The Disappearance of Drover Read online

  “Nope, but I had one and she didn’t sound like that.”

  “Congratulations. You get three points for having a mother. Now hush.” I turned back toward the place from whence the voice had come. “Hello again? Madame, we’re wondering if you’ve seen Drover.”

  There was a moment of silence, then the voice replied, “No, we ain’t seen Drover, but we see you! Har har.”

  A buzz of electrical current shot down my spine, and I felt the hair rising on the back of my neck. I turned to Ralph. “That’s a deep voice. It doesn’t sound like a mother, does it?”

  Ralph rolled his eyes. “Meathead.”

  “Stop calling me names! I’m getting a bad feeling about this.”

  “You ought to.”

  “And do you know why? That voice reminds me of someone I’ve met before and never want to meet again.”

  At that very moment, two big scruffy dogs stepped out from behind a shrub. I heard the air rushing into my chest and felt my eyes bugging out. Are you ready for some shocking news? Hang on.

  It was Buster and Muggs. Pretty scary, huh? You bet, and you’ll be sorry to hear that it got worse.

  Chapter Ten: We Get Ambushed

  So there we were, Ralph and I, trapped in an alley with Buster and Muggs, two of the toughest dogs in Ochiltree County.

  You might recall that Muggs was a heavyset bulldog-type of mutt with an overbite in his lower jaw. He was rolling the muscles in his thick shoulders and looked as though he was ready to go ten rounds with anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in the ring with him.

  “We got ’im, boss! It’s the jerk that was running his mouth at the parade.”

  Buster was a nondescript mixed breed, taller than Muggs but not as heavily muscled. He held me in a hard gaze and gave a chuckle that froze my blood. “Yeah, we’ve got him in a back alley, and there ain’t no way out.”

  “What should we do, boss, huh, huh? You want that I should jump him and, you know, give him a treatment? Har har.” Before Buster could answer, Muggs turned to me. “We seen you making stupid faces at us, jerk, and that made us really mad, oh yeah.” He turned back to Buster. “What do you tink, boss? Huh, huh? Reckon it’s time to do some work on his face?”

  Buster held up a paw for silence. “Easy, Muggsie. Don’t forget, he’s Head of Ranch Security.”

  “Yeah, I’ll show him some ranch security! Just tell me when.”

  Buster walked over to me and pointed toward Muggs. “You know, pal, he don’t like you. I mean, down deep he’s a very tender guy, but when you stuck out your tongue, it done something to his . . . whatever you call it. His spirit. It’s like you drove a stake clean through his heart.”

  Muggs was beginning to foam at the mouth. “Yeah, and I’m fixing to make a steak out of him, too!”

  Buster looked me up and down. “Let me tell you something, pal. Out on the ranch, maybe you’re hot stuff, but when you come to town, you’re just another mutt. See, we own this town.”

  Muggs growled, “Yeah, and we ain’t selling to you, jerk, are we, boss?”

  “That’s right, Muggsie.” Back to me. “So maybe you’d like to apologize to my friend, huh?”

  I swallowed hard and tried to hide the quiver in my voice. “I had no idea he was so sensitive.”

  “Yeah, but are you sorry you hurt his feelings? I mean, you really wounded him.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Louder, and say it to Muggsie.”

  “Muggs, I’m sorry I stuck out my tongue at you.”

  Buster smiled. “There it is, Muggsie. He said he was sorry. Do you think he’s really sorry or just saying it ’cause he’s chicken?”

  Muggs’s eyes were flaming. “Oh, I tink he’s chicken, boss, and I love drumsticks, oh yeah!”

  Buster gave me a shrug. “That’s what I figured. Muggsie’s terrible to hold a grudge. I fear I can’t hold him back.” His eyes drifted over to Ralph. He’d been sitting like a statue and hadn’t moved a hair. “What’s that?”

  “That’s Ralph.”

  “If I had ears that big, I’d rent ’em out for a circus tent. What is he, some kind of hound dog?”

  “He’s a basset.”

  “No kidding?” Buster shot a grin at Muggs. “Say Muggsie, you ever whip a basset hound?”

  “Oh yeah, boss, they’re easy. Just turn me loose.”

  “Be patient, Muggsie, I’m having fun.” Buster turned back to me. “Does Ralph talk or just sit there?” He waved a paw in front of Ralph’s glazed eyes. “Hey, you with the big ears. You got something to say?”

  After a moment of silence, Ralph said, “The dogcatcher’s having coffee at the Dixie Dog.”

  Buster stared at him. “Oh yeah? Well, I guess that’s good to know, ’cause he ain’t no friend of ours. But deep in my heart, Ralph, I’m wondering . . . so what?”

  Ralph said, “Make a run for the Dixie Dog.”

  Buster and Muggs exchanged glances and laughed. Buster said, “Now wait a second, Ralph. That don’t make sense. See, Muggsie and me have a reputation in this town. The dogcatcher would love to haul us to the pound, right, Muggs?”

  Muggs was on his hind legs, throwing punches in the air. “Yeah, only he can’t catch us, har har.”

  All at once, I noticed that Ralph was doing funny things with his eyes, rolling them around. He had done it several times that afternoon, but this time . . . well, his eyes seemed to be pointing toward the north. And unless I was mistaken, he appeared to be gesturing . . . well, to me. But why would he be doing that?

  Then it hit me. He wasn’t talking to Buster—he was talking to me! Don’t you get it? Ralph was the dogcatcher’s pet, and if we made a dash to the Dixie Dog Drive-in . . .

  My mind was racing. Somehow we had to break out of this trap and make a run for it. But how?

  What saved us was that I happened to notice a tiny detail that most dogs would have missed. A cat was sitting on the fence only ten feet away from where we were standing. She’d been sunning herself and purring and watching the show in the alley. And all at once a plan took shape in my mind.

  In a calm voice, I said, “Hey Muggs, did you hear what that cat just said?”

  Muggs stopped throwing punches and jerked his head from side to side. “Naw, what cat?”

  I pointed to the fence. “She said that if you want to lose a few ugly pounds, you should cut off your head.”

  His eyes grew wide. “A cat said that?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “Oh man, she shouldn’t ought to have said that. No cat says stuff like that to Muggsie and gets away with it.” He puffed himself up and stomped over to the fence. “Hey dummy, I said what you just heard . . . I heard what you just said, and you’re in deep trouble, oh yeah!”

  The cat didn’t move or flinch or twitch, just sat there purring and staring down at Muggs. She knew she was safe on the fence and wasn’t the least bit concerned about his threats.

  That just made him madder. He started bouncing up and down and foaming at the mouth, and I think his eyes even crossed. Buster watched with a sour expression and growled, “Skip it, Muggsie, we’ve got better things to do.”

  But Muggs had moved beyond hearing. He leaped up on his hind legs and placed his front paws on the fence. Then, stretching his thick body as far as it would stretch, he placed his nose and fanged mouth only inches away from the cat.

  “You hair-puff jerk of a cat, I’m fixing to fix you!”

  At this point in the drama, two things happened. First, Ralph began backing away, and second, the cat’s paw struck like a snake. BAM! I mean, it came out of nowhere and nailed Muggs on the nose.

  And Muggs lost what little mind he had left. We’re talking about insane. He barked, he growled, he snapped, he slobbered, he lunged, and every time his nose came within six inches of the cat, she gave hi
m a whack.

  As you know, I have no use for a cat, but I must admit that this one was a piece of work. She was like a little machine: serene, poised, quiet, and very efficient. Bark whack, bark whack, bark whack! I mean, she didn’t hiss or growl, just sat there taking his nose apart, and old Muggsie kept going back for more of that home cookin’.

  I would have enjoyed staying for the whole show, but while Buster and Muggs were occupied, I followed Ralph’s lead and began oozing down the alley to the north, then turned and ran like a streak of greased lightning.

  Behind me, I heard Buster growl at Muggs, “Hey, genius, you’d better quit while you’ve got a nose left!”

  At the end of the block, I came out of the alley and hooked a sharp turn to the right, spun all four paws on the pavement, and set sail for Main Street. On Main, I hooked a left and went zooming up the street. There, about fifty yards south of the Dixie Dog Drive-in, I caught up with Ralph, who was running just as fast as his stubby legs would take him.

  By now, I could see the dogcatcher’s pickup parked in front of the Dixie Dog, a white Ford with the City of Twitchell sign on the doors and the dog cage in the back. At last I began to relax a little bit.

  “Nice work, Ralph. I think we’ve got it made.”

  “We ain’t there yet.”

  Then it happened. He stepped on one of his ears and wrecked his little basset body all over the sidewalk. He rolled ten times and came to a stop when he hit a trash receptacle.

  I wasn’t particularly worried until I heard barking dogs in the distance . . . and saw Buster and Muggs come ripping up the street toward us. “Get up, son, the posse’s on our trail!”

  “I hurt my toe.”

  “Don’t tell me about your toe. Those guys want our heads! Run!”

  He ran, or tried to run. Have you ever watched a basset hound run? The best of them can sprint about as fast as a worm or a turtle. I’m talking slow.

  He chugged along, and I could hear Buster and Muggs coming up fast, closing the lead we’d enjoyed up to that point. And fellers, let me tell you, it was spooky. Behind me, I could hear them making all kinds of awful sounds: rumbling, snorting, snapping their teeth, and growling about all the hideous things they were going to do to us.

  I was starting to worry about this deal. How can you lose a race when you had a lead of a hundred yards? With Ralph, it was easy.

  “Hey, Ralph, what do we do when we get to the Dixie Dog?”

  “Well, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

  “Start thinking about it. They’re closing the gap.” At last we made it to the dogcatcher’s pickup, and the thugs were coming hard and fast. “Okay, pal, what now?”

  He gave me a wink. “I think I’ve got it figgered.” He chugged around to the back of the pickup, where the cage stood empty. The door of the cage wasn’t latched, and Ralph nosed it open. “Come on, we’ll hop inside the cage.”

  Inside the dogcatcher’s cage? That didn’t sound like a great idea, but I didn’t have a better one. Ralph went into a deep crouch and sprang upward. I watched, amazed, as he scratched and scrambled, trying to make it inside the cage . . . and rolled back down on the street.

  “Ralph, for crying out loud, hurry up!”

  Again, he crouched and lunged and . . . I couldn’t believe it! He came rolling back out. By that time, there was no chance that we could both make it into the cage, and I had to make a quick decision: run or fight.

  If I ran, they would get Ralph. If I fought them off, maybe Ralph could scramble into the cage, and at least one of us would survive to tell the story.

  This has gotten pretty scary, hasn’t it? I tried to warn you. Don’t continue reading unless you’re pretty tough.

  Chapter Eleven: Caution: Really Scary Stuff

  If I’d had more time to weigh the options and consider the consequences, I might have come to a different decision, but we were out of time. Buster and Muggs had arrived, and someone had to do something. Ralph was worthless, so that left me to deal with the problem.

  I wouldn’t call it a heroic decision. It was the sort of thing any decent dog would have done. If you’re worth more than an ordinary rock, you help your friends. If you don’t, you’re a rat.

  I turned to the villains with a calm smile, and . . . yipes. I can’t describe the level of nastiness I saw in their faces. They were beyond mad and had tumbled into some dark zone where things get crunched and torn.

  Buster blistered me with an evil glare. “Wise guy, huh? Thought you could make us look ridiculous, huh?”

  Muggs had foam dripping off his tusks, and his eyes were clouded with rage. “Oh, you’re going to get it now, jerk, oh yeah! Everyting that cat gave me, I’m going to give back to you, only ten times worser!”

  “That’s right, cowdog. See, we don’t appreciate getting conned in our own town.”

  “That’s right, jerk!”

  “It’s embarrassing, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, and we’re so mean, you can’t even spell how mean we are, jerk!”

  Buster lifted his right paw as though it were a sledgehammer and admired it. “Which of us shall take the first shift, Muggsie?”

  Muggs bounced up and down, a bomb that was aching to explode. “Oh, that’s easy, boss. I’ll go first, only there ain’t going to be any second, ’cause when I get done, there won’t even be a greasy spot left on the pavement, oh yeah!”

  “Well?” Buster gave me a smirk. “It was nice knowing you, cowdog. Git ’im, Muggs, git ’im!”

  Muggs came at me like a train. I braced my-self on all four legs and gave him my best shot. You ever give your best shot to a train? When I stopped rolling, Muggs was all over me—fangs, claws, clubs, and paws, snaps and snarls and bloody threats. I rolled up into a ball and tried to protect my throat, but I knew it was only a matter of time until . . .

  But then, the most amazing thing happened. All at once, Muggs was gone. He just vanished, evaporated. I was lying in the parking lot of the Dixie Dog Drive-in, blinking my eyes and wondering what had happened.

  I sat up and glanced around and saw . . . Jimmy Joe Dogcatcher. He was holding a dip-net and glaring off into the distance. Ralph was sitting inside the cage, his eyes as big as custard pies.

  Jimmy Joe muttered, “Dadgum dogs! One of these days, I’ll get ’em snared. Are you hurt, Ralphie?”

  Ralph sat there, moon-eyed, and thumped his tail. I got the impression that he didn’t know if he was hurt or not. I could have told him: he wasn’t hurt.

  The dogcatcher turned a scowl on me. “Well, hop into the cage. I’ll give you a ride.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I half-noticed that Ralph seemed to be shaking his head. Un-fortunately, I didn’t give it much thought. I hopped into the cage, and Jimmy Joe closed the door behind me. He climbed into the pickup and we headed south down Main Street.

  Ralph gave me a mournful look. “Well, you’ve done it now.”

  “Done what?”

  “Well, you jumped right into a trap.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You’re in the dogcatcher’s cage.”

  “Well, sure, but he offered to give me a ride.”

  Ralph leaned toward me. “To the dog pound.”

  “What? You mean . . .”

  “He’s the dogcatcher. He catches dogs; only he didn’t even have to catch you.”

  “What! Why, this is an outrage! I demand . . . hey, Ralph, I hope this is another one of your jokes.”

  “Meathead.”

  “So . . . it’s not a joke?”

  “Double-meathead.”

  Well, that killed the conversation. We rode in eerie silence down Main Street, the same street where, in happier times, the citizens of Twitchell had turned out in droves and honored me with a parade. It was all a hollow memory now. Nobody stood on th
e curbs to cheer me as I made the silent journey to Devil’s Island for Dogs.

  At the south end of town, we made a left turn onto a dusty road that led to the city dog pound, a collection of depressing sheds and cages where unlucky dogs came to wait for the wheels of justice to do their grim work.

  As we neared the pound, I found myself looking at the skeleton of a dead tree, filled with ten head of grinning buzzards. It wasn’t what you would call a happy omen, and it would have caused my spirits to sink if they hadn’t already sunk.

  We pulled up beside the prison compound and stopped. Jimmy Joe got out, opened the cage door, and slipped a noose around my neck. I figured we were going to attend a hanging, but he led me to a cell and left me inside.

  He closed the door and looked down at me. “Well, I didn’t get the ones I wanted, but I got you.” He leaned down toward me and whispered, “Don’t ever hitch a ride with the dogcatcher. It’ll come back to bite you every time.”

  On a better day, I might have thought of some snappy reply, but a cloud of gloom had settled over me and I couldn’t think of anything snappy to say. Actually, he had given me some good advice: “Don’t ever hitch a ride with the dogcatcher.” Too bad I hadn’t thought of it myself.

  For better or worse, Ralph hung around to keep me company. As Jimmy Joe’s personal pet, he had free run of the place and sat outside my cell, while Jimmy Joe did his chores, putting out feed and water for the prisoners.

  I wasn’t in the mood for conversation, but after a while, Ralph said, “That was pretty shrewd, what you done with the cat. You sure fooled ’em.”

  “Yes, and a lot of good it did.”

  Ralph began scratching his ear. “Boy, that cat really cleaned Muggsie’s plow. I hated to leave, it was so much fun to watch. Oh, and thanks for fighting them dogs and letting me hop in the cage. They would have eaten me alive.”

  “Yeah, well, they did a pretty good job on me.” I rose to my feet and began pacing around my cell. “But you know, Ralph, the saddest part of this is that I failed in my primary mission. We never found my friend Drover.”