The Case of the Mysterious Voice Read online

  And with that, he stomped back into the house and slammed the door behind him. The slamming of the door woke up Dink the parrot and he squawked, “Poor doggie, pieces of eight, Polly want a shotgun!”

  I stared at the bird and found myself wondering . . . nah, he was just a dumb bird.

  I whirled around and marched back to the office—dripping water, I might add—and found my assistant cowering under his gunnysack bed. He heard me come in and peeked out from under his sack.

  “Oh, hi. How’d it go?”

  “You left the field of battle, is how it went, and this will go into your record.”

  “Hank, I just figured it out.”

  “He dumped a pitcher of water on top of my head.”

  “It was the parrot.”

  “I’ve never been so outraged!”

  “He’s a troublemaker.”

  “What does it take to please these people?”

  “That’s what Pete was trying to tell you.”

  “And then he had the nerve to call it a hearing aid!”

  “You need one.”

  “Well, by George, the next time Loper wants someone to bark at the moon, he can do it himself.”

  “Hank?”

  Had I heard a voice? I narrowed my eyes and . . . oh yes, Drover was there beside me. “What?”

  “It was the parrot. He’s the one who told us to bark at the moon.”

  “What?” I stared at the runt for a whole minute. “Did you just say . . . you think . . .” All at once, I went into a fit of laughing. I couldn’t control myself. I mean, Drover had said some crazy things in his life, but this might have been the nuttiest.

  I laughed for a solid minute, and we’re talking about laughing so hard, I couldn’t even grab a breath of air. When I finally managed to get control of things, I ordered the little mutt to come out from under his bed. I made him sit down, while I stood in front of him and gave him a lecture.

  “Drover, I’ve told you this before, but let’s go over it one more time. Dink is a parrot, a bird. Parrots have a tiny skill for repeating words and phrases, but they don’t talk. They mimic.”

  “I think this one can talk. He’s a troublemaker. That’s why the deputy wanted to get rid of him.”

  I spent a long moment weighing both sides of the argument. At last, I came up with a plan. “All right, Drover, let’s settle this by using the scientific method.”

  “Gosh, that’s a good idea.”

  “Yes. Instead of carrying on a pointless argument, we’re going to call upon science to settle it once and for all.”

  “Oh goodie. We’re going to test your theory?”

  “Not exactly.” I gave him a withering glare. “We’re going to stick your nose in the corner and let you stand there until you understand that parrots don’t talk.”

  His jaw dropped in surprise. “That’s not science!”

  “Of course it is. Science already knows that parrots don’t talk, so testing would be a tee-total waste of time.”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “The question science must resolve is, how long will it take you to admit what science figured out hundreds of years ago?”

  “Are you serious?”

  I showed him two rows of gleaming fangs. “Do I look serious? To the corner, move it!”

  He whined and moaned, but I didn’t care. Even though my body was crying out for sleep, I stood right there and watched, just to make sure he didn’t cheat. You don’t think Drover would cheat? Ha. Listen, he’d spent so much time around the local cat, he couldn’t be trusted, even with a simple scientific experiment.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was dying of boredom. “Okay, time’s up. Put your pencils down and close your test booklets.”

  “I don’t have a pencil.”

  “Don’t argue with me. Have you come up with the correct answer?”

  “Parrots can’t talk.”

  “Excellent. Parrots can’t talk, they can only . . . what?”

  “Mimic.”

  “Congratulations, son, you’ve passed the test. You see what can happen when you apply yourself and do your homework?”

  “It’s all baloney.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said, I wish I had a baloney sandwich.”

  “Yes, and your wishing is like fishing. All it takes is a good bite. Ha ha.” I waited for him to laugh. He didn’t. “That was a joke. Wishing, fishing, bait, bite, sandwich . . .”

  “I don’t get it.”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay, it’s obvious that you need to spend a little more time with your nose in the corner.”

  “Oh, I get it now. Fishing, wishing. Hee hee hee. Great joke!”

  “Do you really mean that?”

  “Oh yeah, it’s the great jokest I ever heard.”

  “Very well, you may remove your nose from the corner. Let’s try to grab some sleep.”

  He gave a yip of triumph and scampered over to his gunnysack. I fluffed up my sack . . . boy, that thing was beginning to stink, but what do you expect when the owner of the ranch is too cheap to buy fresh bedding for the staff? We do the best with what we have.

  When I hit the sack, I was already sailing my little boat across the Sleepful Sea, but then I heard a muttering voice. It said, “Parrots talk.”

  I sat straight up and looked around. I saw no one except Drover, who was occupying the bunk next to mine. “Did you say something?”

  “Who me? Nope, not a word.”

  “That’s odd. I thought I heard someone muttering about parrots.”

  “Oh, that. Yeah, it was me.”

  “Aha! Drover, is it possible that, after all we’ve been through, you said, ‘Parrots talk’?”

  “No, I said, ‘Parents talk,’ but it sounded like ‘parrots,’ ’cause by dose is stobbed ub again.”

  “Oh, well that explains it. Good night.”

  “Nighty night.” There was a moment of peaceful silence, then I heard his voice again. “Parrots really do talk.”

  I sat up in bed. “Of course they do. That’s how they communicate with their children. And by the way, you need to get your nose fixed. It’s starting to annoy me. Now, for the last time, good night.”

  I melted into the warm folds of my beloved gunnysack and surrendered my grip on the world. I’d put in a long, hard day, dealing with screeching cats, squawking birds, and Drover’s little outburst anti-scientific rebellion.

  But, you know, when you stay the course and stork with your prissibles, every snork seems to donkey the turnip greens . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  Chapter Nine: Sally May and I Patch Things Up

  Perhaps I dozed off. Yes, I’m sure I did, and the next thing I knew, it was daily broadlight, and we’re talking about half the day gone. Good grief, I’d slept past noon!

  I leaped out of bed, planted all four feet upon the earth, and tried to get my bearings. They seemed to be rolling around inside my head, which didn’t come as a total surprise. I mean, I’d been up half the night, doing counseling with Drover, and that will cause the marbles and bearings to roll around inside your head.

  Sometimes I worry about the little mutt. I really do. When one of your employees comes out and declares that he doesn’t believe in science, what can you say? It’s a cause for concern.

  Speaking of Drover, he was still curled up in a little ball, honking and muttering in his sleep, so I left him there and hurried down to the house. To be honest, I was embarrassed that I’d stayed in bed so long.

  You know me. I like to have my ranch in top shape before the people get out of bed. A lot of mutts don’t care. They’ll lollygag around and spend so much time in bed, they sprout roots. Not me. The Head of Ranch Security starts his day before daylight . . . only I’d sort of flunked that one, but you shoul
d remember the reason. Drover.

  By the time I reached the yard gate, I could see that the ranch was hopping with activity, and I remembered why. The church choir was coming out for a picnic and Sally May had every able-bodied citizen of our ranch community employed in some kind of meaningful activity.

  Slim was trimming the cedar shrubs in front of the house. Loper was down at the picnic grounds, arranging tables and wiping them with a wet cloth. Little Alfred was picking up twigs and limbs—oh, and chasing grasshoppers. Heh. He probably thought nobody was watching, but I saw it.

  He was goofing off. Your higher breeds of dogs don’t miss much.

  Dink the parrot was perched on his perch on the porch, shuffling from one end of the perch to the other. Maybe he was pacing. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. What birds do is of no interest to me.

  On the other hand, I couldn’t help noticing that, for a bird, he was kind of handsome—if you could get past the fact that his nose made up two-thirds of his face. We’re talking about a huge curved beak that left only a small space for the eyes or anything else. Oh, and he had no ears.

  On impulse, I decided to be sociable. “Hey Dink, question. Was your mother’s nose as big as yours? See, if a dog had such a nose, he would spend a lot of time alone. He would cry himself to sleep at night. He would have no girlfriends. You have pretty feathers, but the nose looks like a joke that got out of hand.”

  He looked at me and cocked his head to the side. “Pretty bird, pretty nose, awk.”

  “Well, you can say that if you want, pal, but saying it doesn’t make it true. From where I sit, the only thing more ridiculous than a parrot’s face would be the faces of two parrots.”

  “Polly want a cracker, Polly want a shotgun.”

  “Oh, and another thing. Your conversation is really boring.”

  “Awk! Pieces of eight, Sheriff’s Department.”

  There, you see? Parrots can’t talk. They just repeat meaningless phrases. Why anyone would want to keep a parrot around, I couldn’t understand. They make noise, they make a mess, they have no personality.

  At that very moment, Sally May came out the back door. She wore faded blue jeans and a floppy work shirt, and a big straw hat on her . . . well, on her head, of course. Where else would you find a straw hat?

  Like I said, we don’t miss much.

  She was also carrying a cardboard box that contained . . . something green and leafy, perhaps flowers. Yes, they were potted flowers, and I even knew their name: bazoonias.

  She wore a pleasant expression on her face, and that brought a rush of joy to my heart. See, my relationship with Sally May had . . . uh . . . over the years, we’d shared a few precious moments, but also quite a few that hadn’t been so precious.

  Let’s be frank. Sometimes I got the feeling that she didn’t particularly like me. This had caused me more pain than you can imagine, because . . . well, she was the Lady of the House, the wife of the ranch owner, and as Head of Ranch Security, I really needed to figure out how to get along with her. Pleasing her was an important part of my job.

  In quiet moments, I often wondered how our relationship had taken such a bad turn, and now and then I found myself thinking, “Maybe it’s partly my fault.” See, in the midst of our very stormiest periods, certain themes had come up over and over.

  She wasn’t fond of my smell.

  She didn’t appreciate me beating up her stupid . . . uh, she felt that I needed to be kinder to her cat.

  She had powerful objections to my digging holes in her garden and licking her on the ankles.

  And, most poisonous of all, she seemed absolutely convinced that I had some kind of crazy desire to eat her chickens.

  Slurp. Excuse me.

  Well, you can imagine how deeply I was wounded by all these rumors and suspicions. It just broke my heart. After I had tried so hard to please her . . . but you know what? The real test of a dog is how he responds to hard times. Any dog can look good when things are perfect, but when the going gets tough, can he rise above all the pettiness and make something of his relationships with the people in his life?

  That’s the real question, fellers, and it separates the sheep from the goats. Loyal dogs don’t quit, even when our hearts are broken. We keep coming back until we figure out how to work through our problems.

  Hencely, even though I was tempted to tuck my tail and slink away when she walked back into my life, I stood my ground. I went to Slow Sincere Wags on the tail section and beamed her a look that said, “Sally May, we can’t repair past mistakes, but I have a feeling that this is the day we’re going to patch things up.”

  Hmm. She didn’t see me. A lot of dogs would have gotten discouraged and quit right there. Not me. I barked.

  Oops. Maybe that was the wrong thing to do. Her head snapped around and her eyes . . . yipes. You know, she’s a wonderful lady, but she’s got this wrinkle line between her eyebrows, and when it appears . . . gulp . . . it’s hard to stand your ground.

  She spoke. “You barked all night long.”

  Uh, yes, and her husband had spoken to me about that.

  “Why do you do that?”

  Well, we’d . . . we’d been ordered to shoot down the moon. No kidding. In the light of day, that sounded kind of silly, but that’s what we’d been told to do.

  She shook her head. “You’re hopeless.” She went over to the flowerbed beside the house, dropped down on her hands and knees, and began spading up the ground with a hand trowel.

  I’m sure she didn’t intend for her words to puncture my heart. I’m sure she didn’t see the tears that flooded my eyes. She had no idea how deeply those three words . . . two words . . . infected me. See, if you’re a loyal dog, the two words that can bring you crashing to the ground are: “You’re hopeless.”

  You know why? Because it means, “There’s no reason to hope for something better. This is the end. We’re finished. I’m walking away from this relationship.”

  Suddenly, I found myself staring at a wasted life, years of trying to please her and trying to bring a little smile to her lips . . . and it all came crashing down like rafters in a burning house. And, fellers, I just fell apart.

  I’m not a dog who shows his emotions very often. That kind of dog doesn’t last long in the Security Business. But her words struck me like an ocean wave and swept me out into a sea of emotion. I started crying, moaning. I couldn’t help it.

  If I’d had a crafty, calculating mind, I might have planned all this, knowing that she found it hard to ignore the sobs and cries of a dog whose heart had been shattered. But it wasn’t planned, none of it. It was totally spondifferous.

  Spongilational.

  Spontutational.

  What is the word? Of all the times to draw a blank . . . wait, here we go. SPONTANEOUS. My emotional so-forth was totally spontaneous. There was nothing planned or crafty about it. Her words had pierced my heart like an arrow, and I broke down in tears and weeping.

  I moaned. I didn’t care who heard it. Nothing mattered anymore.

  Through the blur of tears, I saw her head come up from the flowerbed. She turned and looked at me. Remember that wrinkle line in her forehead, the one that tells dogs and little boys that they had better run? Well, it was still there, like a symbol chiseled onto a tombstone, but unless my eyes were playing tricks, it was beginning to melt.

  No kidding. She heaved a weary sigh and rose to her feet. She dusted the grass off the knees of her jeans and looked up at the sky. She shook her head and looked at me. “Hank, please don’t moan. You make me feel like a mean old hag.”

  Really? Hmm. We could build on that. I, uh, turned up the volume and leaned into another outburst of moaning.

  She came to the gate and stood over me. I could see several emotions on her face, some of them hopeful and some, well, a little scary. Her hand reached out. She unlatched the gat
e and pulled it open.

  “Come here, you scamp.”

  What? She was inviting me into her yard? I was astamished. I couldn’t believe this. But when she knelt down and patted a hand on her thigh and smiled, I knew it was true. With a yelp of sheer joy, I flew into her arms . . . with a little too much oomph, I guess, because it knocked her over backwards into the grass.

  Hey, I didn’t care. Sally May wasn’t a mean old hag, and I wanted the whole world to know it! She had smiled at me and invited me into her yard, and our relationship had been pulled back from the edge of the brink.

  Fellers, I gave her the whole nine yards of Healing Licks, and we’re talking about ears, cheeks, nose, neck . . . every square inch of her lovely skin received the best licks money could buy. And instead of pushing me away, she pulled me into a loving embrace.

  “Oh Hank, how can I stay mad at you? I know that deep in your heart, you want to be a good dog.”

  Oh, yes ma’am, the best dog in the whole world—just for you!

  “But you’re . . . you’re such a dingbat.”

  Dingbat? I, uh, wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

  “Just promise me this.” She held my face in her hands and looked deeply into my eyes. “Please stop barking at night. Please?”

  I lifted my head to a Pose of Great Dignity. “All right, Sally May, if that’s what it takes to patch up our relationship, I will promise—right here, today, in front of all these people—with Pete the Barncat and Dink the Parrot as my witnesses, I take a solemn oath never to bark again at night. Ever. Even if your husband orders the Security Division to bark at the moon, we will disobey orders. No kidding.”

  Pretty emotional occasion, huh? You bet. And that’s about the end of the story. Sally May and I patched things up, I never barked again at night, and we lived happy ever afterly on the ranch.

  This case is . . . wait, there’s more.