The Case of the Midnight Rustler (7 page)

Chapter Twelve: Another Triumph Over the Crinimal Forces

I
would have preferred not to bite his toes, but he had left me with no choice. They were exposed, don't you see, and sticking out from under his blanket.

“EEEEEEE-YOW!”

I hated to do it, but by George it worked. He flew out of that bed and chased me around the tent three times trying to perform some act of violence upon me, but on the third lap he finally woke up.

“Holy smokes, are you trying to tell me something, Hank?”

Right. There's a cow thief in the pasture and you're chasing me around the tent, and don't we look foolish?

“Do we have a cow thief in the pasture?”

I barked.

It takes a lot of patience to work with these cowboys, but if you stay after them and don't get shot or strangled or clubbed to death with a pillow, they'll eventually come around.

I had never thought of Slim as being a guy who moved with lightning speed, mainly because on an ordinary day he moved with nonlightning speed. In other words, no speed at all.

Very slowly. Like a turtle or a waterdog or a wounded goose.

But once he figgered out what was going on, he jumped into his clothes, grabbed up a bridle, ran down to the grassy flat where the horses were hobbled and grazing, caught old Dunny, stuffed the bit into his mouth, and swung up on his back.

He didn't take the time to saddle Dunny, but rode him bareback. Now, that was more like it. At last we were getting some action out of the cowboy crew.

“Come on, pup. Lead the way.”

And so it was that we went streaking down the canyon, with me out front in the lead position, leaping rocks and fallen trees, climbing rivers and swimming swollen mountains, and so forth. I won't go into all the details.

How did I do it? How could ANY dog made of mere flesh and blood and hair and bones accomplish so many incredible, impossible feats in one night? All I can tell you is that it couldn't be done, but I did it anyway.

Okay, by the time we reached the south end of the pasture, Slim could see the headlights. He left Dunny hobbled in the bottom of the draw and climbed to the top of the hill—with me leading the way, of course.

When we got there, we looked down into the next draw and . . . I couldn't believe that Brewster was down there,
helping the rustler load up the last of the calves!

Well, maybe he wasn't exactly helping. I had already picked up on the fact that Brewster had about as much cow-sense as your average lumber truck, so he couldn't have been much help, even if he'd wanted to. But he sure as thunder wasn't doing anything to stop the crime from happening.

I mean, he was trotting along beside the rustler, panting happily and wagging his tree-limb tail. And get this. When the rustler had loaded up all his portable corral panels and was ready to go, Brewster hopped up into the back of the pickup, just as though they had become the best of friends!

When I asked him about this later, he said, “Stealing Uncle Johnny's cattle? Aw heck, is that what he was doing? He sure seemed like a nice feller to me.”

I guess if the rustler hadn't kicked him out and told him to go home, Brewster would have become an outlaw dog, and probably never would have known the difference, since he slept most of the time anyway. If you're always asleep, it doesn't make much difference which side of the law you're on.

Well, the rustler was a slick operator, but he made one little mistake (they always do, you know). He should have disconnected the lights on his license plates. But he didn't. Slim got a good look at the tags on the trailer and the pickup, and wrote the numbers down in the palm of his hand.

“His goose is now cooked,” said Slim with a smile. “Let's see, this is Wednesday. He'll be taking them calves to the livestock auction in Beaver. I have an idea that old Chumpy Cates of the Cattle Raisers will be waiting for him at the sale barn when he backs up to the chute.”

And that's pretty muchly the way things turned out. Slim climbed on Dunny and rode the two miles down to Loper's hay field, where he was baling the hay he'd mowed the day before. They drove to the house and put in a call to Chumpy Cates in Canadian (got him out of bed, I'll bet).

And with that, the wheels of justice began to roll.

When daylight came, Slim and Loper combed the pasture on horseback and found Uncle Johnny's pickup, right where he had parked it in a washout. (I found him, actually, but don't expect the cowboys to remember it that way.)

Uncle Johnny was spread out across the seat, with his boots sticking out the window and his head pillowed on a rolled-up gunnysack. Slim and Loper woke him up by banging on the hood of the pickup and yelling, “Hey, wake up in there! You're parked in a fire lane and we're fixing to tow your vehicle!”

Always making jokes, those two. How I manage to run this ranch with . . . oh well.

Uncle Johnny came out wearing a sheepish grin. “I figgered you old boys would find me sooner or later. Sure enough, it was later. Has anybody seen my dog? Brewster quit me after the wreck and I ain't seen him since. I hope the coyotes didn't eat him.”

Coyotes? Eat Brewster? Ho, that was a laugh! Who can eat a dog that's always stepping in your face? Rip and Snort would have gotten a big chuckle out of that.

As a matter of fact, Brewster had already reclaimed his spot in the back of Uncle Johnny's pickup and was throwing up a big long line of Z's.

Well, Slim and Loper tied onto Uncle Johnny's pickup with ropes and horses and pulled it out of the wash, and then we all headed down to headquarters for coffee and the ritual known as “The Telling of Tales.”

Gathered in Sally May's backyard, we all listened as Slim told and retold of our adventures up in the canyon. And yes, even I was admitted into the yard—under a temporary visa, you might say—although I could hardly relax and enjoy myself with Sally May standing nearby.

I went out of my way to smile and wag my tail at her, but she was bad about holding a grudge, you might remember, and I found it convenient to, uh, camp beneath Slim's chair and cast glances at her from afar, so to speak.

Reading the expression on her face from afar, I certainly got the feeling that my temporary visa would be very temporary, and that if I so much as set foot in her flower beds, I would feel the sting of her tongue, and then of her broom.

Slim told about how he'd gotten bucked off his horse—although he neglected to say that it happened TWICE, not once. It appeared that this event would end up as one of those secrets be­tween a cowboy and his dog.

Too bad we dogs can't talk. If we could, it would add a whole new dimension to mankind's knowledge of cowboys.

Then he told his “Weenie Thief” story and it was greeted with howls of laughter. Even Sally May loosened up enough to crack a smile and say something like, “Don't I know that dog?” Then he told the “Tent Rope” story, and I thought Uncle Johnny would fall out of his chair laughing.

I missed the humor of it myself.

But then Slim scratched me behind the ears. “Nice work, Hank. I hate to give you credit for anything, you're such a goof-off, but this time you did come through in the clutch. You ate my weenies, but then you saved my bacon. Say, that would make a great country song, wouldn't it?”

Well . . . I wasn't so sure that would make a “great country song,” and he had certainly given me a mixed compliment, to say the least. I didn't know what he meant by that “goof-off” business, and as for the slur about me stealing his alleged weenies . . .

Hey, I still held firm to the theory that those weenies had simply disappeared from camp. Vanished without a trace. Probably misplaced by some careless person.

A simple case of mistaken identity.

On the other hand, a guy takes his roses when and however he can, and Slim had definitely hit a bull's-eye in giving me full and total credit for cracking the Case of the Midnight Rustler.

And I did enjoy a moment of glory, there in Sally May's precious yard, in the golden light of dawn. Perhaps the most moving part of the whole ceremony came when Sally May herself said, “Well, I had my chance to murder the nasty thing, but maybe it's a good thing that I didn't do it.”

And with that my visa expired and I was invited to leave the yard—which was sure okay with me.

And while they laughed and told windy tales and drank coffee, guess who slipped back into harness and went back to work, protecting his ranch from evil forces.

ME.

I had cracked another case and had produced another happy ending, had even managed to squeeze a little appreciation out of certain unnamed persons whose names I won't mention. And fellers, that's as good as it gets around here.

Case closed, and back to work.

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

1
0
Every Dog Has His Day

1
1
Lost in the Dark Unchanted Forest

1
2
The Case of the Fiddle-Playing Fox

1
3
The Wounded Buzzard on Christmas Eve

1
4
Hank the Cowdog and Monkey Business

1
5
The Case of the Missing Cat

1
6
Lost in the Blinded Blizzard

1
7
The Case of the Car-Barkaholic Dog

1
8
The Case of the Hooking Bull

1
9
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