The Ghosts of Rabbits Past Read online

  The Ghost of Rabbits Past

  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

  Published in the United States of America by Maverick Books, Inc., 2013

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  Copyright © John R. Erickson, 2013

  All rights reserved

  Maverick Books, Inc. Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59188-162-9

  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.

  Dedication

  I dedicate this book to the memory of C.S. Lewis, in appreciation for the education I have gotten from his books. I think he would have liked Hank.

  Contents

  Chapter One We’re Attacked By Hoodian Voles!

  Chapter Two Something Big and Hairy

  Chapter Three Yipes!

  Chapter Four The Catnip Kid

  Chapter Five Drover Is Catnipped

  Chapter Six I Try to Communicate With Slim

  Chapter Seven A Cow Swallowed a Bone

  Chapter Eight A Wreck

  Chapter Nine Back On the Case

  Chapter Ten I Put My Plan Into Action

  Chapter Eleven Treachery On a Grand Scale

  Chapter Twelve The Ultimate Hoax

  Chapter One: We’re Attacked By Hoodian Voles!

  It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. We’re going to take this story one step at a time and we’re going to start at the beginning. Are you ready for that? You’d better be, because the train’s fixing to leave the station, and I’ll tell you right now, it’s going to be scary.

  Okay, here we go. The moment I heard the eerie scream, I knew we had a problem. I had been out most of the night, doing a routine patrol of ranch headquarters, and had returned to the office to work my way through a stack of reports. On this outfit, the work of the Security Division never ends. If we’re not walking the beat, we’re tied up with paperwork.

  Maybe I had dozed off at my desk. Yes, of course I had dozed off. That’s what dogs do when they finish an eighteen-hour shift. We try to exceed the limits imposed by flesh and blood, but sometimes sleep creeps up from behind and grabs us.

  I’d fallen into a light doze, is the point, but came roaring out of it when I heard the terrible screams. I leaped to my feet and hit Sirens and Lights. “Speckled starfish in the rectangular salad! Man the lifeboats and don’t forget the ketchup!”

  I made a dash for the lifeboats but ran into one of the sailors in the dark. It knocked both of us to the deck. I sat up and so did the other party. I narrowed my eyes and studied his face. “Are you going to lower the lifeboats or just sit there?”

  “I don’t think we have any lifeboats.”

  “They’re already gone? Why wasn’t I informed? How can I command this ship if it’s sinking all the time?” I blinked my eyes and glanced around. “Are we sinking?”

  “I don’t think so. You need water to sink.”

  “You saw water in the sink? Where is the sink?”

  “I don’t know, in the bathroom, I guess.”

  “That fits, but where’s the bathroom?”

  “Out in the weeds.”

  “We have weeds in the bathroom?”

  “We don’t have a bathroom.”

  “Already I’ve found a fly in your oatmeal. If we don’t have a bathroom, we can’t possibly have a sink…and by the way, who are you?”

  He grinned. “Drover. Hi.”

  I looked closer and recognized his face. “Hi. We need to get those lifeboats in the water, fast.”

  “We don’t have any.”

  “No lifeboats? What kind of ship is this?”

  “It’s our bedroom. You’re still asleep.”

  I leaned toward him and whispered, “I’ll try to forget you said that.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Drover, where are we?”

  “Under the gas tanks.”

  I paced a few steps away and tried to clear the fog out of my head. “Who started this rumor about the sinking ship? I must know.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “Then who or whom does that leave as a suspect?”

  “I think you were dreaming.”

  “I was NOT dreaming.”

  “Yeah, but there’s nobody left to blame.”

  I shot him a cunning smile. “That’s where you’re wrong, son. We’ve always got the cat.”

  “You mean…Pete?”

  “Exactly. Don’t forget: he specializes in lies, gossip, and dirty tricks.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “At this point, we don’t know how he did it, but all the evidence points at him like a flaming arrow.”

  “What’s the evidence?”

  “The evidence is that we have no evidence, which is irreguffable proof that a cat was behind this whole charade.”

  He yawned. “I’ll be derned.”

  “Please don’t yawn while I’m reviewing a case.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s very discouraging when I look out at the audience and see dogs who are yawning.”

  “Sorry, but it’s the middle of the night.”

  “That is not my fault, Drover. I don’t pick the times when the cat chooses to sabotage our systems.”

  “Can I go back to bed?”

  “No, not until we make some progress on this case.” I began pacing, as I often do when my mind is racing after the Rabbit of Truth. “Okay, make a note and enter it into the Daily Log. The Sinking Ship Episode was a fraud from start to finish, a distraction created by the cat to disrupt our systems. At our first opportunity, we will thrash the little snot and park him in a tree. Make three copies and post one on the bulletin board.”

  He glanced around. “Where’s the bulletin board?”

  “Drover, I deal in large concepts. You figure out the bulletin boards. Now, unless you have further questions, I’d like to get some sleep.”

  “Can I yawn now?”

  “Yes. Yawn all you want. Fall into your yawns, I don’t care, just don’t make any noise.”

  I rumbled over to my gunny sack, fluffed it up, and collapsed. Exhaustion leaped upon me like a lurking tiger. I was drifting off when I heard an odd sound. It was Drover, yawning. “Boy, that was a good one. I love to yawn. I’d rather yawn than chew a bone. There’s another good one!”

  I sat up and melted him with a glare. “Drover, if you continue making noise, we will have to impose a ban on yawning. Is that what you want?”

  That got his attention. “Gosh, I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t yawn.”

  “I’m sure it would become a personal crisis, so yawn quietly. And don’t mutter about how much you love to yawn.”

  “Okay, sorry. I’ll try.”

  “Good night.”

  At last he shut his beak and I began drifting out on the
snorking honk of barbecued snicklefritz fiddle blossoms and spiral tomatoes…I must have dozed off, but not for long. All at once, another horrible scream penetrated the perpitude of my turpentine.

  I shot straight up and staggered to my feet. “Drover, did you hear something?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “A scream?”

  His eyes were wide with fear. “Yeah, and it wasn’t me.”

  “Then who could it…” And then we heard it again: an unearthly scream that made my hair stand on end. It wasn’t Drover’s yawning, and it wasn’t the cat. “Good grief, what is that?”

  Drover moved his lips but couldn’t utter a sound, until at last he gasped, “I think it’s the Hoodian Voles!”

  Those words sent a scorching jolt of electricity down my spine. “Hoodian Voles! Do we have those things on this ranch?”

  “Yeah, I saw five of ‘em, right over there. They’re everywhere!”

  “You saw five Hoodian Voles?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Good grief. What are they? Give me a description. Facts, we need facts and details.”

  His teeth were clacking together. “They looked just like twenty-five monsters, only ten times worse.”

  A wave of fear washed over me. “Okay, let’s settle down. We’ve got to be professional about this.”

  “Yeah, let’s head for the bunkers.”

  “I agree. To the bunkers!”

  And so it began. We had ourselves an invasion of…whatever Drover had said, some kind of creatures, and you’re probably worried sick. You should be. This had turned into a very dangerous night on our ranch.

  Chapter Two: Something Big and Hairy

  The first reports were sketchy, but we had reason to think that a force of Hoodian Voles had overrun ranch headquarters and captured the barn and chicken house. I had never gone up against a Hoodian Vole, but our intelligence units had warned us that they were more dangerous than skeletons, ghosts, or monsters.

  We responded in a professional manner and dived into our bunkers, the heavily fortified areas beneath our gunny sack beds. Once there, we closed the hatches and waited for something to happen. In the deadly silence, we heard a burst of high-pitched screeching and cackling.

  Pretty scary, huh? You bet. Hey, I’m no chicken liver and over the course of my career, I’d heard some creepy sounds, but this! It was goose-bump creepy. For several moments, we listened as the sounds changed from hideous cackles into howls.

  Drover was the first to speak. “You know what? That sounds like coyotes.”

  “Don’t be absurd. Coyotes never come up this close to the house. And besides, your report stated that you saw twenty-five…whatever you called them.”

  “Hoodian Voles?”

  “Exactly. Follow the trail of logic. If you witnessed an invasion of Hoodian Voles, that’s what we’re hearing.”

  “Yeah, but sometimes my eyes play tricks.”

  I glared at him in the darkness of the bunker. Actually, it was so dark in there, I couldn’t see him, but I glared anyway. “Drover, is it possible that you turned in a garbled report?”

  “I’d hate to put it that way.”

  “How would you put it?”

  “Well, it was dark…and I was scared and half-asleep…and I thought I saw something, but maybe there weren’t twenty-five of them.”

  “All right, maybe you miscounted. How many did you see?”

  “Maybe five or three or only one. Or maybe I didn’t see anything.”

  I was stunned. “Drover, the first thing we need to clear up is…what exactly is a Hoodian Vole?”

  “I don’t know. It just popped into my head.”

  “It just popped…DID YOU SEE ANYTHING OR NOT?”

  I heard him sniffling in the darkness. “No.”

  “Then why did you…I can’t believe this!”

  “I wanted to do something important. I thought you’d be proud of me.”

  “Proud! Do you realize the full impact of your bungling?”

  “Yeah, I’m a failure.”

  “No, it’s worse than that. You’ve made the entire Security Division look like…I don’t know what. An outside observer would probably think this ranch is being run by monkeys.”

  “I’m sorry. I want to go home!”

  “You are home.”

  “Then I want to go homer!”

  “Stop blubbering. Once you’ve spilled the milk, it’s too late to feed the horses.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. I’m babbling, you’re babbling, the Security Division is in shambles…” I had to give myself a minute to absorb all of this. “All right, Drover, listen carefully. We must form a plan and stick with it. Number one, no more behaving like monkeys.”

  “I wish I had a banana.”

  “What?”

  “I said, I’ll try.”

  “Good. Number two, we will leave the bunkers. Number three, once we’re outside, I don’t know what we’ll do, but we’ll do something. Are you ready?”

  “I guess.”

  “All right, stand by to put our plan into action. On my mark, we will leave the bunkers. Three, two, one, exit bunkers!”

  We climbed out of the bunkers and found ourselves…well, in our office under the gas tanks. I lifted Earatory Scanners and did a sweep for sounds. I heard two crickets and an owl, but nothing that suggested skeletons, coyotes, or those other things. Hooligan Moles.

  “Drover, the radar is clear, not a sound out there. Is it possible…do you suppose we dreamed all of this?”

  “I sure thought I heard something scary.”

  “Right, and you thought you saw twenty-five Hooligan Moles, then admitted that you saw nothing. In the middle of the night, we can’t trust your reports.”

  “Gosh, what’ll we do?”

  “We need some boots-on-the-ground reconnaissance.”

  “Boy, that’s a big word.”

  “Any volunteers for a scout patrol?”

  “I don’t think I could even spell it.”

  “Spell what?”

  “That word you just said.”

  “It’s easy. S-C-O-U-T.”

  “No, the other word.”

  “P-A-T-R-O-L.”

  “No, the other one, the big one.”

  I stuck my nose in his face. “Life is not a spelling bee and we have serious work to do. We’re looking for volunteers to make a scout patrol.” Silence. Drover’s eyes avoided my steely gaze. “The payoff could be huge: stripes, medals, stars, bars, certificates, promotions, double dog food…you name it. We’re talking about hitting the jackpot.”

  “I think I’ll pass.”

  “Drover, in this time of crisis, the ranch needs us.”

  “You’ll go too?”

  “Huh? Well, I…someone needs to stay here to coordinate the mission.”

  “Yeah, that’s for me.”

  “That’s not for you!” I paced a few steps away and tried to control the swirl of my thoughts. “All right, you little slacker, I’ll go too, but you have to promise me one thing.”

  “Okay, I promise.”

  “I haven’t said it yet.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  I marched back and glared down into his face. “Promise you won’t take off running and hide in the machine shed.”

  His eyes grew round with surprise. “How’d you know that’s what I was going to do?”

  “Because I know you. Because you do it all the time.”

  He grinned. “Gosh, I thought I was being sneaky.”

  “You’re not smart enough to be sneaky, and besides, you’re doing business with the Head of Ranch Sneakurity. I’ve seen it all, son. Now, promise on your Solemn Cowdog Oath that you won’t run off and hide in the machine shed.”<
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  He stood up straight and raised his right front paw. “I promise NOT to NOT run off and hide in the machine shed.”

  “Good. It’s done. Let’s move out.”

  We grabbed weapons and ammo belts, left the barracks, and marched off to the northeast, the direction from which the horrible sounds had come…if we’d actually heard any horrible sounds. Let’s be honest. Things get confusing when we’re jerked back and forth, from asleep to alert. Add Drover to the mix and you get something close to sheer chaos.

  Remember what he’d said about loading the kitchen sink into a lifeboat? It was all crazy nonsense, but that’s the kind of mess I have to deal with every day. Sometimes I can laugh about this stuff, but…well, remember the Wise Old Saying?

  “Once in a while, it really matters that everyone on the team has the same grasp of reality.”

  That’s a very wise Wise Old Saying, and you probably ought to write it down.

  So there we were, marching through darkness, on a mission to gather reconnaissance about whatever had interrupted our sleep. By the time we arrived at the yard gate, we had seen nothing suspicious, and I had pretty muchly decided that we had dreamed the entire episode.

  That’s when I ran into something in the dark, something that shouldn’t have been there. I reached for the radio. “Cottage Cheese, this is Chainsaw. We’ve encountered something in the dark. Description: large and hairy. What is your location? Over.”

  The radio crackled, then I heard a faint reply. “I’m outa here!”

  “Cottage Cheese? Repeat that, over.” The radio went silent. “Drover? I need your coordinates at once. Drover?”

  Dead silence. My mind was tumbling. Was it possible that the little sneak had…wait a second! Remember Drover’s Solemn Pledge? I hit the replay button and listened to it again.

  “I promise NOT to NOT run off and hide in the machine shed.”

  Do you see the meaning of this? Let’s go to the blackboard and write down the equation.

  Not + Not = 0.

  Do you get it now? Two nots cancel each other out. Remove the knots from a knot hole and you get empty space. Remove the nots from Drover’s so-called pledge and you get, “I promise to run off and hide in the machine shed.”