Freddy and the Dragon (5 page)

Lieutenant Sparrow wasn't there, but the man at the desk told them they could go talk to Hank if they wanted to. He was out in the stable where the troopers had kept their mounts, when they still rode horses.

When would he be released? Freddy wanted to know. The trooper wasn't sure; it was up to the Lieutenant. So they went out.

Hank was tied up, but he seemed to be well looked after. The stable was clean, and there was a heap of nice-looking hay in the manger which he was munching on. He looked round and said hello gloomily.

“Nice place you've got here,” said Jinx.

“It's all right, I suppose,” Hank said. “But 't ain't very homey.”

“Well, it isn't your home,” said Freddy. “At least, I hope it isn't going to be. What did they do—give you the third degree?”

“Took me to look at that old woman's back door. My hoof was the right size but the shoe was different. Not so heavy and a different pattern. The man said, maybe I changed my shoes before I went out to burgle houses. I said: ‘Look at my hoof, mister. I've been wearing these shoes for the past two years. Ain't had 'em off.' He looked and kinda grunted. ‘Well,' he says, ‘maybe so. But I guess we'll hold you a day or two, anyway.' Don't seem as if he knew much about shoes.”

“They can't keep you here if they don't arrest you,” said Freddy. “And you aren't under arrest.”

“Well, maybe I better stay anyway. They want to ask me some more questions: ‘Where were you at nine o'clock last Friday night?' and so on. I already told 'em I was home Friday night, and every other night in the week.
You
know, Freddy, I don't hardly ever go out at night. I got this rheumatism in my off-hind leg, and the night air's bad for it.”

“Well, if they want to ask you more questions, I suppose you'd better stay another day or so. They'll only send for you again. Eh, Jinx?”

“Sure. I know the kind of questions. Are you happy in your home life? Get enough to eat? Do you think that fat pig, Freddy, is a criminal? Why do you think so? Does he steal from Mr. Bean? Does he—”

“O.K.,” Freddy interrupted. “Come on, Jinx, Uncle Ben has to get back. So long, Hank,” he said. “If they don't let you go by the day after tomorrow, we'll come down and get you.”

In the station wagon they bounded back to the farm, and Uncle Ben took the rope up to his shop. Freddy and Jinx, who had left Cy and Bill saddled in the barn, got on and rode up to see how the perfumed bull was getting on.

He wasn't in sight, but in the woods to the west of the Witherspoon fields a great chattering of birds and squirrels was going on. As they rode closer to them they caught sight of the bull, walking restlessly about among the trees. Swooping above him, a number of birds were making remarks: “Lovely, lovely smell!” “Mmm,
mm!
Doesn't he smell good!” “Sweet as a flower bed!” And similar remarks, calculated to infuriate the bull, who was completely at their mercy.

Pretty soon Mr. Pomeroy flew out and lit on Cy's head. “Well, we drove him out of the hayfield,” he said. “It was Mrs. P.'s idea. We got all our friends to come up. We've had a barrel of fun. But we can't drive him away. He just gets in the thick brush where we can't go near him. Of course, the squirrels have helped—making nyah-nyah noises, and calling him sissy and fancy pants. He's pretty mad. But what should we do now, Freddy?”

“Uncle Ben's figuring out something. You just keep the bull out of the hay until Uncle Ben's plan gets working.”

“What is it?” asked the robin.

“Gosh, I don't know. You can't get anything out of Uncle Ben until he's ready. But don't forget that Centerboro stuff. And Mrs. Peppercorn's bicycle.”

“I've already sent a dozen of my best operatives down there,” said Mr. Pomeroy.

“Good,” Freddy said. “Keep 'em jumping.”

He and Jinx were still up there, listening to the birds and giggling at the deep grumblings of the bull, when the station wagon came bounding up. In it were Uncle Ben and Mr. Bean. They came to the gap in the fence and beckoned the animals to come down to them.

“Where's the bull?” said Mr. Bean. “Can he see us here?”

Freddy said he was in the thick brush up among the trees. “I don't think he can see us.”

Mr. Bean slid the bar aside so they could ride through, then replaced it. “Follow along,” he said, and climbed back in beside Uncle Ben. They went along the edge of the woods until they came to a place where the trees grew thinner and there was less underbrush. Uncle Ben pointed and stopped the car. He and Mr. Bean got out and pulled out the rope, which Uncle Ben had knotted into a sort of heavy net, about eight feet square. They dragged the net over to two trees, which stood about six feet apart.

“Now, Freddy,” said Mr. Bean, “s'pose you can go in there and get that bull to chase you out between these two trees?”

“Yes, sir,” said Freddy. But he could feel his tail coming uncurled, as it always did when he was scared. For suppose the bull could run faster than Cy could? He could lift horse and rider and toss them right over his back. And those horns … Freddy decided not to think about the horns.

The two men tied light ropes to the corners of the net on one side. Then they threw a rope up over a limb on each of the trees, about eight feet high. They tied these ropes, and now the net hung down, filling all the space between the trees. Then they tied ropes to the lower corners, threw the ends over limbs, and hauled the lower edges up. They held onto these second ropes, and stood each behind his tree, so that the bull wouldn't see them.

Freddy saw the plan. “But won't he notice the net?” he asked.

“Not when he's charging,” said Mr. Bean. “His nose will be right close to the ground; he won't look up. Go in and get him.”

Freddy shivered. “How about it, Cy?” he asked the pony.

“What can we lose?” said Cy. “Nothing but a couple of legs.”

Jinx reined Bill up closer. “Look, Freddy, let me do this job, will you? That's pretty rough ground in there, and a goat's more sure-footed than a horse. If Cy stumbles—”

“Aw, go polish your whiskers, cat!” Cy interrupted. “You don't think that bull would pay any attention to an insignificant little squeech like you, do you? Why, he wouldn't even—”

“That's enough, Cy,” Freddy cut in. He looked down at Jinx. “That's very good of you, Jinx—a very handsome offer. But it is I whom Mr. Bean has selected for this mission, and it is I who must carry it out, dangerous though it be.” He held his head high and looked off into the distance as he said this. Then he looked down at Jinx with a sad smile and put his fore trotter on the cat's shoulder. “And if I do not return,” he said, “do not weep for me. Remember only this: I did my duty.”

“Come on, Freddy,” said Mr. Bean. “Don't be all day.”

Freddy looked reproachfully at him, then turned his mount and rode into the woods. He looked almost too noble for words. But his tail was completely uncurled.

When he got closer to the bull, however, and could see him moving about in the thickest of the underbrush, he began to recover. The time for action had come. It was then that he was always at his best. It was the waiting that got him down.

He could hear the birds twittering their insults, could see the flash of wings as they swooped down close to the unhappy animal. The squirrels were at it too, trying to drop nuts on his nose; a cheer went up whenever there was a hit. Of course the nuts didn't hurt, but the bull had never before been attacked like this. He could no more fight them off than a man can fight off a cloud of mosquitoes. He bellowed with rage.

“Hey, bull,” Freddy shouted. “I've got some more perfume for you. Come on out, and let me squirt it on your other side. Boy, you'll be more popular than ever. Come on, sweetie pie. My, you do smell good!”

The bull came slowly toward him, smashing through the brush. He lowered his head, pawed the ground, and snorted. Freddy settled himself in the saddle, and felt Cy get set to whirl and dash off.

“Maybe I can get some ribbons to tie in your hair, too,” said Freddy. “Come on, Percy.”

Instead of charging, the bull lifted his head. “How did you know my name?” he demanded.

“You mean your name really
is
Percy?” Freddy said. “Well, what do you know! I just thought it sort of fitted you. Well well, wait till the birds hear that! Hey, J. J.—” But then the bull charged.

Cy reared up on his hind legs, swung around and ran. Freddy crouched low in the saddle. He could hear the enraged snorts behind him; they seemed so close that he expected any moment to feel the pony lifted up under him by those sharp horns. But he didn't look around. He felt that if he saw that great black head with the wicked little eyes so close behind, he would faint and fall right out of the saddle.

And then Freddy and Cy shot between the trees behind which Uncle Ben and Mr. Bean were hiding. There was a sort of scrunch and rattle of ropes, and a bellow from the bull, and he pulled Cy up and turned. The second that Freddy passed between the trees, the two men had let go the ropes that held up the lower corners of the heavy net. It fell like a curtain, and the bull plunged into it. Before he could free himself, the men had loosened the ropes holding the net's upper corners, the whole thing came down, and the men wound their captive up in it.

“We'll take him down and put him in the box stall next to Hank's stall in the stable,” said Mr. Bean.

Uncle Ben said: “How?”

“H'm,” Mr. Bean said; “'t ain't so easy. You got power enough in the station wagon to hook on and drag him down. But that don't seem hardly bein' kind to animals, like I've always tried to be, even when they acted up.”

“He's got a ring in his nose, Mr. Bean,” Freddy said.

“Why, so he has,” said Mr. Bean. He untied one of the corner ropes and, reaching through the net, knotted it to the ring in the bull's nose. It wasn't easy to untangle the animal from the net and at the same time keep hold of the rope, but they managed it. And then, after they'd got the net back in the car, Uncle Ben drove off, and Mr. Bean led the bull down to the stable. They tied him in the box stall, shook him down some hay, locked the door, and left him.

CHAPTER 5

The following morning there was news from Centerboro. The A.B.I. detectives whom Mr. Pomeroy had sent into town returned full of information. The birds had flown all over town, listening to conversations, and the bumblebees had bumbled in and out of windows, and sat on people's hats; and although a lot of what they heard wasn't important, some of it was.

Much had to do with the feeling against Freddy. Mr. Pomeroy, having listened to the reports, figured that two thirds of the people in Centerboro thought that Freddy, with some of the rest of the Bean animals, was responsible for the robberies and damage, and therefore should be arrested and jailed. Many of these, realizing that there wasn't enough evidence against him to prove him guilty, thought the easiest way to get rid of him was to get a crowd together and go out and lynch him.

But some of the most important people in town, who knew Freddy and liked him, were sure that he was innocent. In an interview in the
Sentinel
, Mr. Weezer, President of the Centerboro Bank, had this to say: “Frederick Bean is President of the First Animal Bank, a most reputable and financially sound institution. It is unthinkable that a person of his standing, whether man or pig, should go about tearing up gardens and stealing hams.”

“You think that because he is a banker, he is incapable of committing a crime?” the interviewer asked.

“Sir,” said Mr. Weezer, “when a banker commits a crime, it is a big crime, a first-class crime, a crime on a scale with his standing in the community.”