The Case of the Black-Hooded Hangmans Read online

  The important point to remember is that I survived the ordeal, no thanks to Sally May, and became a much wiser dog.

  Just as I had passed through this dangerous spell of coughing and choking, Drover came pad­ding up from the gas tanks.

  “Hi, Hank. You owe me a penny.”

  “A penny for what?”

  “You said you’d give me a penny for my thoughts.”

  “Oh yes, so I did. Unfortunately, I had an emergency call and wasn’t able to hear all your thoughts. I’m sure I missed out on something very special.”

  “Oh yeah, it was pretty exciting. I came up with three whole thoughts.”

  “No kidding? Do I dare ask what they were?”

  “Oh sure, I’d love to tell you . . . if I can remember. Gosh, I hope I haven’t lost ’em.”

  “Yes, that would be a tragedy.”

  “Let me see here.” He screwed his face into a knot and rolled his eyes around. “Okay, here we go. Thought Number One: No one knows more about being a fly than a fly.”

  I stared into the huge vacuum of his eyes. “That’s a thought?”

  “Yeah, you like it?”

  “I . . . it leaves me speechless, Drover.”

  “Gosh, thanks.”

  “What’s the next one?”

  “The next one. Let’s see here. Thought Number Two: There’s a pot of rainwater at the end of every rainbow.”

  “Uh-huh, not bad. Let’s move on to Number Three.”

  “Okay. Thought Number Three.” His eyes went blank, even more blank than they were before. “Gosh, I can’t remember. I’ve lost it.”

  “That’s too bad, son. I was really looking forward to hearing it.”

  “Yeah, me too, ’cause it was a wonderful thought, the best one I ever came up with.”

  “That’s a real tragedy, Drover, but of course I can’t possibly pay you a penny for only two thoughts.”

  “Oh darn! Now I’m really sad and upset. It almost breaks my heart, ’cause I tried so hard and worked so hard.”

  “Yes, I see what you mean. And what really makes it sad is that those may have been the only three thoughts you ever came up with in a single day, and I mean in your whole life.”

  “Yeah.” He was almost in tears now. “They were my very best and I was so proud of myself.”

  I patted the little mutt on the shoulder and tried to comfort him in his hour of greatest need.

  “Drover, this is a very sad moment and I feel that I should do something to reward you for your effort.”

  You’ll never guess what he got as his reward.

  Chapter Three: Drover’s Reward and the Ultra-Crypto Secret Code

  Drover’s eyes brightened and a grin spread across his mouth. “Really? A reward, no fooling? Oh, that would be so kind!”

  “Yes, well . . . there’s more to me than steel and iron and steel, Drover.”

  “You said steel twice.”

  “Do you want a reward or not?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Never correct your superiors. Okay, here’s my best offer. I can’t give you a penny for two thoughts. I’m afraid it would corrupt you in small but in­significant ways. But to show you how proud I am, I’m going to give you the rest of the evening scraps.”

  His eyes went to the cornbread on the ground. “A cake of sawdust?”

  “It’s Sally May’s cornbread, Drover, and I can’t tell you how delicious it is. You may have the rest of it. Congratulations.”

  I watched with, uh, great interest as he pounced upon the cornbread and wolfed it down.

  He didn’t choke.

  He didn’t even cough. The little dunce. I couldn’t believe it.

  He swallowed the last bite and gave me this big stupid grin. “Thanks, Hank. Cornbread beats a penny any day.”

  “Shut up, Drover. You take a good idea and run it straight into the ground.”

  Darkness had fallen and it was time for me to begin my Night Patrol, which is one of my most important jobs on this outfit. Even though Drover had made a fool of himself by eating inedible food products, I decided to give him another chance.

  I assigned him the job of checking out the East­ern Quadrant of ranch headquarters. We divide up the headquarters area into five quadrants, don’t you see, and the EQ (that’s our code name for East­ern Quadrant), the EQ is the least likely of all of them to attract troublemakers.

  I gave Drover the EQ and I took ATOQ. That’s another code word and maybe I shouldn’t reveal what it means. There is some danger in revealing our codes. I’m sure you understand. See, if our codes fell into the wrong hands, there’s no telling what might happen, but it would be serious.

  Very serious. I mean, the safety of our agents might be in jepperdee . . . japperdee . . . jepordie . . . might be in danger, grave danger.

  There’s nothing personal in this, so don’t get your feelings hurt. I’m under strict orders not to reveal any more of our . . . oh what the heck, it probably won’t hurt to declassify one little code word.

  But only on the condition that you promise never to blab these code words to a coon, coyote, skunk, badger, fiend, phantom, or monster.

  Promise?

  Okay. (Make sure no one’s looking.) All set? (And don’t forget that you promised.) Here we go.

  The Code Decryption Procedure

  Will Now Begin

  WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO WITNESS HERE, BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES, IS THE TRANSMISSION OF TOP-SECRET, HIGHLY CLASSIFIED INFORMATION IN ULTRA-CRYPTO CODE.

  YOU SHOULD BE WARNED THAT THIS INFORMATION IS SO DREADFULLY SECRET THAT IT SOMETIMES CAUSES DIAPER RASH ON EXPOSED SKIN.

  IT HAS ALSO BEEN LINKED TO HEARTBURN, CELERY WILTAGE, AND CERTAIN FORMS OF RINGWORM. YOU ARE URGED TO TAKE ALL SAFETY PRECAUTIONS.

  The Code Decryption Program Has Begun

  Decryption Procedure In Progress

  Please Hold

  Joe’s Grill Has The Best Burgers In Town

  Install Safety Devices Now

  Hi, We’re Away From The Phone Right Now

  And . . .

  Disregard Previous Message

  Prepare Visual Devices To See Decrypted Code

  Stand By!

  Three . . .

  Two . . .

  One . . .

  Two . . .

  Three . . .

  Seventeen . . .

  Four and Twenty Blackbirds Baked In A Pie

  Warning! Disk Full

  Drive Slow, Old Cats

  Burp

  Have A Good Day Good Day Good Day

  Good Day

  SYSTEM FAILURE!!

  @#$%&* %%$#@**& %%$#@!@##$

  Okay, we seem to be having a little trouble with Data Control. Those things happen every once in a while. Sorry, I guess we can’t decode the secret message.

  I hate that.

  On the other hand, do you suppose that we could do it manually? Why not? Hang on a second.

  We’ll switch everything over to Manual—here, here, and here—and we’ll see if we can do the de­coding by hand.

  I think this might work.

  Stand by.

  Okay, here we go.

  EQ is the code word for “Eastern Quadrant.”

  ATOQ is the code word for “All The Other Quadrants.”

  Hey, all right, we did it! Pretty good for a ranch dog, huh? You bet it is.

  Well, that was a lot of trouble but it was worth it. It gives you a little glimpse into the shadowy world we inhabit in the Security Business, a world of spies, secrets, treachery, and high-tech adventure.

  Anyways, it was time for Night Patrol, and you now have enough information to know where I was going on this mission. I steamed down to the corrals, did a QVS of the feed barn, the sick pen, the wire lot, and the s
addle shed.

  Sorry, QVS means “Quick Visual Scan.” More code.

  I know it’s pretty complicated but just bear with me.

  From there, I cut a ninety (made a ninety-degree turn) and proceeded on a new course, bearing 806-435-7611 degrees of lingerie (straight east). This took me past Emerald Pond, through the grove of elm trees, past the gas tanks, up the hill, through the snow, and up to the machine shed.

  The patrol had left me near exhaustion. I mean, you can’t imagine the amount of energy it takes to remember all the procedures, go back and forth through our various codes, and maintain a high level of alertness.

  You probably thought a Night Patrol was a simple deal, the kind of thing any dog could do. Now you know the truth.

  Where was I? Oh yes, in front of the machine shed, exhausted but warmed by the inner warmth of warmness that comes when a guy knows that he’s done his job and pulled the ranch through another dangerous night.

  I sat down in front of the overturned Ford hubcap which serves as our dog bowl, and began crunching a few kernels of Co-op Dog Food. It reminded me of . . . sawdust and the cornbread re­cipe of certain parties that shall remain monopolis.

  Monominous.

  Unnamed.

  It reminded me of Sally May’s cornbread, we might as well come out and say it, and that was no great compliment. Nevertheless a dog has to eat something, so I crunched a few kernels and caught my breath and . . .

  Did you hear that? No, probably not because you weren’t there, but I heard it: a rattling sound, almost as though something were being rattled.

  But what could it be?

  Oh. My stomach was growling. Relax. No big . . .

  No, by George, there it was again! Yes, a rattling sound, exactly the kind of sound you would expect to hear if something were being rattled. And it wasn’t my stomach this time.

  Even though I was very tired from all the patrol work, even though I was ready to take it easy for a while, even though I had more or less lost my appetite for adventure—even though all the so-forth, I found myself slipping into the Alert and Readiness Procedures:

  —My ears leaped up into Maximum Gathering Mode.

  —My tail froze and locked in at a twenty-degree angle.

  —I narrowed my eyes and switched over to Infra-red Detection.

  —I raised hackles and threw all Hair Lift-Up circuits over to Automatic.

  —I went straight to Warning Growls and kicked that whole circuit over into Data Control’s Master Program.

  You probably think all of this took thirty minutes or even an hour. Heh. You’ll be shocked to know that I flew through the whole checklist in a matter of SECONDS. That’s right, mere seconds. We’re talking about blazing speed, fellers.

  That’s what it takes to be successful in my line of work. Pokey puppies need not apply for this job.

  Anyways, once I had reached Full Readiness Mode, I knew that it was time to move out. I shifted into Stealth Crouch Mode and began creeping toward the rattling sound—which, by the way, was getting louder and scarier.

  As I drew closer to the mysterious sound, I knew that this was not a simple case of the wind rattling something. By this time my instruments had detected a pattern to the sound, a pattern which indicated that this was not random noise.

  It was being created by some type of intelligent life form—or, worse yet, by some unknown Night Monster. Oftentimes the early patterns we get on our instruments look about the same for life forms and monsters.

  Which is too bad because if a guy was sure that he was picking up a Night Monster on in­struments, he might choose to . . . well, adjust his strategy, so to speak.

  I crept forward, on paws that made not even a whisper of sound. And then, holy smokes, all of a sudden . . .

  Chapter Four: Eddy’s Magic Trick

  Okay, you can relax. We had us a little false alarm, is all.

  We get those every once in a while. It’s no big deal.

  See, I had more or less forgotten that Eddy the Rac was in his cage near the machine shed doors. The sounds I had picked up on instruments were the sounds of Eddy rattling his cage.

  And let me emphasize that the sound patterns of a coon rattling his cage are almost identical to those created by Unidentified Night Monsters. No kidding, virtually the same, and any dog might have mistaken one for the other.

  Which is not to say that I made a mistake. We’d just gotten some, uh, hazy patterns on our . . . I think you get the point.

  And it was Eddy the Rac. I greeted this discovery with mixed emotions. On the one hand, a guy can’t be too sad about finding a pet coon instead of a Night Monster with flashing red eyes and blood dripping off his fangs. On the other hand . . .

  There wasn’t much on the other hand, so why don’t we just skip it. Finding Eddy the Rac was okay with me, even though I’d gone through all the Readiness Procedures. I wasn’t exactly heartbroken.

  I took a deep breath, cancelled all the RP’s, and sat down. I noticed that my legs were trembling, mostly from excitement.

  Eddy was pacing around his cage in that peculiar monkey-walk of his. As you may know, coons resemble monkeys when they walk, because they move both legs on each side at the same time. Does that make sense? Maybe not, but they resemble monkeys.

  I watched him. He’d pace for a while, then stop and run his hands over the outline of the cage door I could hear him muttering to himself.

  “Got to get out. Where’s the door? Where’s the lock? Somewhere. Maybe a hole. There’s got to be a hole. Out. I’ve got to get out.”

  I had seen all of this before, and I knew that it was just part of Eddy’s normal behavior. Around midnight, your average raccoon awakens from sleep and is seized by something called Moonlight Madness.

  If he happens to be in a cage, he will spend hours and hours pacing, rattling, probing, and muttering under his breath. This kind of behavior often produces a rattling sound, and as you can see, we had solved that part of the mystery.

  After observing Eddy for several minutes, I decided that I might as well reveal my presence. I stood up on all fours and cleared my throat. Eddy froze and turned his beady little eyes in my direction.

  “Oh. Hi.”

  “How’s it going, Eddy? You’re staying busy, I guess.”

  “Yeah. Need to get out of here. Can’t stand to be cooped up. Don’t suppose you could help, could you?”

  I chuckled. “Eddy, Eddy! You know the answer to that. Guard dogs aren’t allowed to help pet coons escape, period. We’ve been through this before.”

  “Yeah. And you helped me before.”

  “That was an isolated incident, pal. You conned me into letting you out once, and it’ll never happen again.”

  “Twice.”

  “Okay, twice. You conned me twice, and that makes two reasons why it’ll never happen again.”

  He went back to the business of pacing and probing the cage. I wandered over and watched.

  “Eddy, why don’t you just relax and enjoy yourself? They’ll turn you loose one of these days, and then you’ll have to make a living for yourself. You’ve got a pretty good deal here, room and board and no heavy lifting. What’s the problem?”

  “Bored.”

  “So take up singing. Play checkers. Learn some magic tricks.”

  He stopped. “I do tricks.”

  “No kidding? Magic tricks?”

  “Sure. Want to see?”

  “Well . . . sure, why not, as long as they don’t take much time. I’m still on Night Patrol, see, and I don’t have time for . . . you know some magic tricks, huh?”

  “Yeah. Come over here.” I went over to a spot directly in front of the cage door. “Sit down.” I sat down. “Watch this.” I watched.

  He reached one of his little hands into the feed bowl and pulled out a kernel of dog food. T
hat’s what they were feeding him, see, dog food, the same stuff we ate. He pulled out one of the kernels and held it in the tips of his fingers.

  “What’s in my hand?”

  “A kernel of dog food!

  “Now you see it . . .” He brought his hands to­gether, rubbed them around, and threw them out in front of him. “. . . and now you don’t.”

  I stared at his hands. They were open and empty.

  “Huh. I’ll be derned. How’d you do that?”

  “Magic. Want me to bring it back?”

  “Well . . . I guess so, sure.”

  “Now it’s gone . . .” He held out his hands and turned them up and down, then reached his left hand behind his left ear. He brought it forward and opened it. “. . . and now it’s back. Bingo.”

  “Say, that’s pretty slick, Eddy. I don’t know how you did it, but I’ll bet you can’t do it again. I mean, you’ve got fast hands but I don’t think they’re fast enough to fool me twice in a row. Don’t forget who’s in the Security Business around here.”

  “Okay. You ready?”

  “No, just a second.” I moved closer to the cage so that I could study his every move. I knew he was using some kind of trickery and I intended to catch him this time. “Go for it.”

  He held out his hand, palm-side up. I studied it. Yes, there was a kernel of dog food in his palm. “Now you see it . . .” He brought his hands together, rubbed them around, and threw them into the air. “. . . and now you don’t.”

  “Wait a minute, let me take a good look at those hands.” He presented his hands, open and palms-up. By George, they were empty.

  No sign of the dog food kernel.

  He gave a squeaky little laugh. “Ha. Bet you can’t guess where it is.”

  “Sure I can. It’s behind your left ear. You can’t fool me, pal, I saw the whole thing.”

  He bent down so that I could see behind his left ear and . . . hmmm. You might say that it wasn’t there, which kind of surprised me.

  He grinned. “Guess again?”

  “I think not. Let’s finish up the trick and go on to something else. Just show me where it is.”