He crouched low on the ground and flattened his ears and glared at me. “Well, well. I believe Hankie the Blunder Dog has just arrived.”
“Yeah, and me too,” said Drover.
“Yes, and aren’t we lucky.”
I gave him a worldly sneer. “You got that right, Kitty. I hope we’re not too late to save you from making a total hog of yourself.”
I began sniffing the ground to check for bacon scent. In the course of doing this, my nose came very close to his nose, so what did he do? He cranked up that police siren yowl of his.
I froze. My tail stiffened. Our eyes met.
“You seem to be yowling at me, Kitty. What does this mean?”
“It means that you seem to be intruding into my space. Cats need space.”
“Oh yeah? Then why don’t you fly to the moon? I hear there’s plenty of space up there.”
Drover broke up on that. “I get it! There’s lots of space in outer space, tee hee hee hee. That’s a good one, Hank, you really got him with that one.”
“Thanks, Drover. It just kind of popped out of my mouth. I guess we can score a big one for the dogs, huh?”
“Yeah, and now we’re ahead, one to nothing.”
I turned back to the cat. “Now, what were you saying? Oh yes, you had just begun yowling at me and I don’t like that.”
“I have to yowl, Hankie, otherwise you wouldn’t know that you had intruded into my space. You do that a lot, and every time you invade my space, I seem to get stepped on and hit by your tail.”
“No kidding? You know, Pete, that almost breaks my heart—almost, but not quite. If you don’t want to get stepped on, quit lurking around the gate and trying to hog all the scraps. You’ll find plenty of space up at the machine shed. Go up there. We’ll even let you have some of our dog kernels.”
“They hurt my teeth.”
“Oh well, big deal!”
“Cats don’t eat dog food.”
“Woooo! Bigger deal!”
Drover got another chuckle out of that one. “Nice shot, Hank, nice shot. That makes two for us.”
Kitty-Kitty wasn’t amused. “And besides, I saw a rattlesnake up there at daylight.”
That got my attention. “What? You saw a rattlesnake around the machine shed? I assume that you killed it.”
“Well, no, not really. That’s more of a dog-job than a cat-job.”
I gave him a stern glare. “It’s a job for whomsoever finds the snake, Kitty. Rattlesnake bites are not good for little children. Maybe you didn’t know that, or maybe you don’t care.”
“Oh, I care, Hankie. Children are precious—when they’re far away and not making noise.”
“Well, if they’re so precious, then maybe you ought to make an effort to protect them from deadly and dangerous creatures. Is that asking too much of a cat?”
He licked his paw. “Well, Hankie, I thought of doing something, but then the snake crawled into a pipe and that was the end of it.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “Oh yeah, sure, that’s the end of it—until one of the kids goes up there and gets bitten!” I turned to Drover. “Drover, I can’t believe this.”
He was looking at the clouds. “What?”
“I said, I can’t believe this.”
“I’ll be derned. I guess I can’t believe it either.”
“Do you know what it is that we’re not believing?”
“Well . . . not really. I guess my mind wandered.”
“Then pay attention. This cat said he saw a rattlesnake in front of the machine shed.”
Pete shook his head. “On the west side of the machine shed, Hankie.”
“Just as I suspected, on the west side of the shed, near that pile of welding iron and pipe.” I turned back to Drover. “This cat saw a deadly rattlesnake this morning, but instead of taking care of the situation and making the place safe for children, he sat there and watched the snake crawl into a pipe. Can you believe that?”
“Well . . . I guess I’m supposed to say no.”
“Of course you’re supposed to say no, because that was a cowardly and chickenhearted thing for him to do, and we can’t believe he did it.”
“Oh. Okay. I can’t believe it.”
I whirled back to the cat. “There, you see? Drover can’t believe it either. We’re both shocked and outraged. You should be ashamed of yourself, Pete.”
The cat gave me a haughty smirk. “Oh really? If you’re so shocked and outraged, then maybe you ought to do something about it yourself.”
“Oh yeah? Well, as a matter of fact, Kitty, that’s exactly what I had in mind. Come on, Drover, we’ve got some business to take care of at the machine shed!”
And so it was that we left the cat in the rubble of his own shameful behavior and went into combat against the deadly rattle . . . the deadly rat. Big rat.
(Hurry and get those kids to bed.)
Chapter Two: Tricked by Pete but Not for Long
We had gone only a few steps when Drover said, “What’s the business?”
I glared at the runt. “We’ve got a rattlesnake to kill, you brick. What do you think we’ve been talking about?”
His eyes blanked out, and suddenly he began to limp. “Boy, I’d love to help, Hank, but all at once this old leg just went out on me. Oh, my leg!”
“Never mind the leg. Stay behind me and stand by for some serious combat.”
“The pain’s terrible!”
To no one’s surprise, I was the first to reach the Staging Area in front of the machine shed. Drover and his so-called limp had fallen behind and I had to wait for him to catch up.
“Hurry up, Drover. We haven’t a minute to spare. This could turn out to be a very serious affair.”
“Yeah, I know, and that’s the kind that really sets off this leg. I haven’t felt pain like this in years.”
“Spare me the details.”
At last, he joined me at the Staging Area. I studied the Target Zone, an area dominated by medium-to-tall weeds and various hunks of pipe, angle iron, channel iron, and so forth. Collectively, we referred to this material as “welding scraps,” for the simple reason that Slim and Loper used it for their welding jobs.
If you want to know why their welding jobs always look junky, it’s because they draw their raw material from a pile of junk. And also, they’re not such great welders.
Where was I? Staging Area. Combat. Drover and I