Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘Death Valley’

Bon Mot, Forgotten (Corrected Version)

Bernie got off the dozer. We walked toward the rubble pile, and there, balanced between two rocks, sat a human skull. Yes, I’d seen this skull before, just before that cave-in.

“Oh my God,” said Addie. “Do you think that’s my great grandmother’s sister?”

“We’ll need DNA to establish that,” Bernie said.

DNA – that came up from time to time in our job, but what it is exactly I couldn’t tell you.

We stood in front of the skull, all of us quiet. There were tears in Addie’s eyes. She took Bernie’s hand. Once Bernie told Suzie that some crimes are – what was it, again? I tried to remember.

Making Friends

It turned out Bernie could run a bulldozer, had learned in the Army. Bernie doesn’t talk much about what happened in the Army – which is where he got the wound in his leg that makes him limp sometimes – although I think there’s something about his Army days in Thereby Hangs A Tail.

Bernie ran the dozer. Addie and I stood around. She looked at me. “I’ve always been scared of dogs,” she said. Whoa. I didn’t like hearing that; from a perp, sure, but Addie was no perp. I wagged my tail and tried not to look scary. “Your teeth are so big!” What was this? My mouth was wide open for some reason? I closed it. Addie reached out, slow and careful, and gave me  a pat. I pushed against her in a friendly way. She lost her balance and almost tipped over. Humans and their two-leg problem – it always amazes me that –

“Hey!” said Bernie. “What’s that?”

Reminder From Long Ago + Vote!

From April 3, 2009:

We were outside this cave, or abandoned mine or whatever it was, somewhere in Death Valley. “There are no supports. Don’t go in there.” But I had to. I smelled a rat, one of those big desert rats. I don’t like them, not one little bit, don’t like their smell, either, which is kind of like mice except more sour, like they’re always eating something rotten.

The next thing I knew, I was deep in the shaft, smelling the rat, and hearing him, too, scurrying on ahead of me. “Chet! Chet!” Bernie shone the light inside. I saw my own shadow, stretched out way ahead. And what was that? Uh-oh. A skull.

Also: These cool German media students have made a book trailer for the German version of Dog On It and it’s a finalist for the fourth annual Bertelsmann Book Trailer Award. You can go to the German website www.derbuchtrailer.de and watch it – and vote for it! Yes, it’s in German which no one at chetthedog understands, but it’s pretty entertaining even without the words.

Iggy’s Star Turn – Coming At Last

“I think,” said Bernie, “that we’re going to have to go back out to Death Valley and explore that cave, or what’s left of it. Meanwhile we’re not going to let these two film cans out of our sight.”

“What about all these people?” said Suzie. Meaning Freddie and Trimmer on the floor, Portia standing in the corner.

“That’s a problem,” Bernie said. “We’ll have to turn them over to the cops.”

“Charged with what?” Portia said.

Bernie thought. While he was thinking, I watched Iggy out the window, running free at last, yipping like crazy. Big mistake on my part.