The Case of the Car-Barkaholic Bog Read online

  The Case of the Car-Barkaholic Dog

  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 Gulf Publishing Company, 1991.

  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., 2013.

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © John R. Erickson, 1991

  All rights reserved

  Maverick Books, Inc. Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59188-117-9

  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

  This one is for my friends at Gulf Publishing Company. Thanks for giving Hank such a good home.

  Contents

  Chapter One On the Dilemmas of a Horn

  Chapter Two Syruptishus Loaderation

  Chapter Three Running the Eighteen-Wheeler Marathon

  Chapter Four Chicken Bones Bring New Meaning to Life

  Chapter Five A Case of Mistaken Identity

  Chapter Six Maggie Has a Fainting Spell

  Chapter Seven Uh-oh

  Chapter Eight A Terrible Fight

  Chapter Nine The Fort Is Surrounded

  Chapter Ten Dog-Pound Ralph

  Chapter Eleven Attacked on the Street by Rambo

  Chapter Twelve The Plan Backfires—Almost

  Chapter One: On the Dilemmas of a Horn

  It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. It was in the fall of the year, seems to me. Yes, it was.

  October. Warm days, cool nights, the china­berries and elms showing the first colors of fall. And we’d just gotten in two truckloads of steers the week before.

  Busy time on the ranch, getting all those steers straightened out and ready to go out on wheat pasture. I’d been up day and night with those steers, and it had just about worn me down.

  I mean, overwork comes with the territory when you’re Head of Ranch Security. You expect it. Still, a guy needs a rest once in a while, a break from all the cares and responsibilities of running the ranch.

  I needed the rest, yes, but the rest of what followed the rest I didn’t need at all. Little did I know that I would find myself stranded in town, or that I would be drawn into a dangerous situation involving my sister Maggie and a terrible bully named Rambo.

  But that’s getting the kettle before the pot. We had received all these fresh cattle and we had a bunch of scrubs in the sick pen. I kind of like that sick-pen work. Some of us are born to take care of the sick and unfirmed, the crippled, and the lame. Not me. I was born to give ’em orders.

  What we do, see, is drive the steers into the crowding pen and shut the gate on them. Then we run, oh, seven or eight of them into the alley that leads to the doctoring chute.

  You ever see a top-of-the-line, blue-ribbon cowdog handle cattle in an alley? Very impressive. While the cowboys have a steer in the chute, I march up and down the alley, growling at the cattle and letting them know who’s running the show.

  Usually that’s all it takes to make the deal run smooth. Course, every now and then we get one that’s new to the sick pen and doesn’t know how to follow orders, and that’s when I earn my pay. I have thirty-seven different ways of biting reluctant steers to make ’em move.

  Yes, every once in a while I get kicked on the nose, but success is never free.

  We made a pretty good team, me and the cowboys, and it didn’t take us long to run twelve head through the chute. I might point out, though, that while we were working, Little Drover sat over by the water tank. Goofing off.

  That little mutt can find more ways to kill time and lollygag around than any dog I ever knew. For a while he watched the action, and now and then he would add his “yip-yip-yip.” Then he chewed on an old horn he’d found in the lot, and after he’d chewed on it for a while, he dug a hole and buried it—shoveled the dirt over it with his nose.

  Why did he want to bury a horn? Beats me.

  Well, when I’d finished my work and while the cowboys were putting up the medicine, I swaggered over to the water tank, where Mister Half-Stepper was licking on a piece of ice.

  “Eating Popsicles on the job, huh?”

  He grinned and wagged his stub tail. “Yeah. They’re pretty good. You want one?”

  “No, I don’t want one. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, Drover, but somehow the idea of eating Popsicles on the job strikes me wrong. Where I come from, we do the work first and then we goof off.”

  “I sure agree with that.”

  “Then why don’t you show it with your actions?”

  “I do. I always let you do the work first.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. Is there some reason why you don’t jump in and try to make a hand when we’re doctoring cattle?”

  “Oh yeah. Last time I tried it, I got kicked.”

  “You got kicked. Son, getting kicked is just part of the job. It happens all the time.”

  “I know. And it always hurts.”

  “Of course it hurts, but our ability to tolerate pain is one of the things that makes cowdogs just a little bit special.”

  He rolled his eyes up at the clouds. “Seems to me that the best way to tolerate pain is not to get kicked.”

  I moved closer and glared at him. “Are you saying that the best way to tolerate pain is to avoid it? What if I took that attitude? How long do you think this ranch would run without pain?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “About five minutes. Pain is our fuel, Drover. It’s the force that drives us. It’s pain that lets us know that we’re alive. To run from pain is to run from life.”

  “Sounds like a pretty good idea to me.”

  I could only shake my head. “All right, you leave me with no choice. Just for that, I’ll have to write you up. For making dumb remarks about pain, you get three Shame-on-You’s on your record.”

  “Oh gosh. That hurts.”

  “Exactly. Which just goes to prove my point that you can’t escape pain, no matter how hard you try. Now, why did you bury that horn?”

  “Which horn?”

  “The horn you just buried.”

  “Oh, that horn. Well, I don’t know. I guess I wanted to save it. You never know when you might need a horn.”

  “So far so good, Drover, but that brings us to the most important question of all. Now that you’ve buried it, can you find it?”

  His eyes blanked out. “Well, I think I can.”

  I sat down and gave him a wise smile. “Prove it. Find the horn.”

  He went to several spots, pawed around in the dirt, and came up with exactly nothing. He came padding back, sat down, scratched his ear, and said, “I guess I’ve lost it.”

 
“Exactly!” I leaped to my feet and began pacing around him. This was a triumphal moment, don’t you see. “Now let me tie all this together into one Lesson for the Day, Drover. You ran from pain but found it. You found a horn but lost it. That which you tried to save you have no more, but that which you tried to lose you have. Do you see what this means?”

  “Not really.”

  Suddenly it occurred to me that I didn’t know what it meant either, except that it meant something very important. But even more important was that I overheard Slim and Loper talking. They had just stepped out of the medicine shed.

  “We’re out of Pen-Strip and Furison,” said Loper, “and we’ll need both in the morning. While you’re at the feed store, pick up four hundred pounds of horse feed. And stop at the Waterhole and get me a pouch of Taylor’s Pride chew.”

  Slim was writing all this down in the palm of his hand. “Okay, is that all?”

  “Stay out of the pool hall and get back out here as soon as you can. We’ve got two weeks’ work to finish up before dark.”

  Slim nodded. “Seems kind of a waste, making a trip into town and not stopping at the pool hall.”

  “You can handle it.”

  “Well, I don’t know.” Slim looked up at the sky and rubbed the whiskers on his cheek. “There’s something about that pool hall, Loper. I mean, a lot of times that old pickup just heads there on its own and I can’t hold it in the road.”

  “Hold it in the road and get back out here.”

  “Loper, has anyone ever told you that you ain’t any fun?”

  “All the time. It comes from working poor help.”

  Slim smiled and they drifted toward the flat­bed pickup. “Shoot! You’ve got the finest cowboy crew in the whole world.”

  I didn’t hear the rest of the conversation, which was okay because it was starting to get a little windy. The conversation, that is.

  Also, I had gleaned enough information by that time to conclude A) that Slim was going into town; B) that I hadn’t been to town in quite a spell; C) that I needed a change in scenery; and D) that Slim probably wanted me and Drover to go along and ride shotgun.

  I turned to my assistant. “Drover, a pickup is fixing to go into town, and we’re fixing to sneak our little selves into the back end and hitch a ride. Let’s go.”

  Drover had stopped and put his nose to the ground. Then his head came up.

  “I found the horn, Hank, it’s right here where I left it. Does that change your Lesson for the Day?”

  I gave him a withering glare. “I deal in concepts, son. What actually happens just confuses the issue. Come on, we’ve got a ride to catch.”

  Chapter Two: Syruptishus Loaderation

  In the Security Business, we have special techniques for special jobs. Your ordinary dogs know nothing of these special techniques because it takes a special kind of dog to apply special techniques. Ordinary dogs use ordinary techniques.

  And to no one’s surprise, they usually fail.

  We have special techniques for catching mice in the cake house. We have special techniques for dealing with chickens. We have special techniques for humbling cats, and special techniques for dodging the rocks that ranch wives, upon hearing their cats being humbled, tend to throw at dogs.

  And we have special techniques for hitching rides into town. The technical term for this procedure is “Syruptishus Loaderation.” Quite a term, huh? I get a kick out of using heavyweight terms every now and then. Course, I don’t expect everyone to remember them, and I won’t take the time to . . .

  Oh, what the heck? We might as well take a short break and have ourselves a little lesson in words, their origins, and their many shades of meaning.

  After all, language is pretty important. Without language, we’d all be at a loss for words.

  Okay. “Syrup-tish-us Load-er-a-tion.” It means, “A secret and rather technical procedure for climbing aboard a pickup that is heading for town, when the driver of the alleged pickup would be less than thrilled if he knew that he was hauling dogs.”

  You’ll notice that the root of the first word is “syrup.” Perhaps you’ve observed the way that syrup moves. It doesn’t run or fall or hop or splash. It oozes along its course, which is a sneaky and stealthy way of moving.

  Things that ooze, such as snakes and snails, are usually up to no good, and by simple logic it follows that most of your syrups are up to no good. Hence, from the root “syrup,” we build a new and exciting word that means “sneaky and stealthy.”

  The root of the second word is “load.” If you’ve ever loaded roots, you know that they can be very heavy, especially if they’re packed in gunnysacks and if they have to be lifted from ground level up to the bed of a pickup.

  Hence, from the second load we find that roots are a major cause of back injury and . . .

  I seem to have lost my train of thought. Some­thing about roots. Or trees. Tree roots?

  Oh well, you get the picture. “Syruptishus Load­­eration.” You might want to jot that one down.

  Okay. Now we’ll give our new term a practical application from Real Life. Loper went on about his business, and Slim headed for the pickup, which was parked directly in front of our bedroom under the gas tanks.

  I gave Drover a secret sign which meant “Switch to Stealthy Crouch Mode and follow Slim.” Because of the highly secret nature of the secret sign, I’m not at liberty to reveal it at this time.

  Nothing personal. It’s just that there are parts of this job that are too sensitive to be revealed to the general public. If our codes were ever broken . . . well, I’m not at liberty even to suggest what might happen if our codes fell into the wrong hands.

  We switched over to Stealthy Crouch Mode, fell into formation behind Slim, and began secretly and stalkingly stealthing him. At the same time, my Data Control began loading the Syruptishus Loaderation program, and I began going through my checklist of procedures and routines.

  I know it sounds complicated. It sounds complicated because it IS complicated. And now you understand that being a ranch dog is no ball of wax.

  Slim walked up to the pickup and stopped. Taking our cues from the visual readout of his movement, we stopped too. Or, to be more precise, I stopped and Drover ran into me.

  “Ooops, ’scuse me.”

  “Shhh, quiet! Pay attention to your business.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Shhhhh!”

  “Sorry.”

  “SHHHHHHHHH!”

  “’Scuse me.”

  “Will you shut your little trap!”

  “I’m sorry, Hank.”

  “SHUT IT!”

  “Okay.” At last, silence. But then, “I’m sorry.”

  I could have . . . but wringing his stupid neck at that particular moment would have only created more of a stir, and that was precisely what we didn’t need.

  “We’re in Stealthy Crouch Mode, you little dunce, and I don’t want to hear another word out of you.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s better.”

  I turned my attention back to Slim. Hmmm. He appeared to be removing the lid from the pickup’s gas tank and placing the nozzle of the gas tank hose into the gas tank. In other words, he appeared to be . . . yes. Filling the pickup with . . . well, gas.

  Or, to be more precise, gasoline. There are many types of gas floating around in our atmosphere, but only one type of gasoline: regular and unleaded. That’s two, actually.

  And gasoline doesn’t float. It moves from one tank to another through a hose and a nozzle and so forth.

  I hadn’t expected this turn of events. It takes your average cowboy several minutes to fill the gas tank of his pickup, and I don’t need to tell you how difficult it is for a dog to maintain Stealthy Crouch Mode over a period of several minutes.

  It’s tough. It wears you out
. Your ordinary dogs will break discipline at this point. Your better dogs will maintain S.C.M., whatever the cost.

  Slim was tapping his toe and singing a song, as he waited for the tank to fill.

  Doe dee doe doe doe,

  Dee dee deedle dum

  Doe dee doe doe

  Diddle diddle diddle dum.

  Ho fiddly diddly dum

  Hey diddle riddly rum

  Diddly riddly fiddly fum

  Doe dee dee, dee diddly dum.

  Pretty boring song, if you ask me. I could have come up with a better one—blindfolded and with one paw tied behind my back.

  Well, Mr. Songbird got so involved in singing his masterpiece that he forgot that he was filling the pickup with gas. And you can guess what happened. The tank filled up and gasoline went flying in all directions.

  That woke him up. “DAD-gum gas tank! Now look what you’ve done. Stupid pickup.”

  He hung the nozzle back on its special patented baling wire hook and scowled at his hands. For a moment he stood there muttering to himself. It appeared that he considered wiping them on his jeans but changed his mind.

  It was then that his gaze fell upon me.

  “Hank, come here, boy. Good dog. Come on, boy.”

  HUH?

  I, uh, tried to blend in with my surroundings, so to speak, in hopes that he might . . .

  “Hank, come here!” The softer tone of his first call had disappeared, replaced by a certain sharp quality. “Come here!”

  “Drover,” I whispered, “you’re being called for special duty. Slim needs you.”

  There was no answer. I turned around and . . . I don’t know how that little dope always manages to . . .

  “HANK, GET OVER HERE!”

  I swallowed and pushed myself up to the Full Erect Position.

  “Come on, hurry up!”

  I began the slow walk toward the pickup. There are some parts of this job that I have never learned to enjoy.

  “Come on, atta boy.”

  I hate the smell of gasoline, always have.