Slim's Good-Bye by John R. Erickson

Author:John R. Erickson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Hank the Cowdog
ISBN: 9781591881346
Publisher: Puffin
Published: 2000-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight: Survivest of the Fiddles

You’ll be relieved to know that Slim didn’t leave us in Leonard’s Saddle Shop. He stood outside a moment, then stuck his head back inside.

“Leonard, maybe you’d better tell me where this place is located.”

Leonard snapped his fingers and strode over to the counter and dashed off some directions. He handed them to Slim and pushed him out the door again. When Slim was gone, he shook his head and sighed. “That boy’s got tar in his veins.” Just then, he saw us sitting by the stove. He ran to the door. “Hey! You forgot your dogs.”

Slim shrugged, turned around, and came back inside. “Well, you’re so dadgum pushy, you made me forget. Come on, dogs, we’ll take our business somewhere’s else.”

“Right. Take your business to my worst enemy.”

We dogs went slinking past him. We slinked . . . slank . . . whatever . . . because we didn’t trust the guy. Sure enough, as we went by, he made kind of a monkey face at me. I growled and sprinted out the door.

Outside on the street, Slim looked up at the winter clouds and heaved a deep sigh. “Boys, I’ve sunk about as low as a cowboy can sink. I sure wish I had my old job back.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets, kicked a rock out into the street, and we trudged back up the hill to the pickup. We dogs loaded into the back and Slim drove to a little grocery store down the street. He emerged fifteen minutes later, carrying a sack of groceries in one arm and a sack of dog food in the other, and we resumed our journey.

Slim found Leonard’s place in the country, but it wasn’t so easy. It was north and east of town, out in the middle of that heavy tamarack brush in the old river bottom. To reach it, we followed a winding two-track trail through the brush, and when the trail ended, we were there.

Slim got out and turned up the collar of his jacket. The wind had shifted to the north, gray clouds had moved overhead, and there was a feel of snow in the air. He dug his hands into his pockets and walked to the . . . uh . . . house. The trailer. The “cute little camper trailer.”

It resembled a tin can on two wheels, and both tires were flat. A long yellow extension cord ran from a utility pole, through a hole in the side, and into the house. That appeared to be the electrical service.

The trailer was blue. Or green. It was some faded color between blue and green, but mostly it was faded. Oh, and someone had cut a hole in the roof and run a joint of stovepipe out the top, a hint that it was heated with a wood-burning stove.

The trailer sat in a grove of chinaberry trees. The front porch consisted of a sheet of plywood perched on four cinder blocks.

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