The Case of the Double Bumblebee Sting by John R. Erickson

Author:John R. Erickson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: cowdog, Hank the Cowdog, John R. Erickson, John Erickson, ranching, Texas, dog, adventure, mystery, Hank, Drover, Pete, Sally May
Publisher: Maverick Books, Inc.
Published: 2015-05-07T17:07:47+00:00

Have we discussed miller moths? I really dislike them a lot. Or to put it another way, I HATE ’em. I mean, here is a bug that can’t even fly in a straight line! They fly in those crazy spirals, bump into things, and somehow they always manage to get into your face.

I have been known to watch them for minutes at a time, and then to snap them right out of the air. Shooting down millers is very satisfying, but not for long because they’re covered with this powder, this brown dust that tastes awful.

“He who biteth a miller moth soon spitteth.”

Have you ever heard that old saying? Maybe not, because I just made it up, heh heh, and I think it’s pretty good. It’s definitely true.

I love to blast ’em out of the sky, but the taste that follows is no fun at all. It makes a guy have second thoughts about blasting them out of the sky, is what it does, and this time, in the pickup, I merely observed.

I observed them flying their stupid spirals, bouncing off the windshield and the roof and the window glass; accomplishing absolutely nothing, contributing nothing to the good of the world; buzzing around my face and leaving a trail of miller dust everywhere they went—in other words, being totally worthless.

I watched this with mounting rage and irritation, but chose not to snap them out of the air. Why? Simple. First, my face was much too swollen to be an effective snapping device, and second, I had no wish to repeat the follies of my past. I had already learned my lessons on biting millers: Don’t.

Well, Sally May coughed on the dust, fanned the air, and managed to bat two of the millers out the window. “I will never drive this pickup again, never! Alfred, try not to breathe the dust.”

“What should I bweeve?”

“I don’t know, but try not to breathe the dust. Stick your head out the window until it settles.”

He stuck his head out the window. At that same moment, one of the crazed millers landed in Baby Molly’s lap. I watched this closely to see what she would do. I had a feeling that she might . . .

Uh-huh, she did. She snatched up the miller in her fat little fist and ate it. She chewed it three times, made a sour face, and spit it out. The miller ended up hanging by a wing on the point of her chin.

I saw the whole thing and had a pretty strong suspicion that Sally May wouldn’t approve. I whined and thumped my tail, which succeeded in pulling her eyes away from the road.

When she saw that brown ring of miller dust around her baby daughter’s mouth, and the dead bug hanging off her chin, she almost had a stroke and a wreck at the same time.

“Molly, nasty miller, nasty! Spit, spit.”

By the time Mom had gotten all the nastiness wiped off of Molly’s mouth and chin, the pickup had wandered off the side of the road and into the ditch and was heading toward a big cottonwood tree.

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