Lost in the Dark Unchanted Forest (2 page)

“Thanks, Hank.”

“And the next time you need someone to come to your rescue, call a cat.”

I flopped down on my gunnysack. Everything hurt, especially my pride. For a dog, there is nothing to compare with the humilification of being pounded by a sniveling cat—even a big sniveling cat.

I cancelled night patrol and went to sleep.

Chapter Two: The Giant Baldheaded Lizard

I
awoke the next morning at the crack of noon. What woke me was the sound of a car coming down the road towards the house.

I leaped to my feet and . . . oh mercy! . . . was suddenly reminded that only hours before I had been mauled by a bobcat. I limped and hobbled out to challenge the trespassers and . . . oh, it was Loper and Sally May, back from their trip to Hospital, wherever that was.

When I realized that we had a friendly car coming onto the ranch, I shifted out of Serious Barking Mode and limped out to greet them.

Loper got out and rubbed me on the head. “You've got ticks,” he said, and went around to the other side of the car.

He opened the door and helped Sally May out. She was carrying something in her arms, something wrapped up in a pink blanket.

Drover had joined me by then and he saw it too. “What's that?”

“Groceries, what do you think?”

“I thought groceries came in a brown sack.”

“Most of the time they do, Drover, but now and then they wrap them up in pink blankets.”

“Oh.”

Sally May was smiling, beaming. I'd never seen her in such a good humor. Those must have been pretty good groceries. I figgered this might be a good time to mend a few fences, so to speak, with the lady of the house, so I went around to the other side of the car.

“Oh look, Molly, there's old Hank, and there's little Drover.”

That was odd. She seemed to be speaking to the groceries. But that was okay because she was still smiling. As long as Sally May's smiling and not throwing rocks, I don't care what she talks to.

“Dogs,” she said, “I've brought home a special surprise for you.”

I glanced at Drover. “You see? She went to the grocery store and got us some nice juicy bones.”

“Oh good! Boy, do I like bones!”

“But I get first dibs, son. Don't forget who's in charge here.”

Sally May uncovered the top part of the bundle and bent down so that we could . . . 

When I saw what was inside that blanket, fellers, the hair shot up on my back and my throat began making a sound that was something between a growl and a gurgle.

Holy smokes!
Sally May had brought home a giant lizard from the grocery store!

Well, you know me. When confronted with something new and ugly and terrible, I don't just stand there looking foolish.
I bark
.

Yes indeed, I barked. I had no idea why Sally May had brought that thing home or what she planned to do with it, but I staked out my territory and barked up a storm. And just in case the lizard attacked, I also retreated a few steps.

You know what Sally May and Loper did? They started
laughing
. Beat anything I ever saw. I mean, they had just brought a strange and possibly dangerous animal onto the ranch, and then . . . 

Sally May gave me another look at the thing's head, which was unnecessary because I'd already seen all I needed to see. “Hank, don't be silly. It's just a baby.”

“It's just a baby,” Drover said.

I glared at the runt. “I seem to be hearing an echo.”

“No, that was me. I said . . .”

“I heard what you said and I heard what she said, and you don't need to repeat everything you hear. I'm not deaf and that's no baby. It's the first full-grown Giant Baldheaded Lizard I've ever seen on this ranch.”

“But Hank, it's not a lizard. It's Sally May's new baby.”

HUH?

I studied the creature again: two eyes, two ears, one mouth, one nose, red skin, and wrinkles, and inside the blanket, two arms, two legs, and a nightgown.

Hmmmmm. The pieces of the puzzle were beginning . . . okay, maybe it wasn't a . . . let's put it this way: that was a very strange looking baby, and any dog who was in charge of Ranch Security would have . . . 

“All right, Drover, I think I've got this thing puzzled out. Sally May went to the town of Hospital and bought herself a baby at the grocery store. Instead of putting it in a brown paper sack, as they usually do, they wrapped it up in a pink blanket, and what we have here before us now is NOT a lizard.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“It's a human baby child.”

“That's what I said.”

“And we can only hope that the poor little thing gets more attractive with time, because it certainly looks like a Giant Baldheaded Lizard to me.”

“I think she's kind of cute.”

“Anyone with a face like yours would think that a lizard was cute.”

Sally May bent down and held the thing, uh, the baby up where I could see it, her, whatever it was. “Hank, this is Molly. And Molly, this is Hank. Hank, I want you to take good care of little Miss Molly. She's a real treasure.”

I eased my nose towards the face and sniffed it several times. Okay, what we had here was a human baby child, a girl named Molly. She belonged to Sally May and Loper, and right then and there I took an oath to protect and defend her against monsters, snakes, and other crawling things. Even bobcats.

And to seal the oath, I licked her on the face. For some reason, the little creature let out a squall.

Sally May must not have understood the im­portance of this gesture or the seriousness of the occasion, for she jerked the baby back and shrieked at me.

“DON'T LICK MY BABY, YOU MORON!” Then Loper came thundering up. “Hank, for crying out loud, don't lick the baby!”

I tucked my tail between my legs and re­treated a few steps, and then Drover, the little goof, said, “You better not lick the baby.”

I glared at him. “Drover, you needn't repeat the obvious.”

“Yeah, but you licked her on the face with your tongue and that's not nice.”

“Would it have been nicer if I'd licked her on the foot with my ear?”

He rolled his eyes. “Well, I don't know about that.”

“The answer is no, it wouldn't have been nicer. It would have been impossible. Her foot was covered up and my ears don't lick. I did what I could do with what I had, and no dog could have done more than that.”

“Yeah, but you could have done less.”

“Exactly my point. And now we come to the final summation of everything I've been saying.”

“Oh good. What is it?”

“Shut your little trap.”

“Oh, well that sure sums it up.”

Sally May carried her baby into the house and Loper followed with a bunch of suitcases and bags. They left Little Alfred, who was four years old, out in the yard. He was wearing a pair of striped overalls and had his hands stuck in the pockets.

Also, I noticed that his lower lip was sticking out. He didn't look very happy, seemed to me, and I went over to cheer him up. He kicked a rock and looked at me.

“I don't wike that baby. I want to take her back to the hospito.”

Well, I had a little talk with the boy and tried to explain things to him. Me and Alfred were special pals, see. I'd helped raise the boy and we'd always been able to talk things over.

“Son,” I said, “I know that your little sister ain't very pretty right now, and she makes a lot of noise, but she'll grow out of it and one of these days you'll be proud to have her on the place.”

“No I won't. You don't care about me and you're not my fwiend anymore and I don't wike you either. And I'm going to hit you.”

I wagged my tail and tried to . . . 

Would you believe it? The little snot slapped me right across the nose! If anybody else had done that, fellers, I would have removed his arm and half a leg. But you might recall that, many years before, I had taken the Cowdog Oath and sworn never to bite a child—even one that deserved it.

So I didn't bite him. And he hit me again. And then he grabbed my tail and started dragging me around the yard. I had seen him do this to Pete the Barncat on several occasions and had, well, enjoyed it, you might say.

But that had been a different deal entirely. When he'd been dragging Pete around, that had been good wholesome entertainment because, after all, what else is a cat good for? But this time, with me on the short end of the stick, so to speak,
it hurt
.

Oh, it did hurt! My tail is a very sensitive and expressive communication device, and it was never intended to be pecked by chickens, stepped on by cowboys, or pulled by bratty little boys. I mean, Alfred was putting my Cowdog Oath to the test, and if I'd had just a smidgen less of iron discipline . . . 

I squalled. I cried. I moaned. Heck, a guy has to do something to protect himself from these little monsters.

It was my good fortune that Sally May had good ears. She came flying out the back door, sized up the situation with one sweep of her eyes, and marched over to Little Alfred.

“Alfred, what on earth are you doing?”

He gave her a nasty little grin. “I'm pwaying wiff Hank.”

“You're
hurting
Hank. Hank doesn't like for you to pull his tail. Now let go, right now!”

The boy let go of my tail. “I don't wike Hank. He's a dummy.”

Oh yeah? Well, I could have come up with a few choice names for him, too.

Sally May took him by the shoulders and gave him a shake. “If you can't be nice to Hank, you can't play with him. You play quietly with your trucks while we put Molly down for a nap.”

Alfred glared up at her and stuck out his lip. “I don't wike Mah-wee either!”

“Hush now. Mommy will be right out to play with you.”

She went back into the house. When she was out of hearing range, Alfred made a spitting sound with his lips. Then he made another grab for me, but this time he was half a step too slow. I went sprinting out of the yard and picked up Drover at the gate.

“Come on, Drover, let's get out of here.”

I didn't know what had come over the boy and I didn't care to find out. I figgered it was time to let Little Alfred stew in his own tomatoes.

Chapter Three: Swimming Lessons for Pete

W
e went sprinting up the hill, trotted past the chicken house, scattered the chickens, and went to the machine shed.

I've always enjoyed scattering chickens. Even on days when I'm in a bad mood and nothing seems to be going right, I can run through a bunch of chickens and, I don't know, it just seems to give new meaning to my life.

I was still feeling sore from my beating the previous night, and also hungry, so I spent several minutes crunching Co-op dog food from the overturned Ford hubcap which serves as our bowl.

Many times I've wondered how much it would cost the ranch to buy us a real bowl, instead of a nasty hubcap that retains the taste of axle grease. Yes, I know. Grass is short and cattle prices are down, but I also know that the cowboys on this outfit eat out of plates and bowls, not hubcaps.

It's funny to me that there always seems to be enough grass and enough cattle market to buy plates for
them,
but you mention buying anything decent for the Head of Ranch Security, and suddenly we're in the midst of a drought and a plague and a depression!

I mean, the cattle market has fallen off the edge of the world and there ain't a sprig of grass left in the pastures and everybody's going around in rags and their toes are poking out of the holes in their boots and they're having to boil tree bark to feed the children.

It makes a guy think that the people in charge don't realize just how important their dogs are to the overall . . . oh well.

I ate dog food out of the hubcap and tried not to think of all the injustices in the world. Too much brooding can ruin your digestion, and life without digestion is . . . something. Unbearable. Full of burps. Hard to bear.

Yes, we crunched our dog food: hard, dry, yellowish kernels that come in a fifty pound sack. Some­times I wonder what kind of stuff they put into those kernels, and other times I'd just as soon not know.

I noticed that Drover was making a lot of noise. “Do you suppose you could be a little quieter in chewing your food?”

“Well, I don't know, Hank. It's pretty hard.”

“Of course it is. It's always harder to eat with manners than to eat with the wild abandon of a hog, but who wants to sound like a hog?”

“Not me.”

“Hogs make no pretense at being civilized, Drover. They crunch and smack and grunt, and nobody cares because they're only hogs who eat like pigs.”

“That makes sense.”

“But we're not hogs, Drover. We aspire to something higher and better. We try to bring a certain air of dignity to the ritual of eating. The act of imposing dignity on the chaos of experience is called
civilization,
and protecting civilization has always been hard.”

“Yeah, but I meant the kernels were hard.”

“Oh.”

“Hard to chew.” He crunched a kernel.

“Yes, I see what you . . .” I crunched a kernel, “mean. They are hard, aren't they? In fact, they hurt my teeth.”

“Yeah, and they hurt my gums.”

“You shouldn't be chewing gum while you eat, Drover. Not only do you run the risk of swallowing it and gumming up your entrails, but it's also in very poor taste.”

“Yeah, it tastes kind of like sawdust to me.”

“Exactly. But taste and manners are like grease in the ball bearings of experience. Without the grease, we would have nothing but friction and disharmony.”

“You reckon they add a little grease to improve the taste?”

“There's no explaining taste, Drover. Some dogs have it and some don't. Those of us who do, and I include myself in that group, have the added burden of defending it against the endless assaults of the mindless rubble.”

“Yeah, and the chickens.”

At that very moment, a chicken came up to our dog bowl and appeared to be thinking of pecking into our food. I lowered my head, lifted my lips, exposed my teeth, and snarled.

“Get away from our food, you feather merchant!”

She squawked and ran, and we went back to our eating. Drover wore a big grin on his face as he smacked and crunched.

“Boy, we're pretty good at defending our taste, even if it tastes like sawdust.”

“Someone has to do it, Drover, and it might as well be us.”

All at once we heard a commotion coming from somewhere down below. My ears, which are very sensitive and operate pretty muchly independent of the rest of my body, picked up the sound, and within seconds had passed the information along to Data Control.

There the sound was analyzed, broken down into vectors and parameters, and given a specific location. The mental printout which appeared behind my eyes contained this brief message:

“DISTRESSED CAT NEAR SEPTIC TANK.”

I went on eating. We respond to most distress calls at once, but a cat in distress can always wait until we finish our meal.

But then I heard the back door slam. I paused, switched my ears from automatic to manual, lifted them a half-inch, and opened the exterior flaps to increase their sound gathering capacity.

Footsteps on the sidewalk. The squeak of the yard gate. The snap of the gate latch. Footsteps on gravel. Sally May's voice.

“Alfred? Alfred? Where did you go?”

More footsteps on the gravel, moving down the hill towards the gas tanks. “REEEEEEEER!” That was the cat again, no problem there. Ah ha! A splashing sound. A child laughing. Then Sally May again.

“Alfred! What on earth?”

I sighed and stood up. “Swallow your food, Drover, we've got a Code Three down at the septic tank.”

Drover had a mouthful. “Acktock cwqbhd sclcke bdkdkejald.”

“I can't understand you. Your mouth is full.”

“Cvkwlcled ckwoeidke bjeildhck flwe.”

“Swallow, clear your moth . . . your mouth, that is, and try it again.”

He chewed and swallowed hard. “I said, my mouth is full.”

“No, it's clear now. I'm getting a good copy on you.”

“I know, I just swallered what it was full of.”

“I know you just swallered it. That's what I told you to do, that's what you did, so what's the problem?”

“I don't know. My mouth was full and I couldn't talk and that's what I was trying to tell you.”

“You tried to tell me but your mouth was full and you weren't able to communicate your message, is that correct?”

“Yeah, that's exactly what happened.”

“So . . . what is the point of this discussion?”

“I don't know. Don't run around when your mouth's full or you might choke . . . I guess.”

I glared at the runt. “You're taking the time to tell me
that
when we've got a Code Three down at the septic tank?”

“I was just minding my own business and trying to eat and . . .”

“Drover, sometimes I think . . . never mind. We've got a job to do. Stay behind me and let's move out!”

We went streaking away from the machine shed, down the hill, past the gas tanks, and towards the overflow of the septic tank. There the scene unfolded before us.

Little Alfred had just pitched the cat into the overflow of the septic tank. The cat appeared to be waterlogged and angry. His ears were flattened against his head and water dripped off his chin. He bounded through the shallow water until he reached dry land, where he stood dripping water and glaring daggers at anyone who cared to look at his sorry condition.

Little Alfred was laughing, but when he saw his mother pick up an elm switch his smile suddenly vanished. Sally May snatched him up, turned him over her knee, and dusted the seat of his britches.

She turned him loose and stood over him. “You're just being terrible today! I don't know what's gotten into you, but I won't allow a child of mine to be cruel to dumb animals.”

(She was referring to Pete there.)

“First you pulled Hank's tail and then you threw poor Pete into the water. That's not nice, young man, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

“Well,” Alfred sniffled, “he needed a baff.”

“Cats don't bathe in water, Alfred, they wash themselves with their tongues.”

“Well . . . his tongue was dirty.”

“No, his tongue was not dirty. You were just being mean and cruel, and I've got a new baby in the house and I can't be watching you every minute of the day. If you don't play nice, you'll have to come inside and take a nap.”

She started back towards the house. When she passed me, she stopped and scowled. Maybe she noticed that I was, uh, smiling. I mean, tossing Pete into the septic tank ain't exactly my idea of a serious crime. Furthermore, it had been his cousin, Sinister, who had pulverized me the night before.

She shook her finger in my face. “And don't you be giving my child any more ideas about tormenting the cat, Hank McNasty.”

HUH? Who, me? Well, hey, I . . . 

“I know what you're thinking, and you'd better leave my cat alone. If I hear more yowling, I'll . . . I don't know what I'll do, but you'll be the first to find out.”

Yes ma'am.

She stormed back to the house. If she'd known what Little Alfred had on his mind, she wouldn't have left so soon.