Читать книгу The Case of the Hooking Bull - John R. Erickson - Страница 7
ОглавлениеChapter Two: Code Name “Abilene”
From my bunker position, I homed in on their voice frequencies and picked up these bits of information:
1. Sally May and Loper were going to Abilene to attend the wedding of . . . someone. Two people. Two people were getting married—a man and a woman.
2. One of the alleged persons-to-be-wed was Sally May’s cousin.
3. It appeared that Loper had resisted the idea of attending the wedding, arguing that he had a month’s work to do on the ranch and no hope of getting caught up.
4. To which Sally May replied: “If it was a team roping, a rodeo, or a dog fight, you’d be caught up in a New York minute, but when it comes to my kinfolks, you always seem to be snowed under!”
5. Loper seemed to have no answer to that. He scowled up at the clouds and tugged at his necktie and mumbled, “This thing’s choking me to death. I’ll have brain damage before we reach Guthrie.”
6. Slim wore his everyday cowboy clothes and a big smile. I got the feeling that he was enjoying all of this.
7. Sally May pointed out that wearing a tie once or twice a year wouldn’t kill Loper, and even if it did, she “just might enjoy the insurance money”—whatever that meant.
8. Slim laughed out loud. Loper glared at him and his lips formed words I couldn’t hear.
So there you are. Those were the clues I amassed from my observation point beneath the car. Pretty impressive, huh? You bet it was.
Oh yes, one last detail.
All at once Baby Molly began to cry. Loper bounced her around in his arms, then handed her over to Sally May. “Here, Ma, your daughter’s calling you.”
Sally May took the baby and got her settled down. Then she turned a pair of steely eyes on Slim. “Slim, I’ll be honest. I have some misgivings about leaving you in charge of my house and child.”
He nodded. “Yes ma’am, I can understand that, sure can.”
“You will feed my child something while I’m gone, won’t you?”
“Oh yes ma’am.”
“Vegetables?”
“You bet, lots of vegetables.”
“He needs to take a bath tonight and brush his teeth after every meal.”
“You bet.”
“At bedtime, I usually read him a story.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And then I tuck him in and we say our prayers.”
“Yalp.”
“Sometimes he wants a glass of juice at bedtime.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So if you want to make him a glass of orange juice, that will be fine.”
“Okay, orange juice.”
“Slim, can you remember all this?”
“Oh yeah, you bet.”
“Maybe I should make a list.”
Loper eased her down the sidewalk toward the car. “Everything’ll be fine, hon. Old Slim might not look very smart, but he’s really pretty stupid.”
“This is no time for joking.”
“Sally May, we’ll only be gone for two days.”
“Pompeii was destroyed in fifteen minutes.”
“Hon, Slim can’t even find his hip pocket in fifteen minutes.”
“I’m not feeling any better.”
“Shall we go or shall we stay home?”
By this time they were standing right beside the car. Their feet, ankles, etc. were only a matter of inches away from my nose. Sally May was wearing a dress, don’t you see, which meant that her ankles were sort of bare.
For some strange reason . . . it was just an impulse, see, a sudden impulse that happened before I could think about it . . . all at once it occurred to me that I should, well, lick Sally May on the ankle, you might say.
Maybe she hadn’t seen me under the car and maybe she wasn’t expecting anyone to lick her on the ankle, because she sure took it the wrong way.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”
Yes, I’m almost sure it caught her by surprise, the way she jumped back and kicked the car door all in one rapid motion. It appeared to hurt her foot, but the good news was that she missed my nose.
“What’s wrong, hon?”
“Something licked me on the ankle, and I have a pretty good idea who it was.” Her face appeared upside down in the little slot of daylight between the car and the ground.
I, uh, whapped my tail several times upon the, uh, gravel drive and tried to squeeze up a big, friendly cowdog smile, as if to say, “Oh, I guess that was, uh, your ankle, right?”
“STOP LICKING ME! I have to go to a wedding this afternoon and I don’t want to smell like a sewer!”
Okay, fine. If that’s the way she felt about it, by George, I would just pack up my licks and take them somewhere else. But she didn’t need to screech at me like that.
Dogs have feelings too.
In many ways, we’re very sensitive, and all that screeching and yelling and so forth has a dilapidating effect on our . . . something. Inner being, I guess.
So after having my inner being smashed and crushed, I crawled out from under the car and went slinking off with my tail between my legs and sat down beside the fence, some ten yards away from Sally May, and proceeded to beam hurtful looks at her.
She didn’t notice the hurtful looks. Instead, she turned to Slim and said, “And speaking of dogs, I don’t want any dogs in my yard while I’m gone.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“And I don’t suppose we need to discuss dogs in the house.”
Slim shifted his weight to his other leg. “Now, I’m pretty strict on that, Sally May. These dogs don’t get away with much around me, they sure don’t.”
Sally May took a deep, slow breath. “This is probably a mistake. I’ll probably regret this for the rest of my life, but if we’re going to make the wedding, we’d better go.”
Loper turned to Slim. “Can you run that bull out by yourself or would you rather wait until I get back?”
Slim smiled. “One riot, one Ranger.”
“Well, watch him. He’s big enough to hurt somebody.”
“So am I.”
Loper opened the back door and started pitching luggage inside. Sally May called Little Alfred away from his chicken roping, and he came down the hill for the Final Ceremonies.
Holding the baby in the curve of her left arm, she bent down and hugged the boy with her right. “Alfred, I want you to promise me that you’ll be a good boy while Mommy’s gone.”
“I pwomise.”
“And that you won’t do anything Mommy wouldn’t want you to do.”
“I pwomise.”
“Mommy will miss you and . . .” So forth.
I’ve reported only part of the conversation between Sally May and Alfred. It went on for quite a spell and I quit listening to it. You see, my attention had been drawn to a small detail that a lot of dogs would have overlooked.
It suddenly dawned on me that after packing the luggage into the back seat, Loper had left the car door open. Everything in this old world has a reason. A car-door-left-open is part and partial of this old world, therefore it has a reason.
It was my job to find the reason. In other words, why had Loper, a careful and precise kind of feller, left that door open? To air out the car? No. To load Baby Molly into the back with the luggage? No. To let Sally May ride in the . . . no.
I submitted this mystery to the Funnel of Logic (another of the techniques we use in the Security Business) and it funneled down to one and only one simple explanation: For private and unknown reasons, Loper wanted ME to accompany them on their trip to Abilene, and possibly even to attend the wedding.
Why? I had no idea. The Funnel of Logic does not address why-questions. It only deals with broad general truths and long-term trends.
Well, a trip to Abilene wasn’t exactly part of my scheduling for the next couple of days. Could I squeeze it in? For anyone else, the answer would have been a big, lymphatic NO. I had much too much work lined up to be running all over the state of Texas.
But for Loper and Sally May? You bet. Loyalty runs deep in my line of cowdogs. When duty calls, we are there, Johnny-on-the-Spot.
It happened that Drover appeared at that very moment and said, “Hi Hank, I got bored.”
“Never mind what you got, Drover. I have been called out on an assignment. Within minutes, I’ll be leaving on a secret mission.”
“I’ll be derned. Where you going?”
I glanced over both shoulders and dropped my voice to a whisper. “We’re not sure, Drover. The decoy destination is Abilene. The actual destination could be anywhere: London, Paris, Bangkok, Amarillo. A guy never knows.”
“Sounds pretty exciting.”
“Exactly. While I’m gone, you’ll be in charge.”
“Oops.”
“I know, but we must take life as it really is. Take care of things, son. Good-bye.”
Before this emotional parting could get out of hand, I turned away, squared my shoulders, lifted my head to a stern angle, and marched to the transport vehicle, which was waiting for me.
I hopped in, found myself a place on the seat amidst the suitcases and high chair, and settled down for a long . . .
Perhaps I had misread the signals.
The, uh, secret mission was suddenly cancelled, so to speak.
After thinking it over, Loper must have decided that . . . well, just think about the risks of . . .
I stayed at the ranch, and never mind the details.
