I glared daggers into the void of blackness from which his voice had come. I couldn’t actually see him, don’t you know, and more or less had to glare where to guess.
He spoke again. “I’m over here, Hankie. You’re glaring at a rock.”
I whirled around and beamed my glare at the new location. “I know exactly where you are, Kitty, and don’t try to dodge the question. What are you doing out here?”
“Well, Hankie, these winter nights are so long, I sometimes wake up before daylight and walk around.”
“I see. And you think I’m not aware that the nights are long in the winter, is that your point? Ha! For your information, Kitty, our Security Division keeps very careful records on all that stuff.”
“That wasn’t my point, Hankie.”
“Great. What was your point? You’re boring me, Pete. Could we hurry this along? I’m a very busy dog.”
“I was walking around in the dark. That’s all.”
“Oh, so that’s it. And you think I wasn’t smart enough to have figured that out on my own, huh? Hey, Pete, I knew exactly what you were doing, and I knew exactly why you were doing it. Shall I go on?”
“By all means, Hankie, but I’m over here. You’re talking to a tree.”
I whirled 24 degrees to the left and aimed a gaze of purest steel at him. “Okay, try this on, Pete. You were walking around in the dark because it was dark.”
“Very impressive, Hankie.”
“Hold your applause, Kitty, I’m not through. It was dark this morning because the sun wasn’t up, because it’s winter, Pete. Don’t you get it? No sun, no sunrise. No sun, no daylight. No sun equals darkness. That’s why you were walking around in the dark.”
“That’s amazing, Hankie. And you figured that out yourself?”
I couldn’t hold back a little chuckle. “Heh. You cats have no idea what goes on around here while you sleep. But I’m still not finished. Wait until you hear this last part. It just might knock your socks off.”
“Ooooo! I can hardly wait. But I’m over here, Hankie.”
“Right.” I whirled 12 degrees to the left and gave him a stern glare. “For your information, Kitty, at this very moment I’m on my way to Sunrise Hill, where I will bark up the sun thirty minutes ahead of schedule, thus adding thirty minutes of daylight to the day. What do you think of that?”
He gasped. “I think something just happened to my socks.”
“Ha! Didn’t I tell you? I blew ’em right off, didn’t I?”
“You certainly did, Hankie. And you think you can bark up the sun early today?”
“Hey Kitty, this is my ranch. If the sun wants to rise on my ranch, it’ll rise when I tell it to. We need more daylight, yes? So I’ll bark it up thirty minutes early. It’s a simple process.”
“How fun. But Hankie, I thought J. T. Cluck crowed up the sun every morning.”
I froze. “What? Who told you that?”
“Well, maybe J.T. told me, but I’ve also watched him doing it—many times.”
“Lies, Pete, lies. Number one, the sun must be barked up, not crowed up. Number two, it takes a dog to bark up the sun. Number three, the sun pays no attention to a silly, squawking rooster. And number four, J. T. Cluck is a fraud, a cheat, a liar, and a lying fraudulent cheat. He has nothing to do with the rising of the sun, period.”
I heard the cat gasp. “My goodness, Hankie, I didn’t know all this. And you’re going to bark up the sun earlier than usual this morning?”
“That’s correct, Kitty. Then you won’t have to lurk around in the darkness, and I won’t have to wonder what you’re doing.”
“I’ll be watching, Hankie.”
“Do that, Pete, and feel free to take notes, if you wish. It might improve that tiny mind of yours.”
“Mmmmm yes, but I’m over here, Hankie. You’re talking to the tree again.”
That did it. This cat was trying to play games with me and I’d taken all the trash I could stand from him, so instead of answering or adjusting my position, I issued a growl and launched myself into . . .
BONK!
. . . the middle of a stupid tree, a very large stupid tree, which had looked very much like a cat lurking in the darkness, only it wasn’t. I don’t know how the little pest had managed to . . . phooey.
Did it hurt? You bet it did. It hurt big-time, scratched the soft, leathery portion of my nose and brought tears to my eyes, but they were mostly tears of joy, for I’d had the pleasure of . . . never mind.
It hurt.
Then I heard his voice again, somewhere in the darkness. (Obviously he had been moving around, trying to confuse me.) “Sorry, Hankie. I tried to warn you.”
I paused for a moment, searching my mind for a stinging, witty reply that would wound him even more than the tree had wounded my nose. After thirty seconds of really heavy concentration, I gave it up and had to settle for “Shut up, cat.”
And with that, I whirled around and marched . . .bush? . . . marched into a wandering bush that had somehow . . . hey, don’t forget, it was very dark out there, and that was the whole point of my mission, right? It was so dreadfully dark that no dog in the whole world could have seen where he was going, and before somebody got hurt, I needed to get that sun barked up. Right away. Chop-chop.
And so it was that I managed to snatch a moral victory out of the jowls of defeat and left the cat sitting in the ruins of his own shambles.
I don’t know why I’d even bothered to speak to him. Trying to communicate with cats was a waste of time, a teetotal waste of time, and I had much more important things to do than . . . boy, that tree had really messed up my nose. It throbbed with every step.
Kitty-Kitty would pay for this.
I finally managed to push Pete’s nonsense out of my mind and poured all my vast mental insurgencies into the morning’s mission: barking up the sun thirty minutes ahead of schedule.
It was a very important mission. The world was lost in a great blinding darkness. Only the Head of Ranch Security could save it, and I just happened to be the right dog for that job.
Little did I know that . . . hmmm, better not say.
Chapter Two: I Bark Up Cannibals, Not the Sun
Holding my head at a proud angle, I marched myself in an easterly direction, across the caliche drive in front of the house, past that young cottonwood tree that Sally May had raised from a mere twig, and on out into the deep darkness of the Home Pasture, until at last I came to Point Zero: Sunrise Hill.
I reached Point Zero at precisely . . . whatever the time, it was precisely the time I arrived there and that was close enough, considering all the nonsense and follyrot I’d had to endure from Sally May’s precious kitty.
I had never understood what she saw in that little schemer. Oh well.
I marched myself out to the easternmost point of the hill and went right into my Preparations and Warm-Ups for the big event. A lot of your ordinary dogs wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of prepping themselves