Slim's Goodbye. John R. Erickson
Hank. I touched base and made it in time for scraps. Are you proud of me?”
I gave him a glare. “You bet. I was worried sick you might not make it.”
“Gosh, thanks. And you waited on the scraps until I got here, huh?”
“Oh yes. It wouldn’t have been fair if I’d gotten all the . . . Drover, did you touch base once or twice?”
“Well, let’s see. Once. That’s what you said.”
“Darn. I guess I forgot to tell you.”
His grin vanished. “Tell me what?”
“Well, you’re supposed to touch base twice. I thought you knew that. I mean, I thought everybody knew that. It’s common knowledge.”
“It is?”
“Sure. If you touch base only once . . . well, I’m sure you can guess what might happen.”
“Is it bad?”
“Oh yes, very bad. It’s so bad, I can’t even say it out loud.”
He was looking worried by this time. “Gosh. Can you whisper it?”
“Better not. Just try to imagine the worst thing that might happen.”
He thought about it for a minute. “Not that.”
“Yes, Drover. That.”
“That would be awful.”
“See? Didn’t I tell you? It just doesn’t pay to cut corners.”
“Yeah, and maybe I’d better run back down there and touch base again.”
I gave him a wink and a nod. “Great idea, Drover. And what makes it even greater is that you came up with it on your own.”
“Yeah, I feel so proud. Maybe I’m smarter than I thought.”
“Oh? How smart did you think you were?”
“Not very.”
“I think you’re on the right trail, son.”
“Thanks, Hank. Here I go!”
And with that, he went zooming back down to the gas tanks, which left me and Little Alfred with all the, heh heh, scraps. I turned to him and switched into a little routine we call I’ll Die If I Don’t Get Those Scraps. It seemed to be working. He plucked a juicy fatty end of bacon off the plate and was about to toss it into the air when . . . oops. She was still there.
Madame Radar.
Alfred’s mother.
Sally May. “Alfred! Wait for the cat. Here kitty kitty kitty. Come on, Petey, come for scraps.”
We waited. I hate waiting, and the kind of hating I wait the most is waiting for a cat. What a waste of time. What a waste of good scraps. I really dislike cats a lot.
Well, at last Pete showed himself. Do you think he came running? Oh no. If he hadn’t been called, he would have come out of the bushes like a little rocket, and he’d have been crawling all over Alfred to mooch some scraps. But since he’d been called, since we had all been forced to wait for His Worthless Highness, he came at a slow walk.
He was purring, of course, and wearing that grin that drives me nuts. He stepped out of the iris patch and rubbed his way down the side of the house until he reached the porch. There, he rubbed against the northwest corner of the porch and waltzed down the sidewalk until he came to Sally May. He made three circles around her, rubbing on her legs as though he loved her so much he just couldn’t contain himself.
The little fraud. He knew we couldn’t eat until he got there. He knew I was dying of bacon lust. He knew he had a captive audience and that he had become the center of attention, so naturally he was playing it for all it was worth, enjoying every second of the torment he was causing.
That’s a cat for you, a totally selfish egomechanic. They love to torment others, you know, and to mooch scraps. And Pete was the most shameless scrap-moocher I’d ever known.
Well, as he was circling Sally May’s ankles, he was also tossing winks and grins in my direction. Oh yes, I saw the whole shabby deal, and I knew exactly what the little sneak was up to. He wanted to get me stirred up, see, right there in front of Sally May.
Ha! Little did he know that I had already plotted out my response. I had a plan for Pete. I was ready for him this time.
See, a lot of dogs—and we’re talking here about your lower grades of ranch dogs, the kind that never rise through the ranks to become Heads of Ranch Security—a lot of your ordinary ranch mutts would have fallen for Pete’s sneakiness like a hill of beans.
The thing you have to remember about cats, and Pete in particular, is that they’re not very smart, but they’re not very smart in a cunning sort of way. There’s a certain cleverness about them, and a guy needs to approach them with caution. You have to guard yourself against overconfidence, is the main thing.
Just because they’re dumb doesn’t mean they can’t get you into trouble.
Well, I had gone to school on cats. I had spent hours and days and years studying their tactics, analyzing their schemes and tricks, and preparing defenses against them. You’ve heard of chess? Well, we dogs are chess players. It requires patience and huge reserves of brain power, and when we go one-on-one against a cat in the Chess Game of Life, the poor cat doesn’t have a chance.
Heh heh. I was ready for the little sneak. Yes sir, I could read his thoughts like a book.
On the third or fourth trip around Sally May’s ankles, he turned his grinning face in my direction and said, “Hi, Hankie. Are you waiting for someone?”
I must admit that his whiny voice caught me slightly off guard. My ears leaped to Attack Position and a growl began to rumble in my throat. But don’t worry. I caught it just in the nickering of time and got everything shut down before any serious damage was done. I don’t think Sally May heard or saw any of it, is how quickly I responded to the crisis.
Hencely, instead of growling and so forth, I gave him a pleasant smile. “Why Pete, how nice to see you this morning. And yes, we’re waiting for you to come and share the scraps.”
“What a sweet doggie! I never knew you believed in sharing.”
“Oh yes, Pete. I enjoy sharing. I love sharing. Sharing is what this old life is all about.”
“But I know how you hate to . . . wait.” He grinned and wiggled his stupid . . . wiggled his eyebrows, I should say, which didn’t bother me at all. “Waiting has always been hard for you, hasn’t it Hankie?”
“Oh no, not really. I have my thoughts to keep me occupied.”
“That fills the first two seconds. Then what?”
I gave him a wise chuckle. “Pete, you’re losing your touch. I know what you’re trying to do, and it just won’t work. Sorry.”
At that moment, Sally May interrupted us. “All right, Alfred, now you can give out the scraps, and start with Pete.”
I beamed her a dark glare. What was the deal? Who’d gotten there first, who’d been waiting patiently for . . . but I didn’t care who got first scraps. I could be a gentleman about it—and hope that Pete choked on his scraps.
Alfred tweezed a juicy end of bacon between his thumb and . . . why had he picked the biggest, fattiest piece? That didn’t seem right or fair. Who’d been . . . but I didn’t care.
(See, not caring was an important part of my plan. Maybe you’d already picked that up.)
Anyway, Alfred held the bacon in front of Pete’s nose. He sniffed at it, stared at it with those big yellowish eyes of his, and