The Case of the Midnight Rustler. John R. Erickson

It’s too short.”

      “Actually, Drover, the shortest tales are often the best. There’s an art to telling a story in just a few words.”

      “Gosh, Hank, that’s the first nice thing you’ve ever said about my tail. Always before, you made fun of it. Thanks.”

      “You’re certainly welcome.” I stared at him for a moment. “Are we involved in the same conversation?”

      “I’m not sure.”

      “Drover, sometimes when I talk to you, I begin to wonder if I’m going insane.”

      “Yeah, I’ve wondered about that myself.”

      “Let’s just drop it. Who is this trespasser who just pulled up in the strange pickup?”

      “I don’t know, but I sure barked at him.”

      “You barked at him, Drover, but he came on the ranch anyway. You need to work on your barking. You couldn’t scare a flea on a grandpa’s knee.” All at once he sat down and began scratching his left ear. “Don’t scratch while I’m talking to you.”

      “I’ve got a flea.”

      “Of course you do. If you’d work on your barking, you wouldn’t have so many . . .”

      By George, all at once I had a flea problem myself. I could feel the little wretch crawling around on my . . . hee hee, ha ha . . . on my belly, and it tickled. I jumped into the air, bent myself double, and spun around in a circle, trying to catch up with my . . .

      You know what? As long as a dog runs in circles, he can never catch up with his own anatomy. It keeps moving, see. You have to shut everything down, sit on the floor, and attack the stupid flea with teeth and lips. That requires deep concentration and large amounts of self-deception.

      Self-discipline, I should say.

      I got ’er done, but it was no easy deal. I bit the flea and the flea bit the dust, and at that point I was ready to pursue the investigation.

      Who was this guy who had dared to drive his pickup onto MY ranch in broad daylight? I began by observing that he was an older man, maybe 65 or 70. He walked slowly, wore a battered felt hat and khaki pants and shirt.

      His name was Uncle Johnny. I knew that be­cause Loper said, “Well, by gollies, Uncle Johnny! What brings you over here to the poor side of the county? And how are you at fixing hay mowers?”

      Uncle Johnny studied the mess on the floor. “Was anybody killed in this wreck?”

      “Not yet,” said Slim, “but if Loper’s disposition don’t improve, he’s liable to become the first casu­alty. He gets kind of snarly during hay season, and he wasn’t real sweet to start with.”

      Uncle Johnny chuckled to himself. “Yes sir, I used to get that-a-way myself. Old age don’t have too many blessings, but one of ’em is that you can leave the hay work to them that’s young and dumb enough to take it.”

      “Well, we ain’t so young,” said Slim, “but we’ve doubled up on the dumb.”

      Whilst they were making small talk, I decided to slip outside and attend to the routine business of applying our ranch’s trademark on Uncle Johnny’s tires. A guy never knows when that trademark will come in handy. It’s something we try to do every time a strange vehicle comes onto the place.

      I had completed my work on the two front tires and was on my way to the left rear when I heard an odd sound. I stopped and listened. There it was again. It sounded like . . . I wasn’t sure what it sounded like.

      The last gasps of a drowning victim? A diesel engine that needed some repair work?

      It appeared to be coming from the bed of the pickup, so I slipped around to the rear, went into a deep crouch position, leaped up into the back end, and landed right in the middle of something huge and hairy.

      Yikes, what was that thing? A huge fur coat? A dead horse? Whatever it was, it had a head, a BIG head, and it rose from the dead, so to speak, and revealed two sleepy eyes. For a long, tense moment, I stared at it and it stared back at me.

      At last I was able to fight back my feelings of shock and surprise and say, “I don’t know who you are, fella, but don’t get any smart ideas. We’ve got this place surrendered.” I stared at him. “Sur­rounded, I should say. Holy smokes, are you a horse or a dog?”

      I mean, this guy was HUGE!

      He grinned and yawned and spoke in a slow voice. “Howdy. Name’s Brewster. Where we at?”

      “You’re in the back of someone’s pickup, Brewster, but also on my ranch. That’s the part that concerns me. I’m the Head of Ranch Security, you see.”

      “Aw heck. Last thing I knew, we were in front of Uncle Johnny’s house. I guess I fell asleep.” He yawned again. “Takes a lot of sleep to keep this old body percolatin’.”

      “Yes, that’s a large body, Brewster.”

      “Thanks. Everybody says that. I don’t feel all that big, but I guess I am.”

      “You are, believe me. I’d guess you’ve got some St. Bernard in you somewhere. I’m not the kind of guy who talks about other dogs having big feet, but those feet of yours are really something.”

      “Yeah.” He stood up and stretched. “They always said that I got my big feet and gracefulness from the St. Bernard side, and my ferocious disposition from the German Shepherd side.”

      He grinned and yawned again. That made about three yawns in the space of three minutes. Then he lumbered over to the endgate of the pick­up, and in the process of doing that, he bumped into me and stepped on my foot.

      It felt like I’d been stepped on by an elephant and run over by a truck. I squalled.

      He gave me a sleepy look. “Oops, sorry. I’m a little awkward first thing in the morning. Takes me a while to wake up.”

      “Hey Brewster, it’s not the first thing in the morning. It’s going on ten o’clock, and around here, we figger the day’s half over at ten o’clock.”

      “Yep, and if a guy’s going to catch himself a nap, he ought to do it in the middle of the day.”

      He lumbered back to his spot at the front of the pickup, stepped on my foot again, and flopped down. The whole pickup shook when he bedded down. He crossed his paws in front of him and rested his chin on the paws. Then his eyes appeared to roll back in his head.

      “Just one moment, Brewster. I have some questions I’d like to . . .”

      “Skaw, snork, skrunk, zzzzzzzzzzz.”

      The window of opportunity had slammed shut. Brewster was asleep again.