Faded Love Read online

  Faded Love

  John R. Erickson

  Illustrations by Gerald L. Holmes

  Maverick Books, Inc.

  Publication Information

  MAVERICK BOOKS

  Published by Maverick Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 549, Perryton, TX 79070

  Phone: 806.435.7611

  www.hankthecowdog.com

  First published in the United States of America by Maverick Books, Inc. 1986,

  Texas Monthly Press, 1988, and Gulf Publishing Company, 1990.

  Subsequently published simultaneously by Viking Children’s Books and Puffin Books, members of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 1999.

  Currently published by Maverick Books, Inc., 2011.

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © John R. Erickson, 1986, 1989

  All rights reserved

  library of congress cataloging-in-publication data

  Erickson, John R.

  [Hank the Cowdog and faded love]

  Faded love / John R. Erickson ; illustrations by Gerald L. Holmes.

  p. cm. — (Hank the Cowdog ; 5)

  Originally published: Hank the Cowdog and faded love.

  Summary: Hank the Cowdog quits his job as head of ranch security and travels in search of adventure and romance.

  ISBN 0-14-130381-6 (pbk.)

  [1. Dogs—Fiction. 2. West (U.S.)—Fiction. 3. Humorous stories. 4. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Holmes, Gerald L., ill. II. Title. III. Series: Erickson, John R. Hank the Cowdog ; 5.

  [PZ7.E72556Fad] 1999 [Fic]—dc21 98-41855 CIP AC

  Hank the Cowdog® is a registered trademark of John R. Erickson.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Contents

  Chapter One The Case of the Giant Rattlesnake

  Chapter Two The Case Turns Out to Be a Piece of Cake

  Chapter Three On the Road Again

  Chapter Four The Horrible Quicksand Monster

  Chapter Five The Lovely Miss Scamper

  Chapter Six Unexpected Company

  Chapter Seven Rotten Meat

  Chapter Eight Not Just One Brilliant Maneuver, but Several

  Chapter Nine The Case of the Mysterious Dead Horse

  Chapter Ten The Perfume Flunks Out, but All Is Not Lost

  Chapter Eleven Beulah’s Song

  Chapter Twelve The Return of the Giant Rattlesnake

  Chapter One: The Case of the Giant Rattlesnake

  It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. It was your normal, average, run-of-the-mill spring afternoon on the ranch—until Drover brought the news that Sally May’s baby was being attacked by a giant rattlesnake.

  And suddenly it became un-normal, un-average, and un-run-of-the-mill.

  I was up by the chicken house, as I recall, taking testimony from J. T. Cluck, the head rooster. He had reported “strange sounds in the night.” I had gone up to check it out.

  “All right, J.T., start at the beginning and tell me the whole story.”

  “You want the whole story?” He had a speech inpedamun—whatever you call it when a guy whistles all his S’s. Speech unpedamin.

  “That’s correct. And remember: tiny details are often the most important. And try not to whistle.”

  “All right, Hank. This thing has me worried. Elsa says I worry too much. Only last week she told me . . .”

  “Wait a minute. Is that the beginning?”

  He stared at me and blinked his eyes. “Oh. You want me to start at the beginning, you say?”

  “Let’s try it that way and see how it works.”

  “All right.” He rolled his right wing around in its socket. I took careful note of the movement, knowing that it might turn out to be an important clue. “Derned wing’s been giving me fits.”

  “Hold up. Was it bothering you before you heard the strange noise in the night or after?”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?”

  “Strange noise in the night.”

  “Oh, that. No, has nothing to do with it. This sore wing’s been coming on for six months, maybe a year. Elsa says . . .”

  “Let’s get on with the story.”

  “Okay, here we go.” He closed his eyes and concentrated. Then the eyes popped open. He glanced over his shoulder, leaned toward me, and whispered, “You know what bothers me most about this whole darned thing?”

  “What?”

  “What bothers me most about this whole thing is the way these darned kids act. If you ask me, we’ve raised up a whole generation of ungrateful chickens that don’t know manners. And you want to know what else I think?”

  “No.”

  His beak froze open. “Huh?”

  “No. I didn’t come up here for your latest sermon. Just give me the facts about a strange noise in the night.”

  “Oh. Well, I was a-getting to it, but yes, we definitely had a strange noise in the night. Very strange, Hank. It must have been close to dark, see, and we’d gone to roost and the chicken house had got real quiet and still.”

  “All right, go on.”

  “And you see them two little roosters over there?”

  I looked to the right and saw them. I memorized their conformation. Actually, they looked like every other young rooster I’d ever seen: two wings, two legs, two feet, a lot of feathers, and a stupid expression. “Yes, I see them. Go on.”

  “Them’s the laziest two boys that ever walked on this earth, and you know what else? They’re MY boys! Now, how do you explain something like that?”

  I was having a little trouble tying this all together. “What do the boys have to do with the strange noise?”

  “I’m a-gettin’ there. I remember waking up from a light sleep and saying to Elsa, ‘Elsa, did you hear a strange noise?’ And Elsa, she said she’d describe it as peculiar, not strange.”

  “Hmmmm.”

  “So we agreed, me and Elsa, that it was somewhere between strange and peculiar.”

  “Very good. Now you’ve got to concentrate. Do you have any idea what might have caused that kind of peculiar noise?”

  Again, he looked around to see if anyone was listening, then leaned forward. “I’ve got a darned good idea, but first I need to know if you’re the kind that’s going to blab this all over the ranch.”

  “I didn’t become Head of Ranch Security by blabbing.”

  “Okay. I just wanted to hear you say that before I gave you any more information.”

  “Go on, J.T. It’s safe with me.”

  “Okay, I’ll have to trust you. It was them two boys of mine. They’d been out playing around, see, and thought they could sneak back in while the old man was asleep.”

  I glared at him. “Wait a minute. I came up here to solve a mystery. Where is it?”

  “Well, it’s a mystery to me why their mother lets them boys get by with that kind of darned nonsense, and you always struck me as the kind of dog who cared about others and their problems, and it was kind of quiet this morning and I said to Elsa . . .”

  I put my nose in his face and growled. “You’re wasting my valuable time and I don’t like that.”

  His beak dropped open. “Well there’s no ne
ed to be tacky about it! If you want to know what I think . . .”

  At that very moment, Drover came streaking up the hill, scattering hens and pullets in all directions. You should have seen the feathers fly! J.T. heard the commotion and started squawking.

  “Help! Help! It’s a wolf, run for your life!”

  That was the last I saw of J. T. Cluck that day, which was just fine with me. There are very few things I hate worse than being suckered by a dumb chicken.

  Drover arrived in a nervous spasm and a cloud of dust. “Oh Hank, come quick, you won’t believe, oh my gosh, it’s awful, help, attack, the baby, save him, Hank, it’s all up to you!”

  Ordinarily I would have told my assistant to calm down and give me the facts so I could build my case. I mean, there’s such a thing as blind panic, and in this business you learn that blind panic is a poor place to start.

  On the other hand, when duty calls, a loyal cowdog must respond. I mean, answering the call of duty is just by George bred into us.

  Did I stand around gathering facts, building my case, taking descriptions of suspects? Did I waste time asking Drover who was attacking what, where, when, and why? No sir. I lit a shuck and went streaking down the hill toward the gas tanks, scattering chickens.

  “Out of the way, you fools!” You should have heard the squawking. Dumb birds.

  I reached the gas tanks in a matter of seconds, stopped, set up a forward position, and waited for the enemy to show himself. He didn’t appear, so I started barking.

  “Hank!” Drover was standing at the top of the hill, in front of the house. “You went the wrong way. Up here!”

  It appeared that I had . . . Drover’s directions had been very vague. How was I supposed to . . .

  I shot up the hill. “All right, where is he? Give me a coordinate.”

  “Left!”

  I went streaking off to the left and heard Drover’s voice again.

  “Hank, not your left. MY left!”

  I screeched to a halt, spun around, and sprinted back to Drover. “You’re going to have to work on your navigation, son. This is unacceptable.”

  “I’m sorry, Hank, but I thought . . .”

  “Never mind what you thought. Which way’s the enemy?”

  “In the yard. But you’ll have to jump the fence.”

  In spite of the dangerousness and seriousness and emergenciness of the situation, I couldn’t help smiling. “That fence means nothing to me, son. It’s just one of life’s many hurdles.”

  “Really? I don’t think I can jump it.”

  “That’s fine. Watch me and study your lessons.”

  “Okay, Hank. I’ll work on it later.”

  “You bet you will—on your own time. Here I go!”

  I got a run and virtually flew over that fence. A deer couldn’t have done it better. I landed in the yard, went into my fighting crouch, set up a forward position, sniffed the air, and scouted the terrain.

  The yard was Forbidden Territory, you might say. Sally May had planted grass and shrubs and flowers and other stuff, and Iron Law Number One on the ranch was that dogs weren’t allowed inside the fence.

  Cats were. You could usually find Pete the Barncat lolling around the back porch—waiting for a hand-out and never mind the rest, it makes me mad just thinking about the injustice of it.

  Anyway, once inside Forbidden Territory, I scouted the terrain. Some thirty feet in front of me, I saw Little Alfred, Sally May and High Loper’s baby boy. He was wearing a sailor’s suit and playing with a dump truck.

  A short distance from Little Alfred, perched upon a cardboard box, was a large cake with white icing and two yellow candles.

  The clues were fitting together: baby, clean clothes, cake, candles. This was some kind of ceremony. An ordinary dog, untrained in security work, would have leaped to the conclusion that this was a birthday party. But, drawing on my years of experience, I didn’t make that assumption. The facts said, “Ceremony of Some Kind,” not necessarily a birthday party.

  Two questions remained unanswered. First, where was the child’s mother? And second, what monster or evil force had put Little Alfred’s life in danger?

  Those were the crucial questions in the case, and you’ll notice that I had arrived at them only minutes after the first alarm. My next course of action was to search for some answers.

  And I suspected Drover knew them.

  Chapter Two: The Case Turns Out to Be a Piece of Cake

  “All right, Drover,” I called out. “I’m ready to go into action. Two questions: Where is Sally May?”

  “She went inside to get her camera.”

  “Number two: With whom or what do I go into combat?”

  Drover swallowed hard. “Oh, Hank, I hate to tell you this. It’s awful!”

  “Nothing’s awful unless you believe it’s awful.”

  “You’re going to be scared.”

  “I doubt that, son. Remember the Silver Mon­ster Bird? Remember the Enormous Monster? Remember the night I defended the ranch against the entire coyote nation? With that kind of combat record . . . never mind. Point me toward the enemy.”

  His teeth were chattering. “Over by the baby. You want to know what it is?”

  “Might as well.”

  “It’s a giant rattlesnake, Hank!”

  “HUH?”

  The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Chills rolled down my spine. All at once I felt the cold grip of fear closing around my throat.

  I have very few weaknesses, very few clinks in my armor. In fact, you might say I have only one weakness: I’m scared of snakes, always have been. My Uncle Pottsy was bitten on the face by a rattle­snake and died a horrible death.

  I started shaking. For a long time I couldn’t speak. The only thing that kept me from losing control was Drover. It would have ruined him.

  I fought against the shakes and chills, until at last I was able to speak. “One last question, Drover. Why didn’t you handle this case by yourself? Why did you come get me?”

  “Oh, I didn’t think I could jump the fence. My leg’s been . . .”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  “Uh-huh. Oh, and I’m scared of snakes, especially rattlesnakes. They bite.”

  “I see. Did it ever occur to you that I might be bitten?”

  “No.”

  “Or that I might be afraid of snakes?”

  “Oh heck no, ’cause you’re not a chicken-hearted little mutt like me.”

  “That’s true, unfortunately.” I took a deep breath. “Well, I guess there’s nothing left to say.”

  “No, just kill the snake and that’ll be it.”

  I glanced over at Little Alfred, so innocent, so absorbed in his play. “Where’d you see the snake?”

  “In the flowerbed, right behind the baby.”

  “Very well. So long, Drover.”

  “So long, Hankie. I’ll be waiting right here.”

  “We can bet on that.”

  I turned and started walking toward my fate. It’s funny, the memories that come back to you at such moments. I saw myself as a pup, playing tug-of-war with my sister Maggie while Ma watched us with a contented smile.

  Seeing Ma that way kind of gave me courage. She’s the one who taught me right from wrong, and I didn’t want to disgrace her memory. My steps grew bolder and I marched up the flowerbed.

  Little Alfred turned and smiled. “Goggie! Goggie!”

  I dipped my head, as if to say, “How’s it going, son?”

  Then I turned to the grim task before me. I cocked my ear and listened. If the snake rattled, at least I would know his position and could plan my attack so that if I got bitten, it would be on the foot instead of the face. I wanted to save my face for . . .

  Oh geeze, that started me thinking about Beulah again, my tr
ue and perfect collie love, the only woman in the world who could make me think of romance just before going into combat with a giant rattlesnake. But dang her soul, she loved a bird dog, and how could she love a bird dog . . .

  I shook those thoughts out of my head. This was no time for romantic notions.

  I cocked my ear and listened. Nothing. The snake wasn’t going to give me any warning, which was a piece of bad luck. I had no choice but to sniff out the flowerbed and force the snake out into the open, offering myself as a target in order to save Little Alfred.

  I was shaking again, and I mean all the way down to my toenails. I crept forward—sniffing, listening, waiting for the ineffable . . . uneffitable . . . inedible . . . whatever the dadgum word is, to occur. Inevitable.

  Even though I was expecting a strike, it shocked me when it came. I heard a hiss, saw a blur of motion to my right, and felt a sting on the end of my nose—the very worst and most fatal place to take a snakebite.

  I staggered back. My eyes began to dim. I felt the poison rushing through my bloodstream. My heart pounded in my ears. As I sank to my knees, I uttered not a cry and faced my untimely end with the little shreds of courage I could muster.

  As the gray veil moved across my eyes, I heard a strange voice: “Sorry about that, Hankie. You woke me up and I thought you were a big mouse.”

  HUH?

  Hadn’t I heard that whiny voice before? That was no snake. That was Pete the Barncat!

  I opened my eyes and sure enough, there was Pete’s insipid grin peeking out of the iris. “What are you doing in there? I thought you were a rattle­snake.”

  Pete licked his paw. “No, he was here but he crawled under the house. Snakes are very afraid of cats, you know, which is why a lot of people think cats are better at ranch security than dogs.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Um-hum. Because cats have something no cowdog in history has ever possessed.”

  “Such as?”

  He throwed an arch in his back, took a big stretch, and scratched the ground with his front paws. “Intelligence.”

  All at once I felt my energy coming back. I stood up. “Oh yeah?”