Читать книгу Let Sleeping Dogs Lie - John R. Erickson - Страница 6

Chapter One: An Awful Fiendish Murder

It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. The night was dark and still, the air so heavy that I could taste it. And what I tasted was . . . MURDER!!

Drover had stumbled onto the body, what was left of it, down by the creek just before dark. He sounded the alarm and I raced to the scene. In the last light of day, I conducted my usual thorough investigation.

“Drover,” I said after sifting the clues and analyzing the facts, “this was no ordinary murder. It’s the work of some kind of fiend. And he may still be on the ranch.”

“Oh my gosh! Maybe we better hide.”

I caught him just as he was about to run for cover. “Hold on, son, I’ve got some bad news. We’re this ranch’s first line of defense. If there’s a murdering fiend on the loose, we have to catch him.”

Drover shivered and rolled his eyes. “You’re right about one thing.”

“And what would that be, Drover?”

“It’s bad news. I’m scared of murdering fiends.”

“Being scared of scary things is normal, son. But you don’t go into security work to be normal. We have to be tougher and braver than your ordinary run of mutts.”

“Could I work on that tomorrow?”

“Negative. In this business, a guy never knows if he’ll be around tomorrow.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Drover, being afraid is the major cause of fear. If you can get that under control, you’ve got it licked.” He stared at me and then licked his chops. “When I said, ‘You’ve got it licked,’ I wasn’t suggesting that you should lick your chops. Are you trying to be funny?”

“No.”

“Good, because you’re not.”

“I’m too scared.”

“Let’s move out. We’ve got a job to do.”

I sent Drover off to scout the eastern quadrant of headquarters while I gave myself the more difficult job of checking out the western quadrant, which included the saddle shed, corrals, calf shed, and feed barn.

As I groped through the inky blackness, I found myself worrying about Little Drover. What if he found the fiend? Or what if the fiend found him?

I crept through the front lot, sweeping the territory in front of me with eyes that had been trained to see what ordinary eyes were unable to see.

The wind stirred. No, the wind moaned. It moaned in the tops of the cottonwoods across the creek and cried through the pipes of the doctoring chute, and suddenly I heard a crash behind me. I leaped into the air and turned to face the attack of I-knew-not-what manner of monster . . .

. . . and realized that Slim and High Loper still hadn’t taken the time to pound two piddling galvanized nails into that dadgum piece of tin on the roof of the calf shed.

Here we have a classic case of ranch mismanagement. How many years had that piece of tin flapped in the wind? Two? Five? Ten? Every time the wind changed directions, it banged. And every time it banged, Slim would say, “We’ll have to fix that thing one of these days,” and Loper would say, “Yup, when we get caught up.”

And so it banged and flapped every time . . .

. . . THE WIND CHANGED DIRECTIONS. There was my first clue. Yes, the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place. If the tin banged every time the wind changed direction, and if the tin was banging at that very moment, then it followed from simple deduction that the wind had changed directions.

Exactly what that had to do with the murder case, I wasn’t sure, but I had a sneaking suspicion that the two were connected. The murderer was near. Somehow I had to get word to Drover.

The wind was rising now. Off to the north, a bolt of lightning cut through the night and bathed the caprock in ghostly silver light. Then came an ominous thumber of rundle . . . uh rumber of thundle . . . rumble of thunder while the tin banged against the roof of the calf shed.

Against the rising scream of the wind, I barked the retreat: “Drover, leave your post and come here at once!”

There was no reply but the mocking howl of the wind.

Dust and hay and flakes of dried manure swirled through the air, filling my eyes and mouth with dust and hay and flakes of dried manure that swirled through the air. Near blind and gasping for breath, I pitched forward.

Lightning crackled across the sky, and in the flash I saw something that froze the blood in my veins and raised the hair on my back.

There, standing some fifty feet in front of me, was a ghostly apparition—a glowing formless thing of pale light with deep blue holes where eyes should have been.

This was the fiend. It had to be.

Now, I’m no coward. I’ll fight my weight in wildcats or skunks but I hate to mess with fiends. I needed help for this job, even if that meant ex­posing my position to the fiend. I raised my head and barked against the wind.

“Drover, can you hear me!”

Off in the distance, I heard a faint reply. “Yes! Can you hear me?”

“Affirmative!”

“What?”

“AFFIRMATIVE!”

“WHAT?”

“YES!”

“Oh.” There was a throbbing silence. “What was the question?”

“The question was,” I yelled against the wind, “can you hear me!”

“Oh. I thought that’s what I asked you!”

“It was. Now listen carefully.”

“Hank, can you hear me?”

“Of course I can hear you! That’s what we’ve been yelling about.”

“What? Hank, can you yell? I can’t hear YOU.”

“I haven’t said anything yet, you dunce!”

“Oh. Well, tell me when you say something.”

“Drover, listen carefully. I’m on patrol in the western quadrant. I’ve just made a visual sighting of an unidentified object. I think it’s the fiend.”

“Oh my gosh, I knew I should have stayed at the gas tanks, oh, my leg’s killing me!”

“The important thing now, Drover, is not to panic.”

“It’s too late, I already did! Hank, I’m scared!”

“Get control of yourself. Give me your location.”

“I don’t know my location. I’m lost.”

“How can you guard this ranch if you’re lost?”

“What? I said, I’m lost! Help!”

“Hold your present location. I’m moving up to check this thing out. If you don’t hear from me in an hour, run for the house and sound the alarm.”

“I don’t think I can find the house!”

“This will be a silent run, Drover. I’m breaking off communications as of this moment.”

“Oh, my leg . . .”

I shifted into my Attack Mode, which is a kind of stealthy crouch I use only on Code 3’s and Red Alerts. What it means is that I keep my body low to the ground while leading with my nose and following with a very stiff tail. In the Attack Mode I can cover short distances without making a sound.

If you’ve never seen a blue-ribbon, top-of-the-line cowdog in Attack Mode, you’ll just have to take my word for it. It’s very impressive.

I crept forward as the lightning snapped overhead and the thumber rundled and the wind shrieked and the dust swirled. Up ahead, I could see the glowing thing lurking in the gloom.

Was I scared? Maybe. A little. After all, I’d never gone up against a fiend before. They’re not very common.

Ten feet from the object, I stopped and took a deep breath. This was my last chance to back out, but as you might have already guessed, I didn’t. I coiled my legs under me and sprang to the attack.

I struck the fiend with all my weight and force and was a little surprised that he went down as easily as he did. I mean, I buried him, fellers, just by George bedded him down and jumped in the middle of him.

Suddenly, over the roar of the storm, I heard Drover. “Hank, help, Mayday, the fiend has me, help!”

“There must be two of ’em, Drover! I’ve got my hands full here, so just fight for your life!”

My fiend began to fight back, which wasn’t entirely unexpected. I hadn’t supposed that I would win without a tussle. It seldom happens that way in real life. But the important thing is that I had the upper hand.

“I’ve got mine down, Drover! Give me a report on your situation.”

“The fiend has me down, I’m whipped, I think I’ve lost a leg and a lot of blood, help, hurry, murder!”

“Hang on, Drover, I’ll be right there!”

I hated to leave my fiend, just when I had him whipped, but a guy has to take care of his comrades. I stumbled off into the darkness, looking for Little Drover and hoping that I wasn’t too late.

“Drover, can you hear me? Give me your position. The code word for this mission is Sea Cow.”

“Help! Sea Cow! My leg!”

I groped toward the sound of his voice, and much to my surprise, I found him lying in the front lot. “Where is he, Drover, just point me toward him and stand back!”

“Oh, Hank, thank goodness you made it! I guess he ran away.”

“Not a bad idea.” I peered into the darkness. “He must have been a pretty smart fiend. Give me a damage report.”

“Everything’s damaged!”

The lightning was popping all around by this time and I was able to give Drover a quick check-up. “Son, I don’t see a drop of blood and I count four legs and two ears. Are you sure you had a fight with a fiend?”

“I’m sure, Hank, it was a terrible fight, just terrible! He was about your size, only twice as big.”

“Hold it right there. If he was about my size, how could he have been twice as big?”

In a flash of lightning, I could see my assistant rolling his eyes around and twisting his mouth as he searched his tiny brain for the answer. “I guess he grew. Can a fiend do that?”

“Very possibly, Drover. As a matter of fact, mine was about your size when I jumped him, but he seemed to grow too. So there you are, some valuable information on the nature of fiends.”

“Very valuable.”

“And now you know what our next move will be.”

“Sure do.”

“And what will our next move be, Drover?”

“Well . . . go back to bed?”

I glared at the piece of darkness where his head had been only moments before. “No, Drover, that’s absolutely wrong.” Lightning leaped across the sky and I saw that I was speaking to a fence post. Drover had moved.

“I’m over here now.”

“Of course you are.” I shifted around and faced him. “Our next move, Drover, will be to rush up to the house and sound the alarm. I think High Loper would like to know that he has a couple of fiends loose on this ranch.”

And with that, we made a dash to the house. Little did I know that we would be exposing ourselves to danger of another sort.