“Okay, Swim, but huhwee up.”

  “Oh, I won’t be long. Y’all be good and stay out of mischief, hear? See you in a few minutes.”

  And with that, he walked into the store. When he opened the door we heard the sounds of men’s voices, followed by a loud CRACK. The sign on the front window of the store said, “Pool Hall.”

  “What’s a pool hall?” Drover asked.

  “It’s a big hall with a pool at one end.”

  “A pool of what?”

  “Water, of course. What else would you find in a pool?”

  “I don’t know. You think he’s going to swim?”

  “Well, I sure hope he swims. If he doesn’t, he’s liable to drown. Those pools can be pretty deep.”

  “Gosh, I wouldn’t want to go swimming in this cold weather.”

  “That’s good, Drover, because nobody invited you to swim. You were invited to stay at the pickup.”

  “That’s fine with me. I hate water anyway, especially in the winter.”

  We left the front of the swimming pool and wandered on down the street. Slim’s pickup was parked at the curb a short ways down. Little Alfred crawled up in the back and called us to join him. We sat down at the back of the pickup bed and watched the world go by.

  Whilst we were watching the cars and the people, I noticed that Drover had begun snapping at snowflakes. I mean, he really seemed to be getting a thrill out of it. For some reason, that irritated me.

  “Why are you doing that?”

  “Who, me? Oh, I don’t know. I never stopped to think about it.”

  “Well, stop and think about it. What’s the purpose of it? What good’s it doing?”

  “Well, let’s see.” He thought. “I don’t know.”

  “Think harder. If there’s a purpose behind it, I want to hear it. If there’s no purpose, you should quit.”

  “Well, okay, let me think here.” He thought again. “I’ve got it now. Every snowflake I catch in my mouth is one that won’t pile up on the street, so I guess I’m preventing snowdrifts.”

  “Preventing snowdrifts. Do you have any idea how many snowflakes you’d have to catch to prevent one snowdrift?”

  “Well, let me think here. How many flakes are in a drift?”

  “That depends on the size of the flakes.”

  “Big flakes.”

  “All right. Then it depends on the size of the drift.”

  “Big drift.”

  “Okay, there are a hundred and twenty-three big flakes in a big drift.”

  “I’ll be derned, how’d you know that?”

  “It’s common knowledge, Drover. You just have to know your weights and measures. For example, there are five toes in a foot, one foot in a boot, and three feet in a yard. There are five yards in a city block and ten blocks weigh a ton.”

  “I’ll swan. How many toes in a ton?”

  “A hundred and twenty-three, the same number as flakes in a drift.”

  “How’d you come up with that?”

  “Easy. You divide feet into toes, boots into feet, yards into boots, and multiply all that times four.”

  “How come four?”

  “Because four is the only whole number between three and five.”

  “Huh. I hadn’t thought of that. Do all numbers live in holes?”

  “No. Some do but some don’t. It just depends.”

  “Oh. Well, if all whole numbers don’t live in holes, what does?”

  “Prairie dogs, ground squirrels, and cottontail rabbits.”

  “How many rabbits in a hole?”

  “Four.”

  “Now, how’d you know that?”

  “I told you, Drover, four is a whole number. You’re making me repeat myself.”

  “Well . . . I still don’t understand how you can figger all that stuff in your head.”

  I placed a paw on his shoulder and looked him in the eyes. “The head, Drover, that’s the important thing. At last you’ve come to the crux of the core.”

  “What’s a crux?”

  “A crux is like a small crutch, and I think that’s all the time we have for weights and measures. If you have any more questions, we’ll take them up at another time.”

  “I’ve still got a few.”

  “In the meantime, go back to snapping snow­flakes. I’ve run the numbers on it and it appears that you might be able to prevent a snowdrift or two.”

  “Oh good. But I never dreamed that it could be so complicated.”

  “Everything’s complicated, Drover. If this world was simple, dogs like you might be running it.”

  “That’s kind of scary.”

  “Exactly.”

  Drover went back to snapping at snowflakes, only now he had a better idea of what he was doing and why he was doing it. Heavy-duty analysis has a way of bringing purpose to a guy’s work.

  He was snapping at snowflakes and Little Alfred and I were watching the world go by, when all of a sudden we heard a voice that came out of nowhere.

  It was a loud voice, a shrill voice, an angry voice, and it said—if I can remember the exact words—it said, “Junior! Son, I’m either tied up in a gunnysack or else I’ve gone blind!”

  Chapter Nine: Little Alfred Opens Pandowdy’s Box

  Iturned to Mister Snap-at-the-Snowflakes.

  “Did you just say something?”

  SNAP! “What?”

  “I said, ‘Did you just say something?’”

  “I said, ‘What?’”

  “No, before that, something about being blind or tied up in a gunnysack?”

  “Well, let’s see.” SNAP! “Got ’im! That snow­flake won’t make a drift.”

  “Concentrate, Drover, this could be important. Unless I’m badly mistaken, what we have here is The Case of the Mysterious Blind Man’s Voice.”

  “Gosh.” SNAP! “Got another one.”

  “Did you say anything about being blind?”

  “I don’t think so. If I said anything, it was probably about snowflakes.” SNAP! “Boy, this is fun.”

  My interrogation of Drover was leading nowhere. I was pretty muchly convinced that he was telling the truth and that the mysterious voice hadn’t been his. And it had been too low and too loud to have come from Little Alfred.

  That left . . . well, nobody but ME as a suspect, and I was almost positive that . . . suddenly I noticed a gunnysack on the bed of the pickup. IT WAS MOVING!

  You think I didn’t let out a bark? You think the hair on my back and neck didn’t stick straight up? Hey, any time I see a gunnysack moving around on the bed of a pickup . . . I mean, that ain’t natural. Gunnysacks don’t move around unless . . .

  Oh.

  I’d almost . . .

  Let me rephrase what I just said about the so-called mysterious voice and the movable gunnysack. I wouldn’t want to be quoted out of contacts.

  What you supposed was a mysterious voice, coming out of nowhere, actually belonged to Wallace the Buzzard. You had probably forgotten that we had left him tied up in a gunnysack, see, and . . .

  It was the buzzard, that’s the point. He had made the voice and he had caused the gunnysack to move around. I wanted to clear that little de­tail up before we went any further.

  Just as I had suspected, Wallace the Wounded Buzzard had begun to stir in his sack. He was calling for Junior, and it appeared that he wanted out.

  I looked at Little Alfred and he looked at me. “It’s the buzzood!”

  Heh. It had taken the boy a while to catch on. He was a little slow on the draw, but heck, he was only a kid. You have to give these kids a little time to develop their . . .

  Alfred stood up and walked over to the sack. It was wiggling around. “Do you weckon I should wet him out? Maybe the poor buzzood can’t bweeve.”

  Uh . . .

  Letting the buzzard out of the sack didn’t strike me as a real good idea, not at that particular moment. I mean, we were parked in the middle of town, right? And Slim hadn’t come out of the swimming pool yet, and . . .

  No. Opening the sack was a BAD idea. There’s an old saying about squeezing toothpaste out of the tube or letting a cat out of the bag or opening Pandowdy’s Box or something like that, and although I can’t pull it out of the vapors right this minute, it’s an excellent old saying. But the point of it is that buzzards should be left in their sacks.

  However, Little Alfred had a mind of his own, and he went to fiddling with the tie string on the neck of the sack. I sat and watched, shook my head, whimpered, thumped my tail against the pickup bed, did everything I could to discourage the little stinkpot from doing what he was fixing to do.

  But he did it anyway.

  “Drover,” I said, “our little pal is fixing to open Pandowdy’s Box, and once the cat’s out of the bag we’ll never get him back in the toothpaste tube.”

  He stared at me and twisted his head to the side. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about a wreck.”

  “Oh. Was anybody hurt?” SNAP! “Got another one.”

  “Stand by for Battle Stations. I’ve got a feeling . . . ”

  As soon as the cake string fell away from the neck of the sack, Wallace emerged in all his flapping, squawking, buzzard glory.

  “Junior! Son, the scales have fell from my eyes and I can see the light, and, son, it’s a glorious light! It will light up the night, and it will light up the darkness, and it will light up a path for the people, and the people will come to the light, and they will be enlightened by that bright and shining light!”

  Little Alfred stared at the buzzard with big moon eyes. He turned to me and said, “Uh-oh.” And I nodded my head.

  He’d done it now. He’d let the buzzard out of the bag, and that buzzard showed signs of being at least two-thirds crazy. Wallace was awake and he was talking, but he still couldn’t fly and it appeared that he thought Alfred was his son Junior.

  That’s pretty crazy.

  “Son, all these years your old daddy has lived a wasteful life and has never cared about nobody but hisself and his next meal, but today, on this very spot and at this very moment, your old daddy has seen the light and has decided . . . to run for public office!”

  That caught Drover’s attention, and all at once he quit snapping at snowflakes. His head came around real slow.

  “Did you hear what I just heard?”

  “I heard it, Drover. Now ask me if I believe it.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  “Negative.”

  “Me too.”

  Little Alfred must have realized that he’d made a mistake, because he made a grab at the buzzard. But buzzards, even those that are wounded and dingy in the head, are big birds, and it takes more than a four-year-old boy to get one under control.

  For his efforts, Little Alfred got thrashed by Wallace’s wings. “Unhand me, son, this world of darkness and trouble is waiting for the news of my campaign for public office!”

  Wallace hopped and waddled his way toward the rear of the pickup bed. Drover and I happened to be in his path.

  “You can stop right there, Wallace,” I said. “This thing has gone . . .”

  He stuck his ugly beak into my face. “Dog, have you ever been throwed up on by a big, mean buzzard?”

  “Uh . . . no sir, can’t say as I have.”

  “Step aside before you are.”

  “Yes sir.”

  I stepped aside. Little Drover scrambled out of the way and took cover behind me. Wallace went to the back end of the pickup and called to a group of town dogs who happened to be walking past.

  The thought crossed my mind that he shouldn’t have done that. Those dogs were big and scruffy, and looked about half-mean.

  “Y’all come over here! That’s right, come on over and hear this important announcement which I’m a-fixing to make, for you see, this is a very important day in the history of this town and this world!”

  The dogs exchanged glances, smirked at each other, and came rumbling over. Uh-oh. It was Buster and Muggs and the other two hoodlums.

  “Wallace,” I said, “I think you’re about to . . .”

  “You hush up, pooch! You’ll never learn nuthin’ in this life as long as your mouth stays open.”

  “You’d better take your own advice, is my advice to you.”

  “I never take advice from a dog.” He turned back to the dogs who had gathered down below. “It gives me great pleasure, indeed GREAT pleasure to make the following public announcement to all the public and all the people and all the world, for I have seen the light and have made the most important decision of my life and your life.”

  There was a moment of silence. Wallace puffed himself up, threw back his head, and went on.

  “In this very place, at this very moment of this very day, after long years of silence on the many important issues of the times, I have decided to answer the call of my many, many friends and supporters . . . and run for the office of His Feathered Majesty.”

  Down below the thugs stared at him with open mouths. There was a moment of stunned silence. Then they all burst out laughing, and Buster turned to Muggs. “Say, who is this guy?”

  “I don’t know, Boss, but he looks like a turkey to me, and we ain’t got no Christmas turkey yet.”

  “Yeah, I see what you mean. Turkey for Christ­mas would be all right, wouldn’t it, Muggsie?”

  “Har har, yeah, sure would, and it was my idea too, wasn’t it, Boss, huh, wasn’t it, tell the truth?”

  “Shat up, Muggs.”

  Wallace went on with his speech.

  “Experience: that’s what I bring to this contest, friends and neighbors. Nobody in this race has more feathers than Wallace the Buzzard. I was born with feathers. I’ve wore ’em all my life, and I plan to leave this old world with my feathers on.

  “Where do I stand on the issues? I stand right here, and you have my solemn pledge that I will throw up on all ninnies that don’t vote the right way. I’m for cleaning the dead rabbits off these highways. I’m for adequate moisture. And you want to know what I’m against?”

  From down below there was a chorus of “NO!” That didn’t faze old Wallace. He was on a roll.

  “I’m against elm beetles! Elect me to this great office and I will, personally and single-handedly, lead a moral crusade against these corrupt agents who are killin’ our beautiful elm trees along the creek!

  “That’s my promise and that’s my pledge to you on this very day as I stand before you, a candidate for public office. If elected, I will pass a law against elm beetles!”

  The thugs were getting restless, and I could see that they had bad things in mind for a certain buzzard. Little Alfred must have seen it too. He climbed off the pickup bed and headed for the Swimming Pool Hall as fast as his little legs would carry him.

  Not a bad idea, because I had a feeling that things were about to get out of hand.

  Chapter Ten: The Big Showdown with Buggs and Muster

  Itried to warn the buzzard.

  “Uh, Wallace, if I were you I think I’d button my beak and crawl into the first gunnysack I could find. You’re getting those dogs stirred up.”

  “Heh? Of course I’m gettin’ ’em stirred up. I want ’em stirred up! The trouble with this country right now is that nobody’s stirred up about this elm beetle problem.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think those dogs give a rip about the elm beetle problem. They think you’re a turkey, and they’re considering you as a candidate for Christmas dinner.”

  “Who called me a turkey! Junior! Where’d he go? Son, they’re callin’ me a turkey, where’d that boy go, just when you need him most he disappears, Junior!” He craned his neck and studied the dogs on the street. “Y’all seen any signs of Junior? Tell Junior to report here at once, somebody just called me a turkey and Junior needs to know about that!”

  Buster grinned. “Oh yeah? Let me tell you something, Pops. I called you a turkey because you ARE a turkey, and me and my boys have this terrible appetite for turkey, don’t we, Muggs?”

  Muggs was bouncing up and down. “Yeah, har har, we sure do, Boss, and I think I know what we’re fixing to do about it too, har har.”

  The time had come for me to get involved, even though I didn’t want to. I went to the back of the pickup, pushed Wallace aside, and spoke to the mob.

  “Boys, you’re making a big mistake here. Wallace may look like a turkey and he may act like a turkey, but he ain’t a turkey. He’s a turkey buzzard, and you wouldn’t want to eat him for Christmas dinner.”

  Down below, Buster’s eyes narrowed and he turned to Muggs. “Say, Muggsie, haven’t we seen this wise guy somewhere before?”

  “Yeah, we sure have, Boss, out at that ranch. He’s the jerk that made me laugh at stupid jokes.”

  “Oh yeah, the Head of Ranch Security.”

  “Yeah, har har, only he ain’t got no ranch now and he’s in town—our town, har har.”

  “I think you’re right, Muggsie.” Buster turned back to me and took a step in my direction. “Let me tell you something, pal. Me and my boys are hungry, see? And when we get hungry, we’re extra mean. And if you want to keep on being the Head of Ranch Security, you’d better step aside and mind your own business, see?”

  “I think you missed the point, Buster.”

  “It’s Mister Buster to you, pal.”

  “Yeah,” said Muggs, “it’s Mister Buster to you, buster, or we’ll bust you right in the mouth, won’t we, Boss?”

  “That’s right, Muggsie. You’ve got a way with the words.”

  I went on. “As I was saying, this guy’s a buzzard, not a turkey.”