The Case of the Secret Weapon. John R. Erickson

honest coffee made over an honest fire.

      With awkward, sleep-numbed fingers, he turned on the gas, struck a match, and held it to the stove burner. The match blew out, so he struck another match and poked it under the pan.

      This produced a small explosion. See, if you leave a stove burner going for ten or fifteen seconds and then add a lighted match, the propane fumes will say POOF! How do I know? I’ve seen him do it a hundred times, and you know what? It always makes a little explosion, and it always seems to surprise him.

      Well, once he had the fire going under the pan of water, he felt his way across the cabinets above the sink until he found the same big red can of coffee he’d used the day before, in exactly the same spot on the shelf.

      Most people would use a measuring spoon to transfer the ground-up coffee into the pan. Slim dumps it. Sometimes he gets the right amount with one dump, but sometimes it takes two or three. This time, he used one dump and two sprinkles, but the important thing is that even when he’s half-asleep, he has an idea in his mind of how much coffee is just the right amount—and he doesn’t need a measuring spoon to do it.

      Once he had finished the Coffee Dump, he began the next phase: waiting for the water to boil. It always gets funny here, because he HATES to wait for water to boil. There he stood, blinking his soggy eyes, yawning, shuffling his feet, shaking his head, and muttering under his breath.

      After a while, the water hissed and boiled, and the excitement started to build. He could smell the coffee now, and his eyes began to open up. He waited, watched, shook the pan, and at exactly the right moment, he pulled it off the stove and poured the steaming liquid into a big brown mug.

      He lifted the mug to his nose, took a deep sniff, slurped down his first gulp, and growled, “Oh yeah, there it is! Let the day begin!” At that point, he spit out some coffee grounds and was ready to face the world.

      Walking with bolder steps now, and without leaning against a wall, he made his way into the living room and spoke his first words to us. “Dogs, the master of the house has just arrove.”

      Drover and I exchanged glances. What were we supposed to do?

      “Y’all could show a little more excitement.”

      I thumped my tail on the floor, and Drover wiggled his stub tail. If Slim expected more than that . . . well, too bad.

      He scowled. “A man gets no respect these days, even from his dogs.” He took another swig of coffee. “Hey, today’s the Fourth of July. I’ve got the whole day off, and I can do whatever I want. And you know what I’m going to do?”

      He seemed to be talking to me, so I went to the telegraph key of my tail and tapped out a reply. “No. What are you going to do?”

      He winked. “I’m going to spend my day just like the rich and famous. I’m going to sit out on the porch in my underwear, drink coffee, and loaf. What do you think of that, pooch?”

      I tapped out another reply. “That sounds pretty exciting. No doubt you’ll need our help, so we’ll go with you.”

      “Come on. I’m fixing to show you how to behave when you’re wealthy and influential.” He held the screen door open for us, and we all moved out on the porch.

      It wasn’t much of a porch because . . . well, it wasn’t much of a house, but the porch had a nice view of the creek and it was big enough to hold one man, two dogs, and a couple of chairs. Slim flopped down in one of the chairs, slurped his coffee, and gazed out at the little world in front of his house.

      “Dogs, life don’t get any better than this—sitting on the porch in your underwear, drink­-ing coffee, and listening to the birds. Shucks, it’s a cowboy’s dream.” He thought about that for a moment. “You know, a guy could make a song out of that. What would y’all think if I sang you a song? Would you like that?”

      I was stunned. Another of his corny songs?

      We’ve discussed Slim’s singing, right? I’m sure we have, because this had happened before. See, he comes up with these silly songs, and who or whom do you suppose has to listen to them?

      Us. His dogs. I mean, we work hard, try to do our jobs and be loyal friends, but the terrible truth is that WE DON’T LIKE HIS MUSIC. There, I’ve said it. He’s a nice man, but our lives would be complete if we didn’t have to listen to his pathetic little songs.

      I shot a glance at Drover and saw that he had a look of pain on his face. He whispered, “I guess we’re trapped.”

      “I guess we’re not. Let’s see if we can slip out of here.”

      Drover grinned. “I never thought of that. Maybe he won’t notice.”

      “Shhh. We’ll have to be as quiet as a mouse.”

      “Yeah, or two mice, ’cause there’s two of us.”

      “Good point. We’ll be as quiet as two mice.”

      Without making a sound, we lifted our respective bodies off the porch and began oozing away from the guy who was fixing to destroy the morning silence with so-called music. If we could make it to the porch steps, we might be able to slither ourselves into the cedar shrubs and vanish without a . . .

      “Hey! Come back here!”

      We froze in our tracks, only inches away from the first step to Freedom. Drover rolled his eyes around to me. “Uh-oh, what do we do now?”

      “We got caught, and we have to face the music. Let’s get it over with and try to look professional.”

      Holding our heads at a professional angle, we marched back to Slim’s chair and into the glare of his eyes. He was scowling, don’t you see, and he grumbled, “Where did y’all think you were going? Didn’t you hear what I said?”

      I went to Slow Puzzled Wags on the tail section, as if to say, “Oh. Did you say something? Gosh, I guess we didn’t hear.”

      “I’m fixing to sing a song.”

      With great effort, I shifted my tail section into Oh-Boy Wags. Over to my right, Drover fluttered his stub tail, and we both molded our faces into an expression we call Devoted Doggie.

      Slim darted back into the house and returned with his five-string banjo. Like it or not, we were fixing to hear his song.