Houck Hollow

Written by Colleen Houck

Courage is being scared to death

And saddling up anyway!

John Wayne

Dedication

For BupBup

Who taught me

All about ganders

Now, some of you folk might think a gander is the roughest, toughest, meanest, most orneryiest cowpoke…er…goosepoke, that you might have had the unfortunate occasion to cross paths against.

Sure, you may think you were innocent. Taken by surprise. You were prob’ly jes simply out for your morning jog by the lake, or in the park. Maybe ya’ll we’re playing a round of golf on a nice summer weekend, and then…

BAM!

You were goose-nipped. Right in the bum.

And what’s worse…you didn’t do absolutely nothing ta deserve it neither!

But are all ya’all going to act like you weren’t warned first? I mean…did you not hear the honking in the sky? Or the hiss when ya got a bit too close?

Maybe the problem lies in the fact that ya’all think you humans are runnin’ the show, so ta speak.

Well…ya ain’t. The issue, fer as I see it, is ya don’t give respect to the pecking order.

It goes Geese, Ducks, Humans, Dogs, Cats, Chickens, other things with wings, then everything else. Fer as I’m concerned, cats and chickens are about the same, intelligence-wise, but if you’ve ever been attacked by a rooster, you’d know to be much more scared of him than any cat.

Most of us birds group you Humans/Dogs/Cats into one big category. Since ya’all hang together and roam in packs, you basically count the same.

Now we let ya’all pretend you’re in charge when we’re out o’ town.

We just want you ta understand that when we’re back, we resume our original positions on top. That doesn’t change just because you have a gun or a fancy college degree. We don’t care that you’ve built some tall structures blocking our flight path or drained our ponds. We’ve been around a lot longer than you, and trust me, we’ve seen more than you ever will. You can’t beat us, so don’t try.

But, at the heart of it, we’re peaceful sorts. We’ve put up with the hunting and the plucking and the moving into our territory with more decorum than anyone should expect.

Still, when you see the “V” shaped formations of geese as they travel to your city. That’s a sign it’s time for you to step down or, at the very least, show some respect.

Tell you what…

Since I’m partial to you nice people and I’m what you might call a species diplomat of sorts, I’m going ta help you out.

How?

I’ll teach you the five “P’s” of being a Goose Whisperer.

Memorize these five basic rules and you’ll NEVER have a problem with our kind again.

And just to help you remember, I’ll teach them to you in the form of a story. You humans seem to like those.

A long time ago, in the wild west town of Hollow Hills, lived one Sheriff Sampson, a handsome gander. Sitting astride his buff horse, he wiped his brow, fanning himself with his hat. He’d been patrolling the dusty street along with his faithful deputy, Dewey Duck. There’d been rumors that the magpie twins were in the area, ready to stir up trouble once again. Dewey was particularly concerned because the new gal, Mary-Ann, who’d taken a job shuffling cards at the saloon, had run away from the brothers, and Deputy Dewey was sweet on her.

In Sampson’s experience, ducks with the name Mary or Mary-Ann or Marie were always trouble, but he didn’t want to share his worries with his old pal; besides, he had enough heartbreak of his own. Miss Felicia Saddleback had recently taken up with old Judge Fox, though she still made eyes at Doc Sebastian as well as him at every opportunity. He and the Doc knew about each other and had worked things out, but Sheriff Sampson knew better than to take on Judge Fox, no matter how besotted he felt.

Besides, he had a job to do.

As head gander of his town, it was his sworn duty to protect the flock from harm. That meant he had to watch the sky and the roads for all signs of danger, guard the nests and hatcheries, and defend the townsfolk & their livelihoods with his very life.

It was an important job.

If he failed, the residents could lose their lives, their families, or their homes, and the town would suffer and die. He wasn’t going to have that. Not on his watch.

Tapping his shiny, silver badge, Sampson recalled the oath he’d taken when he was sworn into office. Each of the five points on the star represented one of his duties.

Just then, a cloud of dust rose on the east side of town. Sheriff Sampson narrowed his eyes, whistled for his sidekick, Deputy Dewey, who was busy flirting with Mary-Ann by the saloon, and the two kicked their horses into a gallop.

A rough, tough, mean group of Magpies thundered into town, stopping short when they spied the Sheriff.

It was just as he suspected, the Sweetpea Gang had arrived.

“What’s your business here?” Sheriff Sampson called out to the Magpie twins, their flashy white kerchiefs wrapped round their necks.

“We don’t want no trouble, Sheriff!” Hawkeye called out. His bill was scarred, and his thick shoulders twitched like he was holding too many secrets.

“That’s right,” called his twin, Hopeful. “We’re just here to wet our whistles.”

The whole gang laughed. “Just wettin’ our whistles,” they echoed.

Sheriff Sampson squinted in the sun and mopped his brow again. “Very well,” he agreed, drawing out the words slowly. “We’ll allow it. But you just remember, we’re watching you.”

“Oh, we’ll remember, Sheriff,” Hopeful said with a smirk as he passed by on his palomino horse.

Deputy Dewey tugged on the Sheriff’s fringed coat. “But what about Mary-Ann?” he questioned, in a panic.

“You get on over to the saloon, and tell your brother, Huey, to hide her upstairs until they’re gone.”

Dewey nodded desperately and galloped off quicker than lightning in the desert.

Before Sheriff Sampson could head over to the saloon, he was waylaid by Judge Fox, who demanded to know why he wasn’t doing his sworn job to protect the town from outlaws.

“I insist you deputize a posse of townsfolk to protect the bank!” Judge Fox cried, intercepting the sheriff. “If they seize our gold before the stagecoach can take it on to San Francisco, we’ll all be bankrupt!”

“First of all,” Sheriff Sampson said irritably, watching the gang disappear in a cloud of dust, “the only one in this town with gold to lose is you. Second, the bank is a fortress. No one can get in or out of there. The only one with a key is Doc, and he only uses it to store his most potent medicines. You know that. You use them for your headaches. Just calm yourself. I’ll get them to move on in the morning. Everything will be fine.”

But everything wasn’t fine.

By the time Sheriff Sampson arrived at the saloon, Dewey was nervously sitting at the bar, watching the outlaws play cards. Mary-Ann was nowhere to be seen, which was just how the Sheriff wanted things. But there was an itch on his back that made him want to turn his head and bite his feathers. Something was off. He could feel it.

What he didn’t know was that while he and Deputy Dewey were watching the outlaws, someone else was breaking into the bank and stealing all the gold.

The next morning, an alarm sounded, and there was a mystery to solve.

The bank had indeed been robbed, but neither Deputy Dewey nor Sheriff Sampson had any evidence that it was the Sweetpea gang. In fact, as far as they could reckon, the gang had been tucked into their rooms at the local hotel all night. None of them had moved at all.

Whoever did rob the bank managed to do it without being seen. What’s worse, they also kidnapped Judge Fox’s gal. Miss Felicia Saddleback was missing, and the Judge was livid. He demanded that the Sheriff turn in his badge.

Thankfully, the rest of the town disagreed. They convinced him to let the Sheriff do his job and give him at least a few days to solve the mystery.

“Very well,” shouted Judge Fox. “But if I don’t have someone back here to hang in three days, I’ll be happy to substitute you in their stead,” he threatened, pointing his wingtip at Sheriff Sampson’s bill. “Find my gold and my gal. In that order.”

With that, the Sheriff and his deputy got to work.

Bills to the ground, they began surveying the scene. It was Dewey who found the tracks.

“Look here! The prints are small. It’s either a young gander or maybe even a goose!”

“Couldn’t be. Geese don’t steal from other geese. It has to be one of the duck gang. Maybe it’s a jumbo pekin or an Appleyard print.”

“I’m offended,” Deputy Dewey said. “You know, Huey and I are the only jumbo pekins in these parts. Besides, I’m telling you. I know my prints. This is goose, not duck.”

“Then why do they suddenly disappear around this tree?”

“Huh. Got me there. Do you think they climbed?” asked Dewey.

“Impossible. Waterfowl can’t climb. At least most I know.”

“Maybe a weasel or a fox nabbed our thief.”

“Maybe.”

Just then, they saw the Sweetpea gang hightailing it out of town. Sheriff Sampson got that itch between the shoulder blades again. “Come on,” he said to Dewey Duck. “Let’s follow them.”

Quickly, they climbed into the saddle and stealthily followed the large gang. They rode all day and into the night. Finally, the gang made camp near a large cavern and started a fire. The lawmen crept closer, listening carefully and hiding behind bushes and tumbleweeds.

“They didn’t suspect a thing,” bragged Hawkeye.

“Told you we’d get away with it.”

“We’re not out of the woods yet, you idiots,” a female voice above them cried.

They heard the sound of flapping wings, and a beautiful female goose landed gracefully in the circle of light around the fire. She shook herself, and a spray of feathers landed all around her.

“Get these saddlebags off of me!” she snapped.

The members of the gang quickly sprang to work and removed bags from the goose’s back. Thin gold bars slipped out of the opening and were tucked back in, but not before the deputy and sheriff saw them.

“The gold!” Dewey whispered a bit too loudly.

But Sheriff Sampson couldn’t look at the gold; all he could see was the brown saddlebags being removed from the beautiful goose he’d fancied himself in love with. Miss Felicia Saddleback wasn’t a saddleback goose at all. She wasn’t even domestic.

She was wild.

She was a…was a…Canadian!

He’d been blind! How could he have missed something so obvious?

Almost without thinking, Sheriff Sampson stepped into the clearing.

“Hello, Miss Felicia. If that is really your name.”

“It’s the Sheriff! Run!”

The Sweetpea gang flapped their wings and leapt onto their horses. One or two of them tried to pick up a saddlebag, but they were too heavy for the smaller drakes, and the gold bars spilled out and tumbled to the ground.

Miss Felicia sighed and shook her small, beautiful head, spilling the carefully tucked-in white feathers. “Idiots,” she mumbled.

As they disappeared in dust clouds, and Deputy Dewey began scooping up the gold, Sheriff Sampson just looked at her and asked sadly, “Why?”

“Why?” she ruffled her feathers in irritation. “Why? I earned it. That’s why. I put up with that Judge Fox long enough. It’s time for me to migrate. I need to start over somewhere new, with someone new. I’m not meant for small-town life. The gold will set me up for a long, long time.”

“But it doesn’t belong to you.”

“Doesn’t it?” Her bitter expression suddenly changed, slipping to the sweet one he knew so well.

“Come with me, Sampson. You know you want to. You don’t belong here any more than I do. You’re meant for bigger things, eh?”

Leaning close, she batted her eyes and wrapped her neck around his.

Sampson stiffened, waiting for her to straighten. It took all his strength to say, “No ma’am. See this here badge?” he asked, thumping his chest. “This is all I ever need to remind me of where I belong, what I need to do, and who I’m meant to be. Anything else and anyone else is secondary.”

“Well,” Miss Felicia said, batting her brown eyes. “That’s just too bad then, isn’t it, Bud?” With a flap of her wings, she rose in the air, then kicked out a webbed foot, grabbed hold of one of the saddlebags Deputy Dewey had just finished filling, and headed north.  

Sheriff Sampson watched her until she was gone, then he turned to his sidekick, lifted the other saddlebag over his head, and the two of them headed back to their horses and made their way back to their small town that suddenly seemed even smaller than it had the day before.

They rode in silence for a while, then Deputy Dewey asked, “Sheriff, will you ever tell me about your badge and what the five points of the star symbolize? They sure seemed to help you stay strong in the face of temptation today.”

“That they did, Dewey, that they did.”

Sheriff Sampson reflected. “Someday, when you take your oath as sheriff, you too will swear to be true to the five points, the five purposes every gander or drake must fulfill. As a sheriff, you Patrol the roads, Protect the townsfolk, Preside over lawmen, Prevent injustice, and Proclaim your loyalty.

Dewey nodded sagely. “Makes sense. Your badge reminds you of who you are.”

“It does. But what I didn’t tell you is what’s on the back.”

“The back?”

“Yes. It’s a reminder of how we treat our womenfolk and the hatchlings.”

“You have a set of rules for that?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What are those?”

“We ganders entreat them by Persuasion, Petition, Placating, Prostrating, and the most important one of all…”

“Yes? And that is?”

“It’s the secret to being a good gander, a decent drake, and a humble human.”

“Tell me! I want to know!”

“Very well.” Sheriff Sampson, smiled, a long, knowing smile, then turned to his friend and said, “The last “P” is ‘Pologize.”

Deputy Dewey and Sheriff Sampson laughed and Dewey said, “I think that one might come in handy when we tell Judge Fox what happened tonight.”

“I reckon I’d agree with you.”

The two friends headed home, ready for their next big adventure.

So there you have it, humans. If you want to be a goose whisperer, remember your five “P’s.

Placating, Prostrating, Petitioning, Persuading, and most importantly, ‘Pologizing.

Do these things around geese and you’ll never have a problem. Sheriff Sampson and Deputy Dewey guarantee it.

Note: For those of you who wonder how to apply Sheriff Sampson’s and Deputy Dewey’s advice in a real-life irritated gander situation, he recommends seeking out the head gander (it’s always the tallest one), then showing him you’re a good guy and not a bad one coming to rob the bank or steal his gal. How? Show him respect by tipping your hat to the sheriff. Even if you aren’t wearing a hat, it’s the principle of the thing. Just explain your purposes in his town, give a nice bow or a curtsey, wait for him to look you over a bit, then he’ll holler to his men that you’re okay as fer as he’s concerned and will move his lawmen around to the saloon. Works every time. If’n he’s a forgetful sort, or if you’re too close to the nest or the bank, just back away slowly a step or two and repeat the process.