The Case of the Prowling Bear Read online

  Right. And then he roared. He didn’t growl or grumble or snarl. He ROARED.

  What happened at that point became a blur. We’re talking about a “stampede amongst the yearlings,” as the cowboys often say. Chaos, pure nerve-burning, eye-popping, spine-chilling chaos.

  I hit Full Afterburners and headed for the door. So did Slim, only the door slammed shut in the screaming wind, and for a moment of heartbeats, it appeared that we were about to be eaten alive.

  But Slim put his shoulder to the door and forced it open, and the two of us went flying outside, running for our very lives, and I can vouch that neither one of us gave the slightest thought to the bitter cold. Do you know why? Because the bear was coming after us! Over the scream of the wind, we could hear the thud of his feet on the frozen ground and the rumble of his growling voice.

  I wish I could report that Slim and I made it to the house, barricaded the doors, and armed ourselves with knives and guns and swords, but you know, Life has its way of playing nasty tricks upon us.

  I don’t know how it happened…okay, maybe I know how it happened and it doesn’t make me proud. See, in the sheer panic of the moment, I somehow got myself tangled up in his legs.

  Hey, I didn’t plan it that way. All I can say is that in moments of terror, a dog wishes to be as close to his human friends as possible, and…hang on, this is going to get REALLY SPOOKY. See, he didn’t just fall on the ground. He lost his balance, started falling, and….

  Gulp.

  Okay, Slim had been running at full speed, but lost his balance and started stumbling toward the ground. If he’d only hit the ground, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but he stayed on his feet just long enough to run into a tree. Head-first. Center-punched it and dropped like a sack of rocks.

  This was bad. This was very, very bad.

  The wind screamed, Slim was down, and I was…let’s be honest here, suddenly I was overwhelmed by sheer terror and began doing the strangest things you can imagine: cackling with insane laughter, moaning, and barking in a random fashion. I dropped to the ground, flopped around, leaped up, and ran in circles.

  And the bear kept coming…toward Slim.

  It sounds hopeless, doesn’t it? That’s the way it looked to me, but then I experienced a moment of…how can I say this? I experienced a moment of calm and clarity. It seemed to come out of nowhere. All at once, I realized that this was…this was a Halloween party and someone had dressed up in a bear suit!

  Yes, of course, why hadn’t I thought of it sooner? Ha ha. Some guy had dressed up in a bear costume and he was trying to scare everyone, ha ha, and by George, he was doing a pretty good job of that, but it was all just a joke and if I ran to the porch and hid behind the wood pile, morning would come and it would all go away.

  See, parties are just play-like stuff. They’re not real. They come and go. It happens all the time, right? Sure it does, so, yes, I headed for the porch as fast as my legs would take me.

  Slim would be fine, and tomorrow, we would share our memories and laugh around the wood burning stove. What a warm, wonderful scene it would be! A cowboy and his dog, laughing and sharing and building the bonds of trust.

  I made it to the porch and was on my way to the woodpile, when I encountered…what was that? Oh, Drover, of course. He was sitting there like a statue, but with a look of horror on his face.

  Over the howl of the wind, I yelled, “What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Not a ghost, a b-b-b-bear!”

  “It’s not a bear, Drover, it’s some guy in a Halloween costume. Don’t worry about it. Let’s hide behind the wood pile, hurry!”

  He didn’t move. His eyes were glazed and they looked a little crazy. He gave his head a hard shake. “It’s a bear…and Slim’s in trouble.” His eyes focused on me. “We’ve got to help him!”

  “Drover, listen to me. This isn’t real, it’s…it’s just a costume party, no kidding. All we have to do is hide and…”

  The voice that came out of Drover’s mouth sent chills down the back of my neck. It didn’t sound like Drover’s voice, or any voice I’d ever associated with him. It said, “If you won’t help him, I WILL.”

  He leaped off the porch and vanished in the howling storm.

  I was so shocked, I couldn’t move or think. Had I been talking to Drover, and had he spoken the words I thought I’d heard? And had he actually raced out into the storm to…to do what he’d said he was going to do?

  My mind swirled—thoughts, memories, faces, words, feelings—and above it all, I began hearing a frenzied, high-pitched yipping sound (Drover’s barking), followed by a man’s voice: “Hank, over here, I need you! Help!”

  You know what? This is WAY TOO SCARY and I can’t go on with it. You know me, I worry about the little children and…hey, let’s be frank about this. It’s too scary for me too! I mean, if the guy who’s telling the story gets so spooked that he can’t continue, what’s left to do?

  Let’s just fold it up, brush our teeth, say our prayers, and go to bed, what do you say? Nightie night, and sweet dreams.

  Chapter Twelve: You’re Supposed to be in Bed, Asleep

  What’s the deal? I thought we agreed to call it quits, but you’re still reading. Maybe you were so worried about Slim and Drover that you couldn’t sleep.

  Me too. Who can sleep when his buddies are about to be eaten by a bear?

  So here we are, wide awake and worried sick. Do we dare plunge on with the story? Here’s an idea. Let’s creep forward and see how it goes. If it gets too scary, we’ll hide under the bed and…I don’t know, eat crackers or something.

  Let’s give it a shot. Take a deep breath, we’re moving out.

  Okay, there I stood, alone on the porch, listening to the scream of the storm and the sound of my master’s voice, calling for help.

  And suddenly it all came back to me—who I was, where I was, and what had to be done. I stiffened my shoulders and tried to put some steel into my spine. That wasn’t easy, because it had turned into wilted celery.

  I turned into the wind, and gasped as it stole the breath right out of my body. In the distance, I could see the beam of the flashlight and a dimly-lit scene that might have come out of a nightmare: a man lying on his back with a pathetic, quivering little mutt beside him, and both of them watching the approach of a bear with two clawed hands raised in the air, and eyes that showed sheer menace.

  This wasn’t going to be fun.

  I dived off the porch and went ripping into the night. Seconds later, I was standing beside Drover. “All right, men, lock and load! Drover, you take the right flank and I’ll move in on the left side. We’ll lay down some cover fire and try to hold his attention. Slim, you need to get off your duff and make a dash for the house. We’ll be right behind you. Do you copy?” I turned to Drover. “Drover, check in. Do you copy?”

  He looked at me with crossed eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here! Now, I think I’ll faint.”

  “You will NOT faint! Take the right flank and lay down some barks. Move!” I shoved him into position and somehow he managed to lay down some squeaks. The bear lunged at him and took a swipe at him with his paw.

  That gave me just enough of an opening so that I rushed forward and clamped my teeth on a hind leg. I gave him a good bite, but it reminded me of biting a big fur coat: lots of hair and skin, not much meat.

  But he felt it, and I paid a price. He gave me a backhand with his left paw, and fellers, I thought I’d been hit by a bus—ten feet through the air. But the good news about backhands is that you miss the claws. It knocked the wind out of me and, well, kind of hurt my pride, but I jumped up and got back into the fight.

  I must say this about Drover. He was scared out of his mind and didn’t do much but squeak and dodge, but he didn’t faint or run for the house, and somehow the combination of my deep manly barking and h
is ridiculous squeaks kept the bear off balance and distracted.

  Slim was able to drag himself off the ground, then he started chugging toward the house. When he made it to the porch, I heard his voice above the wind. “Okay, dogs, I made it! Head for the house!”

  Well, he didn’t need to repeat that command. I looked around for Drover and…why did I bother? I should have known. He was already high-balling it back to the house, moving like a little white comet. I followed, and seconds later, executed a smooth landing on the porch and saw Slim up ahead, holding the door open for me.

  “Come on, pooch, inside! Nice work.”

  Yeah, well, we could talk about the “nice work” later. I shot through the opening and Slim slammed the door behind us. Whew! We had made it. We were alive and safe.

  Slim wasted no time celebrating. He dashed to the telephone and dialed a number. “Sheriff’s Department? This is Slim Chance. Tell Deputy Kile that his bear showed up at my house.”

  Suddenly we all heard heavy sounds on the porch. And the house began to tremble.

  Slim swallowed hard. “Tell Deputy Kile that his bear’s on my front porch!”

  I happened to be looking at Drover when the bear started banging on the door. His eyes grew wide, crossed, and moved in circles. And then…this is going to scare the liver out of you, so hang on…then there was this loud crashing sound, and WE SAW A HANDFUL OF CLAWS coming through a hole in the door!

  The bear had knocked a hole in the door and was reaching inside!

  Slim did a double-take, then yelled into the phone, “Tell Deputy Kile the bear’s coming into my house, and he needs to get down here double-quick!”

  He slammed down the phone and stood there for a moment, blinking his eyes. Drover and I sat there like…I don’t know what, but we were beyond scared, and all the while, we could hear the bear ripping a bigger hole in the front door.

  Slim seemed to be in a trance, so…well, I had to take charge. When in doubt, a dog should always bark, and that’s what I did—a loud, emphatic bark that had some iron in it. “Slim, snap out of it! A bear’s coming through the door and you need to do something!”

  His eyes came back into focus and he said, “Back door. Let’s get out of here!”

  Well, glory be! Great idea. 2.5 seconds later, Drover and I were lined up at the back door. Slim jerked it open and we went flying outside, just as the bear opened the front door and came inside.

  So what do you do in this kind of situation? I mean, the horrible beast had chased us into the house, and now he’d chased us out the back door.

  And don’t forget that the chill factor that night was about twenty degrees below zero. To escape a killer bear, we had gone out into the killer cold.

  Where do you go? Where do you hide? Slim and I had been through some bad scrapes together, but this one had all the markings of The End.

  Do we dare plunge on with this story and go soaring into the Great Unknown? We’ve made it this far. Let’s keep going.

  Somehow in all the fear and tension of the moment, Slim came up with a sensible plan, maybe the only one available. I mean, running off into the night wasn’t an option. We would have frozen to death in that cold, and then we would have become burgers for the bear.

  Here’s what we did. We crept around the south side of the house. Slim peeked around the corner. The bear had gone inside, so we made a dash for the pickup. Slim jerked open the…OH NO! The pickup door had frozen shut! How did that happen?

  Easy. When you combine freezing drizzle with below-zero chill factors, machinery stops functioning. Motors don’t start, windshield wipers don’t wipe, and doors don’t open.

  We were locked out of our pickup, standing out in the freezing cold! The bear heard our noise and came outside. He pinned his ears down and screamed a growl, went down on all-fours…and HERE HE CAME!

  It sure looked like the end, but lucky for us, Slim had been through this frozen door business before and knew how to respond. He grabbed a shovel out of the back of the pickup, stuck the shovel blade into the crack between the door and the door frame, and pried upward. And holy smokes, it worked! It broke the seal of ice and he opened the door.

  “Get in, dogs!”

  We went flying inside the pickup, and so did Slim. His breath made clouds of fog and his hands were shaking. We all looked through the window and saw the bear lumbering toward us, roaring in anger and throwing punches in their air with his huge paws.

  Slim said, “Let’s get out of here!”

  Great idea.

  His gloved hand went to the ignition key. He turned the key. The motor turned over, groaned, gurgled…and quit! In the deadly silence, Slim said, “I should have parked it out of the wind. Nothing works in this cold.”

  We watched in petrified silence as the bear loomed up beside Slim’s door and brought his huge ugly face right next to the window glass. Nobody in that pickup wanted a close-up view of this monster, but we got it anyway, every detail of his nose, teeth, and vengeful little pig eyes.

  He roared, he screeched, he banged on the window, and the only thing between us and a dreadful fate was that quarter-inch of window glass. It sounds hopeless, doesn’t it? I mean, be honest, what were the chances that we’d get out of that deal alive?

  Well, don’t give up yet. We had exhausted all our ideas and were trapped in the pickup like rabbits in a pipe, but here’s what saved our skins. In the process of roaring about all the things he was going to do to us if he ever got inside the pickup, the bear breathed hot breath on the window…and it fogged up the glass. The fog froze on the glass and he couldn’t see us inside the pickup.

  Incredible.

  We could hear him out there, but couldn’t see him, and even better, he couldn’t see us. For a while, he growled and grumbled and banged on the fender, then…silence.

  Slim found a little hole in the frost and peeked outside. “He’s back on the porch. He’s going inside the house. You know what? I’ll bet he smells my sardines.” Slim cocked his head and glanced around. “And you know what else? Bobby Kile just rolled up, and we might live to see another day.”

  Sure enough, a set of headlights cut through the darkness…no, two sets of headlights…three…holy smokes, Deputy Kile had brought a whole posse of deputies and officers, and fellers, they had arrived just in the nickering of time! It was our good fortune that they’d been out on patrol, looking for the bear, when they got a distress call from the sheriff’s office on the radio.

  Slim rolled down his window and there was Deputy Kile’s grinning face. “We’ve had a complaint about a loud party in this neighborhood.”

  Slim laughed and shook his head. “Bobby, sometimes you’re a pain in the neck, but this time…boy, am I glad to see you! The bear’s inside my house.”

  We got out of the pickup and the men went right to work. Deputy Kile had done some research on bears, and he’d come with exactly the right weapon: an air rifle that fired a tranquilizer dart.

  He crept up on the porch and peered inside. There, he saw the bear sitting on the floor, licking the juice out of the bottom of Slim’s sardine can. Deputy Kile stepped into the doorway, raised the tranquilizer gun to his shoulder, and fired. It made a little popping sound. The bear felt a sting but kept on licking sardine juice. About two minutes later, his eyes began to sag. He yawned, curled up, and went to sleep.

  Whew!

  Getting the bear out of the house proved to be a lot harder than putting him to sleep, but the crew of deputies got it done. Four strong men dragged him outside and loaded him into a covered trailer that was stout enough to hold him.

  Around eleven o’clock, Mister Half Grown Black Bear was on his way to the zoo in Oklahoma City, and we were huddled up in Slim’s living room, listening to the wind and soaking up every bit of warmth from the wood stove.

  Oh, by the way, Slim got the door patched up with duct ta
pe, a cowboy’s second-best friend, after baling wire.

  Wow, what a finish, right? Who would have thought that we could survive such an ordeal? Are you feeling better now? I sure am, and I’m glad we were brave enough to mush on with the story.

  Nice work. Brush your teeth, hit the sack, and have a nice dream. This case is closed.

  Further Reading

  Have you read all of Hank’s adventures?

  1 The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog

  2 The Further Adventures of Hank the Cowdog

  3 It’s a Dog’s Life

  4 Murder in the Middle Pasture

  5 Faded Love

  6 Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

  7 The Curse of the Incredible Priceless Corncob

  8 The Case of the One-Eyed Killer Stud Horse

  9 The Case of the Halloween Ghost

  10 Every Dog Has His Day

  11 Lost in the Dark Unchanted Forest

  12 The Case of the Fiddle-Playing Fox

  13 The Wounded Buzzard on Christmas Eve

  14 Hank the Cowdog and Monkey Business

  15 The Case of the Missing Cat

  16 Lost in the Blinded Blizzard

  17 The Case of the Car-Barkaholic Dog

  18 The Case of the Hooking Bull

  19 The Case of the Midnight Rustler

  20 The Phantom in the Mirror

  21 The Case of the Vampire Cat

  22 The Case of the Double Bumblebee Sting

  23 Moonlight Madness

  24 The Case of the Black-Hooded Hangmans

  25 The Case of the Swirling Killer Tornado

  26 The Case of the Kidnapped Collie

  27 The Case of the Night-Stalking Bone Monster

  28 The Mopwater Files

  29 The Case of the Vampire Vacuum Sweeper

  30 The Case of the Haystack Kitties

  31 The Case of the Vanishing Fishhook

  32 The Garbage Monster from Outer Space

  33 The Case of the Measled Cowboy