The Case of the Troublesome Lady - John R. Erickson Hank the Cowdog

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sounds?”

      “We don’t know yet, so we’d better keep up the cover fire. Let’s crank ‘em out!”

      Knowing that we were in Slim’s house gave us a sense of confidence, and we were able to put heart and soil into our barking effort. Boy, did we bark! But then…was that a voice? Yes, a voice came booming down the hallway from the room from which the light was whiching, and it said, “Hank, dry up!”

      Huh?

      Dry up? How could we dry up and bark at the same time? Wait, hold everything. Have you noticed the clues here? There were several but you’ll never see them unless you pay attention, so pay attention. Check this out.

      Early Morning Clue List

       Maybe the voice belonged to Slim Chance.

       He often spoke to us in that rude manner.

       If the voice was Slim’s, then so was the house, because Slim lived in his own house. To express that with Higher Math, we can write a formula: Slim’s house + Slim’s voice = Slim.

       Wow, is that cool or what? But there’s more.

       Drover and I had spent the night on the floor in Slim’s living room.

       I had been awakened from a peaceful sleep by certain creepy sounds.

       Even though we had figured out our location and the source of the voice down the hall, we still hadn’t identified the source of those creepy sounds.

       Drover and I should have continued our Barking Procedure (#3 Warning Barks), but Slim had trashed that idea by yelling, “Dry up!”

       “Dry up” means “Quit barking.”

       Hencely, we had to shut down the operation.

       But at least we knew where we were: Slim’s shack.

      End of Early Morning Clue List

      Can you name another dog in Texas that could come up with a Morning Clue List like that, and I mean whip it out on the spot? Don’t even bother to think about it, because I can tell you. There wasn’t another dog in Texas, not even a dog in Oklahoma, who could have punched out such an awesome list of clues.

      There’s a word for that: WOW!

      So, yes, Drover and I had spent the night at Slim’s place and we’d barked him out of bed and here he came down the hallway, moving like a man under water. And let me tell you, he looked…how can I say this?

      He looked awful: red slanty eyes, hair going every-which-way, wrinkled face that still held the impressions of his pillow, and thin pinched lips that looked like something made out of cement. And he was wearing nothing but boxer shorts and a T-shirt.

      There’s a word that describes him: YIPES!

      I mean, I knew the guy, I knew he wasn’t a monster or a vampire, but still…well, he looked like a monster and a vampire, so what’s a dog supposed to do? I barked at him, by George, because in the Security Business, we bark first and ask questions later. We take no chances.

      Don’t laugh and don’t forget that misters are monsters of mastery…monsters are masters of mystery, there we go. They’re liable to show up in chicken suits or disguised as the mailman, we never know, and don’t forget that there’s a spy working undercover on our ranch: the cat.

      So, yes, I gave him a blast of barking (the monster, not the cat), just to be on the safe side, and if I had it all to do over again, I’d do it all over again, because in the Security Business, we can’t take chances. I’ve already said that, but it bears repeating and I’m scared of bears. If you’re not scared of bears, you’ve never met one.

      Who brought up the subject of bears? I have no idea. Does anyone know what we were talking about?

      Phooey.

      This is frustrating.

      Wait, the cat. Yes, Sally May’s rotten, pampered little never-sweat of a cat. Pete. She thought he was perfect, but we had proof that he was working on the sly for the Charlies. No kidding.

      When things go to pot around here, we always know the source: Pete. But we weren’t talking about Pete.

      Tell you what, let’s take a little break, walk around, get some fresh air, clear our heads, and come back in five minutes. I’ll study the Morning Clue List and we’ll mush on with the story.

      Five minutes and don’t be late.

      Chapter Two: Roundup Morning

      Okay, everyone take a seat and let’s get on with this, and you might want to take some notes.

      Before the break, we were having trouble remembering the purpose of this conversation, but we’ve got that worked out. Slim Chance, the hired hand on this ranch, was groping his way down the hallway at some weird hour of the night, a time when most people and dogs should have been asleep.

      That brings us up to seed. Up to speed, let us say, and when I saw the guy, I barked at him because…well, because he looked almost exactly like our profiles of Charlie Monsters. He’d slept on his face and his hair looked like a hotel for rats, and any dog would have barked at him.

      No, I take that back. Most ordinary dogs would have run and hidden, but I stood my ground and gave him a blast of barking. He said (this is a direct quote) he said, “Hank, if you don’t shut your gob, I’m going to flush you down the pot.”

      Okay, it was Slim, no question about it, and you see how he is when he wakes up? Really grouchy, unbearable. Hey, I was just trying to do my job and he was threatening to flush me down the pot. Oh brother.

      But I ride for the brand, I try to get along with these people, so I went to him, down-shifted the tail into Good Dog Wags, and tried to give him some comfort and support and, you know, tell him that the day might turn out okay.

      “Get that nose away from me! I can’t stand a cold nose in the morning.”

      Fine. If he didn’t like my nose, I would use it to comfort someone else. What a grouch.

      He dragged himself through the house, went to the front door, and threw it open, and that gave me the missing clue on the Morning Clue List. Remember those “creepy sounds” that had started this whole incident with the barking and so forth? Well, the creepy sounds had come from a strong norther that had blown in.

      What’s a norther? It’s a cold front that packs strong winds that rattle the windows and moan through the eaves and cause the house to creak. We start getting those northers in the fall, and they’re always creepy. This was October, so it was right on schedule.

      He slammed the door and ran a hand through his rat’s nest (hair) and stared at the floor. “Great. I’ve got to be ahorseback at daylight. Yesterday was a perfect day, but now we get a hat-chasing, dirt-eating, tail-freezing norther. Baloney.”

      Well, I could have told him about the norther and the cold wind. I’d picked it up on radar while he was snoring in his bed, but cowboys don’t listen to their dogs. When we try to help, they tell us to dry up.

      In many ways, this is a lousy job. Have I mentioned that before? Maybe so.

      He shuffled back to his bedroom and started plundering through the closet for his Cold Weather Outfit. I wasn’t there to watch, but I had a pretty good idea what he was looking for: silk long-john underwear, wool shirt, wool vest, brush jacket, silk wild rag, and lined gloves.

      That was his Cold Weather Outfit. He hadn’t worn it since last April and parts of it were scattered all over the house, just where he dropped

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