The Case of the Coyote Invasion

by John R. Erickson

  “Not a big one?”

  “Nope, it’s tee-eency. You’ll hardly even notice it.”

  “Hmmm.” I marched over to him and looked him straight in the eyes. “All right, I’ll grant you one tiny wish, and we’ll seal it with our Cowdog Oaths. What’s your tiny wish?”

  “My tiny wish is . . .” He rolled his eyes up to the clouds. “I wish that you’d go on this mission and leave me here, ’cause my leg’s killing me.”

  His words went through me like a jolt of lightning, starting just behind my ears, moving down my spine, and going all the way to the end of my tail. Speechless, I stared at the runt. I couldn’t believe he’d done this to me!

  “Drover, that’s cheating!”

  “Yeah, but we made a deal.”

  “It’s a low-down cheating deal. It’s trickery, it’s the kind of underhanded swindle I would expect from a cat but not from you!” I paced several steps away. “Drover, we could always renegotiate.”

  “No thanks.”

  “We could have a cooling-off period, then come back to the table. What do you say?”

  “You gave your Cowdog Oath.”

  “I know that, but . . .” I marched back to him and screamed in his face. “Don’t you understand? This could be a very dangerous mission! Do you actually want to put your commanding officer in harm’s way?” He didn’t answer. I was snookered. “All right, you little crook, I’ll take the mission, but this will go into your Permanent Record!” I whirled around and stalked away. “I have nothing more to say to you.”

  “I never thought I’d see the day.”

  “What?”

  “I said, I hope you have a nice day.”

  “I will not have a nice day, and don’t tell me what to do.”

  “Well, have a terrible day.”

  “I will.” I did an about-face and went back to him. “Here’s an idea. How about Scrap Rights? See, we could throw two or three days’ of Scrap Rights into the deal and . . .” He was shaking his head. “Like I said, there’s no future in trying to reason with a crook, and that’s what you are, Drover, a miserable little crook. Good-bye.”

  I whirled around and marched away, leaving the little mutter-mumble to stew in his own tomatoes. Fine. I would do the mission. I thrive on tough assignments, and the tougher the better. When you get to be Head of Ranch Security, you take the bitter with the sour and make lemonade out of the pickles.

  With my head held high, I marched away from home and gunnysack, away from comfort and leisure and all the other things that had corrupted Drover and turned him into the kind of pampered little weenie I had never wanted to be. I was pumped and ready to tackle this new assignment, and the excitement of doing battle with the entire coyote nation filled me with . . .

  You know what? It filled me with DREAD, is what it filled me with, and by the time I reached the machine shed, I was, uh, having second thoughts. And third and fourth thoughts. I did a quick glance in all directions (nobody was watching) and darted inside.

  Well, why not? If the coyotes raided the chicken house, so what? Did I care about chickens? No. They weren’t my chickens. All at once, a feeling of peace and tranquittery washed over my mind. It was clear what we needed to do at this point in the investigation: hide in the machine shed and, you know, give things a chance to work themselves out.

  Planning. We needed to develop a detailed plan, see, and the machine shed offered the kind of quiet atmosphere that was perfect for long-range planning. If the coyotes launched a raid, I would be in position to observe it through a peephole. Just think of all the valuable information I could gather about their troop strength and tactics. Great information.

  So, yes, this was the time to lay low and regroup in the machine shed. Don’t forget, this was Drover’s Secret Sanctuary, the place where he sought refuge from Life and all its complications. If it worked for Drover, by George, it might work for me, too.

  And so it was that I slithered my way into the backest, darkest, dustiest corner of the machine shed, into the gloomy depths where Sally May stored her grandmother’s antique furniture and Loper stored his canvas-covered canoe. There in the silence, I found peace and quiet, and felt not one shred of guilt.

  Okay, let’s be honest. I felt some guilt, but I could handle it. No one would ever find me here. No one would ever . . .

  “Hey pooch, come out of there!”

  Huh? Unless my ears were playing tricks on me, I had just heard a voice, perhaps the voice of a meddling rooster. But that was impossible. I was hidden, invisible to enemy radar. I sank lower into the gloomy shadows.

  “Pooch, I saw you go in there, so you might as well come out.”

  Disguising my voice, I called out, “We have no dogs in here. Go away.”

  “Well, if you ain’t a dog, what are you?”

  “I’m . . . I’m the troll of the machine shed.”

  “Oh yeah? I don’t believe in trolls.”

  “Well, I don’t believe in roosters. Go away.”

  “How’d you know I’m a rooster?”

  I flinched. “It was a wild guess.”

  “Heh. You just got mousetrapped, pooch. Are you coming out or do you want me to come in there and root you out?”

  Oh brother. I had been exposed. I pushed myself up to a standing position and headed for the slot of light between the big sliding doors. There, a long-tailed, red-eyed rooster stood in the gap between the doors, peering inside and wearing a haughty little smirk. Just as I had suspected, it was J. T. Cluck.

  I paced up to him and gave him an unfriendly glare. “You didn’t see me come in here. I checked, and you were nowhere around.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, it was a shot in the dark, all right, but I smoked you out, didn’t I? Caught you hiding, didn’t I? Heh heh.”

  “You didn’t catch me, and I’m not hiding.”

  “Then what were you doing in there, huh?”

  “For your information, I was going over reports and planning my schedule for the rest of the month.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

  “What do you want? I’m busy and I don’t wish to be disturbed.”

  He leaned toward me. “Well, too bad, ’cause you’re fixing to be disturbed. Them coyotes are howling again, and I want you to hear it.”

  “J.T., we’ve been studying Elsa’s report about the coyotes and we’ve decided . . .”

  “Come on, dog, this ain’t Elsa talking. This is the real thing.”

  I didn’t want to get involved in this chicken business, but there was a note of urgency in his voice. I left the barn and followed J.T. Little did I know . . . well, you’ll see.

  Chapter Nine: Pullybones and Drumsticks

  I followed J. T. Cluck around to the west side of the machine shed. There, to my surprise, I saw twenty-seven white leghorn hens huddled in a group. They weren’t clucking or making a sound, and that struck me as odd. Under normal conditions, our barnyard chickens would be making some kind of noise, but these weren’t. They seemed to be looking off to the north, toward the big canyons in the distance.

  When they heard us approaching, they turned and stared at me with worried eyes, as though the dummies thought I had . . . slurp . . . evil intentions or something ridiculous like that. J.T. must have noticed their concern and said, “Y’all don’t fret. He’s the guard dog around here. I want him to hear this. Are they still carrying on out there?”

  The chickens nodded, and several pointed their wings to the north. They cocked their heads and listened. I lifted my right ear to the Full Gathering Position and swung it around to the north. At first I heard only a whisper of wind, but then . . . there it was, a very strange sound. I mean, it gave me the creeps.

  Should I describe it? I guess we can give it a try. Here’s exactly what I heard, a rumble of menacing voices, chanting these words:

  Wishbon
e!

  Drumstick!

  Pullybone!

  Thigh, thigh!

  Wishbone!

  Drumstick!

  Pullybone!

  Thigh, thigh!

  J.T. swung his gaze around to me. “What do you say now, pooch?”

  “I’d say those are coyotes, maybe eight or ten of them, and they’ve got mischief on their minds. I mean, when they start chanting about . . . slurp . . . drumsticks and all those other bodily parts, they’re up to no good.”

  “That’s right, and now you know I didn’t make it up.” He cocked his head and locked one of his rooster eyes on me. “Say, you’ve got water dripping off your tongue. What’s the deal, you got hydrophobia or something?”

  I turned my back on him so that he couldn’t see . . . so that he wouldn’t be distracted by, uh, distractions. “J.T., could we stick to the point?”

  “Well, if you’ll quit dripping, I’ll quit worrying about it. It don’t look healthy.”

  I mopped up the water inside my mouth and whirled around. “J.T., the coyotes are getting worked up to raid the chicken house. Sally May wouldn’t like that.”

  J.T. rocked up and down on his toes. “I told you that an hour ago. What are you going to do about it?”

  My mind was racing. “Somebody needs to go out there and check it out, and I was thinking . . . well, maybe you’d like to volunteer.”

  “Heh heh. Nope. You’re the big dog around here. Saddle up, son, and do your duty. While you’re gone, me and the girls will make some preparations of our own. Good luck . . . and don’t go running any rabbits out there.” He turned to the hens. “All right, y’all, gather around. There’s danger lurking, and we’re fixing to go into our Disaster Drill. Ready? Go!”

  You’d have thought a stick of dynamite had gone off in the middle of those chickens. There was an explosion of squawks and flapping wings, and suddenly hysterical birds were running around in all directions, shrieking, “Disaster! Help! Run! Earthquake! Fire! Murder! The sky is falling!”

  It was crazy, but exactly the sort of behavior you can expect from a bunch of brainless birds. If I hadn’t moved out of the way, they would have run smooth over the top of me. Does that make any sense? I got paid for protecting these morons, but there they were . . . oh well.

  I left the riot of screeching birds and headed north in a long trot. I wasn’t looking forward to this. I’d had plenty of experience in dealing with the savages, and most of it had been unpleasant.

  See, coyotes look like dogs, and they can bark like dogs, and sometimes they act like dogs, but they’re not dogs. Now, if a guy happened to catch Rip and Snort on a good day, he could have some fun. They loved to sing, wrestle, roll on dead skunks, fight badgers, and hold belching contests, and I’d had some good laughs with them.

  They were good old boys, but they had a nasty habit of changing into bad old boys, and it could happen before you knew it. When their yellow eyes started to glitter with unholy light, when you saw their teeth catching the glint of the sun, you knew it was time to head back to the house . . . fast.

  And then there was Scraunch the Terrible. Scraunch had never made any pretense of being a good old boy. He was bad to the bone. He was born bad, and he’d devoted all his energy into staying that way. I knew the guy pretty well. He loved chicken dinners, and he hated ranch dogs. As you might guess, Scraunch and I had never gotten along very well.

  Oh, and there was one more awkward detail in my dealings with Scraunch. He had a beautiful sister and . . . well, let’s just say that when Missy Coyote and I looked into each other’s eyes, sparks of love flew in all directions. If Scraunch happened to be around, that made it, uh, very awkward.

  See, a dog should never fall in love with a cannibal’s sister. I knew that. I knew it was The Love That Could Never Be, but . . . well, a guy can’t always control his emotions, even if he’s Head of Ranch Security.

  Ah, sweet Missy, coyote princess of my dreams! The very mention of her name caused my head to spin with delicious thoughts . . . dangerous thoughts.

  But I couldn’t allow myself to dwell on romance. I had a job to do. I was on a mission, and I sure didn’t need . . . boy, she was pretty, had the nicest coat of hair you ever saw . . . I sure didn’t need any distractions.

  Anyway, it was time to concentrate. Job. Duty. Discipline.

  I headed north up a sand draw, moving at a brisk pace toward the sound of drumming and chanting. It seemed to be coming from an area near the mouth of a deep canyon, one of those dark places that . . . gulp . . . make a dog think that he doesn’t belong there. We’re talking about a wild and spooky place, home to the cannibals.

  This was crazy! Why was I doing this? To protect a bunch of featherbrained chickens? I didn’t care about the chickens! Slurp. In fact . . . never mind.

  Sally May. I was doing it for Sally May, to mend our broken relationship.

  On and onward I pushed myself, deeper and deeper into a wild and strange land where no dog should venture alone. But fellers, I was alone. I had never felt aloner in my whole life.

  The coyote voices were getting louder now. I slowed to a walk and crept toward a line of cedar trees. There, I parted the branches and gazed down into the ravine below. What I saw caused my breath to catch in my throat, and I think my heart even stopped beating.

  Yipes. It was the coyotes, all right, seven of them, and they appeared to be getting themselves tuned up for some serious mischief. Remember that, back at the ranch, I’d heard the faint sound of chanting? Well, this was the source of it—seven bloodthirsty cannibals hopping around in a big circle and yelling at the top of their lungs. Here, listen to this.

  The Coyote Chicken Chant

  Chicken, git the chicken, git the chicken chicken!

  Chicken, git the chicken, git the chicken chicken!

  Wishbone!

  Drumstick!

  Pullybone!

  Thigh, thigh!

  Wishbone!

  Drumstick!

  Pullybone!

  Thigh, thigh!

  Yum yum, eat ’em up, eat ’em up.

  Yum yum, eat ’em up, eat ’em up.

  Is that weird or what? It was one of the weirdest things I’d seen and heard in my whole career. I mean, they were doing it in perfect rhythm and all the parts fit together, so that it had a kind of a hypnopotomizing effect . . . hypnotizing effect, let us say. I mean, the words and the rhythm . . . the chanting and drums . . . they all blended together and got inside my head and . . .

  Slurp.

  Slurp, slurp, slurp.

  I kind of hate to reveal this next part. In fact, I’m not going to. Why should I pass along a report about me . . . well, going off the deep end, losing touch with Reality, slipping the leash of civilization, and going AWOL? I shouldn’t report it. There’s nothing in it for me but trouble, and who needs that?

  Nothing happened, okay? I didn’t actually see the coyotes doing what I said they were doing. In fact, I didn’t see any coyotes. I saw nothing, almost nothing at all.

  All right, maybe I saw something, but it turned out to be . . . ha ha . . . you won’t believe this, but those creatures turned out to be prairie dogs. No kidding. Ha ha. Seven or eight fat little prairie dogs, running around in circles and chanting:

  Green grass!

  Weed seeds!

  Grass roots!

  Dig a hole, dig a hole!

  Sounds pretty cute, doesn’t it? You bet. They were precious, seven little guys playing in the pasture and having some prairie dog fun. Ha ha. And there was nothing about their actions that made you think of . . . well, chicken dinners slurp or antisocial behavior or raids on chicken houses, nothing wild or crazy. Honest.

  So there isn’t much to report and what do you say we, uh, rewind the story and go back to my conversation with J. T. Cluck in the machine shed? Will
that be all right? Good. Stand by for Story Rewind.

  Click, whir, gibble, geek, squeak, squiggle.

  Okay, we have completed the Story Rewind Procedure, and we’re back in front of the machine shed. Over here on the right, you see J. T. Cluck, the head rooster, and over on the left . . . hey, that’s me! This modern technology is pretty neat, isn’t it? I mean, it allows us to cut and paste our experiences and to delete the little snippets that are . . . well, unpleasant or embarrassing.

  So there we are, J.T. and I. He tells me that he’s been hearing coyotes howling in the pasture, something about drumsticks and pullybones . . . slurp . . . ha ha . . . and I tell him, “J.T., you’ve been dreaming. I don’t believe one word of that yarn. It’s probably just a bunch of prairie dogs.”

  And that’s about all, no kidding. Nothing else happened that day and, gee, I guess we’ve come to the end of the story.

  Ha ha ha.

  Ha ha.

  Ha.

  Wait! Don’t leave. There’s more.

  Chapter Ten: The Darkness in a Dog’s Mind

  Remember what we said about modern technology? It allows us to edit our work, so to speak, and to cut out the parts we don’t like? It gives us the opportunity to retell old stories and to give them whatever shape we want.

  But you know what? That’s just a fancy name for LYING. You don’t cut, paste, edit, or delete the Truth. Truth isn’t a word or a blip on a tape. It’s something that defines who you are. If you tell the truth, you’re an honest dog. If you don’t, you’re a dishonest skunk.

  And fellers, that’s not me.

  Oh brother. I didn’t want to finish this story. You’re going to be disappointed in me. You’re going to think . . . but never mind. Let’s get it over with.

  Grab hold of something solid.

  Sigh.

  Okay, remember what we said about the darkness in a dog’s mind? Well, there are dark and spooky parts in a dog’s mind, and in the very darkest rooms, you will find visions of . . . ROASTED CHICKEN ON A PLATE.