Читать книгу The Case of the Monkey Burglar - John R. Erickson - Страница 6

Chapter One: An Interesting Visitor

It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. At first glance there was nothing about the vehicle that made it stand out. It was a red Chevy car with . . . I don’t know, four doors and four tires. No big deal, except that it had come onto my ranch without permission, so Drover and I gave it the usual treatment.

We shifted into the Launch All Dogs Procedure, went ripping up the hill, and barked the car all the way down to the machine shed.

There, I waited to see if the driver would dare to step out. Sometimes they don’t, you know. After they’ve seen all the amassed forces of the ranch’s Security Division, sometimes they just sit in the car, afraid to move. But this guy seemed pretty brave, and when he climbed out of the car, I understood why.

He was a deputy sheriff. On his belt he carried a pistol, two sets of handcuffs, and all that other stuff they load onto their belts. And you know what else? I knew the guy: Chief Deputy Kile of the Ochiltree County Sheriff’s Department.

Do you remember Deputy Kile? He helped me solve the Case of the Saddle House Robbery . . . or I helped him. I don’t remember all the details, but we worked the case together and sent a sneaking little saddle thief to the slammer.

Are you familiar with the word “slammer”? Maybe not, because it’s one of the technical words we use in the Security Business. It means “jailhouse,” and we call it “slammer” because . . . well, because every jailhouse has a big iron door, and when you throw a crook in jail, you close the door behind him and it SLAMS.

So instead of calling it a jailhouse, we call it the slammer.

Maybe this is obvious, but the point is that Deputy Kile and I were in the same line of work, right? He happened to work for the sheriff’s department and I happened to be Head of Ranch Security, but both of us enforced the law and were the sworn enemies of all crooks, crinimals, spies, snakes, scorpions, and night monsters.

I was very interested in finding out why he had come to the ranch. He wasn’t the kind of fellow who made social calls or engaged in idle chatter, so when Slim came out of the machine shed to greet him, I stationed myself nearby and listened to their conversation.

After exchanging pleasantries and thoughts about the weather and pasture conditions, Deputy Kile said, “Slim, I need to borrow some air. I’ve got a slow leak in that right front tire.”

A slow leak in his tire? That was all? What a bum deal. I had hoped for something more exciting. I mean, let’s face it, in August things get a little dull around here.

Slim looked at the tire. “I can fix it with a plug, if you’ve got a few minutes.”

Deputy Kile said he had time, so Slim jacked up the car, pulled off the tire, and found the source of the problem: a mesquite thorn.

He pulled it out with a pair of needle-nose pliers and held it up. “Where’d you find a mesquite thorn? There ain’t a mesquite tree within twenty miles of here.”

The deputy smiled. “That’s pretty good detective work. The other day, I was working a case in the south part of the county—more than twenty miles from here. It was kind of interesting.”

“Tell me about it while I fix your tire.”

Deputy Kile sat down on a five-gallon bucket in the shade. “We got a call from a farmer, said he was missing some tools from his shop. I drove down and checked it out. In front of the shop, I found some good clear footprints in the dust.”

“So did you catch the man?”

“That was the funny part. The robber was barefooted, and the prints weren’t human.”

Slim looked up from the tire. “What do you mean? He was from outer space?”

The deputy laughed. “No, probably from a zoo or a circus. They were monkey tracks.”

“Monkey tracks! Now hold on a second. You think some feller trained a monkey to rob and steal?”

“That’s the way it looks. There was a clear path of monkey prints all the way from the shop to some tire tracks about a hundred yards away, and no sign that the man ever got out of his vehicle. You’ve got to admit that’s pretty smart.”

Slim laughed and shoved a rubber plug into the hole in the tire. “Well, that beats it all.”

“It’s got us scratching our heads, I can tell you that. The first thing I asked the farmer was—‘Where were your dogs while all of this was going on?’”

Slim frowned, then his eyes prowled around until they found . . . well, ME, you might say. “I hadn’t thought of that. I mean, Hank and Drover are about ten cards short of a full deck, but I do believe they’d bark their heads off if a monkey ever walked onto the place. Where were the farmer’s dogs?”

“Three dogs, and they were all asleep . . . or knocked out might be more like it. I think somebody slipped ’em a mickey.”

“A tranquilizer?”

The deputy nodded. “The farmer said when they woke up, they acted goofier than Cooter Brown.”

“Well, I’ve never heard of such a thing, and I’ve been to three county fairs and four rodeos.”

Slim finished plugging the tire, filled it with air, and mounted it on the car. Deputy Kile thanked him and offered to pay him for his trouble, but Slim wouldn’t hear of it, so they shook hands and the deputy got back in his car.

“Slim, these thieves might still be in the area, so keep your eyes open for anything suspicious. Are you and Loper going to be around the place?”

“Heck yeah. I’m too broke to go anywhere, and Loper’s too cheap.”

“Good. Let me know if you see anything.”

The car pulled away, and Slim stood there for a moment, shaking his head. “Well, if that don’t beat it all, a monkey burglar.” He laughed to himself and went back to his welding job in the machine shed.

When he had gone, I turned to Drover, who was gazing up at the clouds. “Did you hear that?”

His eyes drifted down, and he gave me a grin. “Oh, hi. Did somebody just drive away?”

“Drover, that was the deputy sheriff and he was here for thirty minutes. You didn’t hear anything he said?”

“Well, let’s see. I heard something about . . . a tire. Did he have a tire on his car?”

I let out a groan. “Of course he had a car on his tire! He had four of them.”

“He had four cars?”

“He had one car, four tires. Every car has four tires.”

“How come?”

“Because every car has four wheels.”

“Oh. What if one fell off?”

I gave him a withering glare. “Don’t start this, Drover, I’m not in the mood for one of your loony conversations. Deputy Kile gave us a very interesting report about a gang of burglars, but it’s obvious that you didn’t hear any of it.”

“They steal tires?”

“No, they don’t steal tires. They steal tools. If you see a strange vehicle driving around, let me know at once.”

“A vehicle with four tires?”

“Exactly.”

“That wouldn’t be strange. You said they all had four tires.”

“Stop talking about tires! What’s wrong with you?”

He grinned. “I don’t know. All at once, I’m just . . . thinking about tires.”

“Oh, brother. One last thing. If you see any unauthorized monkeys lurking around, I want to know about it.” He let out a giggle. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s a joke, right? Tee hee. We don’t have monkeys around here.”

“Drover, it’s no joke. This particular monkey is a burglar. If he shows up, we’ve got problems. Any more questions?”

“What does he look like?”

“Who?”

“The monkey.”

“How should I know? He looks like a monkey. If you see a monkey that looks like a monkey, it’ll be a monkey. At that point, you come and tell me you’ve seen a monkey.”

He stared at the ground and gnawed on his lip. “Let’s see here . . . if I see a monkey that looks like a monkey . . . I think I’ve got it.”

“Good. And in the future, I hope you’ll try to . . .”

I had planned to give Drover a lecture on goofing off and not paying attention, but just then I heard footsteps approaching from the direction of the house. I turned and saw Loper plodding up the hill. Even at a distance, I could see that he was in a bad mood.

Since he owned the ranch and was more or less in charge of things, this wasn’t particularly good news.