Читать книгу Hank the Cowdog and Monkey Business - John R. Erickson - Страница 6

Chapter One: Chapter One Always Precedes Chapter Two

It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. It was morning on the ranch, the beginning of another spring day. I had been up since before daylight, monitoring the forces of nature and guiding them through their morning routines.

While others sleep, the Head of Ranch Security is out there in the darkness, planning out the day. I had put in orders for the sun to come up in the east, and for a light dew to sprinkle the grass.

At 0700 hours, everything checked out. The sun and dew had followed my orders to perfection. At 0705 I issued a new set of orders, allowing the sun to rise in the sky, and the dew to begin sparkling on the grass.

At 0710, feeling pretty good about things, I made my way up to the machine shed. I had gotten another day off to a good start—or so it appeared. Little did I know that within a matter of hours, Drover and I would discover a Mysterious Red Box out in the pasture that would change the course of our lives.

Perhaps you don’t believe in Mysterious Red Boxes. Well, that’s too bad, because I found one on my ranch. Hang around and you’ll see just how fast one of those things can turn a day around.

When I arrived at the machine shed, I found Drover sunning himself on the south side—sunning himself, gazing up at the clouds, and wasting time.

“Hi, Hank.”

“Well, Drover, I see that you’re sunning yourself, gazing up at the clouds, and wasting time.”

He grinned. “Yeah, I get a kick out of that.”

“You certainly do.” I kicked him in the behind. “There’s your kick. Now get up. We’ve got to make a Cattle Guard Patrol.”

“But Hank . . .”

“Hush. And chase rabbits.”

“Oh rats.”

“Rabbits.”

“Oh rabbits.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

In security work we have certain jobs that we attend to every day, others that we take care of on a weekly basis. Cattle Guard Patrol falls into the latter category.

It’s one of those jobs that has to be done every once in a while but not necessarily every day. It’s important, but when we get involved with murder cases and reports of monsters on the ranch and other dangerous assignments, we tend to let the cattle guard work slide into the background.

We hadn’t done a thorough Cattle Guard Patrol in several weeks and it was sure ’nuff time to do one. We went streaking past the chicken house, scattering chickens in all directions and barking, “Out of the way, you fools!”

I get a big kick out of scattering chickens, always have. It’s a very satisfying part of my job. Give me two different routes to choose from, one clear and the other blocked by a bunch of chickens, and I’ll take the chicken route every time.

There’s something about the way they squawk and flap their wings that gives me a feeling of . . . something. Power. Total control. Superiority. It seems to tune up my savage instincts and get my blood to pumping.

Chickens were put on this earth to be scattered, and your better breeds of dogs rarely miss a chance to run through a crowd of them.

After plowing through the chickens and leaving them in squawking disarray, we continued on a northwesterly course out into the home pasture, and beyond to the country road. There we found the cattle guard, just where it had been the last time we’d patrolled it.

“All right, Drover, do you remember the procedure we follow on cattle guards?”

“Well, let’s see. It’s been a long time. Seems to me that we . . . bark?”

“That’s correct up to a point, but also incorrect up to a point. Perhaps I should refresh your memory. Are you ready for me to outline our procedure for Cattle Guard Patrol?”

He yawned.

“What kind of answer is that?”

“It wasn’t an answer. I just yawned.”

“I know you yawned, you yo-yo, and you youldn’t yoo yat.”

“What?”

“I yaid, you yould yever yawn . . .” Something had gone wrong with my talkatory mechanism. It had locked up on me.

Drover twisted his head and stared at me. “You sure are talking funny.”

“Yes, and you yee what you’ve yone? You’ve yuined my yongue and made a yockery of my yecture! I yan’t yalk or yive a yecture yith my yongue all yangled up yike yis, you yunce!”

“I don’t know what you said, but I guess you’re right.”

I walked a short distance away and spit several times to get the knot out of my tongue. Some­times, when you repeat certain sounds over and over, the muscle fibers in the tongualary region begin to cramp up, don’t you see, causing the speaker to fixate on certain ridiculous sounds.

It’s a humiliating affliction, and although we haven’t found the exact cause, we know that it most often occurs when the victim is trying to com­municate with morons. In the security business, we refer to it as Tongue Runamuckus, but there’s no need for you to remember all the scientific terminography.

After a few moments, my tongue returned to its normal state and I marched back over to Drover.

“Point One: We know from our intelligence reports that a certain cottontail rabbit lives in the pipes of this cattle guard. Point Two: We also know that at this hour of the morning he leaves the pipes and ventures out into the pasture to feed on green grass. Point Three: It’s our job to locate this rabbit while he’s in a feeding mode. And, Point Four: Our mission is to cut off his attempts to scamper back into the safety of the pipes of the cattle guard. Is that clear?”

“Well . . . not really.”

“Then never mind. We’ve got a job to do and you’ll just have to play it by ear.”

“What?”

“I said, you’ll just have to play it by ear.”

“What?”

“I said, you’ll just have to . . . something must be wrong with your ear, Drover.”

He pounded on the side of his head with a front paw. “Something’s wrong with my ear.”

“It’s probably full of wax.”

“No, I haven’t seen any tacks.”

I felt exhausted, dragged down into the dust by the forces of ignorance and anarchy. “Drover, look at me. Read my lips. Sometimes I think you’re trying to make a mockery of my life.”

“I must have some wax in this ear.”

“And, Drover, sometimes I think I hate you.”

“Hank, there’s something I ought to tell you.”

At last we were getting somewhere! The terrible truth had cut through the many layers of trash and had penetrated to the innermost garbage of his mind.

“Yes, Drover? Go ahead and make your confession. It’ll hurt at first but in the long run, it’ll hurt even worse. Just blurt it out in your own words.”

“Hank, that little cottontail rabbit just crawled into the pipes of the cattle guard.”

HUH?

My eyes darted from side to side, and slowly the pieces of the puzzle began falling into place. We had just been outfoxed by a rabbit, which was nothing to crow about.