The Case of the Blazing Sky Read online

  I gave him a moment to sniffle his way through the crisis. “Drover, I think I can wrap this up, but you have to stop blubbering.”

  “I’m not blubbering.”

  “You’re blubbering. Now get control of yourself and listen.” He sat up and brushed the tears out of his eyes. “I’ve decided that you were right.”

  “No fooling?”

  “Yes. The sound we heard was not a chicken. It came from a mackerel, a lost mackerel. I’m going in search of the mackerel and you’re going to stay here.”

  He stared at me. “How come I have to stay here?”

  “Because, Drover, you’re not old enough for this kind of work. It might be dangerous.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I get it now. You’re going to catch a chicken, aren’t you?”

  I turned away from him before he could see . . . slurp . . . that the very word chicken had caused my mouth to start watering again. “I’m slurped that you would even think such a thing.”

  “Yeah, but it’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely not. What kind of dog do you think I am?”

  “Hungry . . . and maybe crazy enough to eat a chicken.”

  “Okay, buddy, that did it! Go to your room and stick your nose in the corner for one hour.”

  “One hour! How come?”

  “Go! I’ll be watching, so don’t try to cheat.”

  He whined and begged for mercy, but my heart had turned to stone. The very idea, the little mutt thinking that I might eat one of Sally May’s slurpens . . . uh, chickens. If there was ever a dog who needed to stand with his nose in the corner, it was Drover.

  He went to his room and I found myself all alone with my, uh, thoughts. To be honest, I was having some pretty wonderful thoughts about . . . well, you know, sunsets and rainbows and . . . okay, maybe food.

  Dogs think about food, right? It’s normal and healthy. You’d worry about a dog that didn’t think about food every once in a while. Mackerel, that’s what I was thinking about. No kidding.

  I lifted my eyes and did another scan of the treetops. I saw no sign of the, uh, mackerel, the lost mackerel, shall we say, so I lowered my nose to the ground and began searching for tracks . . . mackerel tracks, of course.

  You didn’t know that mackerels leave tracks? Ha ha. Okay, maybe they don’t, because they don’t have feet or legs, and it’s hard to leave tracks when you have no feet. But a guy never knows until he checks these things out.

  I found no fish tracks, but the ground was covered with chicken tracks. Interesting. Perhaps if I followed the chicken tracks far enough, I would find . . . well, you know, a mackerel or something.

  Remember the old saying? At the end of every rainbow is a pot of mackerel.

  I put my nose to the groundstone and followed the line of tracks in a northerly direction. After sniffing my way through a grove of young china­berry trees, I looked up and was surprised to find myself standing in front of the . . . well, in front of the chicken house.

  Okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly the biggest surprise of the year. I mean, if you follow a line of chicken tracks far enough, they’ll lead you to the chicken house, so we’ll cancel what I said about being surprised.

  I wasn’t exactly surprised. What I felt was . . . slurp . . . a sudden rush of water and digestive juices into my mouthalary region, and once again I had to, uh, lick my chops to mop up the excess water.

  It’s funny, how that happens. The mouth of a dog seems to have a mind of its own, don’t you see, and certain thoughts or mental pictures seem to set off the water business.

  Hmmm. You know, I’m not sure we should be discussing this. I mean, all dogs have secret thoughts. I wouldn’t want the little children to think that I . . . well, spent half my life dreaming about . . . slurp.

  I mean, we’re talking about the Head of Ranch Security, right? The Head of Ranch Security is charged with the responsibility of guarding Sally May’s chickens against attacks by coyotes, skunks, raccoons, hawks, owls, and your various forms of Night Monster, and nobody would ever believe that we might consider . . . well, eating the very chickens we have sworn an oath to protect.

  Slurp.

  How absurd. You would never believe such a pack of lies, right? Thanks. I knew you wouldn’t. These rumors are started by our enemies, you know. Yes. They scheme day and night on ways to weaken our security systems, planting their poisoned seeds that grow into . . . something. Poison oak trees, I suppose.

  And speaking of schemers, speaking of letting the cat out of the sandbox, would you like to guess who showed up at the very moment that I was . . . well, at the very moment that I was absolutely no-way thinking about chicken dinners?

  Mister Kitty Moocher. Mister Never Sweat. Mister Loaf in the Iris Patch. Pete the Barncat.

  Chapter Three: I Honk the Cat

  Have we discussed my Position on Cats? I don’t like ’em, never have. As a group, they are lazy, selfish, arrogant, and generally worthless. And dumb, extremely dumb.

  They don’t have jobs, you know. They don’t contribute anything to the good of the world, and they seem to think their whole purpose in life is to cause trouble. Oh, and to rub on anything that doesn’t kick them away.

  That’s what he was doing . . . Pete, that is . . . sliding his way along the front of the machine shed, rubbing, purring, and wearing that insolent smirk that drives me nuts. The very sight of the little pest threw my entire body into a scramble of activity.

  My ears shot up. My tail froze, and we’re talking about stiff as a tree limb. The skin around my mouth began to twitch, like the fingers of a gunslinger reaching for his pistol. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up and a growl began to rumble in the deep recesses of my throatalary region.

  Any animal with an ounce of sense would have read the warning signs and vanished into the shadows. Not Pete. He saw nothing, missed the whole show, and here he came. After rubbing all the paint off the side of the machine shed, he slithered across the gravel drive, came over to me, and began rubbing on my front legs.

  “Hi, Hankie.”

  I HATE the way he says that. He has this high-pitched, whiny tone of voice, don’t you see, and I’m sure he spends hours and hours rehearsing it, so that every word he says will grate on my nerves.

  “Get away from me, you little python! You know I can’t stand you rubbing on my legs.”

  “Oh really! I didn’t know that, Hankie.”

  “Of course you knew it; now get away from me.”

  Did he take the hint? Of course not. Cats don’t take hints. Taking hints is a sign of intelligence and he had none of that. You know what he did? He not only continued to rub on my legs but also flicked his tail across my nose.

  Okay, that did it! I sucked in a huge gulp of air and delivered a type of barking we call Train Horns: BWONK!

  Heh heh. It’s a special category of barking we use for waking up cats that are sleepwalking through life. Done properly, the Train Horns Program will not only part their hair but also send them rolling backward.

  Heh heh. I got ’im good, blew him right out of his tracks and sent him rolling across the gravel drive, hissing and spitting. I loved it, absolutely loved it. I’m not sure I’d ever done a better job of Train Horns. Old Pete knew he’d been honked.

  He picked himself off the ground and beamed me a sour look. “Now, why did you have to go and do that, Hankie? It seemed almost unfriendly.”

  “Yeah? Maybe you’re getting the picture, kitty. It seemed unfriendly because it was unfriendly. Don’t you get it? I don’t like being used as a rubbing post. I don’t like cats and, most of all, I don’t like you. Is there anything else I need to explain?”

  He gave that some thought. “Well, you seem a little vague, Hankie. Are you saying that you really don’t like cats?”

  “Right, yes. That’s what I’m saying.”
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  “And you’d rather that I didn’t rub on your legs?”

  “Exactly. Keep going.”

  “What are you doing up here, Hankie?”

  “What?”

  He was staring at me with those weird yellow eyes, tapping his paw on the ground and twitching the last two inches of his tail. “I asked what you’re doing up here.”

  I shot a glance over my shoulder. All at once I had the feeling that I was . . . well, being watched. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, Hankie, cats are very perceptive, you know.”

  “Hurry up.”

  “And, well, I noticed a strange kind of light in your eyes, almost as though . . .”

  I moved closer. “As though what? Get to the point.”

  He smirked and pointed his paw toward the west. “The chicken house is right over there, Hankie.”

  “Yes, and so what? It’s been there for fifty years.”

  “And we know what lives in a chicken house.”

  “Do we?”

  “Um-hmm.” He leaned toward me and whispered, “Chickens!”

  I laughed in his face. “This is good, Pete. After all these years, you’ve figured out that chickens live in a slurpen house. You know what else? Horses live in the horse pasture.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject, Hankie. You came up here for a special reason, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Chickens, Hankie. Were you thinking about chickens? Be honest.”

  I turned away from him. “Why would you ask such a ridiculous question?”

  “Well, Hankie, you may not know this, but your every thought shows up on your face. It’s like reading a neon sign.”

  “What are you saying, cat?”

  He batted his eyes. “I’m saying, Hankie, that you came up here for a chicken dinner and it’s written all over your face. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  I marched a few steps away. All at once I had a powerful desire to, uh, hide my thoughts. “You’re not only wrong, you’re crazy. Why would I be thinking about a chicken dinner?”

  “Well, let me think. Because you’re hungry. Because Sally May isn’t watching. Because you’re a dog and therefore a slave to your appetites. Shall I go on, Hankie?”

  “No, that’s plenty.” I marched back to him. “It’s all rubbish, Pete, rubbish and lies, just the sort of junk that comes from the mouth of cat who has too much time on his hands.”

  “Oh really? Watch this.” He looked me in the eyes and whispered, “Chicken dinner!” Slurp. For some reason, my, uh, tongue shot out and licked my lips. “Chicken dinner!” It happened again. Slurp. “What do you say now, Hankie?”

  “I say it proves almost nothing at all, is what I say.”

  “Oh really? Try it on me.”

  I glared down at the scheming little fraud. “Okay, buddy, you asked for this. Chicken dinner!”

  Oops. Somehow it . . . uh . . . backfired, you might say. Pete yawned and I was the one who licked his chops. Slurp. It happened before I knew it, I mean, the old tongue just popped out and did its work.

  This was embarrassing. I mean, a guy never wants to admit that a cat might be right about anything, and when the cat really is right, it’s even worse.

  “What do you say now, Hankie?”

  My mind was tumbling. At last I came up with the perfect response. “Okay, Pete, up the tree.”

  “Now, Hankie . . .”

  “Up the tree, you little pestilence!”

  He didn’t move, so I barked in his face, another of my Train Horns applications. Heh heh. He arched his back and hissed and . . . okay, maybe he landed a lucky punch to the end of my nose . . . several lucky punches. They hurt like crazy but I didn’t care. The important thing is that I chased him twenty yards to the west and ran him up a chinaberry tree.

  “There! And let that be a lesson to you.”

  He smirked down at me. “What’s the lesson, Hankie?”

  “The lesson is that when you try to mess with the mind of a dog, you pay a terrible price.”

  “But Hankie, it’s so much fun! And so easy.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, try it again sometime and we’ll just see what happens.”

  He batted his eyes. “Chicken dinner.”

  Slurp.

  Never mind the rest. I had parked the local cat in a tree and had served the cause of justice. Holding my head at a proud angle, I marched away from the scene, knowing in my deepest heart that I had won another huge moral victory over the cat.

  I made my way down the hill toward the . . . boy, a guy forgets how much damage a cat can do with those claws. Ouch. I made my way down the hill, strolled into the lobby of the Security Division’s Vast Office Complex, and rode the elevator up to the twelfth floor.

  There, I found my assistant standing with his nose in the corner. When I entered the office, he pulled away from the corner and gave me his usual silly grin. “Oh goodie, my time’s up.”

  “Your time’s not up. Get back in the corner.”

  “Oh drat.”

  I fluffed up my gunnysack bed, did three turns around it, and collapsed. “Ah yes, this is the good life: peace, quiet, and a loving gunnysack! Drover, hold my calls and good night.” I stretched out on my bed and prepared to release my grip on the world.

  “What happened to your nose?”

  I cracked open one eye. “I beg your pardon?”

  “What happened to your nose?”

  “Drover, what makes you think something happened to my nose?”

  “Well, it looks all beat up.”

  I lifted my head and beamed him a glare. “If you must know, I wrecked a cat and in the process, I sustained a few minor cuts and bruises.”

  “They look pretty major to me.”

  “They’re minor, a small price to pay for humbling the cat. Good night.” Again, I closed my eyes and began floating out onto a sea of . . .

  “I’m getting a crick in my neck.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Can I take my nose out of the corner?”

  “No.”

  “I hate this!”

  “Remember that next time you’re templed to mouse off to a spearior ossifer . . . snork murk.”

  “Are you asleep?”

  “Huh?”

  “What’s that sound? Hank?”

  With great effort, I raised my head and cranked open the outer doors of my eyes. I blinked several times and glanced around. “Where are we?”

  “Oh, under the gas tanks, our same old bedroom. I guess you fell asleep.”

  “Yes, of course.” Suddenly my left ear shot up. “Drover, I don’t want to alarm you, but I’m picking up an odd sound.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

  “No, two odd sounds: the hum of a distant motor and also a certain crackling sound.”

  I jacked myself up to a standing position and homed in on the mysterious sounds. They seemed to be coming from the direction of the corrals.

  Chapter Four: Fire in the Hole!

  “Drover, someone is operating a welder, and I have a vague memory that we’ve been through this before.”

  “I’ll be derned. I wonder who it could be.”

  “Hang on and I’ll run diagnostics.” I narrowed my eyes into the setting for Long Range Viewing. “I think it’s Slim. He’s welding.” A scowl settled over my brow and I began pacing, as I often do when I’m facing complex problems. “Drover, were we observing Slim earlier in the day? If so, why did we leave and what are we doing here?”

  “I can’t think when my neck hurts.”

  “All right, you’re relieved.”

  “Boy, that’s a relief!”

  He removed his nose from the corner, while I paced back and forth in front of him.
Something about this deal didn’t add up.

  “Drover, this troubles me. In this dry weather, Slim shouldn’t be welding. It’s a fragrant violation of all our fire codes.”

  “Flagrant.”

  “What?”

  “You said fragrant, but you meant flagrant.”

  “Don’t bore me with details. If Slim is welding, we should be down there, watching for fires and enforcing the codes. Why are we just sitting here in the office?”

  He squinted one eye and rolled the other one up toward the sky. “You know, I don’t remember. Sometimes I forget things.”

  I stopped pacing and cut my eyes from side to side. “Are you sure we weren’t down there earlier in the day?”

  “Boy, everything’s a blur.”

  “You need to work on your memory.”

  “I know but I keep forgetting to do it.”

  “Well”—I took a deep breath and filled my air tanks—“we’d better get back on the job. Stand by for launch!”

  “Oh goodie, I’m starved.”

  “Drover, I said launch, not lunch.”

  “Oh drat. You mean . . .”

  “Yes. It’s time to launch all dogs, and please stop talking about food.”

  “You’re not hungry?”

  “No.” At that very moment a picture of chicken-on-a-plate flashed across the mentality of my mind. Slurp. “Yes, I’m hungry, but we have work to do. Come on, soldier, let’s move out. Head up, tail up . . . march!”

  Boy, you should have seen us. We formed a column and marched to the beet of a distant turnip, through the saddle lot, the wire lot, and the sorting alley. Heads high and proud, we marched past Slim, who was working beside the cow chute.

  He raised his welding hood and watched us with a puzzled smile. “What’s this? Dogs on parade?”

  Right, Dogs on Parade. We had come to show solidarity with dogs all over the world, dogs who were fed up with careless fire-bug cowboys, dogs who had joined together to protest the injustice of everything unjust.