The Frozen Rodeo - John R. Erickson Hank the Cowdog

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Drover out of three months’ growth. He got over it, Slim did, but it sure darkened his mood for the rest of the morning, and he started checking his boots for booby-traps.

      Oh, and he stopped walking around the house in his bare feet. Can you guess why? Because one night, right before supper, he stepped on a wasp and got knifed, so he dug out his old pair of sheepskin house slippers. He started wearing them around the house, don’t you see, and when he spotted a yellow jacket creeping around on the floor, he made a special effort to smash it.

      Those slippers were patched with duct tape because…well, some unknown villain had chewed them up, but we don’t need to probe any deeper into that chapter of our lives. See, we never caught the Slipper Shredder, but guess who got blamed. Not Drover, a prime suspect in the case, and not Sally May’s rotten little cat, not the coyote brothers or Eddy the Rac.

      Me. I got blamed! No kidding, and I was the Lead Investigator on the case. Outrageous!

      Anyway, how did we get on the subject of slipskin sheepers? I don’t know, but before we leave that subject, let me whisper a Deep Dark Secret: Dogs who have dabbled in the sheepskin business will tell you…

      Maybe we’d better skip the rest of this. I don’t think it would do either of us any good.

      The main point here is that I know almost nothing about the sleepskin shippers, and to this very day, the case remains unsolved.

      Now, where were we? Oh yes, the Wasp Crisis. I was in the midst of a peaceful sleep, on the floor of Slim’s bachelor shack, only moments before the place went up in flames, when something landed on my right ear and tripped an alarm in Data Control.

      Naturally I tried to ignore it. Who wants to be disturbed in the middle of a peaceful sleep? Not me, but our sensors were picking up tiny signals suggesting that something was walking around up there. In other words, this wasn’t a piece of plaster that had fallen from the ceiling. Plaster fragments don’t have legs.

      I punched in the commands for Ear Flick—twice, three times. No luck there. The motion sensors were still picking up creepy little signals on one of my ears and DC (that’s our code for Data Control) kicked on the General Alarm.

      Gongs gonged and lights flashed, and I found myself standing on the bridge, shouting into a microphone. “All hands on deck! Bring sidearms and sandwiches, we’ve got pork chops creeping through the catnip! Approach and capture! Repeat: capture the roaches, this is not a drill!”

      Things were a little foggy at that point, I mean we had sailors shouting and gongs blaring, very confusing, but someone must have activated the circuit for Hind Leg Scratch. My right hind leg swung into action and began a Hacking Procedure on the starboard ear, which resulted in…well, a sharp stinging sensation.

      OWWWWW!

      It stung like crazy. We had taken a direct hit from a missile or a torpedo, right in the…

      HUH?

      Okay, the stupid wasp had dropped from the ceiling and landed on my ear, and when that happens, the last thing you want to do is rough him up with a burst of scratching. Do you know why? Because you probably won’t kill the little heathen, and he will drill you with his poison stinger.

      That’s obvious when you’re wide awake, but when you explode out of a deep sleep, it’s not so obvious, and yes, I followed the wrong procedure and got drilled, and the saddest part was that I didn’t even bag the wasp. I heard the buzz of his wings as he flew off to torment someone else.

      Trembling with righteous anger, I blinked my eyes and glanced around. Okay, it appeared that I was in Slim’s living room, and there was a corpse on the floor beside me. Wait, that might have been Drover and he might have been merely conked out asleep. That was good news and I was about to shut everything down, when I noticed…

      Good grief, the inside of the house was RED, and we’re not talking about slightly red. This was a bright, fiery red, and that’s when I was smoten by the awful reality.

      OUR HOUSE WAS BURNING DOWN!!

      Chapter Two: The House Is On Fire!

      Hold up, there’s something we need to discuss. Is smoten the right word for this particular situation, or should it be smitten?

      You know how I am about getting the right word for every situation. If we don’t set a good example for the kids, the next thing you know, they’ll be talking and acting like monkeys. They’ll start eating bananas and tossing all their peelings on the floor. Their ears will sprout hair and they’ll start scratching their armpits.

      Is that the kind of behavior we want to see in the little children? Is that the kind of world we want to leave for our granddogs? Absolutely not, and it all starts right here, in the way we use language. Don’t forget: Without words, we’d all be speechless.

      A lot of mutts don’t care and wouldn’t take the time to get it right. You know who cares? Cowdogs. We have to be just a little bit special, so let’s stop right here and take the time to get it right.

      Write-wrote-written

      Kite-coat-kitten

      Bite-boat-bitten

      Smite-smote-smitten

      Okay, there we are, that’s the answer. It should be smitten, not written, kitten, mitten, or bitten. The next time you see a monkey, tell him to shape up and stop using trashy language. What belongs in the trash are banana peelings and peanut shells.

      Sorry, I didn’t mean to get carried away, but somebody has to take a stand on these issues.

      Where were we? I have no idea. It was something important, but it seems to have vanished in a fog. Maybe that was it, fog. We’d had a few foggy mornings after Christmas, and a dog can get lost in a fog. So can a frog.

      I’m just killing time, waiting for something to click.

      This is so annoying. To be honest, it drives me nuts. In my line of work, I have to stay focused and organized. Nobody expects much out of Drover. He can fill his mind with all kinds of nonsense, but the Head of Ranch Security has to…

      Wait, hold everything, I’ve got it! THE HOUSE WAS ON FIRE! How could you have forgotten that? You know what? You need to start paying attention!

      Okay, now we’re rolling. I was inside Slim’s house, remember? I’d been assaulted by a wasp and was wide awake, and when I glanced around, I noticed that the room inside of which I was whiching had turned a bright shade of red, fiery red.

      And fellers, I knew we were in deep trouble.

      I reached for the microphone of my mind and hit the button for 911 Alert. “May we have your attention please? This is the Special Crimes Division. We have fire in the hole! Fire in the house! You’re about to be barbecued alive, but please don’t panic!”

      The alarm had a magical effect on Drover. I mean, the runt came flying out of a brick-like sleep, jumped three feet in the air and seemed to be swimming, then hit the ground and began running in circles. “Help, murder, mayday, there’s a hole in the fire!”

      “Calm down, soldier, and stand by for orders! Proceed to your duty station and begin barking the alarm. We must evacuate the house and Slim must be warned!”

      “Forget, that, I’m out of here!”

      “Drover, hold your duty station and…”

      He went streaking down the hall toward the bedroom, screeching, “Red, red, everything’s red! Under the bed or we’ll all be dead!”

      You know, panic can be contagious. I mean, the house was filling with smoke and fire, flaming rafters were falling all around us,

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