answer.”

      I waited. “Yes? Keep going.”

      “Well, that’s what we were discussing this very night, and we didn’t find the answer, even though we stayed up half the night and lost a bunch of sleep.”

      “What was the question?”

      He gave me a wary look. “I don’t know that I should tell you, ’cause you ain’t a chicken.”

      “I’m Head of Ranch Security. I know every secret on this ranch.”

      “You don’t know this one, pooch. It’s the Chicken Riddle of Life, and no chicken has figured it out in ten thousand years.”

      “Try me.”

      “Well . . . all right. Here goes.” He leaned forward and whispered, “Pooch, for ten thousand years chickens have been crossing roads . . . but none of us has ever figured out . . . WHY.”

      The air hissed out of my lungs. I paced a few steps away, then whirled around to face the audience of staring chickens. “All right, I want you to pay close attention to this. I’ve wasted half my night on you dumbbells and I want you to listen, so that we’ll never have to go through this again.”

      Dead silence and total attention. The chickens held their respective breaths and waited for my announcement. You could have heard a needle in a haystack. I continued.

      “I’m here to address the burning question: Why does a chicken cross the road? For centuries, your ancestors searched for the answer but never found it. I will now reveal it to you.”

      I had them in the palm of my coconut. Every chicken neck bent forward, every ear was turned in my direction . . . although chickens don’t actually have ears. How do they hear? We don’t have the answer to that, but the point is that this was a very dramatic moment.

      I gazed out at the audience and plunged on with my speech. “Ladies and gentlemen, hens and roosters, distinguished guests: a chicken crosses the road . . . TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE.”

      For a long moment, no one moved or spoke. Then the silence was broken by the sound of twenty-seven hens and one rooster gasping in unison. Then, suddenly, the place erupted in cheers and applause, and I was mobbed by a crowd of grateful chickens. They were cheering and laughing, reaching out their wings to touch me, and calling out my name: “Hank, oh Hank the Cowdog! You’ve answered the Chicken Riddle of Life! Oh, wise dog! Oh, wonderful pooch!”

      Well, I . . . I hardly knew how to respond. I mean, I’d always thought of myself as smarter than your average dog . . . and better looking . . . but still, it was a little embarrassing, to tell you the truth, all those hens gasping around me and fainting, reaching out to touch me and crying out my name.

      It was the kind of scene you might have in your wildest dreams but never expean to expectorate in real life . . . expect to experience in real life, shall we say. It was almost too good to be true, is the point, and very humbling. Very very humbling. I was so humbled, so deeply moved by their gertrude that I stayed among them for half an hour, allowing them to touch me as many times as they wanted.

      And you know what? This experience kind of changed my attitude about chickens. For years, I had thought of them as dumb birds and brainless bundles of feathers, but all at once I began to realize that . . . gee, these chickens had an intelligence that I’d never noticed before. Just look at the way they were responding to . . . well, to ME, you might say.

      Yes, these were uncommonly smart birds, and it was pretty clear that they had refined taste in . . . you won’t believe this, but several of them actually wanted to adopt me into their flock, to make me an Honorary Chicken, and, gosh, even to appoint me as their emperor!

      Pretty amazing, huh? You bet. Of course I couldn’t accept the offer. I already had a job. (Have I mentioned that I’m Head of Ranch Security?)

      I addressed the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, hens and roosters, special guests: I am deeply honored by your offer, but I really have to . . .”

      You know what? They were so tightly packed around me that . . .

      “Excuse me, but I can’t seem to make my way to the door. Could you . . . will you please back away and let me . . . I’m sorry, but I need to be getting back to my . . .”

      They kept crowding around me, clucking and moaning and trying to touch my head with their wings, and all at once . . . I COULDN’T BREATHE!

      “Hey! Back off, you meatheads! You’re smashing me, this place stinks, and I have things to do!”

      They froze. I saw the hurt and pain in their eyes. They began melting away, like ice cream on a hot stove, and trudged back to their nests. Then I heard a chorus of murmuring voices.

      “You don’t like chickens. You’ve never liked chickens. You hate chickens! You’ve always hated chickens! Everybody hates us!”

      All at once they were crying. Weeping, if you can believe that. And then came a rumble of angry voices. “And we hate you too! You’re just a pompous fraud! We don’t believe your answer to the Chicken Riddle of Life! Chickens don’t cross the road to get to the other side. That would be dumb! Go away, get out, leave us alone, you hateful thing!”

      Oh brother.

      I tried to reason with them. “Listen, don’t get your feelings hurt. All at once I couldn’t breathe and I really do have to be . . .”

      Would you believe that the old hags started pelting me with eggs? Honest. It beat anything I’d ever seen in my whole career.

      Well, I had wanted to leave, so I . . . uh . . . walked briskly . . . ran, actually, to the door and ducked outside, one step ahead of a dozen eggs that splatted against the wall. There, I turned back to the angry mob and, in a voice full of righteous anger, I yelled, “I was right all along. You’re dumb birds, you’ll always be dumb birds, and the next time you need

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