“Oh yeah?” Buster grinned. “If he’s a buzzard, what’s he doing in town, huh? Buzzards don’t come to town, pal, but turkeys do.”

  “That’s right, Boss, you sure told him, har har har! We know a turkey when we see one, he can’t fool us.”

  I turned to the buzzard. “Wallace, can you fly?”

  “Heh? Where’s a fly? Show me a fly! Where there’s a fly, there’s something good to eat.”

  “I said, can you fly?”

  “Oh. You mean with my wings? No, I cain’t fly, my wings ain’t a-workin’. No, I cain’t fly, no, absolutely not.”

  “In that case, I’d advise you to start thinking about making a run for it.”

  “Heh? Run? Buzzards don’t run, it goes against all our principles. If we cain’t fly, we just stay home.”

  “Well, if you don’t make a run for it, those dogs down there are going to make a turkey sandwich out of you.”

  “No, I never eat turkey, just rabbits and skunks and things on the side of the road.”

  Talking to Wallace was hopeless. That wreck had wrecked what little mind he’d had to start with, and now it was up to me and Drover to save him from the mob.

  “Drover, move on up here with me. It’s time for us to stand toe-to-toe and assume Battle Stations.”

  “Hank, this old leg of mine is sure giving me fits all of a sudden.”

  “Battle Stations, Drover, and that’s a direct order!”

  “Oh my leg!” He came limping over and joined me at the back of the pickup. He looked down at the thugs and almost fainted. “Oh my gosh, don’t say anything to make ’em mad, Hank!”

  Buster and Muggs saw Drover there beside me and started laughing. Then Buster said, “What is this, pal? Are we choosing up sides for a fight or something?”

  “You might say that. This buzzard’s lost his marbles and he’s under my protection. Now, you boys go on about your business and we’ll go on about ours. Scram.”

  Muggsie’s ears shot up. “Hey Boss, the jerk said for us to scram! I heard it with my own eyes!”

  “Yeah, I heard what he said. Okay, boys, we ain’t had a good riot around here in a couple of days. I think it’s time we started one.”

  Muggsie was hopping up and down again. “Yeah, right! Just say the word, Boss, I’ll teach that jerk a lesson he won’t forget!”

  Buster leered up at me. “Last chance, pal. I ain’t sure I can hold my boys back any longer, see? We’re coming up there to get our turkey dinner, and if you stay where you’re at we’ll make cranberry sauce out of you and your sawed-off friend.”

  Drover let out a gasp. “Hank, oh my gosh, did you hear that? Help, murder!”

  “Stand your ground, Drover. The reputation of our ranch is at stake here.”

  “My LIFE is at stake here, and I think this old leg’s about to give out, help, Mayday!”

  “Don’t bite until you see the whites of their eyes, Drover! Stand by for hand-to-hand combat!”

  “Oh, my leg!”

  “All right, boys,” Buster shouted, “this is the moment you’ve been waiting for. Stand by to hit the beach! Okay, Muggs, get ’em!”

  Muggs was the first to test our defense peri­meter. He made a lunge and landed on the edge of the pickup bed. I met him there with teeth, paws, and claws—also Extra Heavy Duty Barking. I punched him right on the end of his bulldog nose and sent him flying back to his boss.

  “Sorry about that, Muggsie, but you were tracking snow on my pickup. Who’s next? Come on, boys, don’t quit now, I’m just getting warmed up.”

  “Hank, don’t say that!” Drover squeaked. “They might believe you.”

  “Okay, smart guy,” said Buster, glaring up at me. “You’ve asked for it, and now you’ll get it.”

  “Yeah, jerk,” said Muggs, “you shouldn’t have done that, you just shouldn’t ought to have done that, ’cause now you’re in deep trouble.”

  I ran my eyes over the faces in the mob. I knew that they were fixing to attack the pickup in force, and I knew that when they did, I wouldn’t be able to fight them off.

  I turned to my assistant—who was lying on the pickup bed with his paws over his eyes. “Get up, Drover, and listen carefully to my instructions. When they attack, bite that buzzard on the tail feathers and make him run. I’ll fight ’em off as long as I can, and you guys try to find a place to hide.”

  “I hear that!”

  “And Drover,” I looked down at the little mutt, perhaps for the last time, “if I don’t make it back from this mission, take care of the ranch.”

  “I sure will, Hank, if this old leg stays under me. Come on, Wallace, we’ve got to run for our lives!”

  “Heh? Run? Son, let me tell you something out buzzards and running. If we cain’t fly . . .”

  Drover opened his jaws and crunched Wallace on the tail section, gave him quite a shock. He squawked, flapped his wings, hopped up in the air, and went over the side. Drover bailed out right behind him.

  That was the last I saw of them for a while, because at that very moment I heard four double-tough town dogs coming after me from down below. I turned and faced the attack with a smile that was somewhat forced.

  “Come on, boys. You’ve heard of the Alamo? Well, it’s Alamo time. Remember the Alamo, charge, bonzai!”

  I took the first one, thrashed him good, and sent him flying off the back end. Then I went after the second one, just by George hammered him, sent him over the side.

  But that was about the end of the good part. Muggs swooped in on me from behind, put a fang lock on the back of my neck, and let me tell you about Muggsie’s jaws. What he lacked in brainpower he more than made up for in jawpower.

  I couldn’t shake loose, see, and while he held me from behind, Buster swaggered up and started working me over with paws and claws.

  “Here’s what happens to jerks that stand in the way of our turkey dinner.”

  And he proceeded to clean house on my nose and face, especially my nose. It hurt! I gave it my best shot, fellers, but by that time the whole bunch had dog-piled me and I was getting it from all directions.

  Then I heard Muggsie’s voice. “Hey Boss, the turkey’s gone!”

  “Huh, what? The turkey’s . . . why you idiot, you let our turkey dinner get away!”

  “It wasn’t me, Boss, honest. It was the other guys.”

  “You’re all idiots! What do you think we’re doing up here? We’re fighting for our turkey dinner, you dummies!”

  “Yeah, Boss, but you said . . .”

  “Shat up. Where’d he go? Find the turkey! Come on, boys, never mind the Head of Ranch Security. We’ll take care of him some other time. After the turkey!”

  And with that, the hoodlums went flying over the side of the pickup, leaving me behind—crippled, bruised, bloodied, and humiliated.

  But not quite beaten.

  Chapter Eleven: Oh, It Was Santie Claus, Not Sandy Clothes

  Iscraped myself off the pickup bed and checked out all my various bodily parts for damage. I found plenty of it, but lucky for me, it was of the non-permanent variety.

  After walking around and limbering up my equipment, I figgered I had better make my way to the Combat Zone. If Buster and his hoodlum friends found Wallace before I did, my pal Junior the Buzzard was likely to get orphaned for Christmas.

  I dived off the pickup and began sniffing the snow.

  The trail led off to the north, toward the big white grain elevator that rose above the railroad tracks at the north end of town. I locked in on the scent, put my smellatory transponders on automatic, and went zooming up the street.

  While zooming up the street, I began to notice the crowd of people who had gathered on the sidewalks on both sides. Some of them were pointing at me, others laughing and clapping their hands.

  It seems that I had attracted a crowd. I mean, people had come from miles around and lined both sides of Main Street to see me do my stuff. Pretty impressive, huh?

  It took double the usual amount of concentration for me to concentrate on my business. I mean, no matter how many times you’ve performed before an adoring crowd, it’s hard to resist—well—prancing, showing off, throwing in a few extra tricks, performing the little flourishes that are sure to bring squeals of delight from the ladies, and so forth.

  A guy gets to watching the crowd, see, and especially the ladies, and you know Twitchell had more than its fair share of fine-looking lady dogs, and my concentration slipped just a tad, and before I knew it . . .

  HUH? I found myself surrounded by Buster and his gang. I glanced around and took a quick reading of my position. It appeared that I had reached the north end of Main Street, in the very middle of a large crowd of people. Nearby was a . . . what was that thing?

  A sleigh? With wheels under it instead of runners? Pulled by a paint horse? And sitting in the sleigh was a very suspicious-looking man with a LONG WHITE BEARD, AND WEARING A RED AND WHITE SUIT!

  Little Alfred was standing beside the sleigh, and a big crowd of people were gathered around him, and hunkered down underneath the sleigh was Wallace the Buzzard.

  And right beside him, shivering in the snow, was Drover.

  The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place. This crowd had gathered to cheer me on as I fought against tremendous odds to defend a helpless, wounded, partially crazy old buzzard against tremendous odds and a pack of town dogs.

  The one piece of the puzzle that DIDN’T fall into place was: who was this strange guy in the beard and red suit? I didn’t know, but it didn’t much matter anyway. My work was cut out for me. These people had come to watch me do my stuff and, by George, I was ready to give ’em their money’s worth.

  I turned to Buster. “And so, Buster, it seems that we meet again.”

  “Yeah, so it seems. Where’s my turkey dinner, smart guy, and get right to the point.”

  I was about to give him a witty, really devastating reply, when Muggs blundered into the conversation.

  “Hey Boss, the turkey’s under that thing over there with the horse!”

  Buster narrowed his eyes, looked toward the sleigh or whatever it was, and a wicked grin spread across his mouth. “You’re right, Muggs. Okay, boys, this is it. We’ve got our bird cornered. Spread out and . . .”

  “Hold it right there, halt, stop! The first dog that moves will have to answer to me.”

  Buster snorted at that. “Answer to you! Ha! Out of the way, cowdog, before I have to sweep the street with your carcass. Get the turkey, boys!”

  They made a rush for the sleigh. By running backwards at full speed (pretty nifty trick right there), I was able to stay in front of them and cut off their attack, and when we reached the sleigh at the same moment, I established a do-or-die position of defense and launched myself into the middle of them.

  Pretty risky, huh? Sure it was, but hey, that’s what my fans had come to see, right? Maybe I wouldn’t have done that without the support of hundreds of supporters, but . . .

  Well, several things happened right away. Me and Buster met head-on in a fight to the bitter end. We slashed and clawed and snarled, climbed each other until we couldn’t climb any more, came back down, and went rolling through the snow.

  Behind me, I could hear Drover cheering me on. “Git ’im, Hankie, git ’im! Knock his eye out! Punch him in the nose!”

  As I say, we went rolling through the snow—right between the legs of the horse. A lot of horses will spook when a dogfight breaks out between their legs, don’t you see, and this horse was one of those. He spooked.

  The next thing that happened was that Muggs got after Wallace, who came squawking and flapping out from under the sleigh. Right behind him came Muggs, barking and snapping.

  Behind Muggs came Little Alfred, shouting, “Weeve that buzzood awone, you naughty dog!” And behind Little Alfred came three or four men from the crowd, shouting and waving their arms.

  They ran right in front of the horse, who had already begun to snort and pitch. And fellers, when he saw that buzzard flapping through the snow he made a real serious attempt to kick us dogs into the next county and haul that sleigh down to the Gulf of Mexico.

  Above it all, I could hear the guy with the white beard, yelling, “Whoa, Flower, easy, boy!”

  Things were looking pretty grim, seemed to me, when all at once who should come running out of the crowd but Slim. He went to the horse’s head, threw his right elbow over the pony’s neck, and grabbed an ear in each hand.

  The horse was rearing up so hard that he lifted old Slim off the ground several times, but Slim held on and shouted, “Somebody grab that buzzard before he gets us all killed!”

  Three grown men took after Wallace, chased him around in circles while the crowd pushed forward, laughing and cheering them on.

  At last they captured Wallace just about the time that Slim had talked Flower out of leaving the country. A cheer went up from the crowd. It was hard to tell if they were cheering Slim, the guys who had collared Wallace, or me.

  I guess we had all made our little contributions, although mine wasn’t so little.

  So there you are. They were cheering for me.

  Two men stepped forward and shook Slim’s hand and thanked him for saving . . . oh . . . Santie Claus. So that’s who that guy . . . they were trying to have a parade for this guy Santie Claus, see, and . . . okay.

  You thought his name was Sandy Clothes? Nope. Santie Claus.

  At any rate, one of the men said, “What should we do with this buzzard? He can’t fly, and we don’t have any idea how he got here in town.”

  It seemed to me that Slim’s face turned a deep shade of red, and he said, “Well, we’re fixing to head back to the ranch. I guess I could haul him out to the country and turn him a-loose.”

  Little Alfred was standing beside Slim and started to say something, but he never got past the second word because all at once he had Slim’s big gloved hand over his mouth.

  “Would you mind?” said the man. “That would sure be nice, and then maybe we can get this dadgum parade started.”

  The crowd cheered. Several men slapped old Slim on the back, and they gave him the buzzard. Even Santie Claus himself stepped down and shook Slim’s hand.

  I still didn’t like the looks of that Santie Claus guy, and as he passed I bristled up and growled at him. You know what he said? “Buzz off, pooch, or I’ll give you a Tony Lama sandwich.”

  Seemed kind of unfriendly to me.

  Well, Slim called us dogs and Little Alfred, and he pushed a path through the crowd toward the pickup. As I was leaving, I happened to pass Buster. He’d been kicked and stepped on by the horse, and had gotten several good scoldings from people in the crowd. I gave him a smirk and said, “Let this be a lesson to you, Buster. Chinners never win and cheaters never weep.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, so’s yer old man. We’ll meet again, pal, and if you ever set foot in this town again . . .”

  At that moment, Santie Claus stepped on Buster’s tail and booted him out of the way. That was good enough for me. We marched to our pickup and headed back to the country.

  Chapter Twelve: All’s Swell That Ends Swell

  Slim seemed pretty anxious to get out of town. He didn’t say a word until we had passed the Waterhole and were out on the flat open country south of town.

  Then he turned an evil eye on the three of us—me, Drover, and Little Alfred.

  “I don’t know which one of you knotheads turned that buzzard a-loose in town, but I AIN’T amused. He goes back out into the snow, where he came from. I’ve had about enough of pets for one day.”

  Little Alfred hung his head and stuck out his lower lip. “But Swim, it’s Cwismas Eve.”

  “Son, a famous man once had this to say about Christmas Eve: ‘Bah and humbug!’ And if he’d had two dogs, a kid, and a buzzard, he’d have said worse than that. The buzzard goes.”

  Well, Slim’s heart had certainly turned cold, which wasn’t too surprising since the snow and wind and cold air were coming through what used to be the windshield and we were all about to freeze.

  Little Alfred sat back in the seat and looked out the window at the snow-covered wheatfields that stretched as far as the eye could see. It was kind of a sad moment, to tell you the truth.

  Even I felt a little sad. Wallace probably didn’t deserve our sympathy, but still . . . throwing a wounded animal out into the snow on Christmas Eve . . . that was a pretty harsh sentence.

  All at once, Little Alfred started singing a song he’d learned in Sunday school. It went like this:

  Oh wittle town of Beffweeham, how still we see thee wie.

  Above thy deep and dweemwess sweep, the siwent stars go by.

  Yet in thy dark stweets shineth the evoowasting wight.

  The hopes and fee-ohs of all the yee-ohs

  Are met in thee tonight.

  While the boy sang, Drover and I thumped our tails against the cold seat and beamed mournful stares at Cold-Hearted Slim.

  When we came to the spot in the road where we’d run into Wallace that morning, Slim slowed down, put his foot on the brake . . . and kept on going.

  All he said was, “You knotheads.”

  We followed the creek road all the way down to the place where you turn off to go to Slim’s house. We turned, rumbled over the cattle guard, drove through his horse pasture, and pulled up in front of his house.

  He killed the motor and turned to us. “We’ll take your buzzard inside and thaw him out by the fire. But I ain’t spending the night with a buzzard, so when he gets thawed out we’re going to move him down to the calf shed. That’s my best offer, Christmas or no Christmas.”

  “Okay, Swim. And I won’t tell anybody why we missed the pawade. It’s a secwet.”

  “It better be a secret.”