We circled Richardson’s block, trying to come up with a plan. Then we spotted the mail truck. It stopped in front of the house, and a woman snaked out an arm and stuffed his box with letters and catalogs. Soon as she was off the street, Eddie pulled the van up next to the mailbox, and shoved me out the door. I wrapped the collar around a stack of envelopes, and jumped back into the van.
I watched the rearview mirrors all the way back to camp, but no one followed us. Eddie was in a great mood. He said we could go for coffee in the all-night place across from the park while we waited for the ransom. In the meantime, he’d make more hot dogs to keep us going.
Soon as we reached camp, I knew something was wrong. The rope drooped from the tree, but Red Rover was nowhere to be seen. The loose end was wet with saliva where he’d chewed through it. “Good riddance,” was Eddie’s comment.
He had more to say when he reached his bedding. Red Rover had torn through everything he owned. “That mutt never liked me,” Eddie complained. More likely, he had left the hot dogs hidden in his stuff, but I didn’t argue.
Camp was lifeless without Red Rover. Eddie was sulking, so there was no one to talk to. We had no food, and no prospects of getting any until we went to the coffee shop. It was so quiet that I could hear Eddie’s stomach growl. We passed the hot afternoon in an uneasy doze.
Then Red Rover pranced into the clearing, an animal of some sort dangling from his mouth. Eddie and I jumped up and I’m sure my jaw dropped as far as his. “I can’t believe it,” Eddie said. “Maybe this dog’s not totally useless after all.”
Red Rover came closer. The creature he held wasn’t the rabbit or squirrel I had expected, but a porcupine. Somehow he had clamped his jaws on its head before it had a chance to stick him. Eddie said, “Humph. I guess they’re edible. Drop it, boy.”
Obediently, Red Rover dropped the porcupine at our feet. Eddie bent for a closer look. Whack! The porcupine’s tail whipped around and smacked him. A half dozen quills buried themselves in his forearm. Howling, Eddie grabbed the piercing quills. He succeeded in breaking them, driving their points deeper into his skin.
The porcupine shot up the nearest tree. Red Rover reared, his front legs against the trunk, paws scraping bark. But even a dog quick enough to catch a porcupine without getting stuck himself couldn’t climb a tree.
Eddie hopped in a circle, cursing a blue streak. I got the tool kit from the van. Eddie wasted a few minutes trying to punish Red Rover who thought it was a game and effortlessly dodged Eddie’s kicks, tail wagging. Then I went to work with the pliers. I grabbed each quill as close to the skin as I could and pulled. Each time one popped free, leaving a blood-capped hole in Eddie’s arm, he punched me in the shoulder. It was no fun, but I wouldn’t have traded places with him.
By the time the last quill was removed and Eddie had worn himself to a frazzle chasing Red Rover, it was dark. He pulled on a sweatshirt to cover his chewed-up arm, and we headed for town. The thought of the ransom must have cheered him, because he stopped cursing by the time we reached the blacktop.
We left the van on a side street and walked to the coffee shop. A sign out front said “Open Mike Night,” and the place was packed. While Eddie was getting our order, I leaned against a wall and listened to a bearded guy who held a microphone in one hand and a glass coffee mug in the other.
“Thanks for turning out for this special event marking the one hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Heart of the West by the great O. Henry. Many of the stories are set in our neck of the woods. In his honor, the poems read tonight will have a surprise or ironical ending, like an O. Henry story. Now I’m going to stop gabbing, and whoever picked number one will come up and start the program.”
I tried listening to a couple of the poems, but it was hard to concentrate. Through the window I could see the statue of that O. Henry dude in the center of the square, lit by a full moon.