“Shhh. Of course you don’t. Can’t you see what I’m doing?”
“Yeah. You’re fixing to get me killed.”
“I’m running a bluff, stalling for time.”
“Oh. Gee, that’s what they said they thought you were doing. How can you run a bluff when everybody knows you’re bluffing?”
“They’re not sure, Drover. Can you see the indecision in their eyes?”
“I see murder in their eyes.”
“No, that’s indecision. Now listen. We’ve got a bluff going and we have to play it out. Just say your lines and try to look mean. And remember, as long as you’re bluffing, nothing is real and no one’ll get hurt.”
“Just bluff, huh? Well, I guess I can try.”
I glanced towards the porch again, and the next thing I knew, Drover had walked up to Blackie and whopped him across the nose.
“There’s for nuthin’, mister. Now do something and see what happens.”
Black and Jack stared at him—in disbelief, I would say, which was pretty muchly the way I stared at him too. Black starting growling and Jack started laughing.
“Yuk, yuk, yuk. He hit you on the nose!”
You know what Drover did then? He hit Jack on the nose! “What are you laughing at, smarty-pants?”
“Drover!”
He looked back at me and grinned. “Am I doing all right, Hank?”
Judging from the dark scowls on the faces of the two thugs he had just slapped, I calculated that the answer was no. They stood up, rolled their shoulders, and surrounded him.
Black spoke first. “You know what happened to the last dog that slapped me?”
“No, what happened to him?”
“He spent three weeks in the vet clinic.”
“Oh,” Drover grinned, “you’re only bluffing, you can’t fool me.”
“Drover!” At last I caught his eye and shook my head. I had to let him know that those guys weren’t bluffing.
It didn’t work. The silly grin remained. At that moment, Black and Jack tuned up and started growling, and fellers, I’m talking about the real thing. They sounded like a couple of semi-trucks going up a long hill.
At last the awful truth began to penetrate Drover’s tiny brain. His grin slipped a few notches. He turned his eyes on Black’s big white teeth.
“Nuthin’s real . . . when you’re . . .” He looked at me. “Hank, are you sure they’re bluffing?”
I gave my head a shake.
Drover gulped. “Oh my gosh. That means that I . . .”
I gave my head a nod. And right then, before my eyes, Drover fainted, the little . . . I could have wrung his . . .
Black and Jack lifted their eyes to me. Black flashed a wicked grin. “Karate, huh? Tears down porches, huh?”
“Well, uh, Drover has a heart condition, see, and sometimes . . .” They were moving towards me. “Now hold on, guys, I’m sure we can talk this . . . tell you what, if you’d like to . . . I think what we have here is a simple breakdown in . . .”
They jumped into the middle of me and the wreck was on. You know what? Those were two of the biggest dogs I’d ever seen in my entire life, and you talk about bite and scratch and kick! Holy smokes, they were in the process of taking me apart, piece by piece and leg by leg, when all at once Slim and Miss Viola came rushing out.
He grabbed Black and she grabbed Jack, and they pulled them off. Miss Viola was pretty well steamed up.
“Jackie, you naughty dog, what in the world do you think you’re doing! And Blackie, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
It was then that she saw Mister Faint-When-You-Need-Him-Most lying in the middle of the driveway. She gave a cry and ran to him and gathered him up in her arms.
As though by magic, he let out a groan. “Oh, my leg!”
Miss Viola marched over to her two dogs. By this time they were sitting beside the yard gate with their heads hung low and their tails tapping the ground.
“You big bullies, see what you’ve done? Beating up Slim’s poor little white dog, and they’re here as our guests! I’m so embarrassed!”
Well, Miss Viola laid down some mighty stern messages to her dogs. Her folks had come down off the porch by this time, and they were shaking their heads and making apologies to Slim.
While they were busy with that, I decided this would be a good time for me to even the score and put the whole thing in its proper prospectus.
I walked over to the gate, lifted my leg, and blasted the gate post.
Pretty slick maneuver, if you ask me. See, Blackie and Jackie couldn’t . . .
Only problem was that Slim eased around and booted me in the ribs. Didn’t make any sense to me. I mean, I was making points for OUR side, right? Nevertheless, he booted me in the ribs—hurt too—and said, “Hank, get in the pickup!”
Well, to wrap this thing up, I loaded myself into the back of the pickup while Slim opened the door for Miss Viola. Mister Half-Stepper got to ride up front, of course, and Miss Viola fussed over him all the way back to Slim’s place.
But the important point to remember in all this is that we—I, actually—had protected the reputation of our ranch and had scored points against a dangerous adversary.
Did Slim appreciate any of this? I’m not sure that he did, because as he was opening his door to get in, he looked back at me and said, “I ain’t ever taking you on a date with me again, dog.”
Makes you wonder, don’t it?
Chapter Five: Miss Viola’s Peculiar Eating Habits
In our part of the world, when the sun goes down in October, it gets cold. And when you’re riding in the back of the pickup, it’s colder yet. By the time we made it back to Slim’s place, I was near froze.
Now, I had a suspicion that Slim planned to leave me outside—not because I had done anything wrong, don’t you see, but just because I had gotten myself involved in an incident with Miss Viola’s hoodlum dogs, and I want to emphasize that they had started the whole thing.
The point is, I wanted to spend a quiet evening in front of the stove, so when Slim opened the front door for Miss Viola, I sort of slithered past her legs and made a dash for the stove, hoping that maybe Slim wouldn’t . . .
“Hank, get out of here! We’ve got a lady in the house.”
Miss Viola came inside, holding The Invalid in her arms. I established eye contact with her right away, gave her my most pitiful look, and whapped my tail against the hearth.
She had a good honest face, friendly eyes, and a nice smile. I had a feeling that she liked dogs and that we could do business together. I mean, here was a good old country gal who had growed up around dogs.
“Slim, it’s not going to bother me if you let him stay inside. He can’t be any worse than those two dogs of mine.”
See? I had her pegged. Me and Miss Viola were going to get along just fine.
Slim chewed on his lip and frowned at me. “Well . . .”
“It’s awfully cold outside. If I were a dog, I’d want to be in here by the stove.”
“Well . . . all right.” He came over to the stove and pointed a bony finger at my face. “You mess up one more time, and I’ll pitch you out of here in a New York minute, you got that?”
Yes sir! No more messing up for me . . . even though I hadn’t messed up the first time.
While Slim was busy with me, Miss Viola removed her coat and headed for the closet door. Old Slim’s eyes got big and he went dancing across the room.
“Whoa now, Miss . . . you better not . . .”
Too late. She twisted the knob, the door flew open, and she came within an inch of getting buried under an avalanche of saddles, blankets, boots, and so forth.
She stared at all the stuff. Slim stared at it too. His face got a little red around the edges and he tried to smile.
“That’s my ju
nk closet.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s put your coat on the chair.”
He took her coat and then she took off her hat. It was a black hat with red things around the crown. They might have been grapes, cherries, wild plums, or small tomatoes.
Ordinarily I would have sniffed it out, because it seemed a little peculiar to me. Why would anyone decorate a perfectly good hat with vegetables? But under the terms of my probation, I didn’t dare leave the stove. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged me away from that stove.
So the Mystery of the Vegetables on the Hat remained a mystery. All I could figger was that Miss Viola had brought some extra food, just in case what Slim fed her wasn’t fit to eat.
Not a bad idea, actually.
Miss Viola brought The Invalid over to the hearth and set him down beside me. She rubbed him behind the ears and said, “There, I think you’ll be all right.” And then she went into the kitchen where Slim was putting the grub together.
I turned to Drover and gave him a withering glare. “I can’t believe you did what you did.”
“What did I do?”
“First off, you got those hoodlum dogs so stirred up they were ready to kill somebody.”
“I was only bluffin’. That’s what you said to do.”
“And then, when you had ’em tuned up for murder and mayhem, you took the chicken’s way out and fainted.”
“Well, I have these spells . . .”
“For that performance, Drover, you win the Chicken Award of the Month.”
“Gosh, thanks, Hank.”
“Don’t thank me. It’s no honor. It’s a disgrace, and I must warn you that this will go into your dossier.”
“Oh darn. But it sure was nice, riding home with Miss Viola. Makes a guy want to faint more often.”
I stared at the runt. He had missed the point of my lecture. He had missed the point of every lecture in the entire world. Lectures were wasted on such a brick-head.
At that very moment, I heard a woman scream in the kitchen. Well, you know me. When it comes to protecting women and children, I get very serious, and before I could even think about it, I leaped up from the hearth and made a dash for the kitchen.
As you might have surmised, the scream came from Miss Viola, seeing as how she was the only . . . Miss Viola had screamed. That much was clear. What wasn’t so clear, and what I had to determine right away, was what had caused her to scream.
Slim was standing over the stove, taking up the weenies with a fork. When he heard the scream, he dropped the fork and whirled around.
“Why Miss Viola, what’s wrong?”
She held one hand up to her mouth, and her eyes were wide with fear. “Oh . . . I thought I saw . . . a mouse!”
Slim swallered, and that thing on his neck, adam’s apple I guess you call it, jumped up and down. “A mouse? Why, that don’t seem right. We’ve never . . . Hank, you stay in here and watch. We may have a mouse in here.”
We may have a mouse in here?
Fellers, I’d spent a good part of the afternoon herding mice in that place, and I had reason to suspect that Slim wasn’t telling . . . oh well. I just work here.
I sat down beside Miss Viola and concentrated on protecting her life from “a mouse,” so to speak.
Old Slim had turned his back on the food, and by the time he got himself turned around again, everything on the stove was either boiling over or on fire. You never saw such smoke! Blue smoke, gray smoke, white smoke.
He shut off the burners and opened the back door and fanned the air with his hands. “Got a little smokey in here,” he laughed.
I think he was the one who said it. It was hard to tell since we couldn’t see the top half of his body.
I glanced up at Miss Viola. She had a kind of cement smile on her mouth, and she coughed into her hand.
Slim took up the weenies on a plate and put the plate in the middle of the table. While he was dumping the can of beans into a bowl, Miss Viola leaned over and studied the weenies.
They did look a little strange: something black and red and yeller, with smoke still curling up from them.
“What is that?” asked Miss Viola.
“That’s Cowboy Round Steak, one of my best recipes.”
“No, I mean that.”
Slim’s eyes followed her finger. He leaned over and stared at the plate.
“Is it . . . is it a roach?” she asked.
“Oh no. No, it’s not a roach. Cricket, maybe.” He picked it off the plate and pitched it out the door. “Must have hopped into my grease. I save my grease and sometimes . . . it’s all right now. Let’s eat.” They sat down and bowed their heads, and Slim asked Miss Viola to say the blessing.
“. . . and Lord, help us through our times of testing, for Thou knowest that we’re not as strong as we need to be. Help us to find order in chaos, help us to find the good in all things. Bless this . . .” She coughed. “. . . food to the nourishment of our bodies and we’ll give Thee the praise. Amen.”
“Amen!” said Slim, as he shook out his napkin and spread it across his lap. “Well, dig in, Miss Viola. We’ve got meat, beans, and bread. Who could want more?”
She smiled, and took small helpings of weenies and beans.
“Now, we’ve got plenty, so don’t be bashful.” Miss Viola had a little trouble cutting her weenie with the fork, so she sawed off a piece with her knife.
“Oh, Slim, did you do that drawing on the wall?”
Slim turned around and looked, and suddenly . . . HUH?
Say, this was very strange. All at once Miss Viola was holding a weenie in front of my nose. Well? I ate it, of course.
“No, no, that’s my Ace Reid calendar. They give ’em out at the feed store.”
“Of course. I see now.”
“Say, you’re out of round steak. Have some more.”
He rolled another weenie onto her plate, She thanked him and sawed off a chunk.
“But Slim, isn’t that calendar out of date?”
He turned around again and . . . another weenie in front of my nose?
“By gollies, you’re right,” said Slim. “These years come and go, don’t they? It’s kind of hard for a guy to keep up.”
I ate the weenie. Sure had a load of garlic in it.
No sooner had I swallered the weenie than there was a piece of bread in front of my nose. Well heck, I wolfed it down, and Miss Viola gave me a good petting behind the ears.
Slim glared at me, then set his knife and fork down on the table. “Hank, I think it’s time for you dogs to go outside. How can a poor lady enjoy her supper with you hanging around and begging for food? Come on, Drover, you too.”
Little Drover came padding around the corner. He was wearing his usual simple grin and blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
Slim opened the back door and pointed out into the darkness. As I was leaving, I glanced back at Miss Viola. Unless my eyes played tricks on me, I saw her wrap up the rest of her weenie in a napkin and slip it into her purse.
She was a mighty nice lady, but she sure had some strange eating habits. Very strange.
Chapter Six: Strange and Eerie Sounds in the Night
The door slammed behind us and we found ourselves outside in the darkness and the cold.
Drover began shivering and moaning and looking up at the cloudy sky. “Hank, I sure wish we could have stayed inside, don’t you? It seems awful spooky out here.”
“All good things come to an end, Drover, and as for the spookiness of the situation . . .”
It was kind of spooky, to tell you the truth. For one thing, I didn’t know my way around Slim’s place. I had never spent much time down there, don’t you see, and I wasn’t too familiar with the way it was laid out.
For another thing, the wind was moaning in the tops of th
e trees. I never did care much for a moaning wind. It gives me the jitters.
And then another thing. I remembered the singing I’d heard the night before. Now, I was something of a singer myself and had been known to belt out a few songs after dark, but let me tell you something. When I hear music in the night, I like to know where it’s coming from. If it comes from nowhere, I get suspicious.
Also a little nervous.
Scared.
Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t the kind of dog who believed in ghosts and goblins and such things, but . . . it was a spooky night.
“Don’t let it bother you, Drover. This is just another night, one of many this old world has . . . what was that?”
“What?”
“I thought I heard something, a banging sound. Did you make a banging sound?”
He rolled his eyes around. “I don’t think so, unless it was my heart. It’s kind of banging around.”
“No, this was something else.” We listened, and there it was again: a banging sound. “Drover, I think we’d better check this thing out. Something strange is going on around here.”
“Maybe it would be better if we stayed on the porch.”
“No, that’s a bad idea. Do you want to know why?”
“Not really.”
“If we stayed on the porch, Drover, we’d be running away from our fears. We’d never learn what it was that caused us to be afraid.”
“Yeah, that’s what I like about it.”
“Where’s your curiosity? Your sense of adventure? Don’t you want to plumb the mysteries of the Great Unknown?”
“I never was much of a plumber.”
“Very well, if you insist on being a scaredy-cat and a chicken-liver, I’ll go by myself. I’ll take all the chances and then I’ll take all the credit, while you go to the porch and hide from every little sound in the night. Is that what you want, Drover? Is that the way you want to conduct your life? You’re old enough now to make your own decisions. The choice is yours.”
The Case of the Halloween Ghost Page 3