Just then I had a brilliant idea. “Speaking of that chicken head, seems to me you boys promised to do me a favor some time.”
The old man shook his head. “I don’t recall that, sure don’t.”
“W-w-we did, Pa, w-we sure d-d-did.”
Wallace snapped his head toward Junior. “And you can just hush, you don’t have to tell everything you know!” Back to me. “Maybe we did, maybe we did.”
“Well, I’m here to collect.”
“Eh, what exactly did you have in mind, neighbor? We’ve had some bad luck lately and . . .”
I explained about the Eye-Crosserosis problem and how I was lost and couldn’t find my way back to the ranch. All of a sudden Wallace seemed mighty interested.
“I see what you mean, yes. A guy could starve to death out here.”
“I b-b-bet Madame M-Moonshine could f-f-f-fix his uh-uh-eyes, fix his eyes.”
Me and the old man turned and stared at Junior, and I said, “Who’s Madame Moonshine?”
“You hush your mouth, Junior, don’t you . . .”
“She’s a wu-wu-wu-witch and lives in a ca-ca-cave, in a cave.”
“She’s a witch? And lives in a cave?”
“No, she’s no such thing,” Wallace butted in, “and she don’t live in no cave, and Junior you leave the talking to me, and as for you,” he looked at me, “we can’t help you.”
I got to my feet and went nose-to-nose with the old man. “Listen, you old bucket of guts, I gave you a chicken head and I’m fixing to collect a buzzard’s head unless you take me to Madame Moonshine. Pronto.”
“Well, you don’t have to be so tacky about it. I just thought, see what you done, Junior?”
“I d-done right, P-Pa, cause he’s our f-friend.”
“Friend,” Wallace muttered. “The only friend a buzzard’s got is his next meal. Wouldn’t hurt you to remember that.”
Wallace went waddling through the willows, still grumbling to himself, and me and Junior fell in behind him.
Up ahead, I could hear Wallace carrying on: “. . . danged kids . . . tried to tell the boy . . . stubborn, mule-headed . . . never amount to bird hockey . . .”
It was quite a procession, two waddling buzzards and one jake-legged dog. As we walked along, Junior told me about Madame Moonshine. Said she was a burrowing owl, used to live in a prairie dog town (which is where you find most burrowing owls, don’t you see), only the prairie dogs ran her out of town because she had a witchy kind of power.
Sounded pretty strange to me.
We picked our way through the willows, until at last we came to a rocky ledge on the south bank of the creek. Wallace stopped and pointed to a cave.
“There it is. This is as far as we go. She’s in there somewhere.”
I turned to Junior. “You sure this is the right thing to do?”
“I b-b-bet she can f-fix you.”
“Well, thanks again.” I started up the ledge. When I went past the old man, he curled his lip at me.1
“G-G-Good luck,” Junior called. “And w-wwatch out for the s-s-s-snakes!”
“HUH?”
“Rattlesnakes,” said Wallace, “dozens of ’em, place is crawling with ’em. And say, if you get bit, try to make it outside the cave before you die, would you? I’d like for something to come of this friendship.”
I tried to think of a brilliant reply, something slashing and witty that would really put the old bird in his place. Sometimes I can come up with brilliant replies and sometimes I can’t. This time I couldn’t.
I headed for the cave, feeling just a little shaky about them snakes, not to mention the witch. I’d never met a witch before.
1* Some bird experts would probably point out here that buzzards don’t have lips, so Wallace couldn’t have curled his lip at me. Okay, maybe he didn’t, but he did something with his beak that certainly gave that impression. -H.C.D.
Chapter Ten: Madame Moonshine
I climbed the ledge and stuck my head into the cave, sniffed, checked things out. It looked suspicious to me.
I’m not the kind of dog who enjoys holes. Some do, I guess, but not me. I got locked into a big wooden tack box when I was a kid, and since then I’ve tried to avoid places that are dark and closed in.
I started inside the cave, got a creepy feeling, and backed out. Figgered I’d better study on it a little more before I did anything drastic. I mean, Junior had said something about snakes, and you know where I stand on the snake issue.
How did I know that Madame Moonshine could cure Eye-Crosserosis? In fact, how did I know that Madame Moonshine even existed? All I had to go on was the word of a couple of buzzards, and in the security business we tend to give low priority to the testimony of buzzards.
I’d just about talked myself out of going in there when I realized I had some company. I was peering inside the cave, see, and happened to glance to my left and saw a little owl—a burrowing owl, in fact, which I thought was an interesting coincidence. She was peering into the cave too.
“What’s in there?” she whispered. She had big yellow eyes, and I noticed she had a way of rolling her head around without moving her body.
“I don’t know, ma’am. I’ve been told that someone called Madame Moonshine hangs out here. I don’t suppose you know anything about her, do you? They say she’s a witch or something.”
The lady’s head twisted around and she stared at me with them big eyes. “You believe in witches?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure. Never met one.”
“I don’t believe in them, and I’ve met several. But I don’t believe in dogs either, so there you are.”
“How come you don’t believe in dogs? I mean, I’m a dog myself.”
“Well, that’s only your opinion. Everyone has an opinion.”
I couldn’t help chuckling at that. “Yeah, but I’m Head of Ranch Security, see. Maybe you didn’t realize that. You might say that I run this ranch, so my opinion carries a little weight.”
“Ah! So you run this ranch?”
“Yes ma’am, and have for several years. There’s very little that goes on around here without my say-so.”
“I see. Do you make the sun rise?”
“Uh . . . not exactly. “
“Do you tell the trees when to shed their leaves?”
“Well . . . no.
“Did you teach the fish to swim?”
“No ma’am.”
She bent down and looked at the ground. “There’s an ant. Would you mind telling him to go somewhere else?”
I was feeling a little uncomfortable about this. “I guess I could try. Ant, scram, go on, get out of here!” It didn’t work.
The lady gave me a puzzled look. “Now tell me again: what is it that you do?”
“I’m Head of . . . look, ants don’t listen to anybody, they just ain’t smart enough.”
Now get this. She spread out her wings and brought them together in front, so they pointed toward the ant, and she made a kind of whistling sound. The derned fool ant stopped in his tracks, turned around, and ran away.
The lady looked at me and grinned and blinked her eyes. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
“Nuthin’.” Then all at once it struck me. All the clues came together. I had figgered it out. “Wait a minute! I bet you’re Madame Moonshine.”
“Oh yes I am! And you’re Hank the Rabbit.”
“Huh? No, I’m Hank the Cowdog.”
“Of course! Yes, I see now. Won’t you come in?”
I squinted into that dark hole and gave it another sniffing. “You got any snakes in there?”
“How many did you want?”
“I don’t want any, I’m scared of ’em.”
“Oh rubbish, just tell them who you are. Come, follow me.”
> She hopped into the hole. I swallered real hard and went in behind her. It was pretty narrow and it got dark all of a sudden. I’d gone five or six feet when I started hearing a bunch of hissing and rattling and felt cold things crawling around.
It was them dadgum snakes. I couldn’t turn around, I couldn’t back out, so I crawled forward just as fast as I could. For a while I could hear Madame Moonshine hopping in front of me, but then all I could hear was hissing and rattling.
“Ma’am?” No answer. I began to suspect that I’d made an error in judgment. I mean, Eye-Crosserosis is pretty bad stuff, but it beats the heck out of Dead-Doggerosis.
The cave turned to the left, and up ahead I could see a big chamber with a shaft of sunlight coming down. I crawled toward it as fast as I could.
I was out of breath when I got there, and when I looked around there was no sign of Madame Moonshine. I sat down and waited. Heard a sound off to my left, turned, and saw a huge, enormous diamondback rattlesnake slipping toward me. He was flicking his tongue out and he had a wicked look in his eyes.
My first instinct was to build a new door in the roof, but then I remembered what Madame Moonshine had said. I held my ground and tried to get control of the shakes.
“I’m Hank the Cowdog,” I said in my gruffest voice, “Head of Ranch Security.” He kept coming. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. I said I’m Hank the Cowdog, Head of Ranch Security.”
That was supposed to do the trick, but it didn’t. The snake built a coil at my feet and started buzzing.
I thought I was finished, fellers, but just then Madame Moonshine’s head popped out of a hole in the cave wall. “Back again! Oh, you’ve met Timothy, and my goodness, I think he’s going to bite you. Didn’t you tell him who you are? Timothy, shame on you! Go away, shoo! This is the Head of Ranch Security.”
The snake slipped away into the gloom. She came out of the hole in the wall and hopped over to the place where the sunlight hit the floor. “Now, tell me why you’re here.”
I told her the whole story, about how my eyes had crossed and how Rufus had whupped up on me, how Pete had suckered me out into the wilderness, the buzzards, everything.
While I told the story, she picked up a lizard bone in her claws and chewed on it, and every now and then she would give her head a nod.
“You think you can help me, Madame?”
She pitched the bone aside and wiped her mouth on her wing. “Maybe and maybe not. We’ll have to test you. How many fingers am I holding up?”
I squinted at her. “Uh . . . three?”
“No! I’m holding NO fingers up. Owls HAVE no fingers. Can you read the letters on this chart?”
I squinted again. “Ma’am, I can’t even see the derned chart.”
“Good! Excellent! There isn’t one. Now, can you tell me the color of this tree?”
You can fool Hank the Cowdog once in a row or maybe twice in a row but not three times. “There’s no tree, ma’am.”
“There certainly IS a tree! This is the bottom part, called a root. It’s brown. Yes, you have a problem, but I just happen to have a cure.”
“You do?”
“I certainly do! Come over here, lie down, and hold still.”
I did as she said. She closed her eyes and took the end of my nose in her claws. I watched her very carefully and memorized every step, and what you’re about to hear is the secret combination that will cure Eye-Crosserosis. Here’s what she said, word for word:
“Left, two.” She twisted my nose twice to the left. “Right, three.” She twisted it right three times. “Left, one . . . and push!”
I don’t expect anyone to believe this, but it’s the by-George truth. When she pushed my nose, my tail shot up, my mouth fell open, and my eyes came uncrossed.
I told you you wouldn’t believe it.
I could see again! Everything was clear! Madame Moonshine stepped back and smiled. “Oh, it worked! How nice! But to be sure, let’s test it. How many legs do I have?”
“Two.”
“Excellent! How many wings?”
“Uh . . . two?”
“Ver-ry good! Now just one last question. How do you expect to get out of here?”
“HUH? Well uh . . . I sort of thought you might lead me out and keep the snakes down, is sort of what I thought.”
She shook her head. “Oh dear. You missed that one.”
I glanced around and saw big Timothy coiled in the middle of my escape route. “What’s the correct answer?”
She clapped her wings together. “The correct answer is that you’ll stay and we’ll play riddles—for days and days and weeks and weeks and years and years and ever and ever, until you solve one, and then,” she shrugged, “I shall have to let you go.”
“Now hold on. I’ve got a job.”
“Rubbish.”
“I’ve got responsibilities.”
“Rubbish.”
“I need to get back.”
“Rubbish.”
“And I’m gonna leave one way or . . .”
“Timothy?”
Big Tim started buzzing.
“On second thought, let’s play riddles.”
“Oh good! Here’s one: if wishes were horses, beggars would be . . . what?”
“Uh . . . cowboys?”
“No.”
“Saddles?”
“No.”
“I really do need to get back, Madame Moonshine.”
She laid down and propped her head up on her wing. “But you can’t, Hank. I’m a witch and I can’t stand for things to be simple. There must be a non-reason for everything. I can’t just let you leave without a non-reason. No, you’ll have to answer a riddle before I can let you go.”
I studied Big Tim again. He flicked out his tongue. “Okay, let’s hit the riddles.”
“Here’s a good one: How much wood could a woodpecker chuck if a peckerwood’s a checkerboard square?” I asked her to repeat it. “How much wood could a woodpecker chuck if a peckerwood’s a checkerboard square?”
I said it over. “Can you give me a hint?”
“Just one hint. The answer’s not what you think it is.”
“That’s a big help. Well, give me a minute. I’ll have to do some figgering.”
I had to use some algebra on this one. I mean, when you go to multiplying woodpeckers times peckerwoods and adding in all the chucks and chips and checkerboards, you’ve got to have some pretty stout mathematics. Plain old numbers won’t work.
I figgered and I figgered. I wrote all my formulas in the dust, scratched out one or two, added a number here and a formula there, and finally came up with the answer.
Madame Moonshine was wearing a peculiar smile.
“Okay, here we are. The answer I get is 5.03.”
The bottom fell out of her smile. “I don’t believe it!” She sat up and stared at me. “No one has ever solved that riddle before! How did you do it?”
“Well, ma’am, all I can say is that they didn’t make me Head of Ranch Security for nothing. I have certain talents, I guess.”
“That,” she said in a low voice, “is a monstrous understatement. You could very well be a genius!”
“You’re not the first one that’s said that, ma’am.”
“I can imagine not!” She closed her eyes and clasped her wings together. “Oh dear, I shall have to let you go. Timothy? Open!”
The snake crawled over into a corner. Madame Moonshine sighed and led the way. On the way out, I could hear them snakes crawling around, and I was mighty glad Madame was leading the way.
When we reached the opening, I stepped outside. I looked around and I could see again!
“Well, ma’am, I want to thank you for everything. You’ve done this ranch a tremendous favor, and we’ll never forget it. Bye now.”
I trotted down the hill. “ Oh Hank?” she called. I stopped and turned back to her. “Do you believe in witches now?”
I had to chuckle at that. “Yes ma’am, I reckon I do. And do you believe in dogs now?”
She thought about that for a second. “No.” And with that, she was gone.
Instead of going back to the ranch, I headed down the creek. I had a little errand to take care of on the next ranch.
Chapter Eleven: War!
It was three miles to the ranch where Plato and Beulah and Rufus stayed. I kept to the creek for a mile or so and then got up on the county road when the creek made its big horseshoe bend to the north.
Boy, I felt good! The air was sweet with wildflowers and the sunshine warmed my back. My eyes worked, my aches and pains had gone away, and I could feel the muscles inside my skin, straining to get out and do handsprings.
I made a mental note to myself: “Next time you get to feeling poorly, go see Madame Moonshine because she can cure more ills than Black Draught.”
(I knew about Black Draught because Loper once used it to cure me of a case of worms. Don’t try it unless everything else has failed and it’s come down to a choice between Black Draught and certain death.)
It was late afternoon when I reached the outbuildings of the ranch and by that time I had worked out my strategy. Instead of busting in and having a showdown right away, I would lurk around and check things out. Also give my highly conditioned body a chance to recharge.
I didn’t want to underestimate the magnitude of the task before me. Taking on Rufus would be a handful, even on a good day.
I went creeping through some tall grass on the west edge of the place. I could see Billy down at the corrals, working with a young horse. Didn’t see any signs of Beulah or Rufus.
I spotted a pile of old cedar posts and headed for it. I would set up a scout position there and just, you know, let the pot bubble for a while.
I reached the post pile and was peering around a corner when I heard a noise. Sounded like . . . it was kind of hard to describe, but it sounded a whole lot like teeth chattering. And it was coming from inside the pile. I cocked my head and listened.
The Further Adventures of Hank the Cowdog Page 6