The Return of the Charlie Monsters Read online

  Heh. That got his attention. He looked as though he’d stuck his tail into a light socket. “You wouldn’t!”

  “I would. I will.”

  “You’d actually do that?”

  “Correct. Out with it, what’s your idea?”

  Boy, you talk about a cat that was shook up! He was shaking and gasping, I mean could hardly draw a breath, but at last he was able to speak. “Very well, Hankie. I guess I have no choice.”

  “Exactly right. Hurry up.”

  He took his sweet time, but at last he came clean. “When you and Sally May left for town, a cow came out of the brush and walked straight to the garden.”

  “Hold it right there. Red cow with horns? Orange tag in her left ear with #35 on it?”

  “Yes, but how did you know?”

  “Ha. That’s the notorious Phantom Cow, and we’ve been watching her for months. Go on.”

  “Well, she walked up to the garden fence and looked at all the green vegetables. I got the impression that she was about to jump the fence and eat the garden, but just then, you and Slim drove up and she ran back into the brush.”

  I began pacing. “Of course! That’s why she showed up all of a sudden. Don’t you get it? First the rabbits, then the deer, and now the Phantom Cow. They all want to eat Sally May’s garden, and they’re all working for the Charlies!” I whirled around and gave the cat a triumphant smile. “If I can keep the cow from destroying the garden, I’ll win big points with Sally May!”

  Pete heaved a sigh. “Yes, that was my idea, Hankie. You’ve dragged it out of me”

  I marched back to the tree and glared up at him. “Nice try, Kitty, but your so-called idea is old news. We’ve been working this case for weeks and were just waiting for the right moment to activate the Special Crimes Unit.”

  “Oh really. Then I’m sure you know,” he fluttered his eyelids, “that the cow just jumped the fence and is eating the garden…as we speak.”

  HUH?

  To be honest, I wasn’t…see, the cat was up in the tree and had a much broader field of…fellers, it was time to Launch All Dogs!

  “Thanks for the tip, Pete. It wasn’t much, but one of these days, maybe we can find a little job for you in the Security Division.”

  “Oh, thank you, Hankie!”

  Wow, what an interrogation! I had extracted vital information from the cat, and now it was time to put it to work. I fired up engines one and two, and went roaring up to the machine shed. I wasn’t one bit afraid of that Phantom Cow, but…okay, I was afraid of the old hag. Hey, she’d been recruited by the Charlies and I needed Cowboy Backup.

  I cut the engines, coasted into the barn, and sent out a blast of Three Alarm Barking. Only then did I realize that I had blundered into an extremely dangerous situation. What I saw…do I dare describe this? I guess I will, but hang on to something solid.

  What I saw in the machine shed sent a cold chill through my entire body: A REAL-LIVE CHARLIE MONSTER WAS CROUCHED IN FRONT OF A CAMPFIRE, COOKING HIS LUNCH!

  It was one of the Robot Charlies, the kind with only one eye. They come from another galaxy—the Charlies do, not the eyes. Well, I guess the eyes do too, but never mind.

  Suddenly my head swirled with clues and facts that came at me like a load of buckshot.

  •The Charlies had launched a full-scale, two-pronged invasion.

  •The Phantom Cow had invaded the garden.

  •One of the Robot Charlies had captured the machine shed.

  •Slim had vanished.

  •And, good grief, maybe that’s what the Robot Charlie was cooking over his fire—the remains of poor Slim!

  This was awful.

  Well, I had already announced myself with the Three Alarm Barking, and there was no turning back. The Robot Charlie heard me. He raised up from his campfire, turned around, and glared at me with that horrible Cyclops eye in the middle of his face.

  I won’t try to sugar-coat this. The sight of that one-eyed creature chilled my giver and lizard...my liver and gizzard, let us say. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t bark, I couldn’t do anything but stare into the depths of that horrible eye. And then…

  Chapter Twelve: Incredible Finish, Just Incredible

  Holy smokes, I almost fainted with relief. Whew! You won’t…ha ha…you won’t believe this. It was Slim Chance, welding on the hay mower and wearing a welding hood! Ha ha. In other words, there was no Robot Charlie cooking Slim’s remains over a bed of coals.

  Wow. If I’d had more time, I would have…I don’t know, laughed or celebrated or something, but don’t forget that we had been invaded. We didn’t have a moment to gain. I looked directly into Slim’s eyes (he had removed the welding hood, and that really helped) and gave him a suite of barking techniques that delivered a complex message:

  “Slim, over the years you and I have done more than our share of goofing off, but we must put that behind us. This is a new day, a new deal. The Phantom Cow is in Sally May’s garden and, buddy, I need your help.”

  To be honest, I had my doubts that he would get the message. I mean, this was the same guy who sang corny songs and threw mop water on his dogs. But you know what? Something about the tone of my barking penetrated all the Goof-Off layers of his mind, and he seemed to understand that something was wrong.

  He shut off the welder and set the hood on the floor. “Okay, pooch, I’ll bite. What did you find, a rattlesnake?”

  No, not a snake, much worse. Let’s go!

  As you know, Slim was not an Olympic sprinter. He moved at his own pace, which varied between slow and slower, but by George, he came.

  I went streaking down the hill, set up a forward position outside the garden, and began laying down a withering barrage of Mortar Barks. The Phantom Cow was having a dandy old time, munching squash blossoms. She heard me, of course, raised her head and gave me fierce look that said something like, “Buzz off, doggie.”

  Would I take that kind of lip off a cow that was trespassing in our garden? Uh…yes. I mean, bravery is very important in this line of work, but we must spend it wisely, so to speak.

  I would wait for Slim. Someone needed to open the gate, right? And if we had to send troops into the garden, Slim was more qualified than I to, uh, lead us into combat. No kidding. But I would be right behind him.

  It took him forever to get there, but he finally made it, limping because of his hamster muscle. He recognized the cow right away. “Good honk, it’s that old rip that stays off by herself. Okay, pooch, I’ll open the gate, and you let her have it.” He swung the gate open and pointed inside. “Go get ‘er!”

  I gave him a blank stare that said, “Me? Forget that. You go get ‘er.”

  He shook his head and muttered “Bozo” under his breath. Staying outside the fence, he walked around to the back side of the garden and waved his arms at the cow. “Hyah, go on, get out of there!”

  I knew what he was doing and agreed that it was the right strategy: stay outside the fence and shoo her out the gate. The only trouble was, it didn’t work. Instead of running away, the cow turned and faced him as he walked around the fence. She wasn’t afraid of him and she had no intention of leaving.

  Slim looked at me. “Hank, squirt in there and give her the treatment.”

  Give her the treatment? Ha. No thanks.

  “Chicken liver. Okay, by grabs, Plan B.” He glanced around and found a limb that had fallen from one of the elm trees. He broke it off so that it was just the right size for a club, and limped back to the gate.

  I was there, waiting for orders, and gave him Loyal Wags on the tail section. He curled his lip at me. “You know why she didn’t go out the gate?”

  Uh…no. Why?

  “Because you were standing in it.”

  Oh.

  “Mister Barf In The Car.”

  Did we need to bring that u
p again? Make one little mistake around here…

  “Come on. If she’s hard of hearing, you might have to break with tradition and do some work.”

  He gets so childish sometimes.

  He entered the garden and I…well, pretty muchly stayed behind him and kept him between me and the cow. It was just a precaution. Don’t forget, that cow was working for the Charlies, and we had every reason to suppose that she might have some dirty tricks.

  Slim stayed close to the fence and walked around behind her. He got himself in the right position to run her out the gate, but she didn’t turn toward the gate. She continued to face him, glaring, swishing her tail and shaking her horns.

  This wasn’t looking good. Slim picked up a dirt clod and nailed her between the eyes. The cow bawled, shook her head, and took a step toward him. He raised the club.

  “Now listen, you old bat, leave the garden, or me and you are fixing to have a collision. Hank, you ready?”

  Sort of. Maybe. Sure.

  He moved toward her and waved the club. “Hyah! Scat!”

  Any normal cow would have turned and trotted out the gate. This was not a normal cow. Instead of leaving, she dropped her head and charged. Slim gave her a whack on the head, but she didn’t even notice. She got him loaded on her horns and pitched him into a spot between the okra and the black-eyed peas.

  Well! It was obvious that we needed to pull our troops back to a fresh position outside the garden. I mean, this was a bad cow and somebody could get hurt. I whirled around and headed for the gate.

  “Hank! Help!”

  I stopped in my tracks. You know, there are certain words that resonate in a dog’s mind, and one of them is “help,” especially when it’s called out in a desperate tone of voice by one of our friends.

  I’ll be frank. It isn’t a word we yearn to hear, but when it comes, it shuts down our main circuits and throws everything over into the Emergency System. At that point, everything is automated. We don’t THINK. We DO.

  And what I did surprised everyone in the garden—Slim, me, and especially the Phantom Cow. I hit Turbos, sprinted through the tomatoes, launched myself into the air, and grabbed a mouthful of her left flank. That got her attention. She bawled, bucked, snorted, twisted, whirled around, and tried to hook me with a horn.

  Foolish cow. She missed with the horn and I took a bite on her left ear. Bad idea. See, when they toss their head, if you’re clinging to an ear, you get air-mailed. I got air-mailed into the fence, but it gave Slim enough time to get back on his feet. He jerked off his leather belt and gave it a twirl. When the cow turned on him, he laid the heavy buckle between her horns.

  WHACK!

  That got her attention, and I went roaring back into the fight, biting anything that didn’t bite me back—flanks, nose, heels, tail, ears. Oh, you should have seen us! Slim gave her a thrashing with his belt and I took what was left.

  Fellers, that cow might have thought she was tough when she got there, but after we’d worked on her for a while, she changed her mind. She lost her taste for fresh vegetables and quit the garden.

  A sane cow would have gone through the open gate, right? I mean, that’s why we’d opened it. But in one last hateful gesture, she plowed through the south fence and headed for the brush along the creek. But by George, she was gone.

  Slim placed his hands on his knees and gasped for air, and I did a little gasping too. When his head came up, he was wearing a grin. “Pooch, we won, just like John Wayne cleaning out the saloon.”

  Absolutely. Who?

  “And we saved most of the garden. I’ve got a feeling that you might have salvaged some of your reputation.”

  Salvaged…oh yes. Sally May.

  “And I’ll even volunteer to be a character witness. That don’t happen very often around here. Good dog.”

  He gave me rubs and pats, then we went to work, rebuilding the fence, which was quite a wreck. We had just finished stretching up the last strand of wire when Sally May and Loper came back from town.

  Slim laid down his fence stretchers and gave me a wink. “Let’s go speak to the authorities.”

  Gulp. Okay, but I was feeling a little uneasy about this.

  On the way up to the house, I switched over to the Contrition Program: low head, low tail, sad ears, downcast eyes. And I did some rehearsing on my story: “Sally May, I know you might find this hard to believe, but I was poisoned by the Charlie Monsters. It was all part of a huge conspiracy. The turkeys were in on it, the cow, your cat…and the mailman is actually a secret agent! Honest. No kidding.”

  Would it work? I wasn’t hopeful. But you know what? It turned out better than I could have dreamed. Sally May’s mood had softened since I’d seen her on the side of the highway, and let me see if I can sort it all out.

  First of all, the black eye hadn’t turned as dark as she’d feared, and at Bible School, it had become the Story of the Day. Second, Slim had succeeded in restoring her car to its original condition, clean and fresh, so she didn’t have to burn it or push it over a cliff. That did a lot to improve her mood.

  And third—this was the Big One—Slim Chance gave a ripping-good testimonial about our skirmish with the Phantom Cow. “Old Hank barked the warning and backed me up when she came after me. I hate to say it, but he might have saved me and your garden both.”

  This next part will blow you away. Sally May was so impressed, she invited me into her yard and we sat down on the porch, just the two of us. I wasn’t sure where this was going, but when I saw the warmth in her eyes, I had a feeling that it was going to be okay.

  She spoke in a soft voice. “The Good Book says, ‘Ask now the beasts and they shall teach you.’ You keep trying to teach me that this isn’t a perfect world. Thank you for the lesson. I’ll try to be more patient, but Hank…please try to be a good dog.”

  Oh, yes ma’am. I swore an oath, took a pledge. No more Bad Dog for me!

  She pulled me into a hug. “Oh my word, you need a bath!”

  What? Hey, Slim had already given me a bath, a whole bucket of soapy water. How clean does a dog have to be?

  Oh well. I got a bath, right there in Sally May’s yard, and it wasn’t so bad. The important thing is that Sally May and I had patched things up, and I embarked on a new campaign to become the Dog of Her Dreams.

  Pretty amazing finish, huh? You bet. I had turned back an invasion of the Charlie Monsters and had won a huge victory over the…I almost said, “over the cat,” but one thing bothered me.

  Was there any chance that Pete had…I know this sounds crazy…was there any chance that he’d done me a favor behind my back? Tricked me into doing…surely not. I mean, he’s just a dumb little ranch cat.

  Never mind. 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 Vampir
e 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

  63 The Return of the Charlie Monsters