Slim's Goodbye Read online

  Slim’s Good-bye

  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 Viking Children’s Books and Puffin Books, members of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 2000.

  Currently published by Maverick Books, Inc., 2013

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © John R. Erickson, 2000

  All rights reserved

  Maverick Books, Inc. Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59188-134-6

  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

  For my friends at Puffin Books.

  Contents

  Chapter One Scrap Time on the Ranch

  Chapter Two I Play Mind Games with the Cat

  Chapter Three Dark Clouds Gather

  Chapter Four On the Road Again

  Chapter Five Our Search for the Elusive Penguins

  Chapter Six We Are Arrested by the Canadian Mounties

  Chapter Seven Slim Finds a New Career

  Chapter Eight Survivest of the Fiddles

  Chapter Nine We’re Freezing Our Tails!

  Chapter Ten I Solve the Mystery of Mrs. Murphy, the Spy

  Chapter Eleven I Teach the Horse a Valuable Lesson

  Chapter Twelve Happy Ending or Good-bye to Slim?

  Chapter One: Scrap Time on the Ranch

  It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. Who would have ever thought that Slim would quit his job on the ranch and leave? Not me.

  Pretty sad, huh? I mean, Slim and I were special pals. We’d spent years working together on the ranch. I never would have dreamed . . .

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. Where were we? Oh yes, the beginning of the day. Morning. It appeared to be a normal morning in December—cloudy, cold, gray, wind blowing out of the north. Drover and I were sleeping late that morning, when all at once my ears shot up and I was awakened by the sound of a door slamming up at the house.

  Do you realize what this meant? Maybe not, if you’re not a dog.

  Scrap Time!

  If you’re a dog, very few moments in the history of this world have more meaning or importance than Scrap Time. It gives purpose and direction to our lives, fills them with meaning and hope. And so it was that, upon hearing the slamming of the screen door, I came roaring out of deep sleep, leaped out of my gunnysack bed, cranked open the outer doors of my eyes, and shouted the news to Drover.

  “Hurry, Drover, it’s tinted feathers, and they all weigh a ton!”

  By that time he had joined me in an upright position. “Who? What? How many?”

  “I don’t know, Drover, I didn’t have time to count them, but two thousand feathers weigh a ton.” We stared at each other. “What did I just say?”

  “I don’t know. Something about . . . feathers. I think that’s what you said.”

  “I did not say anything about feathers.”

  “Oh, okay. Maybe it was me.”

  “Of course it was you, and I must warn you not to talk about feathers.”

  He yawned. “How come?”

  “Don’t yawn while I’m speaking to you.”

  “Sorry. I just woke up.”

  “It gives the impression that you’re bored.”

  “Not me. I just woke up.”

  “You already said that.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I’m liable to say anything. I just woke up.”

  I glared at the runt. “That makes three times you’ve said that.”

  “I’ll be derned. I must have been asleep.”

  “Of course you were. If you just woke up, it follows from simple logic that . . . something woke us up, Drover, something very important. What was it?”

  “Well, I heard a bunch of feathers.”

  “Feathers? How can you hear feathers?”

  “Well . . . I don’t know. I can’t hear ’em now.”

  “There were no feathers, Drover, except the ones where your brains ought to be.”

  “Maybe that was it, ’cause I’m almost sure I heard ’em.”

  “You did not hear them.”

  “That’s what I meant. I didn’t hear any feathers, and maybe that’s what woke us up.”

  “Hmmm. Could be, although . . . wait, I’ve got it now. I had just heard the screen door slam up at the house. Do you realize what this means?”

  “Well, let’s see. Someone came out of the house?”

  “Right. Keep going.”

  “Someone came out of the house through the door?”

  “Good. Excellent. Keep going. Put your clues together. What do they add up to?”

  “Let’s see here. Five?”

  “No.”

  “Ten?”

  “We’re not looking for a number.”

  “Oh. I thought you wanted me to add up all my clues.”

  “No, I wanted you to follow your clues and tell me why someone came out of the house.”

  “Okay, I’ll get it this time.” He rolled his eyes and twisted his mouth around. I could see that the effort of concentrating was taking its toll on him. “Twelve?”

  The air hissed out of my body. I walked a few steps away and tried to clear my head. I’ve always tried to help Drover, to bring him along and teach him the Security Business, but sometimes I’m not sure he can be helped. I returned to the spot where he was sitting. He gave me his usual silly grin and began wig-wagging that stump tail of his.

  “Drover, let’s go back to the beginning. Review your list of clues. Don’t count them. Review them, and follow them to a logical conclusion.”

  “Well, let’s see here. Clues. Door. House.” All at once his eyes popped open. “Oh my gosh, Hank, do you reckon it’s Scrap Time?”

  “Excellent! Very good, Drover. At last you have . . .” He vanished. One minute he was there, and the next he was gone. I made a dash up the hill and caught up with him. “Drover, wait, we’re not finished with the lesson. Stop, halt!”

  He stopped. “Yeah, but it’s Scrap Time.”

  “I know that, and congratulations on figuring it out. But you forgot to make the last step in the procedure.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, you did. Don’t you remember? After put­ting all the clues together and coming up with the right answer, you have to return to the gas tanks and touch base.”

  “I do? How come?”

  “Because that’s the way it’s done. You have to touch base to restart the system.”

  “I’ll be derned. I didn’t think of that.”

  I gave him a fatherly pat on the shoulder. “That’s why I’m here, son, to remind you of things and to help you along. Now go tag up.”

  “Okay, and what’ll you do?”

  “I’ll, uh, wait here and cheer you on.”

  “Okay, here I go!”

  He went
zooming down to the gas tanks. I gave him one loud cheer and then, heh heh, hurried up to the yard gate to check out the scrap business. It proved to be pretty interesting.

  I was pleased and excited to see Little Alfred standing on the back porch. I was even pleaseder when I saw the plate in his hand.

  I made my way to the yard gate, sat down, and shifted into a routine we call Loyal Friend Waiting Patiently for Scraps. I knew it would work on the boy. We were the best of pals, don’t you know, and he had always shown excellent judgment when it came to giving the scraps to me instead of to his momma’s precious kitty. Pete, that is.

  Pete didn’t happen to be in sight at that moment, but I knew it was only a matter of time until he showed up. He always showed up when he wasn’t wanted. Throw a picnic and the flies will come out of nowhere. Show up on the back porch with breakfast scraps and Mister Kitty Moocher will come slinking out of the iris patch.

  But if we hurried this deal along, heh heh, maybe there wouldn’t be anything left for him, heh heh, or for Drover. And so I turned up the Urgency Knob and caught the boy’s attention. He saw me and waved.

  “Hi, Hankie. Want some scwaps?”

  Oh yes, please! I hadn’t eaten in months . . . okay, hours . . . I hadn’t eaten in hours, had shrunk down to skin and bones, and was in desperate need of food. Anything, just any little morsel he could spare, such as . . . well, juicy fatty ends of bacon, a piece of fried egg white, a scrap of toast sopped in egg yolk . . . just any little scrap he happened to have on the plate.

  He came toward me and opened the gate. “Come on in the yard, Hankie, and we’ll pway Catch the Scwap.”

  Well, I . . . maybe that wasn’t such a great idea. I mean, I loved playing Catch the Scrap with the boy. We’d played it many times and I had proved myself to be one of the best scrap catchers in all of Texas, but Sally May, his mommy, had rules against dogs in the yard. It was a silly rule—also terribly unfair to us dogs—but I had no wish to get involved, so to speak, with Sally May first thing in the morning. Or any other time.

  Alfred grinned, tossed a glance over his shoulder, and whispered, “Mom’s inside feeding my sister. She’ll never know you came into the yard.”

  Ha! Was he kidding? Sally May knew everything. She had radar. She had eyes in the back of her head. She had STP . . . PDQ . . . whatever it is when you know things and see things that others don’t know or see.

  No, as much as I would have enjoyed playing Catch the Scrap in the yard . . .

  He shouldn’t have held that piece of bacon in front of my nose. I have very few weaknesses, very few clinks in my armor, but bacon held up in front of my nose is one of them. It seems to melt my iron discipline and turns me into a . . . something. A robot who can think of nothing but yummy bacon, I suppose.

  Alfred knew that, but he did it anyway. He held that bacon in front of my nose and lured me through the open gate and across the line into Sally May’s Forbidden Yard. I couldn’t help myself. The bacon vapors filled my nostrils and took control of my mind, and I had no choice but to follow that bacon wherever it led.

  He had duped me, tricked me, used my weakness against me, forced me to break the First Rule of Ranch Law, and when he pitched the bacon into the air, I snagged that rascal and gulped it down. No dog in history had ever enjoyed breaking the law more than I, and as far as I was concerned, we could play Catch the Scrap for the rest of the . . .

  HUH?

  I heard a creak as the back door opened. My ears flew up. I froze and found myself staring into Alfred’s eyes, which had grown big and round. Then I heard him utter some shocking words: “Oops. It’s my mom.”

  I knew it. I’d tried to tell him. She always showed up at the very worst times. She had radar for naughty thoughts. A dog wasn’t safe on that ranch until she went to town, and even then a guy couldn’t get over the feeling that she was still there, watching and listening and lurking around the next corner.

  In a flash, I transformed myself into Rocket Dog and flew back across the line, struck a calm, relaxed pose on the Dog Side of the fence, and, uh, worked my face around so that it showed . . . well, mild surprise on seeing her come out of the house, delight that she had decided to, uh, join us, and above all, perfect innocence.

  I gave her my most sincere cowdog smile, as if to say, “Oh my goodness, it’s Sally May, my very favorite ranch wife! What a pleasure to see you this morning. Alfred and I were just . . . well, doing nothing really, just listening to the chirping of the birds and enjoying the, uh, beauty of the morning . . . so to speak. Nothing else. Really. No kidding.”

  She saw us at once. Her eyes speared me. She came down the sidewalk toward us. Alfred had begun to whistle and was looking up at the sky. I studied her face to see if our program was selling. I couldn’t tell.

  Chapter Two: I Play Mind Games with the Cat

  Sally May stopped and loomed over us like a thunder­head cloud. Her gaze went from me to Alfred and back to me. When it was on me, I could feel the heat of it. It was hard for me to keep up my casual smile, but somehow I managed to do it.

  “Well. What have we here?”

  “Oh, hi, Mom. We were just . . . goofin’ awound.”

  “Goofing around. Did you happen to notice that the gate is open?”

  Alfred’s eyes turned to the open gate. “Gosh. The wind must have bwone it open.”

  Her left eyebrow rose. “The wind did not blow it open. You opened it and you were trying to feed Hank in my yard, weren’t you?”

  The boy’s head sank into his shoulders. “Well, he was hungwy.”

  “Of course he was hungry. He’s always hungry, but you can’t feed him in my yard.” Her eyes swung around to me. “No dogs in the yard. Period. Ever. Is that clear, Hank?”

  I felt myself melting under the beam of her eyes. Yes ma’am.

  She turned back to the boy. “Is that clear, Alfred Leroy?”

  “Yes ma’am. But I think it was the wind.”

  A thin smile slid across her mouth. “Don’t try to tell whoppers to your mother. I know boys and I know dogs. What one of you doesn’t think up, the other one will. Oh, and save some of the scraps for the other animals. It isn’t fair for Hank to get them all.”

  And with that, she cupped her hands around her mouth and called Drover and her precious kitty. In a flash, Drover was there, huffing and puffing.

  “Hi, Hank. I touched base and made it in time for scraps. Are you proud of me?”

  I gave him a glare. “You bet. I was worried sick you might not make it.”

  “Gosh, thanks. And you waited on the scraps until I got here, huh?”

  “Oh yes. It wouldn’t have been fair if I’d gotten all the . . . Drover, did you touch base once or twice?”

  “Well, let’s see. Once. That’s what you said.”

  “Darn. I guess I forgot to tell you.”

  His grin vanished. “Tell me what?”

  “Well, you’re supposed to touch base twice. I thought you knew that. I mean, I thought everybody knew that. It’s common knowledge.”

  “It is?”

  “Sure. If you touch base only once . . . well, I’m sure you can guess what might happen.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “Oh yes, very bad. It’s so bad, I can’t even say it out loud.”

  He was looking worried by this time. “Gosh. Can you whisper it?”

  “Better not. Just try to imagine the worst thing that might happen.”

  He thought about it for a minute. “Not that.”

  “Yes, Drover. That.”

  “That would be awful.”

  “See? Didn’t I tell you? It just doesn’t pay to cut corners.”

  “Yeah, and maybe I’d better run back down there and touch base again.”

  I gave him a wink and a nod. “Great idea, Drover. And what makes it even greater is that you came
up with it on your own.”

  “Yeah, I feel so proud. Maybe I’m smarter than I thought.”

  “Oh? How smart did you think you were?”

  “Not very.”

  “I think you’re on the right trail, son.”

  “Thanks, Hank. Here I go!”

  And with that, he went zooming back down to the gas tanks, which left me and Little Alfred with all the, heh heh, scraps. I turned to him and switched into a little routine we call I’ll Die If I Don’t Get Those Scraps. It seemed to be working. He plucked a juicy fatty end of bacon off the plate and was about to toss it into the air when . . . oops. She was still there.

  Madame Radar.

  Alfred’s mother.

  Sally May. “Alfred! Wait for the cat. Here kitty kitty kitty. Come on, Petey, come for scraps.”

  We waited. I hate waiting, and the kind of hating I wait the most is waiting for a cat. What a waste of time. What a waste of good scraps. I really dislike cats a lot.

  Well, at last Pete showed himself. Do you think he came running? Oh no. If he hadn’t been called, he would have come out of the bushes like a little rocket, and he’d have been crawling all over Alfred to mooch some scraps. But since he’d been called, since we had all been forced to wait for His Worth­less Highness, he came at a slow walk.

  He was purring, of course, and wearing that grin that drives me nuts. He stepped out of the iris patch and rubbed his way down the side of the house until he reached the porch. There, he rubbed against the northwest corner of the porch and waltzed down the sidewalk until he came to Sally May. He made three circles around her, rubbing on her legs as though he loved her so much he just couldn’t contain himself.

  The little fraud. He knew we couldn’t eat until he got there. He knew I was dying of bacon lust. He knew he had a captive audience and that he had become the center of attention, so naturally he was playing it for all it was worth, enjoying every second of the torment he was causing.

  That’s a cat for you, a totally selfish egomechanic. They love to torment others, you know, and to mooch scraps. And Pete was the most shameless scrap-moocher I’d ever known.