Читать книгу The Case of the Tricky Trap - John R. Erickson - Страница 6

Chapter One: Salad Is Good for Dogs

It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. The mystery began on a cold gloomy day in February, as I recall. March. No, it was February, because February begins with an f and ends in a y, and has twenty-three letters in between.

So, yes, it was a warm day in March. Drover and I had brought the ranch through another dark and dangerous night, had caught a few winks of sleep on our gunnysack beds, and had ventured out to do a routine patrol of ranch headquarters.

We were down by the corrals when I noticed several sprigs of winter grass that had popped out beneath the bottom board of the corral fence. Maybe you think that a few sprigs of greenery should be no big deal, but it was. On our ranch, the first appearance of green grass is always a welcome sign, an omen that the dull brown grip of winter will soon fade into the soft days of spring.

I paused and sniffed the grass. Drover noticed, and seemed surprised. “What are you doing?”

“I’m stopping to smell the roses.”

“Yeah, but it’s just grass.”

“Drover, today we have grass and tomorrow we’ll have roses. This is the first green grass of the year and spring is on its way.” He gave me a blank stare. “What’s wrong with you? For three long months our world has been drab and brown, and here is a little splash of color. I’d think you’d be excited.”

“Yeah, but I’m not.”

I turned away from him and sniffed the greenery. “Who cares? I love the smell of this stuff. I mean, all winter we’ve lived with the smell of dust and dead leaves, but now . . .” I filled my lungs with the fragrance. “This is delicious! Wonderful! It smells almost good enough to eat.”

I sniffed the grass again and all at once . . . well, the notion of eating some grass sounded pretty appealing, and you know what? Right then and there I nipped off the tender shoots of grass and swallowed them down.

Drover’s eyes grew wide. “You ate grass?”

“Of course I did. For your information, it’s not uncommon for dogs to eat grass, and do you know why?”

He shook his head. “I can’t imagine.”

“Then let me explain.” I began pacing back and forth in front of him, as I often do when I’m forced to expand his tiny mind. “Number one, green grass cleans our teeth and freshens our breath. Number two, it’s good for the digestion. Number three, after eating Co-op dog food all winter, we need some salad in our diet.”

He stared at me. “Salad! I hate salad. It’s for rabbits.”

“Drover, what’s good for rabbits is sometimes good for dogs. For your information, green grass contains many of the fillomens and mackerels that build healthy bones, hair, and muscle.”

“You mean vitamins and minerals?”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, I think you said something about mackerels.”

I stopped pacing. “Drover, I said nothing about mackerels. Mackerels are fish. Fish live in water and they don’t eat grass.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“I’m trying to give you a lesson on diet and nutrition. I’d appreciate it if you’d pay attention and stop talking about fish.” I resumed my pacing. “Now, where was I?”

“Fillomens and mackerels.”

“Yes, of course. It’s common knowledge that Co-op dog food is made of sawdust and grease. Our people buy it because it’s cheap, but it contains just the bare minimum of fillomens and mackerels to keep a dog alive. That’s why we need salad in our diet from time to time.”

“Yeah, but . . . eating grass?”

“Drover, there’s more to this life than steak bones and meat. Doesn’t your body ever cry out for something green and nourishing?”

He gave me a silly grin. “Nope. My body cries out for ice cream.”

“Ice cream! No wonder you’ve turned out to be such a runt. Well, go ahead and be a stub-tailed, malnourished, half-starved little husk of a dog. I don’t care. I’m going to eat my vegetables and then we’ll see who’s sorry.”

“Fine with me.”

Why do I bother trying to help Drover? I don’t know. Experience has proven that it’s a waste of time, but for some reason . . . oh well.

I had wasted my lecture on him, but that wasn’t going to keep me from attending to my own dietary needs. The still, small voice inside my body had informed me that, after a long drab winter, I needed greenery in my diet. So I left Drover to dream of ice cream and proceeded to harvest every tender sprig of green grass I could find.

If he couldn’t learn anything from my lectures, then maybe he could learn from the force of my example. That’s the best way of teaching anyway, through example. The proof of the pudding is in the ice cream.

You know, ice cream did sound pretty good, but I was on a Nourishment Crusade and had to put all thoughts of ice cream out of my mind. Thirty minutes of careful grazing left me in great shape, spiritually and nutritionally, and by the time I had harvested about three hundred tender blades of grass, I was more convinced than ever that . . .

Well, that eating grass wasn’t as exciting as you might think. I mean, a little grass goes a long way for a dog. Sure, I’d had a craving for the stuff, but you can’t let those cravings get out of control. Moderation, that’s the secret—moderation in all things.

Anyway, I took one last bite of grass, rolled it around in my mouth, and began to wonder how rabbits could stand to eat such garbage. I checked to make sure that Drover wasn’t looking and spit it out. Yuck.

At that very moment, I heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. I looked up and saw Slim Chance, the ranch’s hired hand, pulling up in front of the feed shed. And I knew it was exactly eight o’clock in the morning.

You’re probably amazed that a dog would have such an uncanny sense of time. I mean, we don’t carry watches or clocks, so how could I have known that it was exactly eight o’clock?

I’m sorry, but I can’t reveal that information. See, the world is full of spies and enemy agents, and we have to be very careful about who knows the inner workings of the Security Division. Those guys never sleep, they never rest. Day and night, they’re plotting mischief and looking for ways of hacking into our secret files. Why, if they knew all the formulas we use for keeping time . . .

Oh, what the heck, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to give you a little peek. Okay, here we go. First off, we take precise measurements of the positions of the sun, the moon, and the planet Neeptide just before sunrise. Since the sun doesn’t exist before sunrise, we drop it from the equation and mush on. We add the numbers together, divide by the number of legs on a spider (7.35), and multiply by three.

Why three? Well, it’s a nice little number and we’ve always liked it. Furthermore, if you were taking a walk down Numbers Lane, three is the number you would meet between two and four.

If you do the math right, this complex equation will yield the exact time of day. But just in case we make some mistakes in our clackulations, we have ways of checking our work. For example, we have learned through careful observation that at eight o’clock in the wintertime, Slim Chance arrives at the feed shed. He has a coffee mug hooked onto the index finger of his right hand, his eyes are puffy, and he communicates in a language called Gruntlish.

In Gruntlish, “Uh” means “Good morning, dogs” and “Uh grunt grunt uh” means “Get out of the way.” That’s about the extent of his morning conversation. Anyway, our system of keeping time works to perfection and now you’ve had a little peek at our secret methods. When Slim parked the pickup in front of the feed shed, we knew it was exactly eight o’clock in the morning. What did we do with that information? Not much, actually, but we knew it wasn’t raining or Tuesday.

Slim dragged himself out of the pickup, looked down at me with a pair of red-rimmed eyeballs, and said, “Uh grunt grunt uh.” (Look one paragraph above for the translation.) He took a sip of coffee and threw open the shed door. For a moment, he stared inside, and then he muttered, “Uh uh grunt uh grunt grunt grunt!”

Drover turned a puzzled gaze on me. “What did he say?”

“I’m not sure. He’s not usually so talkative in the morning. We’ve never had to translate such a long speech.”

“Well, he looks kind of mad. Maybe he saw a mouse or something.”

I studied Slim’s face. Sure enough, he looked mad. “But why would he be mad about a mouse?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a mouse ate his cheese.”

I beamed him a glare. “Drover, Slim puts his cheese in the refrigerator, not in the feed shed. Feed in the feed shed, cheese in the refrigerator. Do you see a pattern here?”

“Yeah, but what about the pickles?”

“Pickles? Drover, pickles have nothing to do with anything.”

“Well, they have to do with hamburgers, and I love hamburgers.”

I shoved him aside. “Out of the way, and don’t talk to me about pickles.”

“Well, if you were a pickle, how would you feel if nobody ever talked about you?”

I ignored him. Did I have time to discuss pickles? No. Slim had seen something unusual in the feed shed, and had gone to the effort of muttering, “Uh uh grunt uh grunt grunt grunt!” We had some kind of problem on the ranch and I had to find out what it was. I marched up beside my cowboy friend and turned my gaze into the shed.

I was stunned, shocked. You see, Slim and I had just stumbled upon evidence of a terrible crime.