LITMIR.BIZ

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his gaze to the ground and shook his head. “Slim, that is the dumbest thing you’ve said in two weeks.”

      “No, it ain’t. All I’m saying is that a man shouldn’t complain about his problems, ’cause there might be worse problems in this old world.”

      “Slim, this is my ranch and if I want to complain about a busted windmill in the middle of a heatwave, I’ll complain about it.”

      “I know you will, ’cause that’s all you’ve been doing for the past thirty minutes.”

      “The Constitution of the United States of America gives me the right to complain about ignorant windmills.”­

      “Loper, every now and then, a man ought to stop whining and count his blessings.”

      Loper gave him a ferocious glare. “Whining, huh? All right, buddy, I’ll count my blessings: one, two, three. There, are you happy?”

      “No, you didn’t say what they are.”

      Loper began slashing a finger through the air. “Blessing Number One is that you’re not twins. Blessing Number Two is that at the end of a long hot day, I don’t have to eat your bachelor cooking. Blessing Number Three is that I’ve got a radio in that pickup, so when you start yapping about blessings, I can turn up the volume. There!”

      “Loper, you’re worse than a mule. You didn’t say a word about being grateful that we don’t have floods and earthquakes and bluebonnet plague.”

      “Yeah? Well, I’m not. I’m mad at the windmill and I plan to stay mad until we get it fixed . . . speaking of which, do you suppose you could start gathering up our windmill tools?”

      Slim shifted his toothpick over to the other side of his mouth. “Well, I probably could, but I still say . . .”

      “Good!” Loper whirled around and headed for the machine shed. “We’ll need the block and tackle, a box of windmill leathers, a chain, wrenches, a socket set . . .” He vanished inside the barn, and his voice became a faint rumble.

      Slim heaved a sigh and looked down at me. “His momma enrolled him in charm school, but he flunked out. Pooch, you want to go in my place and help Uncle Scrooge fix the windmill?”

      Uh . . . no thanks. I had attended a couple of windmill-fixing episodes and that was plenty.

      With great effort, Slim pointed his bony frame toward the barn and began walking. At the entrance, he glanced back at me and winked. “Watch this.” He turned toward the barn door and yelled out, “Loper, I just have a feeling this is going to be a wonderful day.” He flinched, waiting for the thunder and lightning.

      It came. Inside the barn, Loper’s voice boomed, “Slim, when you get fired from this job, which could happen any day now, you can go into preaching full-time. Until then, please dry up and try to make yourself useful!”

      Slim chuckled and shuffled into the barn, and for the next ten minutes, the air was filled with the sounds of clanging and banging as the men gathered up their tools. They made three trips from the barn to the pickup, lugging ropes and cables and heavy boxes of windmill parts.

      Slim was still trying to make conversation. “Loper, do you know how many cowboys it takes to screw in a lightbulb?”

      “No.”

      “You’ll love this. It takes four—one to hold the lightbulb and three to turn the house. Heh.”

      Loper dumped his load onto the pickup’s flatbed, jerked a red bandana out of his hip pocket, and . . . this was pretty amazing . . . stuffed the two ends of the rag into his ears. He gave Slim a fanged smile and went back into the barn for another load.

      Slim dumped his tools onto the flatbed and shrugged. “I always liked that joke. It’s the only one I could ever remember.”

      Moving at his usual pace (slow motion), Slim went sludging back into the barn. At that very moment, who should come walking up but Little Alfred, my most favorite pal in the whole world. On a normal day, I would have leaped to my feet and given him a few licks on the face, but today . . . I, uh, whapped my tail on the ground and called it good.

      “Hi, Hankie. It’s kind of hot, isn’t it?”

      Right. Very hot.

      Slim and Loper came blundering out of the barn again, loaded down with gear. Alfred said, “Hi, Dad.” Loper didn’t hear, so the boy tried again, in a louder voice. “Hi, Dad!” Alfred looked closer at his dad. “He’s got a rag in his ears!”

      Slim said, “Don’t pay him any mind, Button. He’s on a crusade to make this the worst day since the volcano went off at Palm Play. I tried to cheer him up with one of my best jokes but it only confused him.”

      Alfred went to his dad and tugged on his pant leg. “Hey, Dad, you’ve got something in your ears.”

      Loper looked down at him. “What?” He uncorked one of his ears. “Oh, hi, son.”

      “How come you’ve got a rag in your ears?”

      “I’m trying to gather up windmill tools, and I can’t concentrate with all the noise.” He jerked his head toward Slim. Slim stuck out his tongue and made a sour face.

      Alfred brightened. “Can I go wiff ya’ll and help?”

      Loper patted him on the head. “Not this time, son. It’s not likely to be much fun.”

      Slim muttered, “We can bet on that.”

      Loper shot him a dark glare. “Well, we’re burning daylight. Let’s get this over with.”

      They loaded into the pickup, and Loper started the engine. Over the noise, we heard Slim say, “Loper, you know the trouble with you?”

      “Of course I do. Poor help.” Then Loper turned up the volume on the radio, and they roared away.

      Little Alfred drifted over to us. “Hi, doggies. Want to play?”

      I gave him a wooden stare. Play?

      “We could play Chase the Ball.”

      Ha ha.

      “We could go exploring. Want to do that?”

      Exploring? I wanted to explore the inside of an ice-cold watermelon and stay there until the first snow of the season. Other than that, no thanks.

      He pushed out his lower lip at me. “Come on, Hankie, you’re no fun.”

      Right. Sometimes that bothered me and sometimes it didn’t. Right now, I just didn’t give a rip.

      He made an ugly face at me and started down to the house. “You’re just a lazy bum.”

      Exactly, and proud of it, too. Okay, I wasn’t proud of it. Being a lazy bum was nothing to be proud of but I couldn’t help myself, not in this heat.

      Ho hum. Time crawled by. Half an hour later, we heard sounds of life down at the house. A door slammed. Someone had come outside. With great effort, I swung my head around and saw Sally May standing in the yard, spraying her flowers and shrubberies with the water hose.

      “Drover, Sally May has come out of the house. One of us needs to go down to the yard gate and give her a greeting.”

      “How come?”

      “Because that’s what we do. It’s part of our job. When our people come outside, we’re supposed to greet them. Dogs have been doing it for thousands of years.”

      “No wonder I’m so tired.”

      “What?”

      “I said . . . I’ll be derned. Which one of us will do it this time?”

      I pondered that for a moment.” Actually, I was wondering if you might take

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