Читать книгу The Case of the Halloween Ghost - John R. Erickson - Страница 6

Chapter One: The Mystery Begins with Something Fishy

It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. Slim’s house was cold and also a terrible mess, and I haven’t gotten to the part about the ghost yet.

There’s a reason for that. A guy can’t get his entire story into the first paragraph, no matter how hard he tries. So you’ll just have to be patient. I’ll get to the part about the ghosts as quick as I can. And when I do, you’ll probably wish I hadn’t.

What we’ve got cooking here is one of the scariest stories of my entire career, mainly be­cause it involves a GHOST. I didn’t think I be­lieved in ghosts, but as you’ll soon see, the ghost we encountered didn’t really care whether I believed in him or not.

So there you are.

It all began, mysteriously enough, at the be­ginning, and I happen to know the exact time it began: around six o’clock on the evening of October 30.

Drover and I had been making a routine patrol around the western quadrant of ranch headquarters, when all at once we encountered Pete the Barncat down at the calf shed.

There was nothing particularly mysterious about that, because the calf shed was one of his favorite loafing spots. He had several favorite loafing spots. He loved loafing above everything except himself.

Have I ever mentioned that I don’t like cats? I don’t like cats, Pete in particular. So when I saw him primping and preening himself there by the calf shed, I slipped up behind him, said “WOOF!” real loud, and gave him a good scare.

Ho, ho. Hee, hee. Ha, ha. I love it!

He turned wrongside-out, hissed, gave out his usual “Reeeeerr” and climbed the nearest post.

“Sorry, Cat, but we don’t allow loafing or loitering on this outfit. If you’d been taking care of the mouse problem, I wouldn’t have had to do that.”

He glared down at me with his big cat eyes. “Oh, it’s only Hankie.”

“Yeah, and Drover,” said Drover.

“I thought maybe it was a ghost.”

“A ghost?” said I. “Not likely, Cat. I run a tight ship here and I don’t allow ghosts on my ranch.”

“Oh really? Did you know that tomorrow night is Halloween?”

“No, I didn’t know that. Now ask me if I care.”

“Mmmmm, all right. Do you care?”

“Not even a little bit. But, for the sake of argument, what is Halloween?”

Pete moved off the post and parked himself on the top board of the fence. Funny, how a cat can do that. “Halloween is the scariest night of the year. It’s the night when all the ghosts and goblins come out.”

“Oh my gosh,” said Mister Scared-of-His-Own-Shadow, “I don’t think I’ll like that!”

“Quiet, Drover. I’ll handle this.” I turned a withering gaze up to the cat. “For your information, Kitty, we don’t observe Halloween on this ranch, and if you run into any gobs or ghostlins, you might tell them the same thing.”

“It’s ghosts or goblins,” said Drover.

I stared at him. “What?”

“I said, ghosts or goblins.”

“Yes? Is that supposed to mean something?”

“You said ‘gobs or ghostlins.’”

“I did not.”

“Did too, I heard you.”

“And so did I, Hankie.” That was the cat. “You said ‘gobs or ghostlins.’ But no matter what you call them, they’ll be out tomorrow night because tomorrow night is Halloween, and you can’t stop it from being Halloween.”

I drew myself up to my full upright position. “Oh yeah? I said there will be no Halloween on this ranch, and there will be no Halloween on this ranch, period.”

“Oh yes there will, Hankie, because Hallo­ween is already on the calendar.”

“Oh no it isn’t, Kitty-Kitty, because I don’t be­lieve in calendars, ghosts, goblins, or Halloweens, and as long as I’m in charge of Ranch Security, what I believe is the definition of what IS. Any more questions?”

The cat smirked down at me and twitched his tail. “When you see the ghosts and goblins tomorrow night, remember these words: ‘Wlcidkgh elskck clslckbnnbe slckeke.’”

“Huh?” I turned to Drover. “What did he just say?”

“I don’t know.”

I turned back to the cat. “What did you just say?”

“I said, ‘Wlcidkgh elskck clslckbnnbe slckeke.’”

Must have had some wax in my ear, couldn’t make a lick of sense out of what that cat was saying. “What?”

“Come closer and I’ll say it one more time.”

I hopped my front paws up on the fence and . . . you know what that sneaking, no-good, counter­feit . . . he slapped me across the nose with his claws, stung like fire, brought tears to my eyes, and before I could hamburgerize him, he had vanished.

Drover was staring up at me. “What did he say, Hank?”

“He said . . . shut your little trap and get back to work, you nincompoop, you’ve just been duped by the cat.”

“That sounds like something you might say.”

“I just did.”

“I thought maybe you did. But what about Hollereen?”

“It’s been cancelled.”

“Oh good! Are the ghosts cancelled too?”

“That’s correct. Come, Drover. We’ve used up our allotment of time for your bungling and now we’ve got work to do.” We headed east, out of the front lot and into the saddle lot, and ran into Slim. He had just finished his chores and was closing up the medicine shed for the night.

Drover and I fell in step beside him and escorted him to his pickup, even though my nose still hurt. He lived in a little hired man’s house down the creek—Slim did, not my nose; my nose lived on my face—and he was fixing to drive home for the night.

The sun was going down in the . . . well, in the west, of course, and a chill was beginning to rise from the ground.

Slim blew on his hands and rubbed his arms and looked down at us. “Why don’t you boys come home with me tonight? I need some company, and I’ll let you stay inside.”

Stay inside, like your ordinary pampered house mutts? No way. In security work, we’ve got to be just a little . . .

Oh what the heck, one night in a nice warm house . . . we hopped into the pickup and headed down the creek.

After all, Slim needed company. He was lonesome and . . .

Okay. We pulled up beside the house, after a bone-chilling ride in the back of Slim’s pickup. Drover and I were near frozen, yet somehow we mustered the energy to leap out of the pickup and make a lightning dash for the front door. We were shivering, see, and ready to begin our evening of selfless volunteer work around a nice warm wood-burning stove.

Slim pushed open the door and we raced inside.

Drover cheated and got there first. When I arrived, he had seated himself in front of the wood stove. I went over and joined him, although sitting in front of the stove didn’t do either of us any good because the fire had gone out.

Between shivers, Drover looked around the living room and said, “Gosh, I wonder what happened to this place.” It was a mess.

“I’m not sure, Drover. Either a train wreck or tornado.”

Slim came over and dropped an armload of wood beside the stove, pitched his coat over the back of the nearest chair, opened up the stove, shoveled some ashes into the ash bucket, made a little teepee out of kindling wood, and started wadding up newspapers and pitching them inside.

Then he lit a match and before long the stove was blazing and the chimney was roaring. He closed the door and held his hands over the stove.

“There. Now we’ve got us a fire.” He walked into the kitchen and built himself a sardine and ketchup sandwich for supper, and I, being the senior member of the crew, took the best spot, right in front of the stove.

Say, it was really roaring and kicking out the heat now. Felt wonderful. Sent warm delicious waves up my backbone and out to the end of my tail.

My eyes began to droop and I entered into a state of near perfect contentment—until Drover broke the spell.

“Hank, do you smell something?”

I sniffed the air. “Yes. Sardines.”

“Do they have kind of a burned smell?”

“Negative. Sardines are a species of fish, son, which explains why they have a fishy odor.”

“That’s funny. I thought I smelled burned hair.”

“Impossible. Sardines have neither hair nor fur nor whiskers. Catfish have whiskers but catfish don’t come in a sardine can, so there you are.”

“Well, maybe so, but I could swear . . .”

“Swearing and cursing will never get you anywhere, Drover. You’d be much better off learning to control that temper of yours.”

I returned to my dreamy state. It was so wonderful, I can hardly describe it. My body had bec­ome a battleground, as the Knights of Warmth chased the wicked Demons of Cold down my spine, out to my legs and feet and . . .

My dreams were interrupted by Slim’s voice. “Hank, for crying out loud, your hair’s on fire!”

HUH?

Someone was slapping me on the back, and all at once I smelled . . . well, burned hair, or something very close to it. And there was Slim . . . somehow my hair had . . .

“Hank, you do-do, get back from that stove before you burn my house down!”

My hair is very thick, you see, and sometimes it’s hard to feel . . . I still say that sardines don’t have . . . but just as a precaution, I moved away from the stove.

I turned to my assistant. “We’d best keep our distance from this stove, Drover. It’s hotter than you might think.”

“Did you catch on fire?”

“I wouldn’t put it exactly that way, no.”

“I knew there was something fishy going on.”

“That was sardines, Drover, and I think we can drop the subject now. You were wrong but at least you tried. Next time, try a little harder.

“Oh. Okay.”

That took care of that.

Yes, I know. We haven’t gotten to the business about the ghosts yet, but it will come. In this old life, one thing must follow another, just as one thing must precede another.

It seems to work better that way.