The Case of the Three-Toed Tree Sloth - John R. Erickson Hank the Cowdog

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up and gave me his usual smirk. “My, my, it’s Hankie the Wonderdog! What brings you to my little corner of the world?”

      I swaggered over to him. “Never mind the small talk, Kitty. I’m on a tight schedule.”

      His eyes grew wide. “Really!”

      “That’s correct. Drover said you turned in a report.”

      “Did I? I wonder what it could have been.”

      My lips twitched into a snarl. “Hurry up, Pete. I know you love wasting my time but this isn’t the day for it.”

      He fluttered his eyes and grinned. “Oh, you mean the strange animal?”

      “Drover said it was a strange creature, not just an animal. Tell me about the so-called strange creature.”

      “Oh, that! Well, yes, I saw one.”

      “Go on and stick with the facts.”

      “Well, Hankie, with my own eyes, I saw…” He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “…a Three-Toed Tree Sloth.”

      “That’s rubbish. Toads don’t live in trees.”

      He heaved a sigh. “Not a toad, Hankie. It’s a creature that has three toes and lives in trees. It’s called a sloth, a Three-Toed Tree Sloth. I’ll bet you can’t say it.”

      I laughed in his face. “Oh yeah? Check this out. Free-Toed Tree Toad.”

      “That’s wrong, Hankie. Three. Toed. Tree. Sloth.”

      “Pete, if I can’t pronounce it, I don’t believe in it.”

      He shrugged. “Well, I guess you’re not interested.”

      “I guess I’m not.” I whirled away from the little crook. “Come on, Drover, this cat is wasting our time.”

      As we marched away, I heard Pete’s voice behind me. “Maybe you don’t care that he’s eating trees.”

      A buzz of electricity leaped down my spine. I stopped in my tracks, whirled around, and marched back to the fence. There, I beamed the cat an icy glare. “He was doing what? Did you say the creature was eating my trees? Without permission?”

      “Um hm, that’s what Tree Sloths do, Hankie. They eat trees, chew them right down to the ground. But I’m sure you already knew that.”

      “Of course I did. If you knew it, I knew it, only I knew it first. Don’t forget who’s Head of Ranch Security.” I moved closer and lowered my voice. “Maybe it was a beaver, Pete. Beavers eat trees, you know.”

      The cat shook his head. “It wasn’t a beaver, Hankie. Beavers live in the water. Sloths climb trees. I saw him up in a tree.”

      I paced a few steps away and tried to sort things out. Did I dare trust the testimony of a cat? Cats are notorious for spreading lies and causing trouble, and they do it just for sport. They don’t have jobs, you know, and when time begins to drag, they plot mischief. It’s just the nature of a cat.

      But what bothered me most was that…how can I say this? What bothered me most was that I had never heard of a Tree-Toed Slip Slop, and I sure didn’t want Kitty to know what I didn’t know.

      Before I exchanged another word with the little scrounge, I needed to gather some more information about this mysterious creature, before something really bad happened to our ranch trees.

      Chapter Two: Barn Robbers

      We call it “research,” gathering background information for a case we have under investigation, and it’s a very important part of my work with the Security Division. See, a lot of dogs won’t take the time to do a proper job of researching a case, because…well, let’s face it. It’s too much trouble. It’s hard work. Ordinary mutts would rather chew a bone, snap at flies, or sleep.

      Show me a dog that sleeps his life away and I’ll show you a mutt that never solves a case.

      Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, I had just finished an interrogation of the local cat and had managed to extract an incredible pack of lies and half-truths about a mysterious creature called the Hammer-Toed Slip Slop.

      Wait. It was called Three-Footed Toad Frog.

      I don’t care what Pete called it, but he claimed that it had devoured and destroyed three hundred trees on my ranch.

      It was called the Three-Toed Tree Sloth. There we go.

      But regardless of what we called the thing, I was pretty sure it was nothing but a pack of lies, because…well, the story came from a cat, and cats would rather spin lies than eat ice cream. They are notorious twisters of the truth, and we never build a case around the testimony of a cat. Never.

      On the other hand, it was a pretty disturbing pack of lies, and a dog in my position must remain open to the possibility that, once in a great while, a cat will mess up and tell the truth. In other words, I had to do some more digging on the case, and that brings us back to that word we discussed before, “research.” I had to do my research on this deal.

      I left Drover with the cat, which tells you a lot about Drover. He was so bored with his own little life, he had nothing better to do than hang out with a cat, but let’s don’t get started on that.

      I hiked up the hill to the machine shed, doing Visual Sweeps for any sign of a mysterious creature. The VS turned up no leads, but then I began picking up signals of an unauthorized vehicle that was approaching headquarters from the north. It was moving at a low rate of speed, creeping along, and that seemed pretty suspicious.

      Was it possible that the Tree Sloth was driving around the ranch in a vehicle? Probably not. Any creature that eats trees can’t drive a pickup, so skip that. This appeared to be something entirely new and unrelated to Pete’s phony report.

      I came to a stop, lifted Earoscanners, and began pulling in Earatory Data. It confirmed my original impression: there was something not right about this deal. I dove into a clump of ragweeds…wait, is “dove” the right word?

      Dive, dove, diven. Diven.

      I diven into some ragweeds and went undercover. There, peeking through the weeds, ACHOO! I sneezed. This was the fall of the year, don’t you see, and we’d had enough rain over the summer to produce a huge crop of ragweeds, I mean, they were tall and thick and everywhere.

      ACHOO!

      And one of the things you might not know about ragweeds is that they are Sneezaromic Plants, which means ACHOO they release high levels of ACHOO that cause people and dogs to go into fits of ACHOO! See what I mean?

      ACHOO!

      This was pointless, trying to do a Stake Out of an unidentified creeping vehicle, while sneezing my fool head off. I leaped out of the stupid weeds and took up a position right in the middle of the road. If the trespassers planned to break into the machine shed and steal tools, they would have to deal with me first.

      Oops. I allowed my suspicion to slip out, so we might as well go public with it. See, I had a strong suspicion that whosomever was inside that pickup might be working for Midnight Supply. You’ve never heard of Midnight Supply, right? Well, it’s a secret code word we use in the Security Business, so let me explain.

      Midnight Supply is code for crooks, thieves, and bad guys who steal tools. They case out a location during the daylight hours, don’t you see, then come back after dark and rob things.

      Midnight Supply. It’s a pretty clever way of putting it, isn’t it? And you know what? I invented it myself. No kidding. I get a kick out of experimenting with language and inventing new terms.

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