He gave that a moment’s thought, then scowled and scratched the top of his head. “Good point. Never mind.”
For several moments, neither of us spoke. Then I got an idea. “Wait! You can go with me. We’ll bust out together.”
“Me? Nah, it’s too late for me.”
“It’s not too late. Think of your poor mother.”
I knew right away that I’d said the wrong thing. His eyes turned wild and bloody, and he hissed, “Don’t you talk about my mother!” In a flash, he jumped on top of me and threw me to the floor. For a few terrible seconds, that hammer fist hung in the air, only inches away from my face. Then his eyes misted over, and he muttered, “Good old Mom. You reckon she’d be glad to see me again?”
“Of course she would.”
“You don’t think it’s too late?”
“Smash, a mother never gives up hope.”
He stepped away and gave me a look that almost froze my blood. I held my breath, wondering what he would say.
He said, “Let’s boogie!”
I almost fainted with relief, but just then, Snort stepped up to the door of the cave and yelled, “Uh! Time for coyote supper, oh boy!”
I looked at Smash and he looked at me. What now?
Chapter Twelve: The Coyotes Invade the Ranch!
Smash’s face gave no hint of what he would do next and I figured . . . well, that’s it, I’m cooked. But then he walked over to Snort, gave him a friendly smile, and held up his fist. “See this?”
Snort looked closer at it. “Uh. Pretty big fits.”
Smash nodded. “Now, watch this.”
Wearing a silly grin, Snort watched as Smash began swinging his arm around in circles. On the third or fourth turn, he brought his hammer down on top of Snort’s head. BAM! And fellers, the lights went out in Georgia. Old Snort dropped like a sack of cement, and he stayed down.
Smash acted as though it was no big deal. He stepped over the sleeping cannibal, glanced back at me and said, “Are you coming?”
I stared in amazement. “You made that look easy.”
“Like I said, I have skills. Let’s get out of here. They’ll come after us.”
We crept out of the cave and followed the canyon wall toward the south. Down below, the whole coyote village had turned out for the feast, and they were making a big celebration out of it. No doubt they would be disappointed when they learned that their supper had escaped.
Once we had gotten out of sight of the village, we pointed ourselves toward Ranch Headquarters and kicked up the speed. Behind us, the drumming stopped. There was a moment of silence, and then we heard the whoops and howls of angry cannibals. They had found my empty cell and seconds later, we heard them coming after us.
We kicked up the speed another notch, and I tossed a glance at Smash. He didn’t appear to be worried. Good, because I was doing enough worrying for both of us. I mean, I’d had enough dealings with coyotes to know that you could cheat them every once in a while, but you sure didn’t want to get caught doing it. They were not happy losers.
We flew across that big empty ranch country, up and down ravines, over sand draws, through sagebrush and cactus and catclaw brush, until at last I saw familiar sights looming up before us: the mailbox, the county road, and Ranch Headquarters. Seeing the house reminded me that I still had a job to do for Sally May.
“Smash, how do you feel about chicken dinners?”
“They taste like tuna fish.”
“Okay, how do you feel about tuna fish?”
“Can’t stand the stuff. Why?”
“Just checking. I have to save the chickens, and I didn’t want to hire any guards who might get distracted.”
He laughed. “Not me, brother. I’ve been to school on chickens.” I felt his gaze lingering on me. “How about yourself?”
Slurp. “We’re working on it.”
He slowed to a walk and tapped the side of his head with a huge paw. “Look, it’s all up here. Just think tuna fish.”
“That’s the problem. I love tuna fish!”
He roared with laughter. I didn’t think it was so funny.
We entered the headquarters compound and I began searching for chickens. On an ordinary day, they would have been outside, pecking gravel and chasing bugs, but I didn’t see a single bird. That meant they had holed up inside the chicken house, the very worst place they could have been.
I went thundering into the chicken house and, sure enough, there they sat on their roost, twenty-seven hens and one rooster, with their heads covered beneath their wings.
“Ranch Security! Coyote Alert! Everybody out, we’re evacuating the building! Move, move, move!”
If I had set off a bomb, it would have had pretty much the same effect. I mean, in seconds we had birds flapping, squawking, screeching, bouncing off walls and the ceiling, flying in all directions . . . it was a circus.
J. T. Cluck flapped into a wall, hit the floor, and picked himself up. “It’s about time you got here, dog. Did you hear the news? The British are coming!” He started running in circles, flapping his wings and screeching, “The British are coming! The British are coming!”
I grabbed him and gave him a shake. “J.T., the British aren’t coming, but the coyotes are.”
“Oh. Well, I knew it was someone. Who are the British, anyway?”
“Never mind. Get your hens out of here, head for the house, and roost in the trees.”
He rubbed his chin and scowled. “You know, pooch, we don’t much like trees.”
I stuck my nose in his face and screamed, “Get out of here, now!”
“Well, you don’t need to get all hateful about it.”
He clapped his wings for attention and managed to get all his chickens back on the ground, and even quiet, and led them out the door. To my amazement, they walked in single file down to the house, and by the time the coyote army reached the northern perimeter of Ranch Headquarters, the birds were perched in trees beside the house.
Smash and I took up a forward position beside the yard gate and waited for the drama to begin. Just as I had figured, the coyotes went straight to the chicken house. I mean, those guys had done this before and knew the drill: you want money, you go to a bank; you want chickens, you go to a chicken house.
Heh heh. Boy, were they surprised. What they found inside was maybe a dozen feathers floating in the air and nary a chicken. They came out like a swarm of angry bees and saw me and Smash sitting beside the gate. For a moment of heartbeats, the situation looked pretty serious, a dozen inflamed cannibals facing two dogs.
But then . . . good old Smash. He made a hammer of his right fist and started swinging it around and around. The coyotes stopped in their tracks, and all eyes turned to Scraunch.
Scraunch was furious. His eyes were flashing and he was grinding his teeth. He took two more steps toward us . . . and stopped. He opened his shark mouth and roared, “Mother of Hunk wear dirty socks!”
Whew! Right then, I knew we had won. When the enemy starts talking about your mother’s dirty socks, it means he’s out of ammo. So I gave it back to him. “Scraunch, your mother’s so ugly, she couldn’t get a date with a toad!”
“Ha! Mother of Hunk stink so bad, all flies drop dead, ho ho!”
“Oh yeah? Well, your mother . . .”
This went on, back and forth, for several minutes, and it might have stretched out into the night if Sally May hadn’t come driving in from town. When the coyotes heard the car approaching, they began slinking away, then turned and vanished into the evening shadows.
Wow, what a finish! It turned out to be one of the most spectacular days of my whole career. When Sally May got out of her car, she stared in amazement at the scene before her—cannibals in flight, her entire flock of chickens decorating the trees, and the Head of Ranch Security standing tall at the yard gate.<
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Okay, I’d had a little help from Smash, and that surprised her too, a big unidentified, hammer-fisted dog sitting beside her yard gate. Slowly, she put the pieces together and rushed into the house.
A moment later, she came back outside with Loper and pointed up into the trees. “You didn’t hear anything? What were you doing?”
Loper seemed amazed. “Well, Alfred and I were playing trucks.”
Sally May rolled her eyes. “Honestly! Somebody could have jacked up the house and moved it to Amarillo!” Then she rushed out to the gate, where I was waiting.
It was delicious. I mean, she knelt down, threw her arms around my neck, and gave me such a fond embrace that I heard three vertebrae pop. As she hugged me, she whispered, “Hank, I don’t care that you stink. You saved my chickens. You’re a good dog!”
Standing nearby, Loper shrugged. “Well, if he’s that good, maybe we’d better switch back to Co-op dog food. No more Cheapo, Hank.”
Wow! What a finish! And it got even better. Guess who was watching from the iris patch. Guess who came scampering out the gate and tried to butt into my moment of glory. Guess who started rubbing against Sally May’s ankles and got his tail stepped on.
Pete. I loved it!
And that’s about the end of the . . . wait, there’s one last detail: my old pal Smash. Loper and Sally May had no idea how he’d gotten to the ranch, and I wasn’t able to explain it through tail wags, but it turned out okay. They kept him around the place for a week and ran a picture of him in the Twitchell paper. Sure enough, his people saw the ad and came out to the ranch to claim him.
I don’t know where Smash is today, but I’ll bet his momma’s proud that he’s not eating chickens. Neither am I, and fellers, this case is slurp.
Excuse me. 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 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
About the Author and Illustrator
John R. Erickson, a former cowboy, has written numerous books for both children and adults and is best known for his acclaimed Hank the Cowdog series. He lives and works on his ranch in Perryton, Texas, with his family.
Gerald L. Holmes has illustrated numerous cartoons and textbooks in addition to the Hank the Cowdog series. He lives in Perryton, Texas.
The Case of the Coyote Invasion Page 7