Читать книгу The Case of the Buried Deer - John R. Erickson - Страница 6

Chapter One: A Secret Mission For NASA

It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. Where should we start? Well, let’s start at the beginning and see where that leads. I already know where it’s going, but must be careful not to make scary statements about CENSORED or CENSORED.

See, I’m not allowed to mention the buried deer, not yet. We didn’t find it until later, after I had almost been destroyed by something that was hiding in Slim’s ice box, but I’m not allowed to talk about that one either. Classified.

For now, don’t worry about it. There’s no sense in watching the pot boil if you can’t spill the milk.

The point is, the entire Security Division was covered up with work. Sleep? Forget it. Naps in the afternoon? Ha. We’re talking about double-shifts, no weekend passes, working days, nights, and holidays. We were being pushed to the limit.

It was late spring, as I recall, yes, the middle of May, and it had been a bad spring on my ranch. We had missed our early grass-growing rains and were in the second or third year of an awful drought.

Instead of getting April showers and May flowers, we’d gotten nonstop wind: hot wind, cold wind, north wind, south wind, west wind, wind from every direction except the one we wanted: east.

What’s the big deal about an east wind? It brings moisture from somewhere, and it makes clouds that make rain. We weren’t sure exactly how that process worked, but we knew one thing for certain: boy, we needed a rain!

In times of drought, our people get as cranky as badgers and can’t talk about anything else. When they go to the feed store, they talk about bare pastures and dying trees. When they go to church, they complain about our dusty roads. When they go to a wedding, they say such things as, “Congratulations, and I hope it brings a rain.”

The drought had put everybody in a bad mood, but there wasn’t one thing we dogs could do about it. I mean, Drover and I had spent entire days barking at clouds, trying to shame them into forming up into decent thunderheads, but nothing had worked. We had tried every technique in the Cowdog Manual: Stern Barks, Coaxing Barks, Pleading Barks, and even Cloud-Rattling Barks. All our efforts amounted to zilch.

So it came as a huge shock when, at 0600 in the morning of the morning of which we speak of which, I was awakened by a voice that boomed the message, “Holy cow, it’s raining!”

I was bent over a desk piled high with papers and reports, time cards and spreadsheets, when the voice jolted me back to the Ordinary World. I leaped to my feet and opened my…that is, tried to focus my bleary eyes. They were very bleary from all the paperwork, don’t you see.

I noticed right away that it was dark, yet the darkness wasn’t totally dark. It seemed to be mixed with twinkles of distant light. What was going on around here? I hit the button that activated Data Control’s Emergency Intercom System.

“Houston? This is Faded Bloomers. We’re picking up twinkles of light and might have had a near-miss with a starfish. Send Drover to the office at once to pick up his report card, over!”

The radio crackled as I waited for a reply. At last it came. “Hairy okra in the tamale pudding…whippersnapper fiddle faddle and bonking bananas.”

“Houston? Come back on that. What are we supposed to do with all the bananas? Over.”

“Sniggle bop lollipop.”

“Roger that. Re-compute the landing data and pass the biscuits, over.”

In the eerie darkness, I heard…I thought I heard…someone yawn. Was that possible? I mean, we were on space mission, so how…but then someone said, “Boy, I wish I had a biscuit.”

I leaned into the mike. “Houston? We’ve got a Code Red up here, repeat, CODE RED! We’ve encountered a squadron of Biscuit Eaters. They’re armed with forks and spoons. Request permission to request permission, and hurry! Over.”

The silence of deep space throbbed, then…the voice again. “Who are you talking to?”

“Houston, they seem to be fluent in Bow-Wow and want to talk. How do we deal with this? Over.”

“Oh, I get it. You’re talking in your sleep. You know, I think it’s started to rain.”

“Houston, they’ve started a train. They’re trying to hijack a train!”

“Hank, wake up.”

Somehow they had gotten my name and were trying to hijack a whole trainload of bananas! Unless Houston sent us procedures on this…

Huh?

Wait, hold everything. I blinked my eyes and glanced around. Sniffatory Sensors kicked in and we began receiving a burst of familiar smells, suggesting…suggesting that we were not in a NASA spacecraft fifty miles above the earth, but rather…

Okay, in Slim Chance’s living room. Ha ha. In fact, Slim seemed to be coming down the hallway. He walked to the front door, opened it, and stepped out on the porch. Then I heard his voice. “By grabs, it is raining!”

I glanced around the gloom. “Drover, are you there?”

“Where?”

“Wherever you are.”

“Yep, I’m wherever I am. Hi.”

“Hi. Do you know anything about a train?”

“Well, they say, ‘Choo-choo.’”

“I’m aware of that, but did you see one?”

“No, I said it’s starting to rain. Slim said so too.”

“Why is everyone talking about rain?”

“’Cause it’s raining, I guess.”

“Outside?”

“It always rains outside.”

“Don’t get smart with me, soldier. I’m just trying to…”

Okay, let’s slow down and see if we can sort this out. A neutral observer, such as yourself, might have thought that you were listening in on a conversation between Mission Control and an orbiting spacecraft. And you might have thought that the space agency had finally come to its senses and recruited a top-of-the-line, blue-ribbon cowdog for its space program.

I’m sorry to disappoint you. What you heard was actually Drover and me, carrying on a fairly incoherent conversation in Slim’s living room.

To be perfectly honest, I must have fallen asleep. On guard duty. On my ranch. And so did my assistant.

Remember our discussion about how the Security Division had been working brutal hours, day and night? Well, it had finally caught up with me and I had slipped into a doze, dragged down by all the cares and worries of protecting my people, my ranch, my yard, my porch, and all the little children.

After a while, it adds up and we crash. A dog is only a dog.

It happens to dogs every day all over the world. It happens very seldom around here, but by George, once in a while, it happens. A dog is only…I’ve already said that. It’s nothing to be proud of, is the point, and I guess you’ve noticed that I’m embarrassed about this.

It really hurts, and I won’t try to hide behind a bunch of lame excuses. Drover and I had slacked our duties and had slept through the most dangerous part of the night. It was disgraceful, against Ranch Regulations, and I was so ashamed, I made a mental note to give Drover ten Chicken Marks.

I hate being hard on the men, but this business of sleeping on the job had to stop.

Anyway, we can call off the Code Red. Sometimes the mind plays tricks.

There, I’ve said it, and now you know a dark secret that I wasn’t anxious to share. I hope you will keep your trap shut and not spread it around. Thanks.

Where were we? Oh yes, the bananas. We’d just gotten a report that someone had hijacked a whole trainload of…wait, that was a bogus report, skip it. We knew nothing about trains or bananas.

Let’s get on with this. I pried my assistant out of bed and we rushed to the porch to get a closer look at this rare event. See, that year in the Texas Panhandle, rain was a very big deal.

Now we’re cooking.