Catch As Cat Can

                They journeyed in silence until emerging on the farm road. The ruts seemed even deeper to Tucker this time. In the near distance they could hear a tractor whine.

                "Doesn't sound right, does it?" Pewter noted.

                "No." Tucker, spying the tobacco barn up ahead, put on speed. She rounded the structure, the long-distant whiff of decades of smoke still pungently perceptible."What!"

                The two cats almost collided into her.

                "Where's the truck?" Pewter caustically asked.

                "It was here. I swear it!"

                "That tractor sounds stuck. Let's find it. Maybe Booty's using the truck to pull it out," Mrs. Murphy suggested.

                Finding Booty proved easy enough not only because of the whine of the tractor but because he was cussing a blue streak. The animals heard words they'd never heard before.

                The tractor had sunk into a soft pothole that must have been deceptive from the driver's seat. The rear wheels were mired a quarter of the way up the large yellow hubcaps. Booty, overalls shiny with fresh mud, placed stones, anything he could find, in front of the wheels, then he'd swing back up into the seat to try again.

                Abraham, a bluetick hound, mournfully watched his human have fits. Abraham, two years older than God, endured some loss of hearing, stiff hips, and fading sight, but his nose stayed keen.

                "Abraham," Tucker called loudly to him as they approached."How are you?"

                "Tucker? Who's with you? Are those Chihuahuas?" He squinted.

                "I resent that," Pewter flared up.

                "Pewter, he's nearly as old as Booty." Mrs. Murphy bumped the gray just to put her in her place.

                "Mrs. Murphy and Pewter are with me," Tucker answered.

                "Hello, girls," Abraham greeted them, his manner courtly."I apologize for my human but as you can surmise, he's struggling with the elements and if my nose is any good at all, we'll be wet within the half hour. He'll need another tractor to pull out this one. Oh, me." He let out a long, long sigh.

                "No need to ever apologize for a human." Tucker laughed.

                "He's right about the rain," Pewter whispered to Mrs. Murphy."I feel it coming. If I get wet it will take me hours to dry. I can't stand it when my hair gets matted down. Murphy, are you listening?"

                "Stop worrying." She edged up to Abraham, then rubbed against his chest.

                "Mrs. Murphy, you smell like nutmeg." He chuckled."Pewter."

                "Here I am." Pewter rubbed against him also.

                "We're hoping you can help us." Tucker sat down as Booty cursed to high heaven."There's a farm truck parked behind the curing shed. I chanced by not an hour and a half ago and now on my return, it's gone. Might you know of its whereabouts?"

                "No. I didn't hear the truck being driven off but then I don't hear so good anymore."

                "Do you recall Booty driving the truck to town?" Mrs. Murphy spoke up.

                "Farm truck. Don't know how it would make it to town and back, really," Abraham answered.

                "I thought when I came by that Booty was out with his team of horses," Tucker wondered."And I thought he didn't own a tractor."

                "What a memory you have, Tee Tucker. He worked the little field, the garden patch field, I call it, with the horses but Dimples threw a shoe. So he unhitched the horses and he was going to hitch up the second pair, you know he has the young ones he's bringing on, fine matched pair, ah, but I digress here. Well, he checked the weather and thought he'd return Marcus Durant's tractor to him. He'd borrowed it to dig fence holes. Marcus has every attachment made in the U. S. of A. and Booty's getting on in years, he just didn't feature digging fence holes with the hand digger. Luckily he finished that job, earth's soft, has to set the fence posts, of course, so he wanted to return the tractor. Now he's got to hitch up the young horses to pull out the tractor and he'd better wash off the tractor, too. Rain'11 help." He exhaled and his flews fluttered out with his breath.

                "Abraham, would you do me a great favor?" Tucker's pink tongue hung out slightly.

                "If I can, I would certainly not like to disappoint a lady."

                "Will you walk over to the curing shed with us and work the ground where the truck was parked? Your nose is better than mine." Tucker flattered the bluetick hound but in truth hound noses were the best of the best.

                "Why, I'd be delighted although I'm sure your nose is keen as can be." He stood up on all fours, stretched, and moved toward the shed, happy to be useful. Hounds need to be useful or they sink into a torpor.

                Booty turned around and beheld the four animals leaving."Abraham, Abraham, you are useless as tits on a boar hog." He sputtered, needing to take out his anger on someone.

                "Going deaf has its advantages," Abraham chuckled. Once at the shed, he put his nose to the ground, working in small circles around the spot where the truck had been parked."Grease. Gas. Now, that's odd. Pump's down by the shed. And-" He lifted his head, sniffed in fresh air to clear his nasal passages, then put his nose to the ground again."Something, something, a chemical? Tucker, get over here."