LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

or right? That’s all it would take, you see. Just move your eyeballs one inch.”

      “Which way?”

      “I don’t care. Just move them.” He moved his gaze one inch to the left. “Thanks. I know that was asking a lot, but I appreciate it.”

      There was a moment of silence. “How come I can’t stare at you?”

      “Because I don’t enjoy being stared at.”

      “Well . . .” A quiver came into his voice. “It kind of hurts my feelings.”

      “Oh brother. Look, what if I sat around all day, staring at you? How would you like that?”

      “I wouldn’t care. That’s what friends are for.”

      “Okay, buddy, we’ll put that to the test. I will now direct my gaze at you and stare, and we’ll just see how you like it.”

      I went to the huge effort of shifting my eyeballs two full inches to the left and began the Staring Procedure. Oh, and I even narrowed my eyes, just to put a little edge on my gaze. Minutes passed and soon I began to feel the strain.

      “What do you say now? How does it feel to be stared at, huh?”

      “It doesn’t bother me.”

      “Of course it bothers you. Nobody enjoys being stared at. Why don’t you just come out and admit it?”

      “ ’Cause I don’t care. I’m too hot to care.”

      “Okay, fine. I’ll keep it up. I’ll stare at you for the rest of the day.”

      I continued to direct my gaze toward Drover’s face and let my eyes blur into his murfing mork ponking honkeypoof . . . let my eyes bore into his . . . snerk muff mork . . .

      The heat, the terrible heat was burning me up and all at once I was having trouble . . . snorff . . . keeping my pielids . . . keeping my eyelids open, shall we say, and I felt my inner-self being pulled into the dark tunnel of . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

      Suddenly I heard a voice from outside the tunnel. It said, and this is a direct quote, it said, “How come you quit staring at me?”

      My eyelids quivered, and I heard myself say, “It wasn’t me, you can’t prove a thing.” Then . . . hmmm . . . my vision returned to the present moment and I found myself looking into the eyes of . . . Drover. “Oh, it’s you again. What were we discussing? I seem to have lost the thread of my train . . . the train of my track . . . my train of thought.”

      He grinned. “Well, you said you were going to stare at me all day, but I think you fell asleep.”

      “Yes, of course, it’s all coming back to me now.” I pushed myself up on all-fours and shook the vapors out of my head. “Drover, this heat is destroying our lives. It’s forcing us into irrational forms of behavior, such as staring at each other. It’s even leading us into loony conversations. If we don’t do something to fight against the forces of chaos, we’ll sink into the mire and become a couple of worthless dogs.”

      He yawned. “Gosh, what should we do?”

      I began pacing, as I often do when my mind has shifted into a higher level. “We’ll fight back, Drover. We’ll get up off our duffs and call upon our reserves of Iron Discipline. We’re cowdogs, don’t ever forget that.”

      “Not me. I’m just a mutt.”

      “Okay, you’re just a mutt, but I’m a cowdog, and cowdogs have always been just a little bit special. Here’s the plan. On the count of three, we will . . .” Suddenly my legs wilted and I collapsed to the ground. “On the count of three, we will do nothing.”

      “I think I can handle that.”

      “Because this heat is killing us.”

      “Yeah, it’s hot.”

      “And the terrible heat has melted our reserves of Iron Discipline and turned us into chicken soup.”

      “Boy, I love soup.”

      “But that doesn’t mean that you can stare at me, Drover. It’s an invasion of my privacy and I will not tolerate it, do you understand?”

      He yawned again. “What?”

      “I said, this private invasion of my tolerance must stop!”

      “I thought it was chicken soup.”

      “Of course it was chicken soup, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be intolerant once in a while.”

      He gave me a blank stare. “I think I missed something.”

      I gave him a blank stare. “Yes, I’m getting that same feeling myself. It’s the heat, Drover. It’s causing us to babble and behave like lunatics.”

      “Oh no. What should we do?”

      I cut my eyes from side to side. It was a moment of decision. “Let’s . . . let’s just lie here and do nothing. We’ll wait for the first snowstorm of the season.”

      “Yeah, and maybe we should stare at each other.”

      “Great idea. Okay, now we have a plan. On the count of three, we’ll put our plan into action.”

      “Someone’s coming.”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      Drover pointed a paw toward a cloud of dust to the north. “Someone’s coming. I think it’s a pickup.”

      “You know what? I don’t care.”

      “Yeah, me neither.” After a few moments, he said, “I bet that pickup’s coming to the machine shed, right where we are.”

      “I still don’t care.”

      “Yeah, but we’re right in the way. What if he runs over us?”

      I ran that report through Data Control. “Maybe we should move.”

      I hated to go to so much trouble, but it’s a good thing we did. Moments later, an unidentified pickup rolled up in front of the machine shed doors. If we hadn’t moved, we might have gotten smashed flat as two pancakes.

      Chapter Two: Windmill Problems

      Perhaps you’re asking yourself, “If it was an unidentified pickup, why didn’t the dogs bark at it?” Great question. As you know, barking at strangers is an important part of our job on this outfit, and very seldom do we miss an opportunity to do it.

      This time, we did. Why? Too hot. But it would have been a waste of time anyway, because it turned out that it wasn’t an unidentified pickup after all. The pickup belonged to our ranch. Slim and Loper had come back to the machine shed for some supplies or equipment.

      When they stepped out of the pickup, my keen eyes picked up an important clue: Loper was having a bad day. He looked mad and disgusted.

      The moment his boots touched the ground, he growled, “The stinking windmill pumped all winter and never missed a stroke. When we didn’t need the water, it gave us water, water, and more water. Now it’s hot and what does it do? It quits pumping and we’ve got fifty cows, standing on their heads at the tank, trying to get a drink!”

      Slim nodded and shifted his toothpick to the left side of his mouth. “It don’t seem fair, does it?”

      “No! It makes me so mad . . .”

      Slim waited to hear the rest of the sentence. When it didn’t come, he said, “But you know what? I think a hurricane might be worse.”

      Loper turned halfway around and stared at him for a long moment. “What?”

Скачать книгу