Brutus the Lionslayer

         Brutus hated cats. He treed every one in the neighborhood, turning them into terrified streaks that blurred across the lush suburban lawns and rocketed up into the big oaks. This ought to have satisfied him, but it wasn't enough; he'd shriek and howl and foam there at the foot of the tree, shredding the bark and tossing it up into the air.
        I'd only been stateside for two weeks when I got the news from Sis. She sounded pretty ticked off, and it looked like I'd have to move on.
        Later that week, I flew back to South America with that little Rhodesian Ridgeback-English-Bulldog-Chihuahua-looking runt hidden in my valise.
        Bound and gagged.
        In case you're wondering who I am, you're not the only one. My name is Bull Spurlock. I'm a big game hunter. I specialize in dangerous animals of the feline gender.
        I usually work for ranches or governments that need to nuke a killer cat: a jaguar or a puma or maybe a rogue jaguaranda that has grown fond of the taste of lamb. The work is spotty, but it's seldom boring. That's why I was looking forward to getting back to my camp on the Rio de Los Gordos, back to the steaming, reeking, mosquito-infested jungle that I call home.
        I was already thinking about it when the airplane landed at the Los Chiles de Las Scalderas airport at the edge of the Amazon basin. Five hours later, I pulled my Jeep into camp with Brutus beside me, busily mutilating the seat. The dogs boiled out of the shadows to meet me, whining and baying with excitement; and then, they pulled up short. To my surprise that little Chihuahua-lionhound cur leaped to the ground and proceeded to slaver and squeal like a mongoose crazed on coca leaves. Then up came the stud of my pack, a big bluetick-bulldog mix named Bear, and the fight was on.
        I never saw anything like it. Brutus darted past Bear's jaws, caught hold of his rear leg, and held on for dear life. When Bear spun around to grab him, he twisted out of the way, refusing to let go until it looked like a canine tornado was kicking up a cloud of yellow dust out there in the middle of the yard. We stood amazed as we viewed the spectacle, gaping in wonder as the flies stung us, the heat pounded on our backs and my pack of hounds quietly enjoyed the show.
        Pretty soon Manuel lassoed Bear, and I caught Brutus with a snake stick. We had to pry his jaws off of Bear's shank with a crowbar.
        It was on that same afternoon that Manuel had the idea of taking the little cur with us on the next hunt. I figured that he must be delirious from malaria to put forth such a wild idea, but he stuck to it.
        "That dog, he weel fight, senor," Manuel told me, "the Chihuahua, he weel never quit." He sharpened his foot-long bowie knife as he talked. Manuel was a Mexican citizen who had a high opinion of the fighting and tracking abilities of that paragon of doghood, the Chihuahua.
        "Manuel," I chuckled, "that's absolutely ridiculuous. I suppose that there is nowhere a more annoying and cowardly breed than the Chihuahua. In fact, the only dog that can top the Chihuahua in pure-T worthlessness is that disgusting freak of nature, the Mexican Hairless. Speaking of which..."
        "SENOR BULL!" he suddenly cried, "LOOK OUT! SNAKE!" In a single sinuous motion, he whipped his deadly knife at me underhanded, plucking the hat from my head and pinning it to the tree behind me. The hat hung by the long, shiny tail of its braided hatband, slowly swinging back and forth below the deeply-imbedded Bowie.
        "Doggone it, Manuel," I said as I retrieved my hat and gave him back the pigsticker, "will you ever get used to that hatband? That's a braid, not a snake!" He'd seen me wearing that hat for years. Manuel, however, was unapologetic.
        "It looked like a snake," he replied with a sly grin, "when you insulted the Chihuahua, I think it turned into one." He winked and went back to sharpening his Bowie knife. I have to admit it: that Manuel was a real card!
        I could see that we had a fighter in the brindled pooch, so when I got the call to go after the San Juan Lion, I took Brutus along with us to Colorado, just to see what he could do. The San Juan Lion was a famous renegade that had foiled all of the professionals in the area. We were hired by a rancher who had brought us in more for revenge than economics, and after we flew into Denver we hit the high roads to his spread in the middle of the San Juan Mountains. In a big wooden house we went over a map with the rancher, Zeke Fenton, and his foreman, a long, lean Jicarilla Apache named Tub.
        Zeke Fenton was a white-haired old cob with an ancient knife scar that ran from his chin to his forehead. He informed us that there was a fresh cattle kill just over the next pass; that's where we were headed in the morning.
        After we finished talking, I went out to see after the dogs. The cowpokes had already fed them and penned them up in a wire enclosure, and they stood around the pen, watching them and talking.
        "Right nice-looking pack of hounds," one tall cowboy said, "but what on earth is that?" I looked where he was pointing and saw Brutus standing close to the fence. His funny-looking eyes bugged out of his diminutive head, looking in two different directions at once.
        "That's Brutus," I told him, "if heart were brains, he'd be a genius." Tub, who had been following me across the yard, paused and looked at the pipsqueak. Then he walked on.
        The next morning we rode our horses over the pass while it was still dark. Although the month was June, it was still freezing cold up there in the high country. The dogs shivered and whined with excitement as we crunched through the snow that covered the pass and headed down into the open valley.
        Down below the treeline the dogs struck fresh scent, and we took after them on horseback, angling across the meadows, cutting through crystal-clear streams that were as cold as ice. The air was clean, the trail was fresh, and the dogs were hot to catch the lion.
        As the sun rose, it cast shadows that crawled down the walls of the valley, then topped the peaks and blasted us right in the eyes. Riding across the slopes, I could hear the squealing of the spindly runt mixed in with the baying of the pack.
        "That little Chihuahua sounds a bit excited," observed Zeke.
        "Well, he's young;" I said, "this is his first big run." The rancher raised his eyebrows.
        "Sounds like his toe's caught in a vise," he dryly commented, "or maybe he swallowed a piccolo."
        "He'll do," I replied heatedly, "he'll do." My remark wasn't clever, but I didn't know what else to say. I felt that I had to defend Brutus, even if he had eaten Fluffy. About that time the dogs began yelping frantically in the distance, so we spurred our horses and galloped after them.
        When we got there it was apparent that we had missed a real battle. The cat had made an early stand on a ledge halfway up a cliff. With a steep approach that only one hound at a time could struggle up, he had easily mauled the first dogs to get to him. Then, he had leaped down on top of the other dogs, injuring a few more before scaling a tree and jumping back up onto the cliff. Most of my dogs were too hurt to chase him any further.
        "This is bad," I said as we rode up.
        "That's the way it is with this cat," said the rancher, "he's been pulling this stuff on us for years." I climbed down and stepped among the hounds. Bear was hurt the worst of all.
        "He'll be okay," said Zeke, who was now standing beside me, "I'll sew 'em up."
        "Did you see this?" asked Tub. He was pointing to a deep circular pattern that stood out even among the wild broil of tracks at the base of the tree. Next to the circular trough was a big patch of lion fur.
        "Well, I'll be dipped," I marvelled, "that little Chihuahua must've shanked him." Then I heard something. Somewhere, in some hidden valley or canyon off to our north, the scrawny little mixed-breed feist was hot on the trail of the big cat. His strange squeal reverberated off of the mountainsides and echoed down the big valley, quickly joined by the powerful baying of the remnants of my pack.
        "I told you, Senor Bull," Manuel breathed respectfully, "the Chihuahua, he never queets." Suddenly, I was covered with goose-bumps. Tub and I looked at each other, and I climbed back onto my horse.
        "Let's go," I said.
        We caught our first glimpse of them at about noon. We saw a distant speck flashing across a large open field, and I raised my spotting scope in time to see it clearly. The lion was running at top speed, with a look of sheer terror on his face. On his back was Brutus. He chewed and ripped up chunks of fur as if he were tearing the stuffing out of a rag doll: like a kill-maddened rat riding a bronco. The big cat twisted and bucked and managed to throw him before reaching the trees, where I lost sight of them. But it didn't matter, because soon Brutus's squeal hit the frequency of a dog whistle, and I knew that the San Juan Lion was treed.
        "Let's finish this old battleaxe," I told them, but when we got to the tree the lion had already surrendered. He clung to the trunk and trembled, his eyes as big as saucers. Below him was Brutus, perched on a branch, and around the base surged the other hounds, baying treed as if their lives depended on it. Then, as we watched the scene, the big cat suddenly let go and fell like a rock to the earth.
        He had died of a heart attack.
        "He didn't feel a thing," said Tub, looking sympathetically at the lion.
        It seemed important at the time.
        Since Brutus was wound up too tightly to calm down right away, I caught him with my snake stick and stuck him into a gunnysack. Tub watched it all with wonder etched on his face.
        "I name this dog "Hutay Lawoshka," he said solemnly, "he is Rabid Weasel, The Untamed Vermin That Squeals and Froths." Brutus was growling and writhing in the gunny sack, which was now hanging behind my saddle. "See that this one doesn't breed," Tub told me solemnly. I felt mighty swell, seeing that my dog had just been praised such a fellow.
        The San Juan Lion had been a cagey old cat, but in the end he hadn't been able to beat The Untamed Vermin that Squeals and Froths. I said as much to Manuel as we sat beside the fire on the first night back on the Rio De Los Gordos.
        "I tell you, Senor Bull," he wheezed in reply, "you should have a pack that is full of only Chihuahuas. The Chihuahua, he never queets." I looked over at the Rabid Weasel that Froths and Squeals and chuckled. He was chewing up my ballpeen hammer.
        "By gummy, Manuel," I sighed, "I reckon you could be right." I thought about his idea. "It might be worth trying."
        That conversation led to a revolution in big game hunting: the formation of the relentless pack of fast-trail Chihuahuas that finally brought the Big Griz of Wolf River to bay. For now, however, I gazed again at the mutt, who had shredded the wooden hammer handle into splinters and was starting to work on the stainless steel head.
        "He's a good old dog," I said to Manuel, "even if he did eat Fluffy."