The Case of the Fiddle Playing Fox Read online

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So I’ll accept your offer, but I’m doing it as a personal favor to you.”

  “Uh, thank you so much.”

  I dabbed at the moisture in the corners of my eyes. “Sometimes, Frankie, a guy just doesn’t know how he can stand to live another day.”

  He patted me on the shoulder. “I know, son, but they tell me that the best cure for a broken heart is a dozen busted eggs.”

  “And you’re suggesting that mere food could heal this terrible wound?”

  “In a word, uh, yes.”

  My stomach growled again. “In that case, let’s adjourn to the chicken house and let Miss Beulah feather her own nest.”

  And off we went to the chicken house, never suspecting that . . . well, you’ll see.

  Chapter Twelve: Heartbroken and Sprayed, but a Hero to the End

  On our way to the chicken house, we talked.

  “Frankie, I was too good for her anyway.”

  “Um hmm.”

  “Any woman who’d chase after a bird dog is for the birds.”

  “I’m sure that’s right.”

  “And, to be quite frank, Frankie, I don’t even . . .” Suddenly I fell to the ground with a terrible pain in my chest. “Holy smokes, I think my heart’s cut half in two. I love her, Frankie, I can’t get her off my mind, rush me to the chicken house!”

  “Get up, son, I can’t carry you.”

  I struggled to my feet. Holding a front paw over my heart, I limped onward, until at last we reached the chicken house. The sun had gone down. Darkness had fallen over the valley and, best of all, the chickens had gone to roost.

  Frankie put his ear to the door and listened. When he straightened up, I saw that he was wearing that same old sly smile I had seen the night before.

  “All’s well. I’ll go first and play. And then,” he winked, “uh, let the feast begin.”

  “I’ll be right behind you.”

  He cranked up his fiddle and slipped inside, and I followed a step or two behind. At that point, I began to notice that clouds had covered the full moon and that it was rather dark. Very dark. Pitch black.

  In other words, this job would have to be done strictly on sound and feel. I could hear the hens’ feet swishing across the floor as they got out of their nests and began to dance, and now and then a contented clucking sound came to my ears.

  So far so good. I came to the first nest and gobbled two nice, fresh, juicy eggs. Already the pain in my heart had begun to slip away. Yes, this was an excellent cure.

  I moved along and came to the next . . . this hen hadn’t left her nest. Perhaps she was old, or Baptist and didn’t believe in dancing. I would have to . . .

  Funny, I’d thought that all hens had feathers, not hair. I fumbled around in the darkness with my paws and . . . this hen had hair. That was a new one on . . .

  And a TAIL? A long tail with the hairs sticking straight out? Now, that beat it all. I had never heard of a chicken with hair and a tail.

  And four legs? Hmmm. Very strange.

  And, you know, the chicken house sure had a peculiar odor about it, almost like the smell of a . . . HUH?

  WHOOOOOOSH! SPLAT! SSSSSSSSSS!

  I stumbled through the darkness, gasping for breath and stepping on squawking hens. I tumbled out the door, and a moment later, Frankie tumbled out on top of me.

  We both gagged and coughed and caught our respective breaths, but then we had to make fast tracks for the creek bottom, since the chickens were raising a terrible stink. So to speak. Noise, actually.

  We ran for our lives and managed to reach the willows without being shot, collapsed on the ground and panted for air. The air, by the way, smelled awful.

  Frankie was the first to speak. “Son, I told you once before that you have a heavy touch with the chickens. What was it that went off in there?”

  “Frankie, the best I can figger is that they’ve got egg-laying skunks on this ranch.”

  “Uh, no. The skunk might have been stealin’ eggs, but he wasn’t a-layin’ eggs.”

  “Whatever. But I’m almost sure that there was a skunk in the nest.”

  “Yes, I think you could say that. And he did go off and you did take a direct hit.”

  “Yes, of course. It’s all coming together now: the hair, the tail, the four feet, the strange odor, and then the whoosh sound. That was a skunk in there, Frankie, and I’ll bet he was robbing eggs.”

  Frankie wrinkled up his nose and began backing away. “Son, this friendship has just been put to the test, and it has, uh, flunked. When you get to smellin’ better, I hope you’ll look me up. Nothing personal, but good night, good-bye, and good luck.”

  “Wait! Frankie? Why you, you . . . fair-weather friend! You fickle fiddle-playing fox! Go ahead and leave a friend just because he stinks, see if I care! I didn’t like your smell either, so there!”

  No answer. He was gone.

  Sure was quiet out there. And kind of lonely. Very lonely. Holy smokes, I’d lost everything—my job, my girl, my friends, my gunnysack. I had no one to tell my troubles to, and nowhere to go.

  I began walking up the creek, with my head and tail sunk so low that they almost met in the middle. I was hauling around all the cares of the world, fellers, and wondering if I could stand to drag myself through another night. But then . . .

  I heard a sound, a voice. I lifted my head and perked my ears, and noticed that I had been walking for an hour or more and had reached a point just down the creek from Slim’s place.

  I stopped and listened. There it was again. Yes, it was a voice, a faint voice, calling someone.

  “Here boy! Come on home!”

  Someone was out in the night, calling his dog. That only made me feel worse, knowing that there were people in the world who cared enough about their dogs to . . .

  There it was again, only this time . . .

  “Hank, here boy! Here, Hank!”

  Hank? Could there be TWO dogs named Hank on this creek? Surely . . . no! Someone was out in the night, calling for ME!

  I went streaking towards the sound of the voice, and somehow the thought never occurred to me that the unknown party in the equation might be calling me for a date with THE FIRING SQUAD.

  I’m a trusting soul, don’t you know, and in the excitement of hearing my own name, I had forgotten that I had been seen the night before, running away from Sally May’s chicken house with a two-faced, nest-robbing, fiddle-playing fox.

  And so, like an innocent pup who has no knowledge of life’s twisted path, I ran straight towards the two flashlight beams that probed the darkness along the creek.

  And I was even foolish enough to bark and give them my exact position.

  I heard the click-click of the pump shotgun, as one of the strangers threw a loaded shell into the chamber. Both flashlight beams swung around and punched me in the eyes. I came to a sudden stop.

  It was at that moment that the awful truth hit me.

  I had walked right into a trap, fellers. An am­bush. A cruel conspiracy. They had me just where they wanted me, and it was all over but the shooting.

  “Well,” I said to myself, “Hold your head up, old son, and take it like a cowdog.” I closed my eyes, held my head up, and waited for the ineffable . . . inedible . . . inevitable.

  “Hey Loper, it’s him! It’s old Hank!”

  “By gollies, it is! I thought he was a coyote at first.”

  Heavy footsteps came my way through the tall grass. I waited for the flash of light and the boom and the ineffable buckshot. But they didn’t come.

  Suddenly Slim and Loper were there in front of me, and . . . I cracked my eyes and saw smiles? I didn’t want to be a sucker, but just in case those smiles were meant for me, I gave my tail a tentative wag.

  “Hank, you old rascal, we’ve be
en looking all over this valley for you! Where have you been?”

  I, uh, ran a paw across my mouth, just in case there might have been . . . just to spruce myself up for the, uh, company, because it’s never a good idea to meet the public with a, uh, dirty face.

  “We were scared that after you chased that fox off the ranch yesterday, he might have whupped up on you. Good dog, Hank, and welcome home!”

  I could hardly believe my ears. This was too good to be true, and yet . . .

  Loper set his shotgun on the ground and crouched down. It appeared that he wanted to give me a hug, so I coiled my legs under me and flew into his awaiting arms. And also licked him on the face.

  “Yeah, good dog, Hank. My wife is mighty proud of . . . shoo! My gosh, Hank, you smell worse than fifteen dead elephants! What in the world did you get into this time?”

  He coughed and gagged and pushed me away.

  Slim shifted his toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other. “Smells a little like a skunk, don’t it?”

  “A little? Slim, this dog is a danger to the public health! Hank, you old fool, just once I wish you’d . . . oh, well, at least he’s back home. Nothing ain’t perfect, I guess.”

  “Not on this ranch, it ain’t,” said Slim.

  Well, it turned out to be another triumphant homecoming for you-know-who, which was a bit more than I had dared to hope for. And here’s how that happened.

  Sure ’nuff, Loper had seen me and Frankie and Drover running away from the chicken house, and sure ’nuff, he had fired his shotgun in our direction.

  But it had been our good fortune that Frankie the Fox had been in the lead, which meant that we dogs had appeared to be chasing him off the ranch.

  Which hadn’t been entirely an accident come to think of it. You see, I had suspected all along that . . .

  Well, shucks, look at the record. I had caught that sneaking, thieving Frankie the Fox in the act of robbing eggs and had run him off the ranch forever. I had gotten the hero’s welcome I so richly de­served, and things had turned out right in the end.

  And fellers, there’s no better time to end a story than when things have turned out right, and there’s no better place to end a story than at the end. And this is just about the end.

  One last word and then I’ll quit. You remember the parts of this story where I was supposedly robbing nests and eating raw eggs with that sneaking fox? Those passages were based on gossip and inconclusive reports.

  In other words, I was misquoted. I would ap­preciate it if you would go back through this book and scratch out those passages because, well, people might get the wrong idea.

  Heads of Ranch Security do not, I repeat, DO NOT rob nests or eat raw eggs. Never. Ever.

  Honest.

  Cross my heart.

  No kidding.

  Thanks. See you around. And don’t forget to cross out the naughty parts.

  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

  34 Slim’s Good-bye

  35 The Case of the Saddle House Robbery

  36 The Case of the Raging Rottweiler

  37 The Case of the Deadly Ha-Ha Game

  38 The Fling

  39 The Secret Laundry Monster Files

  40 The Case of the Missing Bird Dog

  41 The Case of the Shipwrecked Tree

  42 The Case of the Burrowing Robot

  43 The Case of the Twisted Kitty

  44 The Dungeon of Doom

  45 The Case of the Falling Sky

  46 The Case of the Tricky Trap

  47 The Case of the Tender Cheeping Chickies

  48 The Case of the Monkey Burglar

  49 The Case of the Booby-Trapped Pickup

  50 The Case of the Most Ancient Bone

  51 The Case of the Blazing Sky

  52 The Quest for the Great White Quail

  53 Drover’s Secret Life

  54 The Case of the Dinosaur Birds

  55 The Case of the Secret Weapon

  56 The Case of the Coyote Invasion

  57 The Disappearance of Drover

  58 The Case of the Mysterious Voice

  59 The Case of the Perfect Dog

  60 The Big Question

  61 The Case of the Prowling Bear

  62 The Ghost of Rabbits Past

  About the Author and Illustrator

  John R. Erickson, a former cowboy, has written numerous books for both children and adults and is best known for his acclaimed Hank the Cowdog series. He lives and works on his ranch in Perryton, Texas, with his family.

  Gerald L. Holmes has illustrated numerous cartoons and textbooks in addition to the Hank the Cowdog series. He lives in Perryton, Texas.