Wagons West Read online

  I picked up the flash of his gaze when I got within fifty feet of the fence. It was coming from the iris patch, of course, his favorite loafing spot on the ranch. He had no idea that I was equipped with laser-sensitive equipment and was monitoring his every move.

  That was only one item in a long list of things he didn’t know about Security Work. We have sensing devices that no cat has never even dreamed of.

  So, yes, I was aware of his every move. Actually, his “every move” didn’t amount to much. He was just sitting there, too lazy to do anything but stare and purr, and you’ll be impressed that I was also perking up his pickering…picking up his purring on Audio Scanners, another very sensitive piece of equipment.

  I reached the yard gate, sat down, and waited for Alfred to be thrilled that I had arrived. Minutes passed, filled with the sputter and rumble of his truck, and he still didn’t notice, so I turned to the cat.

  “You can quit staring at me any time, Kitty.”

  “Was I staring at you?”

  “Of course you were. I’ve had you on radar for the past twenty minutes.”

  “Oh really.” His head and tail rose from the iris patch. He was wearing his usual insolent smirk. “I’m sorry, Hankie, I didn’t mean to stare. I guess I was just…well, curious.”

  “Yeah? Be curious about someone else.” A moment passed. “Curious about what?”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t be interested.”

  “Exactly right. I couldn’t care less, but it’s my job to know what’s going on around here, so…out with it.”

  “Well, Hankie, I was just curious to know…”

  “Hurry up.”

  “I was curious to know if you were wearing any…hee hee…broom tracks.”

  I felt my lips twitching into a snarl. “Watch your mouth, Pete, you’re playing with fire.”

  “I know, Hankie, but it’s so much fun, I can’t resist.” He came slithering out of the iris patch, carrying his tail straight up in the air like an…I don’t know what. He rubbed his way down the fence and came toward me.

  He narrowed his eyes and looked me over. “Hmm, yes, several broom tracks. She really whopped you good.”

  “She whopped me good, but you didn’t get to eat the bird.”

  “I didn’t eat the bird, but you got blamed for it.”

  “I got blamed for it, but you got parked in a tree.”

  “It was good exercise, Hankie.”

  “Yeah, and you need it. You could lose a few pounds.”

  “It’s just more of me for Sally May to love.”

  “How would you like to climb another tree?”

  “How would you like some more broom tracks?”

  “She broke the broom.”

  “She has a mop and you’d look darling wearing mop tracks.”

  “Oh yeah? You’d look darling with a fat lip.”

  You know, I love the drama of grilling a witness in a court of law. It seems to bring out all my savage instincts, and on this occasion, I had old Pete against the ropes and was pounding the daylights out of him. One more minute and he would have been a greasy spot on the cutting-room floor of the court house, but just then a truck came by and ran over his tail.

  Chapter Five: The Burrfessional Eggsplorer

  “Reeeeer!”

  Old Pete jumped two feet in the air and highballed it back to the iris patch. What a victory! “And let that be a lesson, you little fraud! Court is dismissed!”

  Wow. I had mopped the floor with him. A little humor there, did you get it? See, we’d been arguing about mops and I had MOPPED the…maybe you got it, but the point is that my cross-examination had blown Kitty Kitty to smithereens.

  Hee hee. Boy, it was the funnest thing I’d done in weeks.

  Oh, were you wondering how a truck had gotten into a court of law so that it could run over the cat’s tail? Great question, and here’s the scoop on that.

  Little Alfred was playing trucks in the yard, right? Well, Kitty had gotten so absorbed with running his mouth and showing disrespect for our entire judicial system, he’d stopped paying attention to everything else in the world. The boy saw his opportunity and…

  What a fine lad! He had a truck, he saw a tail, and he did what any normal, red-blooded, patriotic American boy would have done. He ran over the cat’s tail and sent him back to the bushes where he belonged.

  But suddenly a mysterious voice came out of nowhere. “Alfred, don’t be mean to the cat!”

  Oops. It was the voice of Radar Woman—She Who Saw Everything. She’d been working at the kitchen sink and looking out the window.

  Alfred flinched. “Okay, Mom.” He turned to me and whispered, “I got caught.”

  Right. I knew all about getting caught. On this outfit, dogs and little boys can hardly scratch a flea or swat a fly without getting into some kind of trouble. I would be the last dog in the world to say a critical word about the Lady of the House, but…

  Good grief, does she have to notice EVERYTHING? I mean, would the world fall apart if she missed one naughty deed?

  Oh well. She’s a fine lady…a little strange sometimes, but a fine lady.

  Alfred looked at me through the hog wire fence. “Hankie, you want to come into the yard and play twucks?”

  Well, as far as I was concerned, that was a great idea, but his mother had rules about Dogs In the Yard. I had already tripped her alarm once that day and didn’t need to push my luck. Better not, thanks.

  He lapsed into a thoughtful moment. “Hankie, you know what I want to be when I grow up?”

  I gave that some thought. A truck?

  “I’m going to be a burrfessional eggsplorer, like Daniel Boom.”

  I cocked my head to the side. A what? A “burfessional eggsplorer?” Hmm. That was a new one on me.

  You know, I’m pretty good at translating Kid Language into Bow Wow, but every once in a while, he pitches one past me. When that happens, we have to pull up our Language Analysis Program and give it some serious study.

  Have we discussed the LAP? Maybe not. It’s a great tool and it helps us bridge the language barrier between dogs and children. Do we have time for a demonstration? Sure, let’s crank it up and see what we can learn.

  Okay, we’ll start by looking at the individual words. “Burrfessional” is kind of a long word, but we can break it down into parts: burr-fession-al. A bur is a wild plant with stickers. We have several varieties on this ranch: sandburs, cockleburs, and goat-head sticker weeds.

  “Fession” is harder to figure out, because…well, it doesn’t seem to mean anything, so we have to guess what it might mean if it meant something. “Fession” sounds almost the same as “fashion,” so let’s go with that.

  When we put the two words back together, we have “bur fashion,” in other words, somebody wearing clothes made out of sandburs, cockleburs, or goat-head stickers. That sounds odd, doesn’t it, so let’s hurry on to the next part and maybe things will improve.

  If you spend too much time thinking about this stuff, you’ll never make it to the finish line.

  “Eggsplorer.” Yes, this is better, because right away, we see that the first half of the word is something we dogs crave and adore: EGGS. At morning Scrap Time, we’ll take an egg any way it’s offered: fried, scrambled, hard boiled, soft boiled, hard yoke, soft yoke, no yoke, yoke-broke, under-easy, over-easy, or over-cooked.

  Actually, one of our very favorite menu items is the poached egg, and I must tell you that in my line of work, “poached” has a hidden meaning. Heh heh. See, we’re not talking about eggs cooked in a pan of water. We “poach” our eggs in the chicken house, don’t you see, pluck ‘em right off the vine, so to speak, and…hmm, that’s probably all we’d better say about this.

  In fact, let’s erase that part about poached eggs. We said nothing about poaching eggs. Thanks. You might
not understand what it means, but your parents will…and so would Sally May if she happened to be listening.

  Okay, let’s move on to the next part of the so-forth: Daniel Boom. This will be easy as pie. “Daniel” was a famous lion tamer and “boom” is a sound that growing boys love to make, and now we’re ready for the big moment when we put everything back together and get the whole translation.

  Are you ready? Here we go.

  TA-DAH!

  When Little Alfred grows up, he wants to be a lion tamer in a circus, who makes a lot of noise, eats eggs all day, and wears a suit of clothes made of sticker weeds.

  Is that amazing or what? You never would have guessed…wait, hold everything. Let’s back up and take another look at this.

  “Burrfessional eggsplorer like Daniel Boom.” You know, in certain respects, it could be translated as “professional explorer, like Daniel Boom.” Do you suppose…

  Phooey.

  You know, the problem with all this high-tech equipment is that sometimes it backfires and we get garbage, and we’re talking about total garbage, not partial garbage. The Language Analysis Program is great when it works, but when it goes on the fritz…

  Look, one of the problems in being smarter than ordinary dogs is that you sometimes out-smart yourself. We should keep things simple. Simple is always best. Try to remember that.

  Where were we? I have no idea. I’ve exhausted myself on nonsense and…

  Wait! Here we go. Alfred had just announced that he wanted to become a famous “eggsplorer,” which we’ve already translated to mean “explorer.”

  I barked my approval. “Good for you! Sounds like a plan.”

  He gazed off into the distance. “But if you’re going to be an eggsplorer, you can’t just stay in the yard all the time.”

  Good point.

  “You need to eggsplore Out West.”

  Right, like Daniel Boom.

  His gaze slid around and landed on me, and a cunning little smile formed on his mouth. “Sometimes my mom takes a nap with my little sister…”

  My ears leaped up and I waited for him to finish his thought. He said no more, but gave me a wink that made me wonder if he was thinking what I was thinking he was thinking.

  Surely not. His mom had rules about little boys taking a nap in the afternoon, even little boys who wanted to become famous explorers.

  I was in the midst of these thoughts when, suddenly and all at once, my ears leaped up into the Full Alert Position. They had just detected a faint rumbling sound in the distance, perhaps a vehicle.

  I did a quick check of our Vehicle Log. We had no vehicles scheduled for entry into headquarters at this hour. Slim and Loper had logged out around six o’clock that morning, when they’d gone to work in the field. If you recall, I gave them Escort all the way to the mailbox, then rushed back to my gunny…that is, I returned to the mountain of paperwork on my desk.

  Around here, the work never ends.

  So it appeared that we had an unauthorized vehicle entering ranch headquarters, and I was the only dog around to work Traffic. (Drover was still hiding in the machine shed). I hit Full Flames on all engines, and went roaring around the north side of the house. There, I began picking up the unauthorized vehicle on instruments.

  To be honest, I was a little worried about this Vehicular Intrusion. See, it might have been the mailman, up to something sneaky. On an average day, he stops at the mailbox on the county road, does something with the box (we’re never sure exactly what he’s doing), and drives on down the road to the next ranch.

  But this promised to be something different. The mysterious vehicle was heading toward the house. If that vehicle belonged to the mailman, we might very well find ourselves in the middle of an International Incident that could blow up and spread like wildflowers.

  Wildfire, that is, spread like wildfire.

  In other words, this could get pretty scary before it gets any scarier. In fact, let me warn you. There’s some creepy stuff lying ahead. If you can’t handle it…I don’t know, go eat a cracker or something and we’ll meet on the other side.

  Chapter Six: Masked Bandits Rob the Stage Coach

  Okay, let’s mush on with the story.

  There are no ordinary days in the Security Business. The world we inhabit is full of shadows and disguises, spies and imposters, murky characters lurking behind bushes and doing the things we least expect to lease.

  A tiny sound in the night might turn out to be a Charlie Monster, and a so-called employee of the Post Office might turn out to be…we never know. That’s why we have to put boots on the ground and jets in the sky, and check out everything that looks even slightly suspicious.

  I intercepted the vehicle in front of the house and gave it the full load of Halt and Identify Barkings. I was about to disable the tires when…okay, it was Slim and Loper coming back from the field, and it underscored a point I’ve made before.

  We dogs can’t do Traffic Control when our people don’t keep up their log books and tell us what’s going on.

  Maybe it was lunch time and maybe they were coming back for a bite to eat, but how’s a dog supposed to know what time it is? Am I a clock? I’ve never been a clock and I never want to be a clock.

  Loper was driving and blew the horn at me. Slim…this was so childish…Slim wrinkled up his face and growled at me through the open window.

  I couldn’t believe it. Those guys are so…sometimes I get the feeling that they don’t take my job seriously. I mean, with them, everything is a big joke.

  They didn’t deserve an escort, but I ride for the brand and try to do my job. I gave ‘em an escort around the south side of the house and up the gravel drive beside the yard gate.

  Guess who was sitting beside the gate. Drover. Mister Run and Hide.

  I rumbled over to him. He gave me a silly grin and said, “Oh, hi. You’re back.”

  “I’m back and you’re in trouble.”

  “Gosh, what did I do?”

  “Disobeying an order, insubordination, cowardice on the field of battle…the list goes on and on. Your court martial will convene at three o’clock and you will probably be fed to the buzzards.”

  “I saw some buzzards this morning.”

  “Good. I hope they’re hungry.”

  “It’s kind of neat, the way they float in the air like a kite.”

  “Drover, you’re the only dog on this ranch who has time to gawk at buzzards.”

  “Yeah, ‘cause you sleep all the time.”

  “I do NOT sleep all the time, and let me warn you again about spreading lies and gossip. This will all come out at your court martial. Don’t leave the ranch or speak to any strangers.”

  I marched away and left him sitting in the rubble of his own shubble.

  Alfred ran to his dad and they hugged, then went inside to check on the lunch. Slim headed toward the gate and saw me. I was, well, just sitting there, minding my own business.

  A grin tugged at one corner of his mouth. “Hankie, when I growled at you, did you think I was the Creature From the Black Latrine? Tell the truth.”

  Oh brother. No, I did NOT think he was the Creature From the Whatever It Was. The Black Latrine. And by the way, it was supposed to be the Creature From the Black Lagoon. That was the name of a scary movie, but he got it all wrong.

  And as for the trick itself…he had pulled that trick so many times, even Drover could have figured it out. It was old, tired, corny, and childish. If he was going to continue this kind of nonsense, at least he could come up with…

  Huh?

  You won’t believe this. I couldn’t believe it either. I must have looked away for just a moment, and when I looked back at Slim…he was gone! I’m not kidding, he had vanished, and standing in the spot he had occupied was A TOTAL STRANGER, WEARING A BANDANA OVER HIS NOSE AND MOUTH!

 
; Who wears a mask over his face? Outlaws, that’s who, crooks and bandits. Bandits are called “bandits” because they always wear bandanas. See, they put on a mask right before they rob trains and hold up stage coaches, and we had one standing right there beside the yard gate.

  A bandit, that is, not a stage coach. We had a masked bandit right in the middle of ranch headquarters!

  Where you find one outlaw with a mask, you can always expect to find several more. They operate in gangs, don’t you see, and that’s how they pull their jobs. I couldn’t see the rest of the crooks, but I knew they were out there somewhere, hiding behind trees and bushes.

  Was this scary or what? You bet. It was serious enough to send a buzz of alarm down my backbone and out to the end of my tail. But it got worse. The Masked Bandit raised both hands to shoulder-level and…and the fingers spread apart and…good grief, made CLAWS! Huge creepy claws with talons three inches long…and dripping blood from his last job.

  Then he started GROWLING, a rumble from the depths of his throat, hidden somewhere behind the mask. And he began slouching forward…TOWARD ME! It was exactly the kind of stiff-legged slouch you would expect from a masked bandit who had…I don’t know, transformed into a monster that eats dogs.

  Well, you know me. When monsters show up on the ranch, I don’t just sit there, waiting to be torn to shrugs. The hair shot up on my back, and we’re talking about every single hair from my ears out to the extremities of my tail section. A gurgling bark took shape in the deeps of my depths, and I began backing way.

  And then the creature began uttering some horrible words:

  “Fee!

  Fie!

  Fo!

  Fog!

  I smell the blood of a dingbat dog!”

  Did you hear that? Good grief, he was smelling my blood, and I wasn’t even bleeding yet! He kept lurching toward me and I backed away some more, until I backed into my assistant.

  “Drover, listen up. You’ve spent most of your life goofing off, but we need you now.”