Читать книгу Faded Love - John R. Erickson - Страница 5

Chapter One: The Case of the Giant Rattlesnake

It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. It was your normal, average, run-of-the-mill spring afternoon on the ranch—until Drover brought the news that Sally May’s baby was being attacked by a giant rattlesnake.

And suddenly it became un-normal, un-average, and un-run-of-the-mill.

I was up by the chicken house, as I recall, taking testimony from J. T. Cluck, the head rooster. He had reported “strange sounds in the night.” I had gone up to check it out.

“All right, J.T., start at the beginning and tell me the whole story.”

“You want the whole story?” He had a speech inpedamun—whatever you call it when a guy whistles all his S’s. Speech unpedamin.

“That’s correct. And remember: tiny details are often the most important. And try not to whistle.”

“All right, Hank. This thing has me worried. Elsa says I worry too much. Only last week she told me . . .”

“Wait a minute. Is that the beginning?”

He stared at me and blinked his eyes. “Oh. You want me to start at the beginning, you say?”

“Let’s try it that way and see how it works.”

“All right.” He rolled his right wing around in its socket. I took careful note of the movement, knowing that it might turn out to be an important clue. “Derned wing’s been giving me fits.”

“Hold up. Was it bothering you before you heard the strange noise in the night or after?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Strange noise in the night.”

“Oh, that. No, has nothing to do with it. This sore wing’s been coming on for six months, maybe a year. Elsa says . . .”

“Let’s get on with the story.”

“Okay, here we go.” He closed his eyes and concentrated. Then the eyes popped open. He glanced over his shoulder, leaned toward me, and whispered, “You know what bothers me most about this whole darned thing?”

“What?”

“What bothers me most about this whole thing is the way these darned kids act. If you ask me, we’ve raised up a whole generation of ungrateful chickens that don’t know manners. And you want to know what else I think?”

“No.”

His beak froze open. “Huh?”

“No. I didn’t come up here for your latest sermon. Just give me the facts about a strange noise in the night.”

“Oh. Well, I was a-getting to it, but yes, we definitely had a strange noise in the night. Very strange, Hank. It must have been close to dark, see, and we’d gone to roost and the chicken house had got real quiet and still.”

“All right, go on.”

“And you see them two little roosters over there?”

I looked to the right and saw them. I memorized their conformation. Actually, they looked like every other young rooster I’d ever seen: two wings, two legs, two feet, a lot of feathers, and a stupid expression. “Yes, I see them. Go on.”

“Them’s the laziest two boys that ever walked on this earth, and you know what else? They’re MY boys! Now, how do you explain something like that?”

I was having a little trouble tying this all together. “What do the boys have to do with the strange noise?”

“I’m a-gettin’ there. I remember waking up from a light sleep and saying to Elsa, ‘Elsa, did you hear a strange noise?’ And Elsa, she said she’d describe it as peculiar, not strange.”

“Hmmmm.”

“So we agreed, me and Elsa, that it was somewhere between strange and peculiar.”

“Very good. Now you’ve got to concentrate. Do you have any idea what might have caused that kind of peculiar noise?”

Again, he looked around to see if anyone was listening, then leaned forward. “I’ve got a darned good idea, but first I need to know if you’re the kind that’s going to blab this all over the ranch.”

“I didn’t become Head of Ranch Security by blabbing.”

“Okay. I just wanted to hear you say that before I gave you any more information.”

“Go on, J.T. It’s safe with me.”

“Okay, I’ll have to trust you. It was them two boys of mine. They’d been out playing around, see, and thought they could sneak back in while the old man was asleep.”

I glared at him. “Wait a minute. I came up here to solve a mystery. Where is it?”

“Well, it’s a mystery to me why their mother lets them boys get by with that kind of darned nonsense, and you always struck me as the kind of dog who cared about others and their problems, and it was kind of quiet this morning and I said to Elsa . . .”

I put my nose in his face and growled. “You’re wasting my valuable time and I don’t like that.”

His beak dropped open. “Well there’s no need to be tacky about it! If you want to know what I think . . .”

At that very moment, Drover came streaking up the hill, scattering hens and pullets in all directions. You should have seen the feathers fly! J.T. heard the commotion and started squawking.

“Help! Help! It’s a wolf, run for your life!”

That was the last I saw of J. T. Cluck that day, which was just fine with me. There are very few things I hate worse than being suckered by a dumb chicken.

Drover arrived in a nervous spasm and a cloud of dust. “Oh Hank, come quick, you won’t believe, oh my gosh, it’s awful, help, attack, the baby, save him, Hank, it’s all up to you!”

Ordinarily I would have told my assistant to calm down and give me the facts so I could build my case. I mean, there’s such a thing as blind panic, and in this business you learn that blind panic is a poor place to start.

On the other hand, when duty calls, a loyal cowdog must respond. I mean, answering the call of duty is just by George bred into us.

Did I stand around gathering facts, building my case, taking descriptions of suspects? Did I waste time asking Drover who was attacking what, where, when, and why? No sir. I lit a shuck and went streaking down the hill toward the gas tanks, scattering chickens.

“Out of the way, you fools!” You should have heard the squawking. Dumb birds.

I reached the gas tanks in a matter of seconds, stopped, set up a forward position, and waited for the enemy to show himself. He didn’t appear, so I started barking.

“Hank!” Drover was standing at the top of the hill, in front of the house. “You went the wrong way. Up here!”

It appeared that I had . . . Drover’s directions had been very vague. How was I supposed to . . .

I shot up the hill. “All right, where is he? Give me a coordinate.”

“Left!”

I went streaking off to the left and heard Drover’s voice again.

“Hank, not your left. MY left!”

I screeched to a halt, spun around, and sprinted back to Drover. “You’re going to have to work on your navigation, son. This is unacceptable.”

“I’m sorry, Hank, but I thought . . .”

“Never mind what you thought. Which way’s the enemy?”

“In the yard. But you’ll have to jump the fence.”

In spite of the dangerousness and seriousness and emergenciness of the situation, I couldn’t help smiling. “That fence means nothing to me, son. It’s just one of life’s many hurdles.”

“Really? I don’t think I can jump it.”

“That’s fine. Watch me and study your lessons.”

“Okay, Hank. I’ll work on it later.”

“You bet you will—on your own time. Here I go!”

I got a run and virtually flew over that fence. A deer couldn’t have done it better. I landed in the yard, went into my fighting crouch, set up a forward position, sniffed the air, and scouted the terrain.

The yard was Forbidden Territory, you might say. Sally May had planted grass and shrubs and flowers and other stuff, and Iron Law Number One on the ranch was that dogs weren’t allowed inside the fence.

Cats were. You could usually find Pete the Barncat lolling around the back porch—waiting for a hand-out and never mind the rest, it makes me mad just thinking about the injustice of it.

Anyway, once inside Forbidden Territory, I scouted the terrain. Some thirty feet in front of me, I saw Little Alfred, Sally May and High Loper’s baby boy. He was wearing a sailor’s suit and playing with a dump truck.

A short distance from Little Alfred, perched upon a cardboard box, was a large cake with white icing and two yellow candles.

The clues were fitting together: baby, clean clothes, cake, candles. This was some kind of ceremony. An ordinary dog, untrained in security work, would have leaped to the conclusion that this was a birthday party. But, drawing on my years of experience, I didn’t make that assumption. The facts said, “Ceremony of Some Kind,” not necessarily a birthday party.

Two questions remained unanswered. First, where was the child’s mother? And second, what monster or evil force had put Little Alfred’s life in danger?

Those were the crucial questions in the case, and you’ll notice that I had arrived at them only minutes after the first alarm. My next course of action was to search for some answers.

And I suspected Drover knew them.