We’re still curious about exactly where Old Man Jenkins’ cabin is. While he was alive, we never thought to bug him about where he lived, because we also cherish a man’s right to privacy. But Jenkins died on one of his trips to town, and we still didn’t know where his cabin was.

  So that began a number of semi-serious expeditions into our nearby mountains to try and solve the mystery. Hasn’t happened yet, but there’s always hope deep in the souls of true explorers.

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 I always wondered what it would be like to putter. I don’t mean golf. I haven’t done that kind of puttering since I played miniature golf in high school. That wagon wheel always messed me up, so I decided to leave my golf career right there and participate in more active pursuits.

  But now here I am puttering. This came about naturally because my doctor told me to slow down, and I plan to enjoy every snail-like minute of this advice. Part of it is my age (I’m in double figures now. And they ain’t small double figures.) and part is my doctor giving me advice I’ve been wanting to hear for a long time now.

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Leona was a good mule. She was in a fabled minority in the pack station realm of mules, as she was a riding mule as well as a pack mule. She was also  … well …

somewhat notional in nature. There was how Leona pictured her world, and there were the rest of us, who were wrong, of course.

  Mules are worth a lot more than a horse in the eastern California High Sierra, and there are reasons for that. They usually live longer than a horse, they learn fast and never have to be shown twice, and they won’t jump off a 300-foot cliff just because a 40-foot pine tree sneaked up on them.

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 “Now that’s the job I want,” said Steve, putting down the paper. “A guy could really sink his teeth into something like that.”

  Doc looked up from his coffee. “Didn’t know you were looking for work, Steve. Cowboying not working out for you?”

  “It isn’t that,” said the cowboy/farrier, “it’s just that a guy should always keep his eyes open so as not to miss an opportunity to better himself. That’s why I’m so interested in becoming a chicken ranger.”

  “A what?”

  “He said a chicken ranger, Doc,” said Bert, “but I never heard of one.”

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  It’s a rare treat to have old Jasper Blankenship come down from the diggins to stock up on supplies. And he favored us with stories at the Mule Barn this bright morning over coffee, too.

   “Well, Doc,” Jasper said, “you’re right. I wasn’t always a miner. Back during The War I had a job in the city at one of the big war plants, you know. I was a security guard and watched the gate. In those days, there was this one carpenter who just gave me the fits. He’d come out the gate at the end of the day with a wheelbarrow full of sawdust. I always stopped him and poked around in the sawdust and never found anything, but I just knew he was stealing something.”

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 “Hot? Did you say hot?”

  “Sure did, Windy, have a seat and join us,” said Doc. We were huddled up in the coolth of the air conditioner blast in that certain part of the dining room at the Mule Barn truck stop. Yes. It was hot.

  “Ain’t like Death Valley, howsomever,” Windy said. “Now boys, that there’s HOT!”

   “You been to Death Valley, Windy?”

  “Shore did, Steve. Wellsir, it was a long time back, ‘bout the time of when I ferget who was president. One of them guys who ain’t president any more. But I was jest percolatin’ ‘round and got me this here wranglin’ job over there at Furnace Crick. Hot? Say, it was so hot it melted your whiskers! But they needed these dudes wrangled and I packed mules for ‘em … until the accident …”

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Recently we left Emily of the fantastic cheekbones and Dewey the accident prone, happily locked together in a kiss after Dewey stumbled over a root. 

“Emily,” Dewey said, “I have a confession to make to you. I don’t have a neurotic fascination with manure.”

“You don’t?”

“No.” He kissed her again and they both smiled. “It’s my business. I supply fertilizer to people’s gardens. That’s what I do. When I told you I was in manure, I meant the manure business. They call me the fertilizer king, actually.”

She smiled. “Wow! That’s wonderful! I was a bit concerned about falling for a guy who had a … thing … for manure. You know. But it’s what you do!”

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