“Hi. Do you know anything about a train?”
“Well, they say, ‘Choo-choo.’”
“I’m aware of that, but did you see one?”
“No, I said it’s starting to rain. Slim said so too.”
“Why is everyone talking about rain?”
“’Cause it’s raining, I guess.”
“Outside?”
“It always rains outside.”
“Don’t get smart with me, soldier. I’m just trying to…”
Okay, let’s slow down and see if we can sort this out. A neutral observer, such as yourself, might have thought that you were listening in on a conversation between Mission Control and an orbiting spacecraft. And you might have thought that the space agency had finally come to its senses and recruited a top-of-the-line, blue-ribbon cowdog for its space program.
I’m sorry to disappoint you. What you heard was actually Drover and me, carrying on a fairly incoherent conversation in Slim’s living room.
To be perfectly honest, I must have fallen asleep. On guard duty. On my ranch. And so did my assistant.
Remember our discussion about how the Security Division had been working brutal hours, day and night? Well, it had finally caught up with me and I had slipped into a doze, dragged down by all the cares and worries of protecting my people, my ranch, my yard, my porch, and all the little children.
After a while, it adds up and we crash. A dog is only a dog.
It happens to dogs every day all over the world. It happens very seldom around here, but by George, once in a while, it happens. A dog is only…I’ve already said that. It’s nothing to be proud of, is the point, and I guess you’ve noticed that I’m embarrassed about this.
It really hurts, and I won’t try to hide behind a bunch of lame excuses. Drover and I had slacked our duties and had slept through the most dangerous part of the night. It was disgraceful, against Ranch Regulations, and I was so ashamed, I made a mental note to give Drover ten Chicken Marks.
I hate being hard on the men, but this business of sleeping on the job had to stop.
Anyway, we can call off the Code Red. Sometimes the mind plays tricks.
There, I’ve said it, and now you know a dark secret that I wasn’t anxious to share. I hope you will keep your trap shut and not spread it around. Thanks.
Where were we? Oh yes, the bananas. We’d just gotten a report that someone had hijacked a whole trainload of…wait, that was a bogus report, skip it. We knew nothing about trains or bananas.
Let’s get on with this. I pried my assistant out of bed and we rushed to the porch to get a closer look at this rare event. See, that year in the Texas Panhandle, rain was a very big deal.
Now we’re cooking.
Chapter Two: Drover Robs a Train
Sorry for all the confusion. It won’t happen again, not on my watch.
Show me a dog that sleeps his life away and I’ll show you a mutt that never solves a case.
Okay, Drover and I rushed to the screen door, assuming that Slim would be holding it open for us. Hey, dogs want to see rain just as much as people do, right? But the door was closed, so I gave it a shove with my…BONK…with my nose, but that didn’t work out so well. Ouch.
Behind me, Drover said, “It’s closed.”
“No kidding? I hardly noticed—as I bashed my nose into it. Why don’t you try to be helpful and nose it open yourself?”
“With my nose?”
I melted him with a glare. “Do you think you can nose it open with your ear?”
“I never thought about that.”
“Well, think about it. It’s impossible to nose open a door with anything but a nose.”
“How come?”
“Because…because that’s just the way things work in the Real World. Have you ever thought of joining the Real World?”
“Oh, I’m kind of busy right now.”
“Yes, I saw how busy you were—sleeping on the job and slurping your duty.”
“You mean shirking?”
“What?”
“You said I was slurping my duty, but I think you meant shirking.”
I could feel my temper rising. “I said you were slurping on the job and sleeping your duty! I can’t make it any plainer than that. Ten Chicken Marks for slurping your duty.”
“Oh drat.”
“Now open the nose with your door.”
“Yeah, but by doze is stobbed ubb.”
“Does anyone care if your doze is stobbed ub?”
“I guess not.”
“Nobody cares, so scratch on the screen with your foot.”
“Well, this old leg’s been giving me fits.”
“Never mind, get out of the way.”
I shoved him aside, faced the door, and began warming up the muscles in my enormous shoulders. This obstinate door was blocking our path to the porch and our Nose-Opening Procedures had failed. Slim needed to be informed that we were trapped inside the house, and I had no choice but to do Paw Scrapes on the screen.
I placed my right front paw on the screen, hit the Activate Claws button, and pulled my foot downward in a downward direction.
Skritch!
That got his attention. “Hey, meathead, quit scratching my screen door!”
Well, open it!
“We ain’t living in a boxcar.”
I never said we were living in a boxcar.
“If you shred up my screen, guess who has to replace it. Me.”
Boy, he sure gets bent out of shape over nothing.
“It wouldn’t hurt if you learned a few manners.”
Sigh.
“I guess you want out.”
Of course I wanted out! Why else would a dog scratch the screen?
At last, he appeared. Through the screen and in the gloom of morning, he looked…well, awful, what else can you say? Naked except for a pair of boxer shorts, bony, as pale as mayonnaise, and a buzzard’s nest of hair on top of his head.
Just for a moment, he reminded me of…well, Frankincense, the famous monster. Deep in my heart, I knew that he couldn’t possibly…on the other hand…yipes, he sure looked like Frankincense, and I mean down to the last grizzly detail!
You know, one of the things we learn in Security Work is that the world can be a very strange place, and we have to force ourselves to exercise caution. I mean, weird things happen all the time, and just because I thought this guy was Slim Chance didn’t mean…
Just to be on the safe side, I took a step backward and fired off a bark. It drew a rapid response.
“Dry up, will you?”
Okay, it was Slim. Whew.
He jerked open the door. “House-wrecker.”