The Case of the Midnight Rustler (4 page)

Chapter Six: The Case of the Poisoned Weenies

I
t was a beautiful day to be setting out on an adventure, with a nice breeze out of the southeast and a few puffy clouds floating along overhead.

We'd had some good spring rains, and the country north of Wolf Creek sure had its Sunday clothes on. The buffalo grass was tall and green, the beargrass had put out its white blooms, and the hills showed splashes of red, yellow, and purple where the wildflowers grew.

We didn't take the most direct route to the canyon pasture, and it took me a while to figger out why. Then I realized that Slim didn't want to leave any tracks on the main trail. So instead of entering the canyon from the south, we looped up north a ways and came in from that direction, taking a narrow cow trail down to the bottom of the canyon.

Say, that was a wild and lonesome place. I'd done a little exploring of that canyon farther down, where the walls weren't quite as high and steep, but I'd never felt very comfortable about being there.

And for good reason. Those canyons were famous for growing the biggest, meanest, hungriest coyotes in Ochiltree County, and on our way down the canyon rim, I found it convenient to, shall we say, keep very little distance between me and the horses.

Don't get me wrong. I'm no chicken liver, but I'd had enough experience with those wild coyote warriors to know that they could sure mess up a dog's camping trip.

It was along about five in the evening when we reached the spot where Slim wanted to make camp. It was near the head of the canyon, close to a spring-fed pool of water, and with enough old dead wood around to feed a campfire.

He hobbled the horses in a grassy flat and pitched his little two-man pup tent . . . or was it a two-pup man tent? One or the other, I can't remember, but it was just about the right size for two men or two pups or one man and one pup.

Anyways, he pitched the tent, rolled out my bed (I didn't know where HE planned to sleep, but I staked my claim on that bedroll right away), got a fire going in the fire pit, and made a pot of coffee.

By this time the sun had dropped behind the west rim of the canyon and the shadows were getting long. He brought out his cast-iron skillet and started supper. He cooked up some bacon and used the grease to fry some potatoes and weenies.

That was his supper: bacon, fried potatoes, and weenies. I watched him eat, and he even pitched me a bite or two, but to tell you the truth, I've never been crazy about weenies.

Oh, they taste all right at first, but after you eat a couple of 'em, what you begin to notice is the garlic. Me and garlic don't get along. So it didn't bother me at all that Slim ate most of the burned weenies himself, and by then it was getting dark and he went to work cleaning up the supper mess and . . .

Hmm, he had left the open package of weenies sitting there on a rock. I wondered if he had left them there for a reason or if . . .

Slim wasn't what you'd call a careless person. Okay, maybe he WAS a careless person but not so careless that he would leave an open package of weenies sitting on a rock without a reason.

What could this mean? I watched him as he wiped out his skillet and put things away and began fiddling with his gas lantern. He showed no interest whatsoever in the package of weenies.

Hmmmmm.

At last I narrowed the range of explanations down to two. Explanation One: He had left the weenies out on purpose and was conducting a test of my willpower. Explanation Two: He had left them out on purpose, knowing that I had worked up an appetite and that dogs must eat.

Okay, the next step was to devise a clever test that would narrow the range of possibilities down to one. I scooted myself closer to the alleged weenies and gave them a good sniffing, and, by George, they smelled pretty good, but the point of the experiment was to see if Slim would snatch them away and say, “Oh no you don't, pooch!”

He said nothing of the kind. In fact, he said nothing. He didn't notice. Or to frame it up more in line with the experiment, he had almost certainly put them there hoping that I would help myself.

That made sense. I mean, he was a busy guy. I had no right to expect him to stop what he was doing and feed me every bite of supper.

I gave the weenies another sniffing. Holy smokes, those things smelled WONDERFUL! I love weenies, always have. Give me a choice be­tween a package of raw weenies and a package of raw steak and I'll take weenies every time, especially if there's no package of steak around.

What's a little garlic? Garlic is actually very good for the digestion and some people even think it can cure a cold. I didn't have a cold but a guy never knows . . .

I, uh, scootched a little closer to the . . . and gave Slim one last careful observation, just to make sure that this wasn't one of his famous pranks. With these cowboys, you never want to take too much for granite. As I've said before, that's what tombstones are made of.

No, he was totally absorbed in his project of trying to light the lantern, which appeared to be giving him some trouble. Okay, there was my answer. I had submitted this deal to rigorous scientific testing and . . . what was I waiting for?

And so it was that, after completing the testing procedure and arriving at the only possible conclusion—that Slim wanted me to help myself to the weenies so that he could continue working on the lantern—after completing all the aforementioned so-forth, I, uh, eased my nose into the package of . . .

Just one. That's all I wanted. Just a taste, a little snack to tide me over until . . .

OH WONDERFUL WEENIE!

Boy, I hadn't realized just how hungry I was until I gobbled down that luscious weenie, and suddenly I realized just how hungry I was, and how much I loved fresh weenies and . . .

Maybe just one more.

He'd never miss two weenies out of a whole package. How many were in a package? Twelve? Twenty-four? A hundred and thirty-five?

Who'd miss two little weenies out of a huge package of 135? A normal man couldn't possibly eat 135 weenies on one camping trip—and shouldn't. He needed more variety in his diet, more vegetables and fruits and your other food groups.

Just one more.

Broccoli, that's what Slim needed in his diet, lots of broccoli and cabbage and . . . gulp, slurp . . . you know, the great thing about weenies is that . . . slurp, gulp . . . they don't require a whole lot of . . . gulp, slurp . . . chewing. And they also taste . . . slurp, gulp, slurp . . . delicious.

Yes, Slim definitely needed more . . . slurp, gulp . . . broccoli in his . . .

One weenie left?

You know, once a guy has committed himself to a certain course of action—and we're talking about actions that could lead to serious conse­quences—once a guy has charted his course, so to speak, it's not a bad idea to eat the map.

That sounds odd, doesn't it, so let's go straight to the point. We're talking about evidence. One weenie left in a package can be interpreted as evidence, whereas no weenies and no package can be interpreted as an honest mistake.

Someone “misplaced” the package of weenies. Forgot to put it in its proper place. It just disappeared. It happens all the time.

So, to avoid even the appearance of wrong-doing, which could cause friction among the, uh, campers, I chose to . . . that is, the last weenie vanished. And so did the empty package. Leaving not a trace behind.

Burp.

Boy, I had definitely caught my limit of weenies for one night, and I wouldn't have minded giving two or three of 'em back, to tell you the truth.

Darkness had fallen and Slim had finally gotten his lantern going, and he looked very proud of himself as he . . . burp. You ever eat so many weenies at one sitting that you could hardly walk?

Anyway, Slim looked very proud of himself, and he stood up and yawned and . . .

You ever wonder how it would feel to fall into a huge vat of garlic juice? Garlic everywhere! You can smell it, taste it, hear it, feel it, see it.

The only trouble with burp weenies is that they can turn on you. Once they reach your stomach, they begin releasing a deadly burp, excuse me, garlic toxin, which is why I've always hated stupid weenies, and why I quit eating them the last time I burp ate them.

And if I never see another weenie again in my whole life, that'll be okay with me.

Slim looked off to the southwest where lightning was twinkling in the distance. “Looks like Amarillo's getting a shower. This grass could use one but I'd just as soon it waited a week.” He yawned. “Well, pup, I don't know about you but I've had about all the fun I can stand for one day. Let's turn in. Who knows, we may be up with cow thieves tonight.”

He pulled off his boots and jeans, turned off the lantern, and crawled into the tent. I staggered in behind him, curled up beside his head, and hoped that death would come sooner rather than later.

Burp.

Never, ever, EVER would I touch another stupid . . .

Slim sat straight up in bed. Maybe he'd heard the rustlers coming. I didn't care. As far as I was concerned, they could take the whole ranch.

“I smell . . . garlic.”

Oh yeah? Big deal. I was embalmed with garlic.

“I wonder if I put those weenies . . .” There was a long throbbing moment of silence. “Hank, you hammerhead, you ate all my camp meat, didn't you!”

Yes, I did it, I confess. Go ahead and shoot me, you'll be doing me a big favor.

He kicked me out of the tent. That was okay. I'd always wanted to die outside under the burp.

Stars. I hate weenies.

Chapter Seven: Slim Gets Soaked Because of a Faulty Tent Rope

W
e needn't go into gory details. I had become one sick puppy and I didn't care where I slept that night, because I didn't suppose that I would be sleeping anyway.

Who can sleep in a garlic factory?

But nature has provided us with a way of curing such problems—two ways, actually. The first is called “Death by Poisoning.” The second is called “Reverse Peristroika.” I would have settled for either one, but it happened that peristroika took hold of my entire digestive system and turned it wrongside-out in the space of just a few minutes.

Slim had made a real smart move when he threw me out of the tent. Fellers, if I'd stayed in there for another three minutes, we might have been forced to burn the tent and all our bedding.

Well, nature took its course and I escaped death-by-garlic by the narrowest of margins, and right then and there I placed “camp meat” on the list of Toxic Products Not Even Fit for Hogs. Me and weenies had just declared war on each other, is what had happened.

I had acquired a new and passionate hatred for . . . although I must admit that once I had cleared out the plumbing, so to speak, the thought did occur to me . . .

No. Absolutely no more weenies.

After taking the Anti-Weenie Pledge and conducting a thorough purge of all systems, I turned to the task of putting my life back together. I had lost my right to sleep in the tent, which was okay because your higher breeds of dogs . . .

Coyotes howling?

A restless wind moaning in the trees?

Flashes of lightning that seemed to be coming closer?

I've never been the kind of dog who gets spooked by coyotes howling in the distance. The key word there is DISTANCE. We figger that 2–3 miles is a comfortable margin, but the howling I had begun to pick up appeared to be quite a bit closer than that, and coming closer all the time. You ever notice that a dying campfire throws eerie shadows on the side of a tent? Yes sir, and not only are they eerie, but they also MOVE AROUND. I watched those shadows for a while and . . . by George, they began to look a whole lot like cattle rustlers.

Three horrible-looking villains slouched through camp with guns and knives. One of 'em had three eyes. Another had two heads. The third one had the tail of a lizard and I didn't suppose that Slim would notice if I crept back inside the . . .

“Get out of here, you weenie thief! I don't need you burping garlic in my face all night. Scram.”

Actually, the garlic had . . . but yes, he seemed pretty emphatic about booting me out of house and home, and let me say right here that I've never been the kind of dog who has a pathagorical fear of thunder and lightning.

Some dogs do, you know, and I happen to work with one: Drover. Drover is scared of storms. Oh, he might bark at the first thumber of rundle and the first flash of lightning, but after that, you won't find him again until the next day. He runs for the machine shed and hides until the storm passes over.

Me? I'm the kind of dog who stands his ground, faces the thunder and lightning, and the lightning and thunder were coming closer and closer, and with the coyotes howling and those shadows swooping around on the side of the tent . . .

I wouldn't say that I was scared.
Concerned
would be closer to it. Nervous. Why else would a normal dog start chewing on the tent rope? It was just a simple case of nerves, that's all.

I mean, when a guy gets nervous, he's got to do something, right? I'll admit that it wasn't my best idea of the year, but at the time it seemed . . . it made me feel better about things, that's all, as I watched that huge cloud advancing toward us.

Suddenly the wind shifted and carried the smell of dampness, and I could hear the roar of the rain coming up the canyon, and then IT HIT US.

Wind? My goodness, what a wind. And rain? Buckets of rain, sheets of rain, so much rain that I could hardly breathe, and . . . somehow the, uh, tent rope snapped (cheap material) and the tent collapsed in a heap. And then . . .

You won't believe this. I could hardly believe it myself, but here goes. That tent suddenly
turned into a ghost!
Honest, no kidding. I saw it with my own eyes in the eerie silver glow of the lightning. That thing sat up, moved its arms, and started yelling!

Well, you know me. A ghost can get me worked up in a hurry, and that thing caused a strip of hair to raise on my back, all the way from my ears back to the base of my tailbone, and fellers, I BARKED.

Yes sir, I barked at that awful thing in the wind and the rain, trying my best to alert Slim to . . .

Speaking of Slim, where was he? He must have disappeared when . . .

Okay, I think we've worked this thing out. False alarm. Let's move along with the story, and you can forget the business about the ghost. It turned out to be a simple case of mistaken identity. No problem.

Next day.

We had a rather cold, wet, and miserable night, one reason being that in his haste to set up camp the previous afternoon, Slim had used an inferior grade of rope on the tent. In the light of the next morning, it appeared that one of the main ropes had actually snapped under the strain of the wind and rain, causing the tent to collapse.

The very worst time for a tent to collapse is in the midst of a rainstorm. A collapsed tent suddenly loses its ability to shed water, don't you see, and . . . it was quite a mess that greeted us by the dawn's early light.

Slim had gotten very little sleep during the night. His eyes were red and puffy, and he was in a terrible humor. As he hung the bedding and his clothes on cedar trees to dry, he kept coming back to that treacherous tent rope. He held the two frayed ends in his hands and studied them.

“I can't believe the stupid tent rope busted, just when I needed it most. You don't need a fool tent until it rains, and then when it rains, the dadgum thing falls apart!”

I sat there beside him, thumping my tail on the ground and sharing his sense of outrage at the inferior quality of modern tents. Somebody should have been sued for this. There was absolutely no excuse for it.

By George, if they were going to be in the tent business, they ought to build a tent that could stand up to the elements of nature. And if they couldn't do that, then they ought to find another line of work.

I was outraged. Slim was outraged. We were both just about as outraged as we could be. Why, Slim was so worked up that he vowed to write a letter to the president of the tent company. I didn't blame him. I would have done the same thing except that dogs don't write letters.

Well, our camp was a pretty dull place for the rest of the day. Whilst everything was hanging up to dry, Slim curled up in the shade of a cedar bush and tried to catch up on all the sleep he'd missed during the night.

That left me with the job of guarding camp against rustlers and wild prowling animals, which I did with all my heart and soul and . . . zzzzzzzzzz.

I did manage to catch a few winks of sleep somewhere in the middle of the afternoon. Not much, just a quick nap, and only when I was certain that our camp would be safe.

Short nap, very short, certainly not enough to be considered a breach of security.

By evening, things had returned to normal. The stuff had dried out and Slim had raised the tent again, but this time he replaced the inferior tent rope with his nylon pigging string.

He was in a better mood now—although he continued to make a big issue out of the “camp meat” that I had . . . the camp meat that had mysteriously vanished the night before.

He blamed me for it, but that was okay. I had broad soldiers. I could take it. Shoulders, I should say, broad shoulders.

He boiled some coffee and fried up some bacon and beans, and by the time darkness fell over our little outpost, he was feeling pretty good—so good, in fact, that he offered to sing me a song around the campfire.

What could I say? I didn't happen to be a major fan of his singing, but nobody pays a dog for his opinions, so I listened.

Here's how it went:

Alas and Alack

'Twas the Fourth of July when I read in the paper

That a circus from Kansas had pulled into town.

Now elephants had always kind of intrigued me

And I hadn't seen a woman in a month and a half.

A feller gets crazy in bachelor quarters,

And wishes to gaze on a woman or two.

And so I forsook all the boss's fine Herefords

And went to the circus, alas and alack.

At two hundred yards I thought she was gorgeous,

She looked like a mermaid with long golden hair.

Somehow I missed the tattoo on her shoulder

And that she weighed in close to three hundred pounds.

I should have looked closer before I embraced her,

It never occurred to me that she might have

The hairiest armpits in Ochiltree County.

I really goofed up there, alas and alack!

I guess that some lassies ain't wild about cowboys

Who sneak up and grab 'em and kiss on their face.

In any event, though, she screamed like a panther

And messed up my jaw with a wicked left hook.

I sure 'nuff was shocked that she had that big husband,

A wrestler, in fact, with a bone in his nose.

Before he got finished, I really looked forward

To seeing my Herefords, alas and alack.

I'm warning you boys who stay on them ranches,

A circus is dangerous to fellers like us.

There's something about all those glittering costumes

That makes a poor cowboy go out of his mind.

Beware of the women with big hairy husbands,

Especially the ones with a bone in their nose.

In courting a lass, a lack of good judgment

Can shorten your lifespan, alas and alack!