The Case of the Blazing Sky - John R. Erickson Hank the Cowdog

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      Drover gave his head a sad shake. “Yeah, they always made me sick, but he tried to be a friend.”

      “Yes, those were the worst sandwiches I ever ate. I never understood why he kept eating canned mackerel.”

      “Cheap.”

      I glanced around. “Did you hear that?”

      “What?”

      “I think it was a bird. It said ‘cheep.’”

      “No, it was—”

      “Quiet. I’d better check this out.”

      “Yeah, but—”

      “Shhhh!” I rose to my feet and studied the treetops in the tops of all the nearby trees. “That bird made an unusual sound, almost like the call of a . . . well, a young chicken in distress.” Sud­denly and mysteriously, I felt a rush of water in my mouth. “A tender, juicy young . . . slurp . . . chicken.”

      “Hank, is your mouth watering?”

      “Uh . . . yes, but how did you know that?”

      “Well, I heard you licking your chops.”

      I cut my eyes from side to side and a cunning smile worked its way across my dripping mouth. “You know, Drover, this could turn out to be . . . uh . . . very interesting. A poor youthful chicken has wandered away from the chicken house and lost its way. One of our jobs on this ranch is to . . . well, to supervise, so to speak, the comings and goings of Sally May’s chickens, right?”

      “Yeah, but . . .”

      “And if a chicken has lost its way, the Security Division must swing into action.”

      Drover let out a moan. “Hank, I don’t like that look in your eyes. It makes me think . . .”

      I lumbered over to him. “My eyes have nothing to do with it. Let me go straight to the point. Are you hungry?”

      “Well . . . I guess so.”

      “Are you aware that our dog food bowl was empty this morning?”

      “Yeah, I guess Slim forgot to fill it.”

      “There you are. After all the work we do for this ranch, don’t we deserve a decent meal?”

      He stared at me. “You mean, eat one of—”

      I covered his mouth with a paw. “Hush, don’t say it out loud! Someone might be listening.”

      “Muff muff murff.”

      “What? Speak up.” I noticed that my paw was covering his mouth. I removed it. “Oh. Sorry. What were you saying?”

      “I said, that ‘cheap’ you heard wasn’t a chicken. It was me.”

      “What I heard was a chicken.”

      “No, it was me, honest.”

      I stuck my nose in his face and raised my voice. “Drover, don’t tell me what I heard. Am I chopped liver or the Head of Ranch Security?”

      “Well . . .”

      “I’m Head of Ranch Security and I know the sound of a chicken. What I heard was a chicken.”

      “No, we were talking about mackerel sandwiches, remember?”

      “Are you saying that I heard a mackerel?”

      “No, you wondered how come Slim eats . . . you said . . . I said . . .” He collapsed on the ground and started crying. “I don’t know what I said! I can’t think when you’re yelling at me.”

      I gave him a moment to sniffle his way through the crisis. “Drover, I think I can wrap this up, but you have to stop blubbering.”

      “I’m not blubbering.”

      “You’re blubbering. Now get control of yourself and listen.” He sat up and brushed the tears out of his eyes. “I’ve decided that you were right.”

      “No fooling?”

      “Yes. The sound we heard was not a chicken. It came from a mackerel, a lost mackerel. I’m going in search of the mackerel and you’re going to stay here.”

      He stared at me. “How come I have to stay here?”

      “Because, Drover, you’re not old enough for this kind of work. It might be dangerous.”

      He narrowed his eyes. “I get it now. You’re going to catch a chicken, aren’t you?”

      I turned away from him before he could see . . . slurp . . . that the very word chicken had caused my mouth to start watering again. “I’m slurped that you would even think such a thing.”

      “Yeah, but it’s true, isn’t it?”

      “Absolutely not. What kind of dog do you think I am?”

      “Hungry . . . and maybe crazy enough to eat a chicken.”

      “Okay, buddy, that did it! Go to your room and stick your nose in the corner for one hour.”

      “One hour! How come?”

      “Go! I’ll be watching, so don’t try to cheat.”

      He whined and begged for mercy, but my heart had turned to stone. The very idea, the little mutt thinking that I might eat one of Sally May’s slurpens . . . uh, chickens. If there was ever a dog who needed to stand with his nose in the corner, it was Drover.

      He went to his room and I found myself all alone with my, uh, thoughts. To be honest, I was having some pretty wonderful thoughts about . . . well, you know, sunsets and rainbows and . . . okay, maybe food.

      Dogs think about food, right? It’s normal and healthy. You’d worry about a dog that didn’t think about food every once in a while. Mackerel, that’s what I was thinking about. No kidding.

      I lifted my eyes and did another scan of the treetops. I saw no sign of the, uh, mackerel, the lost mackerel, shall we say, so I lowered my nose to the ground and began searching for tracks . . . mackerel tracks, of course.

      You didn’t know that mackerels leave tracks? Ha ha. Okay, maybe they don’t, because they don’t have feet or legs, and it’s hard to leave tracks when you have no feet. But a guy never knows until he checks these things out.

      I found no fish tracks, but the ground was covered with chicken tracks. Interesting. Perhaps if I followed the chicken tracks far enough, I would find . . . well, you know, a mackerel or something.

      Remember the old saying? At the end of every rainbow is a pot of mackerel.

      I put my nose to the groundstone and followed the line of tracks in a northerly direction. After sniffing my way through a grove of young china­berry trees, I looked up and was surprised to find myself standing in front of the . . . well, in front of the chicken house.

      Okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly the biggest surprise of the year. I mean, if you follow a line of chicken tracks far enough, they’ll lead you to the chicken house, so we’ll cancel what I said about being surprised.

      I wasn’t exactly surprised. What I felt was . . . slurp . . . a sudden rush of water and digestive juices into my mouthalary region, and once again I had to, uh, lick my chops to mop up the excess water.

      It’s funny, how that happens. The mouth of a dog seems to have a mind of its own, don’t you see, and certain thoughts or mental pictures seem to set off the water business.

      Hmmm. You know, I’m not sure we should be discussing this. I mean, all dogs have secret thoughts. I wouldn’t want the little children to think that I . . . well, spent half my life dreaming about . . . slurp.

      I mean, we’re talking about

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