Читать книгу The Case of the Deadly Ha-Ha Game - John R. Erickson - Страница 7

Chapter Two: Secret Files on Slim

He grinned at me through the fence between us—Pete did. “Well, Hankie, if you already know my name, why do I need to say it?”

“We don’t make up the rules, Kitty, we just follow orders. Skip the name and go on to rank. What’s your rank?”

“My rank.” He licked his left front paw. “Let me think, Hankie. I guess I’d have to call myself,” he blinked his eyes, “King of the Ranch. How does that sound?”

I wasn’t amused. “Okay, pal, have it your way. Drover, get the cuffs on him. Drover?” I whirled around. Drover wasn’t there. He was still up at the machine shed—watching us. “Drover, I’m calling for backup. Get yourself down here at once.” He came ambling down the hill. “Will you hurry? We need to get the caffs on this cup.”

He finally got there and gave me a frown. “Where’s the cup?”

“I know nothing about a cup, Drover, nor do I want to discuss cups.”

“Yeah, but you said to get the caffs on the cup. I heard it with my own ears.”

Pete nodded and grinned. “That’s what you said, Hankie. I heard it too.”

My steely gaze flicked from one face to the other. “Is this some kind of trick? Drover, you’ve been given a direct order. Get the cuffs on this cat.”

His eyes popped open. “Yeah, but . . . he’s on the other side of the fence.”

“Right. Jump the fence.”

“Yeah, but . . . then I’d be in Sally May’s yard.”

“Right. It’s a risk we’ll have to take. Move.”

“Yeah, but . . . what if Pete scratches me with his claws?”

“You’re authorized to use lethal force, Drover. Quit stalling.”

“Well, I’d really like to, Hank, but you know, this old leg . . .”

“Are you refusing to obey an order? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to put it that way, but boy, this old leg just went out on me, and I’m not sure . . . ”

“Okay, Drover, skip the cuffs. Never mind. I’ll handle this without a backup, but I’m warning you. Every word of this will go into my report.”

“Oh darn.”

“Including your use of naughty language on the job.”

“Oh fiddle.”

“Go ahead, pile ’em on, son, get ’em out of your system.”

“Oh drat. Oh phooey. Oh woosle.”

“Woosle’s not a word.”

“Oh figgleblossom. Oh wigglesnort.”

“Hold it, stop, halt. That’s enough to send you to the brig for twenty years.” I whirled around to the cat. “Okay, Kitty, we’ll skip the cuffs this time. Tell me about your cereal.”

“Well, let me see here.” The cat blinked his eyes several times. “My favorite is Kitty Yums.”

“Kitty Yums, okay, got it. Is that all?”

“Well, sometimes Sally May gives me Yummy Cat, and it’s pretty good too. I’ll bet you dogs would love it.”

“Ha. Not likely. We have our own rations, Kitty, and it’s great stuff.”

“I know, Hankie, I’ve tasted it. It’s the special Sawdust-and-Grease flavor, isn’t it?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Okay, Pete, maybe it’s not so great. What’s your point?”

He rolled over on his back and began rubbing the . . . I don’t know what. The ground, I suppose, and he was still grinning. That put me on the alert. A grinning cat is up to no good. “Well, I just thought you dogs might want to try some of my . . . Yummy Cat.”

I laughed in his face and turned to my assistant. “Did you hear that, Drover? He thinks we might . . .” I whirled back to the cat. “What flavor is this . . . this so-called Yummy Cat?”

“Well, let’s see, Hankie. Sometimes it’s strawberry and sometimes it’s chocolate and sometimes it’s fish and sometimes it’s liver. But my favorite is . . . steak flavor.”

HUH?

My ears shot up, more or less on their own. I mean, there was something about the word steak that, well, got my full attention and caused my mouth to . . . uh . . . water. I swept my tongue across my lips to conceal the evidence, and moved closer to the cat.

“Did you say . . . steak? Is that what you said?”

“Uh-huh. Do you like steak, Hankie?”

Before I could answer the question, the back door opened and Loper came out into the yard. He was wearing the silliest costume I’d ever seen him wear: shorts that exposed his skinny white legs, a T-shirt, sandals, and a baseball cap.

I stared at him in disbelief. Was this a cowboy? Wearing such clothes? I could hardly believe my . . . okay, I began following the trail of clues and realized that he had quit work early that afternoon and had come home to cook dinner out on the barbecue grill.

Yes, of course. It was all coming clear now. These were his Outdoor Barbecue Clothes.

He walked over to the barbecue grill, and appeared to be carrying a plate of something in his right hand. Left hand. Who cares? He was carrying a plate and set it down on the little tray on the side of the grill. Then he lifted the lid, threw some small chunks of mesquite wood inside, and squirted the wood with . . . what did he call it?

Boy Scout Juice. Yes, that was it, Boy Scout Juice. And then he lit a match and flipped it onto the wood, and it began to burn. That was a pretty neat trick, catching a load of mesquite on fire with one match. I mean, mesquite is hard wood and hard to catch on fire, right? But Loper did it with one match. Pretty amazing, although . . .

Okay, I soon realized that the so-called Boy Scout Juice was actually charcoal lighter, and that Loper was using shortcuts and tricks to get his fire started. But in typical cowboy fashion, he had invented a phony name for it, to conceal the fact that . . . I don’t know what.

Maybe he was trying to be funny. They do that all the time, you know, and we dogs have a terrible time trying to figure out what’s going on. I mean, what’s wrong with calling charcoal lighter charcoal lighter? Call it what it is and then everyone, including us dogs, will know what we’re talking about.

But that’s not what they do. They make up all these silly names and they’re always trying to be funny, but they’re not. Not funny at all. If you ask me . . . never mind.

Anyway, the record will show that Loper was a lazy fire-builder and used dangerous explosives to start his mesquite fire. He looked into the fire for a few minutes, then glanced at his watch and said, “Twenty minutes.” And then he and his skinny, ridiculous, mayonnaise-colored legs went back into the house.

Let me tell you, if I owned a pair of legs like that, I would keep them covered up. I would undress in a darkened room, maybe even a cellar, and I would never expose them to the general public, not even to my loyal dogs.

But you know, one of the more touching aspects of our relationship with humans is that we dogs keep many dark secrets about our masters. It’s part of our Cowdog Oath. We are sworn never to reveal the dark secrets of their lives.

Take Slim Chance for example. The general public sees him as a normal man, your average hired hand on your average cattle ranch. Only his dogs know the truth, the awful truth, and it’s so shocking that I’m not at liberty to reveal it.

Honest, no kidding. I’ve sworn a solemn oath and I sure wouldn’t want to . . . I mean, this kind of stuff is supposed to remain sealed for fifty or sixty years.

But what the heck, maybe it wouldn’t hurt . . .

If I revealed several of the darkest truths about Slim, would you promise never to repeat them? I mean, a dog could get himself into a world of trouble if this ever leaked out.

Tell you what. I’ll let you peek at a secret report about Slim, things known only to his loyal dogs, but you must forget that you ever saw them. Promise? Okay, here we go. Hang on.

Shocking Revelations File #425-33309-47576B

For Dogs Only: Top Secret

Shocking Revelation #1: The elastic in Slim’s undershorts is so old and worn out, he has trouble keeping them up. They slip down, in other words, and one of these days they’re liable to end up around his ankles.

Shocking Revelation #2: Slim doesn’t change his socks every day. That is one reason his boots stink. The other reason is that his boots are ten years old.

Shocking Revelation #3: When he does change socks, he chooses socks with holes in them. Some have a hole at the toe, others are worn through at the heel. His reason for continuing to wear them is—this is a direct quote from Slim—“the holes are at the ends and the rest of the sock is still in good shape.”

Shocking Revelation #4: Slim snores in his sleep. He denies this, but if you want the truth, ask his dogs. Believe me, he snores, and two winters ago, he snored so loud he cracked a window in his bedroom. No kidding.

End of Top Secret File

So there we are, the whole book on Slim’s darkest secrets. There may be others, but this will do for now. At this point, you should forget you ever read this stuff. You promised.

But we were talking about Loper, weren’t we? Yes. He had just started his mesquite fire in the barbecue grill and had gone back inside the house with his ridiculous pale legs, leaving me and Drover to finish our heartless interrogation of the . . .

Sniff, sniff.

. . . of the cat, the dumb cat. Suddenly I caught the scent of something good riding around on the evening breeze. Sniff, sniff. And the smell bore a faint resemblance to the aroma of . . . well, fresh steak.

I whirled around to the cat. “Back to work, Kitty. You had just told this court about your favorite brand of cat food, something called Yummy Tummy.”

“Yummy Cat, Hankie.”

“Whatever. And you had told this court that your favorite flavor was . . . what?”

“Let me think. Strawberry?”

“No. Forget the strawberry. We have no use for berries. Get to the point.”

He fluttered his eyelids. “Let’s see, Hankie. Was it . . . chocolate?”

I pushed my nose into his face and curled my lips. “Out with it, Kitty, you know what we’re looking for. Steak. That’s what you said, and don’t try to deny it.”

“I said steak?”

“Right. You said steak. And since you’ve already said it, you can’t take it back. You told this court that your Yummy Tummy comes in steak flavor. You also hinted that if we dogs wished to run some tests on this variety of Yummy Tummy . . .”

“Yummy Cat, Hankie.”

“. . . you would have no objections. Isn’t that what you told this court? Tell the truth, Pete. For once in your life, face the truth and be brave. I know that telling the truth is hard on you cats, but in the long run, it’s the best course.”

“Well . . . since you put it that way, Hankie, all right. That’s what I said. Yes.”

“Thank you, Pete. No further questions.” I gave the witness a worldly sneer. I had broken him down with relentless drill-bit questions, and had finally emerged with The Truth.