Wagons West 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: 2016-03-17T20:26:04+00:00

“I can.”

I paced over to him and looked down into his face. “You? You think you can spell ‘geography’? That’s crazy.”

“Bet me?”

“Drover, I never take unfair advantage of my students.”

“The loser has to stand with his nose in the corner for thirty minutes.”

“The loser has to…ha ha…this is beyond ridiculous.” I paced a few steps away. The runt had caught me by surprise and I wasn’t sure…I paced back to him. “Okay, pal, you started this. Let’s take it all the way to the finish line. Go for it. Spell ‘geography.’”

He sat down, wiggled his stub tail, and squeezed his face into a wad of wrinkles. “George…Eat…Old…Gray…Rat…At…Poppa’s…House…Yesterday.”

“Yes? And so what? I don’t care about George or what he ate. Spell the word.”

“I just did, hee hee. You take the first letter of each word and put ‘em together: G-E-O-G-R-A-P-H-Y. Geography. Are you proud of me?”

Huh?

We don’t need to go into all the details, but let me state for the record that I wasn’t proud of him. He had used a sneaky trick against one of the few friends he had left in the world, and I, being a trusting soul, had taken the bait.

But let me also hasten to point out that I’m a Dog of My Word. I honor my pledges and pay off my gambling debts, no matter how badly it hurts. And you talk about HURT! You can’t imagine the pain I felt when I crept up to that angle-iron leg of the gas tanks, leaned forward, and stuck my nose into the corner.

Nothing in my career with the Security Division had prepared me for such a humildewed experience…such a humilifying experience…such a humiliation, let us say. It was awful. For thirty eternal minutes, I stood there, rubbing a sore on the end of my nose, while Drover hid in some weeds nearby and giggled like a monkey.

I couldn’t see the wretch, but I could hear him. “Hee hee hee! I can’t believe this. Hank’s standing with his nose in the corner! Tee hee hee.”

That really cut me to the crick. I mean, you put your heart and soul into helping your men and…phooey.

The good news is that I emerged from the experience a stronger dog, a wiser dog, a dog who had learned a valuable lesson about…something, and it was a very valuable lesson.

The better news was that, at the end of my thirty minutes of torture, Slim came out of the house and yelled, “Hank, come ‘ere! Chicken bones!”

I left the dungeon and went sprinting to the yard gate. By the time Slim got there, I was sitting and waiting, a patient, loyal dog, ready to receive his Chicken Bone Reward.

He opened the gate and held up something wrapped up in a paper napkin. “Are we pals again?”

Oh yes, pals forever!

“Can you catch a bone in the air?”

Does a dog have fleas?

“We’ll see.” He lifted a chicken leg-bone out of the napkin and held it up. “Okay, pooch, jump-ball.”

Bring it on!

He pitched it up into the air.

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