牧羊犬案 英文名著｜第7章

Oaks, not oats. Mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow.

Anyways, it appeared that the winds of love had shifted and Beulah was craving my company. (It must have been my song that did the trick. Pretty good song, huh?)

All at once I felt fresh energy and a new zest for life galloping through my entire system. I shrugged off the terrible injury to my neck and head, and sprang like a deer into the back of the pickup.

Beulah was impressed. I could see that at a glance. Hey, no bird dog in history had ever jumped into a pickup with such grace and so forth.

But wouldn’t you know it? As soon as Drover saw me back there with Miss Beulah—and Beulah about to faint from the excitement of having me at her side—when Little Stub Tail saw all this, he was suddenly cured of his childish spasms.

He began running around in circles and tried several times to climb over the tail-end gate. He failed, of course, but managed to leave several scratch marks on Billy’s pickup.

“Hank, wait, I want up there too!”

I gave him a withering glare. “I’m afraid not, son. Two’s a company and three’s a corporation. Beulah and I need some time alone . . .” I gave her a sly wink. “. . . and this would be an excellent time for you to do something constructive. For example, you might want to go chase your tail.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have a tail. It got chopped off when I was a pup.”

“Life is hard, Drover, and often unfair. Be glad they chopped off your tail and not your head. And above all, scram.”

“Yeah, but I want to be with Beulah. I think she likes me.”

“She’s just being polite, Drover.”

“Oh drat.”

“And we’ll have no more of your naughty language. Now, run along, and have a good day.”

He whined and moaned and went padding off to the gas tanks. I watched him for a moment and took note of a rather important detail: He wasn’t limping.

Well, having disposed of Drover and his . . . imagine him thinking that Beulah liked HIM . . . I turned to the Lady of My Dreams, wiggled my eyebrows, and . . . HUH? It appeared that she had, uh, moved to the front and was watching the sporting event, so to speak. I joined her.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, my lamb, but I had to take care of some unfinished business.”

Her eyes swung around to me. They were sparkling. “He’s working.”

“What?”

“Plato.”

“Oh. Yes. Him.”

“He’s out in front of the men, and look at him go!”

I tossed a glance toward the Birdly Wonder, and two words rushed to my mind: Big Deal. Of course I didn’t say this aloud. I knew that Beulah had some slight affection for the creep . . . uh, for the bird dog . . . for Plato, shall we say, and I didn’t wish to scoff at the utter stupidity of his . . .

I didn’t want to poke fun at his occupation, is the point.

“You know, Beulah, I’m fairly affluent in birding myself.”

“How nice.”

I took this opportunity to move a bit closer to her. Heh, heh. “Perhaps you weren’t aware of that.”

“No.”

“But it’s true. The study of birds is called ‘Birdathology,’ from the root-word ‘bird’ and the rootless-word ‘athology.’”

She scooted away from me and said, “Shhhh.”

“Sorry.” We watched in silence for several minutes. “He doesn’t seem to be finding any quail.” I scootched over in her direction.

“He will. He always does. Just watch.”

She scootched over to the east. Gee, the way she was squirming around, she must have been as bored as I was.

I tried to concentrate on the exciting events that were unfolding along the creek—Plato streaking back and forth with his nose to the ground and his tail stuck straight out behind him.

Big deal. I was dying of boredom.

“Beulah, I must tell you something very important. It’s going to come as a terrible shock.”

That worked. She tore her gaze away from the hunt.

“What?”

“Well, Beulah, I happen to know that your friend . . . Plato, that is, won’t find any birds along the creek. I monitor the comings and goings of our quail population rather closely, you see, and I happen to know . . .”

“Oh look! He’s found something.”

I narrowed my eyes and studied the scene. Sure enough, Plato had locked down into a pointing position, as though he had been transformed into a cement statue.

I took this opportunity to move a bit closer to her warm side.

“Beulah, I hate to be the messenger of bad news, but I’ve been through that creek bottom dozens of times, hundreds of times, and know every grain of sand and every sprig of grass, and I’ve never seen a quail down there. I’m sorry. I know he’s a friend of yours, but . . .”

WHIRRRRRR!

Birds? Twenty or thirty quail?

She turned to me with a smile. “See? I knew he’d find birds.” She scooted east.

I found myself coughing. “Yes, I also thought he might stumble across that one covey . . . we’ve been watching it for, uh, weeks now and . . .”

Down below, I heard the men shouting, “Good dog, Plato! Nice work, boy.”

Okay, so maybe he’d lucked into finding the only covey of quail along that section of the creek. Any mutt could find one covey. The real test would come in finding another—and I knew for a fact that there wasn’t one.

And just to prove it, I scooted a bit closer to . . . my goodness, she had lovely brown eyes!

“Beulah, I’m a dog of few words, so let’s go straight to the bottom line. I think the time has come for you to . . .”

“He’s picked up another scent. See how he’s slowed down?”

“It’s a rabbit, Beulah. Don’t get your hopes up. But as I was saying, I’m a dog of few words.”

“Good.”

“So we agree on that. The problem with dogs these days is that they talk too much.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And what I have to say won’t take long. You see, I think our relationship has reached a turning point, and the time has come, my buttercup, for you to . . .”

“Hank, I keep hearing your voice.”

“That’s wonderful news, my cactus flower, because I often hear yours—in my dreams.”

“Yes, but this is no dream.”

“Oh, it could be, my little bluebonnet. Our fondest dreams are within our grasp. All we have to do is . . .”

“Shhh. Look, he’s on point again.”

“Who? Oh, him.” Sure enough, What’s-His-Name had turned to stone once again. “You know, he’s going to get in trouble for pointing those rabbits. But as I was saying . . .”

WHIRRRR!

By George, the weeds just came alive with whirring wings and flying birds. Beulah turned to me and smiled.

“As you were saying?”

“Beulah, I don’t think those were actually quail. They looked more like, uh, blackbirds or starlings. Really.”

“They were quail.”

“Okay, maybe they were quail, but they were stupid quail. A smart quail would be up in the sand draws, where it belongs.”

“A quail is a quail.”

“I never denied that.”

“And Plato found them. It won’t hurt you to admit that he’s good at his work.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll admit that he’s one lucky bird dog.”

“Hank.”

“And he’s pretty good at his line of work, although . . .”

“Hank, shh. Let’s watch.”

We turned our respective eyes to the south and watched The Hero at work. He was running again, sniffing out every bush and clump of grass.

Hadn’t we seen all this before?

I was getting restless. My time with Beulah was slipping away. I decided to make my move.

I scootched myself closer, ever closer, to her warm wonderful side and . . . my goodness, we must have run out of room on her side of the . . . she more or less fell out of the back of the . . . uh, pickup, you might say.

“Oh dear,” I said, looking down at her as she picked herself up off the ground. “You fell out . . . I guess.”

She beamed a rather hostile gaze in my direction. “You pushed me out!”

“It was an accident, Beulah, honest. I just wanted . . .”

“You wanted my attention, but you can’t have it. Don’t you understand? I want to watch Plato at work.”

“No, I don’t understand that. You have a cowdog right here beside you, so how could you have any interest in a bird dog? It doesn’t make sense, Beulah.”

She sighed and shook her head. “I can’t explain it, and even if I could, you wouldn’t accept it.”

“Would you like me better if I ran around chasing birds? Okay, if that’s what it takes, that’s what I’ll do. Good-bye, Beulah, I’m going away to prove that I’m a better bird dog than Plato. When I return, you’ll see the truth at last.”

“Oh Hank, honestly!”

I leaped out of the pickup and stormed away. She tried to call me back but by then my heart had turned to purest stone.

I left her alone with her tears and memories, and went in search of Pete the Barncat.