The Case of the Tender Cheeping Chickies Read online

  Was I nervous? Scared? Not even a little . . . okay, maybe I was just a tad nervous, maybe even scared. Who wouldn’t have been scared? You saw that horrible monster, right? It was not only enormous and disguised as a road grader, but it was also wearing a coat of armored steel plate. Could our Barkolasers penetrate that steel plating? Would our Fang Missiles be strong enough to disable the huge tires?

  Those were the questions that filled my mind as I struggled to prepare myself for the coming battle. Unfortunately, we had no answers, and questions that have no answers are like . . . something.

  Anyways, we crept forward, moving on paws that made not a sound. Thirty liters north of the house, I halted the column. Typically, Drover ran into me, because he wasn’t paying attention. He does it every time.

  I scouted the terrapin ahead . . . the terrain, shall we say. Terrapins are turtles, don’t you see, and have nothing to do with . . . never mind. I scouted the so forth and suddenly realized that the Road Monster hadn’t gone to the house, as you might have expected, but had gone instead to the machine shed.

  Do you see the meaning of this? I didn’t. I found it confusing. I mean, why would a monster . . . once again, we didn’t have any answers, but we would soon find out. Since we were observing Strict Radio Silence, I gave Drover hand signals to indicate that we would now move toward the machine shed. He . . .

  You won’t believe this. I guess the little stupe thought I was . . . well, waving at him or something, so he grinned and waved back.

  I dropped my voice to a whisper. “What are you doing?”

  “Well, I thought . . . were you waving at me?”

  “No, I was not. I was giving you secret hand signals.”

  “I’ll be derned. What did they mean?”

  “Drover, if I have to tell you what they mean, there’s no point in giving them. I’ll flash the signals one more time, and please try to concentrate.”

  I flashed him the signals again. He rolled his eyes and appeared to be concentrating. “Well, let’s see here. You said . . . it’s time for a nice long nap?”

  The air hissed out of my lungs. My eyelids sank. All at once, I felt as though I had been buried under a mountain of . . . “Drover, just forget the hand signals. We’re moving our troops down to the machine shed. Prepare for combat.”

  “You know, Hank, this old leg—”

  “Let’s go, soldier. Be brave, and don’t hold anything back for tomorrow.”

  “Help!”

  And with that, we went charging down the hill. I took the lead, of course, and hoped that Drover would be right behind me, guarding our rears and flanks. (As you’ll soon find out, he wasn’t). I burst upon the scene and laid down a withering barrage of Spray Barking, which is the technique we use when . . . well, when we’re not exactly sure what or whom we’re barking at.

  It was your classic battlefield situation—the air filled with smoke and dust, bombs going off all around us, the deafening roar of gunfire, soldiers and enemy agents yelling and running in all directions, the whine of incoming mortar shells overhead . . . boy, what a scene!

  Up ahead of us, through the dust and smoke, I saw the hulking Road Monster. It was standing . . . or sitting, it was hard to say which . . . it was standing or sitting right in front of the machine shed, preparing to . . . we didn’t know what it was doing. Maybe it had gotten the crazy idea that it could bust into the machine shed and steal all our dog food, or maybe it planned to . . . well, eat tools or something.

  Over the sounds of battle, I yelled, “Okay, Drover, there he is! Go for the tires! Let’s see if we can—”

  “You know, Hank, that thing’s bigger than I thought and—”

  ZOOM! You won’t believe this. I heard a rush of wind and saw a streak of white, and caught a glimpse of my assistant as he scampered into the machine shed.

  “Drover, get yourself out here and stand your ground! That is a direct order!”

  But it was already too late. The little weenie had left me alone on the field of battle, and now I had to . . . gulp . . . face the awful Road Monster without help or backup or . . .

  HUH?

  Three men? Standing in front of the machine shed doors? Grinning? Who were those guys, and where had they . . .

  I went to Full Air Brakes and shut everything down. Through the clouds of smoke and dust, I saw . . .

  Okay, we can call off the Code Three. Just relax for a minute while we . . . you probably thought we were going into a serious combat situation against a huge Road Monster, right? Ha-ha. There for a second or two, I’d thought so myself. I mean, in the heat of battle, we sometimes get faulty readings on our . . . when that huge thing had been coming straight at us, it had looked very much like a huge enormous . . .

  You’re really going to be surprised when I tell you that it was just . . . ha-ha . . . just an ordinary old road grader. No kidding. Just an ordinary yellow John Deere road grader that belonged to the county, so . . . uh . . . no big deal.

  And those three strange men? Ha-ha. Again, no problem. Right away, I recognized Slim and Loper, the two cowboys on our outfit, and the third guy . . . well, we had reason to suppose that he might be . . .

  This is very embarrassing. Let’s just skip it. I refuse to say another word about it.

  Chapter Five: Okay, It Was a Road Grader

  Oh, what the heck, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to . . . he was the driver, see. The operator. The county employee who, uh, drove the machine. The grader.

  Every grader has a driver, don’t you see, and his name was Maurice. He often graded our roads. I mean, I recognized him right away: tall and skinny, wore a pair of blue overalls and an old felt cowboy hat pulled down to his ears. I’d barked at him a few times on the county road and knew he was a pretty good feller, a retired cowboy, in fact, so . . .

  Ha-ha. So what we had here was no big deal at all, just a gathering of friends and neighbors who seemed to be laughing at my . . . all of a sudden, I felt that I had become the center of everyone’s attention, shall we say, and yes, I did feel a bit exposed and embarrassed.

  They were staring at me. And grinning.

  Maurice: “Do you ever wonder what goes through a dog’s mind?”

  Slim: “I used to, but then I figured out that Hank ain’t got one. See, the day they was passing out brains, Hank thought they said trains and he didn’t order one.”

  There! You see how they act? Everything’s a big joke. Make one little mistake around here and . . . phooey.

  Well, I had more important things to do than stand there, listening to their idle chatter, so I did what any normal American dog would have done. Holding my head at a proud angle, I marched over to one of the back tires and gave it a squirt of Secret Encoding Fluid. That way, if this turned out to be some kind of trick . . .

  Maurice: “Do you boys charge for the tire wash?”

  Slim: “First tire’s free. After that, we charge a buck and a half.”

  They got a big chuckle out of that. I didn’t see the humor of it myself. I mean, a guy devotes his whole life to protecting the ranch and taking care of business, but it’s never enough to satisfy the Small Minds of this world.

  Fine. I didn’t need their approval. Sometimes we dogs have to ignore everything the humans say around here, knowing in our deepest hearts . . .

  Loper: “Boys, I hate to break up the fun, but we’ve got work to do. What size bolt do you need, Maurice?”

  Well, what do you know? At that moment, a small miracle occurred. They stopped chattering and making stale jokes, and went into the machine shed to do something constructive for a change—find a three-quarter-inch bolt for Maurice’s grader.

  See, that’s why Maurice had come into headquarters—he’d broken a bolt on the grader blade, and he’d stopped to see if we had a spare. I had suspected that all along, no kidding. I mean, when we first saw that thing comi
ng down the road, I said, “Drover, that grader has a broken bolt where the blade connects to the frame.”

  Didn’t I say that? Maybe I didn’t actually say it out loud, but I noticed the broken bolt, no kidding, and made a mental note to . . .

  When the Loafers and Jokers cleared the area and went slouching into the machine shed, the air was suddenly filled with the sounds of clanging and banging as they began pouring out the contents of fifteen coffee cans onto the workbench.

  Why coffee cans? Because that’s where Loper and Slim stored all the ranch’s inventory of bolts, nuts, screws, washers, fasteners, and cotter pins. They had fifteen old coffee cans lined up on the back of the workbench, and every one of ’em was crammed full of bolts and stuff.

  That was their “system” for organizing the spare parts. They tossed any bolt or screw into any can so that when they needed one, they had to go through every can every time. It’s called the Cowboy Way, which is just another name for sloppy management.

  Now, if they’d asked my opinion . . . but let’s don’t get into that. It would serve no purpose and would merely open old wounds. I mean, who am I? Just a dumb dog who barks at road graders, but let me point out that no dog in history has ever made such a mess of . . . oh well.

  Where were we? Oh yes, crashing and banging in the machine shed. The Loafers and Scoffers had finally left me alone in front of the machine shed, and I was about to proceed with the Trademarking of Tires Procedure, when suddenly, I heard a sound above me. At first I thought it was a voice, but then . . .

  Well, it was a voice, and it said, “Hello down there. What you doing?”

  I swept my gaze around the area in front of the shed and saw nothing. Then I remembered an important clue: The sound had seemed to come from above. Remember? So I lifted my eyes to the cab of the . . . well, of the stupid road grader that had tried its best to run over the entire Security Division, and there I saw . . .

  A dog.

  No kidding, it was a dog, but what was a dog doing in the cab of a county road grader? At that point, we had no answer to that crucial question, but right away we scanned in a description of the mutt and sent it straight to Data Control.

  Would you care to take a peek? I guess it wouldn’t hurt anything.

  Description of Unidentified Dog on Ranch

  Case #49596-B12-H2O

  Color: reddish brown, black spot around left eye.

  Hair Texture: short.

  Tail: long and sticklike.

  Breed: mixed, Heinz 57; this guy is a mutt.

  Eyes: brown and goofy.

  IQ: pretty low, judging by the expression on his face.

  Reason for Being on the Ranch: unknown at this point, but we’ll find out.

  End of File

  Pretty impressive, huh? You bet. You’ll notice that the Security Division doesn’t keep its information in coffee cans.

  Anyways, we had us an unidentified mutt on the ranch, and I went right to work. First thing, I bristled the hair on the back of my neck and went into a barking program that we call “You Don’t Belong Here.” The idea behind this routine is to give the other guy such a ferocious blast of barking that he’ll either run away or cringe in fear. See, we’ve found that when we hit ’em hard right away, they’re not likely to fight back, bark back, or mouth off.

  (That’s pretty hard to say, isn’t it? Try it three times, real fast: fight back, bark back, or mouth off. Pretty tough).

  I barked and barked, and we’re talking about deep ferocious barks that should have sent him running for cover. I mean, it was a great presentation, but for some reason the mutt just sat there and . . . well, grinned down at me. When I paused to refill my tanks with air, he said, in a high-pitched squeaky voice, “Hey down there, who are you barking at?”

  I grabbed a deep breath. “I’m barking at you, fella. Who do you think?”

  “Well, I wondered. I didn’t see anybody else around. But why would you be barking at me?”

  “I’m barking at you because you’re on my ranch, and because you don’t have permission to be on my ranch. It’s called trespassing, and we get pretty serious about trespassers.”

  “Oh-h-h, I see now. I thought maybe you were mad ’cause my road grader’s better than your road grader.”

  I beamed him an ice pick glare. “Your road grader’s better than mine? Is that what you just said?”

  He grinned and nodded. “Yep. See, a lot of dogs are jealous ’cause I get to ride in a road grader and they don’t. They get mad and bark.”

  I rolled my eyes and looked away. What kind of goofball was this guy? Imagine him thinking that I might be jealous of his . . .

  “For your information, pal, your road grader isn’t better than mine.”

  His ears jumped. “You’ve got one, too?”

  “Sure. Hey, I’m Head of Ranch Security.”

  “Aw heck. What kind of grader do you have?”

  “Oh, the . . . uh . . . the good kind, the best money can buy. In fact, I’ve got three of ’em.”

  His eyes grew wide. “You’ve got three road graders?”

  “Four, actually. We bought a new one last week.”

  “Wow! Where are they?”

  “They’re, uh, parked in the barn.”

  “This barn?”

  “No, they’re parked in the, uh, road grader barn. See, we’ve got a special barn for all our graders.”

  “Wow. Can I look at ’em?”

  “I’m afraid not. It’s a secured area, and it’s not open to the public. Sorry.”

  He shook his head in amazement. “Wow. I never met a dog that had four road graders.”

  “Well, now you have. I guess this is your lucky day. But the point is that your road grader isn’t better than mine, so we can move along to other matters. What else can you do?”

  He seemed a little more humble now. “Well, gosh, let me think. I guard baby chicks.”

  “Baby chicks? You guard baby chicks? Is that what you said?”

  He grinned. “Yep, and I’m pretty good at it, too. How about yourself?”

  “Fine, thanks.”

  “No, I mean, can you guard baby chicks? See, Maurice’s wife . . . Betty’s her name . . . Betty raises baby chickens and sells ’em, and I have to guard ’em. It’s my job.”

  I rolled my eyes and walked a few steps away. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Well . . . I didn’t say. It’s Dixie.”

  “Okay, Dipsy, let me lay a couple of things out for you. Number one, I’m a cowdog. Number two, I’m Head of Ranch Security.”

  “Aw! No fooling?”

  “I’m not finished. Number three, a top-of-the-line, blue-ribbon cowdog would never waste his time guarding a bunch of sniveling little chickens.”

  Dipsy cocked his head to the side. “Yeah, but our chickies don’t snivel. They cheep.”

  “Well, if they’re so cheap, maybe you should raise the price.”

  He blinked his eyes and scowled. “No, what I said was, they cheep. You know, cheep-cheep. That’s what they say. That’s how they talk.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course. I, uh, thought . . . so your chickens cheep?”

  “No, the chickens cluck, the big ’uns do. The chickies cheep. They’re little bitty fellers, see, and they can’t cluck, so they cheep. Their mommies cluck. You don’t know much about chickens, do you?”

  I paced over to the cab and beamed him a stern glare. “Just for your information, pal, we have chickens on this ranch, and I know just about everything there is to know about chickens.”

  Dipsy cut his eyes from side to side and gave me a sly grin. “You ever eat one?”

  Suddenly, my tongue shot out and I found myself . . . uh . . . licking my chops, shall we say. “I’m shocked that you would even . . . slurp . . . suggest such a thing. No, absolutely .
. . slurp . . . not.”

  “Heh. I did, once. Best meal I ever had. It tasted just like chicken, but it got me in a world of trouble.” He narrowed his eyes. “How come you’re drooling at the mouth?”

  “Me? I’m not . . .” I found it necessary to, uh, turn away from him. “For your inslurpation, I’m not drooling at the mouth, and could we change the slurpish?”

  “Okay, sure, but I thought you were drooling at the mouth or something.”

  “No. You have no evidence of that and you can’t prove a thing. Furthermore, I’m so outraged that I’m going to end this converslurption. I’ve never been so inslurpled. Good-bye!”

  And with that, I whirled to the right and marched away from the cad. The very idea! Him, coming onto my ranch and making up lies and half-truths about the Head of Ranch Slurpurity! Just for that, he could enjoy his own boring company and sit alone in his slummy little road grader.

  Filled with rage and righteous anger, I stormed away and met Little Alfred, just as he was coming up the hill from the house.

  Chapter Six: Pete Steals Food from Hungry Children

  Alfred was dressed in his usual little boy clothes—striped overalls, T-shirt, little black boots, and a cowboy straw hat. And in his right hand . . . left hand . . . it doesn’t matter . . . in one of his hands, either the right or the left, he carried . . .

  My goodness, what was that? I caught the smell of it right away . . . sniff, sniff . . . and it bore a strong resemblance to . . . uh . . . breakfast sausage.

  Breakfast sausage! Wow.

  Have we discussed breakfast sausage? Maybe not. We’re talking about the kind that comes in links. What do they call them? Little Piggies or something like that. It doesn’t matter. The point is that I, uh, have a very strong reaction every time I’m exposed to those . . . lick, slurp . . . Little Piggie Sausages.

  The sudden appearance of Little Piggie Sausage Waves in the atmosphere causes my ears to jump, my eyes to pop open, my front feet to move up and down, my tail to switch into Wild Excited Patterns of Wagging, and my mouth to . . . well, water like crazy.