The Curse of the Incredible Priceless Corncob Read online

  “An Incredible Priceless Corncob, and the answer to your question is yes.”

  “Gee, we’re liable to have a hard time running the ranch when all the women show up. In fact . . . aren’t we supposed to be on night patrol right now?”

  I filled my lungs with fresh night air and ran my eyes over the beautiful Incredible Priceless Corncob in front of me. “That’s the way we used to operate, Drover, before we came into this wealth. But you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to go on night patrol. I want to sit right here on my gunnysack and look at my fortune. And you know what else?”

  “What else?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Why should I go out and risk my life for this outfit? What’s in it for me?”

  “Co-op dog food, I guess.”

  “Exactly. Co-op dog food. Who needs it? I’ve got a fortune sitting right here in front of me.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t eat it.”

  “Who needs to eat? We’re rich, Drover! All we have to do is sit right here and gloat over our fortunes. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted to do?”

  “Well . . . that depends on what gloat means.”

  “Gloat means,” I rolled over on my back and snuggled down into my gunnysack and kicked my paws in the air, “gloat means to be unbearable and obnoxious. That’s what you’re supposed to be when you’re rich.”

  “Aw heck, really?”

  “That’s right. So what we’re going to do to­night is loll around, goof off, admire our fortunes, and gloat.”

  “And let the ranch go to pot?”

  “Well, maybe not go all the way to pot, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it took a couple of steps in that direction. And so what, Drover? Just so what?”

  Drover rolled his eyes around. “That sure doesn’t sound like you, Hank. I never heard you say things like that before.”

  “I’ve never been rich before, and I’ve never had a fortune to sit around and admire. Speaking of which . . .” I rolled over on my belly and lay there, gazing at my glittering fortune.

  Drover did the same, only after a couple of hours, he fell asleep. I could hear him wheezing and see him twitching in his sleep.

  “Hey! Wake up.”

  “Huh, I’m coming, don’t, my leg hurts . . .” He stared at me for a good thirty seconds. It took that long for his eyes and ears to straighten out. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “That’s correct, and speaking of whom, I gave you time off to admire your fortune, so how come you fell asleep?”

  “Oh . . . I guess I got bored, Hank. Don’t you think it’s a little boring, just sitting here, staring at a corncob?”

  I sighed and shook my head. “We’ve been over this before, Drover. What you have in front of you is not a mere corncob. It’s a rare and priceless object. But then, you always did have a little trouble with the cultural side and . . .”

  An idea began to form in my head. My gaze prowled the area in front of his bed and fastened upon his cob. “Tell you what I might do, Drover. If that old corncob is getting in your way over there, I could always, shall we say, take it off your hands.”

  That got his attention. He snatched up his Priceless Corncob and moved several feet to the north. And he kept himself between me and his fortune.

  “No thanks. I can take care of it myself.”

  I watched him for a long time. Every now and then, he turned his head around to see what I was doing. All at once he was behaving in a very suspicious manner. There was just something about the way he looked at me . . .

  Then it hit me: Drover didn’t trust me. It’s common knowledge that crooks show themselves in their lack of trust for others. In other words, the fact that Drover didn’t trust me was a clear warning that I shouldn’t trust him either.

  And come to think of it, I didn’t.

  I moved my Priceless Corncob several feet to the south and placed myself between it and Drover. Every now and then I would glance back over my shoulder and catch Drover snealing steaky glances at me, stealing sneaky glances at me.

  It was pretty obvious that he had something on his mind.

  It must have been past midnight when I heard him trying to sneak off into the night. I called to him and asked him where he was going.

  “Oh, just going for a little walk.”

  When his footsteps faded into the distance and I was sure he had gone, I eased myself up and slipped over to the spot where he had been guarding his Priceless Corncob—just as a precaution, don’t you see, to make sure that, uh, nobody came along and stole it.

  Well, here’s a shocker. It was already gone! He had snuck off into the darkness to hide it! And from whom do you suppose he was hiding it from who? Whom. Whatever.

  Well, that told me a lot about my assistant that I hadn’t known before, hadn’t wanted to know. It told me that fortune was going to Little Drover’s head. He was getting ate up with GREED.

  You hear about that sort of thing all the time but you always think it happens to the other guy. But let me tell you, when you see it in somebody close to you, a good friend and business associate, it hurts.

  Well, after the initial pain and shock of this discovery had soaked in, it dawned on me that I would have to take steps to protect my own fortune from . . . well, we needn’t name names. I had to protect it from vandals and thieves, so to speak, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink until I had it safely buried.

  Drover came back just as I was slipping away. “Hank? Where you going?”

  “Oh, just thought I’d take a walk and soak up some night air.”

  I didn’t wait to hear his answer. I shot through the night, flying over the ground on feet that made only the merest whisper of a sound.

  My fortune was in danger, fellers, and I had to take steps to protect it.

  Chapter Five: The Plot Gets Thicker, So to Speak

  It’s too bad when you can’t trust your own assistant. But that just shows that some dogs can handle wealth and some can’t.

  It became pretty clear to me that the Incredible Priceless Corncob was going to make Drover jealous, petty, suspicious, and greedy, and I couldn’t ignore the possibility that during the night he would try to steal my fortune.

  I wanted nothing to do with that, so I slipped away from the gas tanks and went out to find a safe place to hide it.

  I’d already thought this deal over, see, and figgered the best place to bury my treasure was in Sally May’s garden. Nobody would ever think to look there for buried treasure and . . . well, you might say that the ground was softer in the garden. Easier digging, don’t you see.

  A dog in my position has better things to do than to claw holes in hard ground. Part of good ranch management lies in, I think you get the point.

  So I headed straight for the garden. At the hogwire fence, I stopped, listened, looked over both shoulders, hopped the fence, and landed in the okra, kind of hurt, actually. At that time of year, okra plants are pretty tough.

  I slipped through the okra, past the black-eyed peas, over the cucumbers, around the squash, between two tomato plants, and I started digging.

  I’ve always been a pretty good digger, when I put my mind to it, and it didn’t take me long to build a hole. I dropped the Priceless Corncob into it and had just started nosing dirt back in, when I heard a snig twap. Twig snap.

  I froze, cocked my head, and raised my right ear (I’m right-eared, don’t you know, it’s my best one). I listened and heard the merest whisper of a sound out there in the darkness. Yes, there it was again.

  That’s when I realized that I had been followed by bandits. I had no way of knowing how many there were, but my best guess placed the number between three and five, with a chance of the number going as high as six.

  Six-to-one is what I consider farmable, formable . . . formidable
odds. In other words, when the enemy holds that kind of advantage, only an idiot would try to fight his way out. It’s a real good time to use cunning instead of brute strength.

  I knew they were after my Priceless Corncob, and I knew they would stop at nothing to get it. I had met their kind many times before, and I hoped I could work out a strategy that would not only save my fortune but also my life.

  I went on with my work, just as though I had heard nothing. I nosed the dirt into the hole and made a big show of leaving the spot. Going back through the garden, I made plenty of noise. Then I jumped the fence and pretended to be heading back to the gas tanks.

  But, as you may have already suspected, I didn’t. I made a wide circle and came in behind the robbers. But now, instead of snapping twigs and making noise, I was moving in Silent Mode.

  The moon had climbed up in the sky and it was throwing out enough light so that I could see the profile of one of the bandits.

  He was just sitting there near the base of one of those big Chinese elms, looking off toward the garden. He appeared to be a small-to-medium-sized dog with short white hair.

  So far, so good. But where were his companions? I gave the area a thorough visual sweep which turned up nothing but the one dog.

  Yes, it was all fitting together. Within seconds, I had analyzed the data and broken the code, so to speak, of their plan of attack. They had split up and left this one dog as a lookout. The other five or six bandits were somewhere between the garden and the calf shed.

  My job was to pick them off one by one, starting with the lookout. If I did the job right, I could neutralize their advantage of superior numbers.

  I got down in my crouch and moved forward. With each step, I paused to check the enemy and see if he suspected anything. Nothing. Either he was deaf or my Silent Mode was working to perfection.

  I closed the gap between us until I reached Attack Range 1, at which time I coiled my legs, sprang up and outward, and flew through the air like an enormous arrow.

  I struck the enemy with all four paws, just buried him under an avalanche of pure muscle and slashing teeth. He never saw it coming, never knew what hit him, he was just by George . . .

  “Hank, help, mayday, attack, murder, oh my gosh!”

  There was something strangely familiar about that voice. I was sure I had heard it before, and not so very long ago. I called up a memory search of all the gangsters I had gone up against in the past year, trying to match the voice with a face.

  Within seconds, I came up with a match—not exactly the one I had expected. Imagine my surprise when the robber turned out to be none other than my professional associate. That’s correct. I had caught Drover in the act of trying to steal my treasure.

  I had him on the ground between my front paws when I made a positive identification. All at once I felt sick, weak. Maybe I should have gone ahead and whipped him, but this terrible revelation had taken the fight out of my sails.

  I looked down at him. When his eyes finally popped open, our gazes met. “Oh Hank, it’s you!”

  “No, Drover, you got it backward. It’s YOU.”

  “Well, I knew it was me but now I can see it’s you too, so I guess it’s one or the other.”

  I stepped off of him and moved a few steps away. “Get up and prepare to answer some hard questions.”

  He hopped up and gave me that simpleton smile of his. “Okay, I’m ready, ask me anything, boy, I thought I’d been attacked by a mountain lion, sure am glad it was you.”

  “By the time I finish this interrogation, you’ll wish it had been a mountain lion. Question number one: What are you doing out here, creeping around in the dark?”

  “Who me? I wasn’t exactly creeping, Hank . . .”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Oh. Well . . .” He looked up at the moon. “Do I have to tell the truth or can I fudge a little bit?”

  “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

  “All three at once?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Oh shucks. Well, Hank, when you left the gas tanks, I sort of got suspicious that you might be going out to dig up my corncob, so I decided to follow you . . .”

  “Hold up, stop right there. Are you telling me that you buried your Incredible Priceless Corncob?”

  “Yeah, in the garden.”

  “Why did you choose the garden?”

  “Well . . . it’s easier to dig there, I guess.”

  “In other words, you were too lazy to dig a proper hole, is that what you’re saying?”

  “I guess that’s one way to put it.”

  “All right, next question.” I began pacing. “Why did you feel you had to bury your treasure? I mean, there has to be a reason for these things.”

  “Well . . . I was afraid somebody might steal it.”

  “Now we’re getting to the meat of the heart. Who or whom did you think might steal this alleged treasure of yours?”

  “Oh . . . well . . . you never can tell . . .”

  Suddenly I stopped pacing and whirled on him. “Shall I say it for you, Drover? Is it too painful for you to confront your own wicked thoughts? You thought I might steal your fortune, didn’t you?”

  “Well . . . sort of.”

  “Me! The Head of Ranch Security, your trusted friend and companion. And so you took your treasure out into the night and buried it in the garden because you were too lazy and shiftless to dig a hole in a better place. Is that it, Drover?”

  His head began to sink. “Well . . .”

  “Furthermore, we can’t ignore the possibility that your real motive in coming out here was to spy on me while I buried MY treasure in the garden.”

  “You buried yours too?”

  “In which case you’re not only guilty of being suspicious of me, but also of plotting to steal my treasure.”

  “I didn’t even think of that.”

  “Of course you did. Down deep, in your most secret heart, you were plotting to steal my fortune and leave me penniless.”

  “I was?”

  “Yes. Do you see what wealth has done to you, Drover? It’s driven a sledge between us. It’s turned friend against friend, brother against brother.”

  “I guess you’re right. That’s pretty bad, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Drover, that’s pretty bad. However,” I stopped pacing and studied the claws on my right paw, “there is a solution.”

  “There is?”

  “Yes. If you insist, I will save you from temptation, suspicion, greed, and temptation.”

  “You said temptation twice.”

  “Because it’s twice as dangerous.”

  “Oh. Well, it sounds pretty good to me.”

  “How can you say that temptation sounds good to you!”

  “No, I mean your deal.”

  “Oh yes, the deal. Yes, it’s an excellent deal. All you have to do is turn over your corncob to me.”

  He gave me a blank stare. “You mean give it up?”

  “What you will be giving up, Drover, is the source of many of your problems.”

  “Oh. But won’t I be penniless then?”

  “In a sense, yes. But what would you do with a penny if you had one?”

  “I don’t know. I just didn’t want to be penniless.”

  “Yes, I see what you mean. Tell you what we can do, Drover. You give me the corncob and I’ll owe you a penny. As long as someone owes you a penny, you can’t possibly be penniless.”

  He scratched his ear and thought it over. “That sounds reasonable.”

  “Of course it’s reasonable, why don’t we mosey over to the garden, it’s going to spare you a lot of grief and if you’ll just show me where you buried that old cob, we’ll have everything fixed up. I started toward the garden but he didn’t move. “What�
��s the matter?”

  “Well, it sounds reasonable, Hank, but I think I’ll hang on to that old corncob.”

  I glared at him. “In spite of what it’s doing to your personality? You would actually risk our friendship over one measly corncob?”

  “Oh heck no. But I think I’d do it for my Priceless Corncob.”

  “I see, yes. Very well, Drover. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am.”

  “Oh good.”

  “You’ve made this decision. Now you’ll have to sleep in it.”

  “Yeah, I’m kind of tired.”

  “So if you’ll remain exactly where you are, I shall return to the garden and retrieve my fortune. When I’ve gone, you may go get yours.”

  “Okay, and then I’ll go get mine.”

  “Exactly.” I started backing toward the garden. “I had hoped it wouldn’t end this way, Drover, and don’t ever say that I didn’t try to save you from yourself.”

  “I won’t tell anybody if you won’t.”

  “So long, Drover. I hope you can live with yourself after this.”

  “Me too. I wouldn’t know where to go if I couldn’t.”

  Suddenly, I turned and sprinted into the darkness, leaped over the garden fence, and saved my Priceless Corncob from the greedy clutches of a former friend.

  Chapter Six: Chosen for a Very Dangerous Assignment

  I left the garden and went down to the creek.There I dug a large hole in the soft sand and buried my sparkling, glittering, enormous, incredible fortune.

  At last it was safe. At last I would be able to sleep. I started back to the gas tanks.

  But then the thought occurred to me: what if the creek came up in the night and washed my treasure away? No, that wasn’t a good hiding place. I went back and dug up my treasure.

  This time I chose a spot in the feed barn, over against the north wall behind a bale of prairie hay. Nobody would ever look in the feed barn for a treasure. I started back to the gas tanks, confident that . . .

  What if the coons raided the feed barn? WHAT IF THEY WERE ALREADY THERE!

  I didn’t have a minute to lose. I turned and dashed back to the feed barn, wiggled through the place at the bottom where the door is warped (almost cut off the lower half of my body in the process), and, to my great relief, found that I had gotten there just in time.