The Case of the Secret Weapon
Page 7
I pushed him away. “Dunce! If you’re such an expert on women, how come you keep running off to chase quail?”
His eyes went blank. “Hank, I don’t know how to answer that.”
“Good, because I’m tired of hearing you blabber. Here she comes, and we’ll see what she says. I’ll bet she doesn’t even notice the smell.”
Beulah came toward us in a trot, carrying a piece of hamburger bun in her mouth. She laid it at Plato’s feet and gave him such a sugary smile, it almost made me sick. “There, you poor thing. That will keep you alive until . . .” Her words hung in the air. She lifted her nose and sniffed. Her gaze turned like . . . well, it kind of reminded me of a gun turret of one of those battleships, turning toward a target. She stabbed me with her gaze. “Skunk?”
“Beulah, my dumpling, I think I can explain everything.”
Her eyes burst into flames. “You smell HORRIBLE!”
“Yes, well . . .”
“How dare you come to a picnic . . . oh-h-h-h!” She whirled around to Plato. “Tell your friend to take a bath before he goes out in public!”
Plato nodded. “Right. I already told him.”
She stuck her nose in the air and stalked away with short angry steps.
Maybe I should have left it there, but . . . well, I didn’t. I raised my voice and yelled, “So that’s the kind of woman you are, huh? Appearances and superficial stuff? Fine, Beulah, and you know what? I think it’s finished between us!”
Over her shoulder, she snapped, “Get a date with a skunk!”
Plato gave his head a sad shake. “You know, Hank, she’s right. You really should . . .”
“Will you please shut your trap?”
“Well, sure, Hank, if that’s how you feel. I was just . . .”
“I have a ranch to run, and you’re wasting my time. I hope you enjoy your cactus.” I wheeled around and marched away.
Behind me, I heard him call out, “Great seeing you again, Hank. And don’t forget, dove season starts September the first! Take care!”
Dove season. What a loser!
But you know what really ripped me? If Plato was such a loser, how come he always ended up with my girlfriend? It was one of the great mysteries of my life and a source of irremuckable sadness.
Oh well, I had important work to do. Had you forgotten that we were in the midst of a major investigation? Not me. Okay, maybe it had slipped my mind for a few minutes, but I was back on the case and ready to take charge.
See, I still had to get the message to Slim that his house had been burgled. I had assigned that job to Drover, but of course he’d made a mess of it. I should have known.
And speaking of Mister Squeakbox, guess who appeared out of nowhere and fell in step beside me. Drover. He gave me his patented silly grin. “Oh, hi. How’d it go with Beulah?” I didn’t answer or even look at him. “She told you to get a date with a skunk, so maybe it didn’t go too well.”
“I’m ignoring you.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“And you will be court-martialed.”
“Gosh, what did I do?”
“Everything. The list of charges is a mile long, but the trial will last only thirty seconds. You will spend the next fifty years with your nose in the corner.”
“I hate standing with my nose in the corner.”
“Good. I’ll enjoy every second of your misery.”
“Are you looking for Slim?”
“No.” I stopped and ran my gaze over the crowd at the picnic. “Yes. Where is he?”
“If I tell, will you shorten my sentence?”
“Drover, bribery is a serious crime.”
“Yeah, but will it work?”
I gave that a moment’s thought. “Okay, twenty-five years. Where is he?”
He pointed his paw toward a group of people sitting in lawn chairs. “He’s over there with Miss Viola. I think they’re fixing to play a song.”
The very mention of Miss Viola caused my spirits to rise. You might remember that she was very fond of me. There were rumors that she and Slim were sweet on each other, but I knew the truth. She adored ME and tolerated Slim because . . . well, because he was my friend, I suppose.
Yes, Viola and I had always been able to communicate our deepest thoughts and feelings. If Slim wasn’t able to understand my message about the burglar, I was pretty sure that I could get it across to Viola. And, hey, she might even give me a bite of her homemade ice cream. Heh heh.
I turned back to Drover. “Get your affairs in order, you’ll be spending the next twenty-five years in prison.”
“Could we shorten it to ten minutes?”
I wrestled with this heavy moral delemon. “Will you promise never to lock me out of the house again?”
“Well, I didn’t actually lock you out. You just couldn’t open the door.”
I stuck my nose in his face. “All right, then promise to stop learning tricks that I can’t do. Promise or rot in jail!”
“Okay, I promise.”
“Good. We’ll skip the court-martial. Go to your room and stick your nose in the corner.”
“Five minutes?”
“That’s correct, and don’t try to cheat. I’ll be watching.”
He trotted down to the gas tanks to begin serving his time. I hated to be so stern with the little mutt, but there were lessons he needed to learn.
I turned myself toward the north and marched straight over to the shady spot where Slim and Viola were sitting in a circle with several other people. Slim had brought out his banjo and was tuning it up. Viola picked up her mandolin and started playing a little bluegrass number called “Wild Plum Jelly.” I sat down and listened.
My goodness, she was pretty good on that thing, and Slim didn’t sound too bad on the banjo either. They made nice music together.
When it was over, she smiled and nodded to the crowd of people who broke into applause. I found myself thinking, “Hey, a lady with that kind of talent needs a loyal dog who will lie at her feet and gaze up at her with adorning eyes and guard her mandolin.”
That’s exactly what she needed, and I just happened to have a particular dog in mind for the job. ME.
With that thought blazing in my mind, I pretty muchly forgot that I was in the middle of an important investigation and was supposed to be warning Slim about the crook who’d broken into his house.
Sliding through the crowd, I went straight to Miss Viola, laid my head upon her lap, and gave her a look that said, “Hi. I hear you’ve been looking all over for me.”
Chapter Twelve: A Very Dramatic Ending, Wow!
She saw me. Her eyes softened and began to shine with the light of love. When she smiled, all the burdens and tragedies in my life fell away like . . . something. When she reached out her tender hand and laid it upon my head, I felt as though I’d been struck by a paralyzing ray.
After a moment, I was able to flash her a message in Tailwag: “Viola, dearest lady, don’t waste your time with Slim. He’s nothing but a bachelor who sits on the porch in his shorts and sings corny songs. I, on the other hand, am the dog you’ve been waiting for all your life.”
I held my breath and waited for her reply. She let out a groan and shrieked, “Hank, you smell terrible! Skunk, yuck!”
I heard Slim’s voice behind me. “Hank, for crying out loud!”
I didn’t care. He could yell all he wanted. I knew that Viola would understand and that’s all that . . . her eyes grew wide and her face turned to ice.
I was stunned. She pushed me away. For the first time in our relationship, she pushed me away! And it got even worse. She clapped a hand over her nose and said, “Hank, I’m sorry, but I can’t take that smell!”
Yes, but what about loyalty and devotion? Didn’t those qualities matter any more?
Slim leaped ou
t of his chair and towered over me like a thundercloud. “Hank, how many times do you have to get skunked before you learn?”
Skunked? Oh yes, the skunk, which reminded me that I had a very important message to deliver. I turned to Slim and began transmitting in Tailwag. “Slim, some guy with a trained skunk walked into your . . .”
“Go on, get out of here! Scat!”
He wasn’t listening! Nobody understood the truth, that I had been skunked while protecting the ranch. With my head and tail dragging the ground, I turned and walked away. My heart had been skewered.
Pretty sad, huh? You bet. It was one of the darkest moments of my whole career. I had been dumped by two girlfriends and rejected by the man I had thought was my dearest friend in the world—all in the same afternoon.
Groan. Oh well, the damage was done. I’d had my chance to deliver the message and I’d blown it. The investigation was finished. I was finished. Until I got rid of the skunk smell, I would have no job and no friends.
I had gone about ten steps toward a hopeless future when I heard Slim’s voice behind me. “Wait a second! Skunk? Hank, come back here!” I stopped and looked back at him. He came toward me with long strides. “Hank, did somebody show up at my house after I left?”
I delivered one loud bark. Yes!
“And did he have a pet skunk?”
Another loud bark. Yes!
He turned to Viola. “Good honk, it’s that crook Bobby Kile told me about. He’s in the neighborhood.”
I delivered another loud bark that said, “It sure took you long enough to figure it out! I came within an inch of resigning from the Security Division, and then you’d have had a real mess on your hands.”
I’m not sure Slim got that message. In fact, I’m pretty sure that he didn’t, because he took off in a long trot to find Loper and told him about the robber. The two of them went to the house and placed a phone call to the sheriff’s office.
Twenty minutes later, Chief Deputy Kile pulled into Ranch Headquarters in his Holstein-colored sheriff’s car (black and white, like a Holstein cow). After a short conference among the three of them, the deputy climbed back into his car. Loper brought up one of the ranch’s pickups, and Slim called me up for active duty.
“Come on, pooch. You might as well ride along . . . just in case.”
Just in case? I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but who cared? Hey, the important thing was that I was back in the saddle and back on the case. I rushed to the pickup door and waited for Slim to . . .
“Uh-uh. You ride in the back, Stink Bomb. You might end this day as a hero, but right now you’re in Skunk Quarantine.”
Fine, no problem there. I didn’t mind riding in the back. I leaped up into the bed of the pickup, took my place of honor in the middle of the spare tire, and off we went to Slim’s place, two miles down the creek.
And my name wasn’t “Stink Bomb.”
When we got there, it didn’t take them long to pick up the clues. The area in front of the saddle shed still reeked of skunk perfume and there was . . . oops, the empty wrapper of what had once been a package of hamburger meat.
Slim picked up the wrapper between a finger and thumb and shot me a dark scowl. I beamed him an innocent smile that said, “Well, what did you expect?” He grinned. I think he understood. If he’d been a dog, he would have eaten it, too.
By then, Deputy Kile had found some boot prints in the dust and we followed the trail north, into a grove of chinaberry trees. On the other side of the grove, he stopped and shook his head. “Ground’s too hard. I’ve lost him.”
The ground was too hard? Ha. Who needed footprints? I pushed my way to the front, put my nose to the ground, and began following the trail that led off to the northwest. See, I didn’t have the best nose in the world, but tracking a skunk wasn’t a problem. Even Drover could have followed that trail.
I led them through a stand of hackberry trees and up into a rocky ravine. The scent was growing stronger and suddenly I looked up and saw . . . my goodness, it appeared to be a little hut made of limbs and branches. I stopped and pointed like a flaming arrow.
Behind me, the deputy said, “There we go! Nice work, pup.” He cupped a hand around his mouth and shouted, “Okay, buddy, you’ve got company! Sheriff’s department. Come out with your hands in the air!”
Inside the hut, we heard a voice. “Shove off! You can come in if you want, but you’ll get skunked! I’ve got a gas mask. How about you?”
The deputy scowled and hitched up his belt. “Anybody want to volunteer to go in?” Dead silence. Slim and Loper looked up at the sky. The deputy pulled on his chin and kicked a rock with his boot. He was quiet for a long time, then his head came up and there seemed to be a twinkle in his eyes. “Slim, what’s the dog’s name?”
“Bozo.”
“What’s his name?”
“Hank.”
The deputy knelt down and slapped a hand on his thigh. “Come here, Hank. Say, you look like a fine dog.”
Hey, did you hear that? A fine dog! I hoped that Slim and Loper were listening.
I went to the officer, and he rubbed me behind the ears. “Hank, how would you like to go to work for me?”
I was amazed, speechless. Go to work for the sheriff’s department? Become a genuine police dog? Hey, that would be SO COOL! Yes, yes, and yes!
He held my head in his hands and looked into my eyes. “Okay, bud, I’ve got a job for you, a very important job. I can’t trust Loper or Slim to carry it out.”
Oh, I understood that. They were a couple of goof-offs. Give ’em an assignment, and all they want to do is make jokes and pull pranks. He didn’t need to tell me about Slim and Loper. I knew them very well.
He rose to his feet, wrinkled up his nose, and fanned the air in front of his face. “Hank, I’ve never hired anyone that smelled quite as bad as you, but I think you’re the right man for this job. Are you ready?”
I drew myself up to my full height of massiveness. “Aye, aye, sir. Lock and load!”
Huh? That was odd. He wrapped his arms around my middle and picked me up and started walking toward the . . . what were we doing? Surely he wasn’t planning to . . . hey, there was a loaded skunk inside that hut!
I guess you’ve figured it out by now. Deputy Kile pitched me inside, and in that instant before my feet hit the floor, I caught a glimpse of the enemy. It was like a photograph, a moment frozen in time. Leland was sitting along the north wall, adjusting the elastic straps on his gas mask and getting ready to put it over his face. His skunk sat nearby, nibbling on some potato peelings. The expression on the crook’s face told me that he had been caught by surprise.
And then things began happening pretty fast. Rosebud saw me, fanned out his tail, whipped around in my direction, hiked himself up on his front legs, and took dead aim at me.
I heard Leland croak, “Rosebud, not yet!”
Rosebud wasn’t listening and started shooting. It was another of those rolling balls of something yellow and awful. BLAP! I got plastered, and so did everything inside that hut, including the owner of the skunk. By the time he got the gas mask pulled over his face, it was too late.
I don’t remember any of the details, only that I gagged and staggered out of the hut and started looking for fresh air. The crook was only a step behind me and he walked right into a pair of handcuffs. Wow, what a finish! I had broken the case and caught the bad guy—who, by the way, stunk so bad they had to haul him to jail in the back of Loper’s pickup.
And that’s about all the story. I was invited NOT to make another appearance at the picnic and without me there, well, things just fell apart. Beulah cried. Miss Viola cried. Every woman at the picnic cried. For a while, people stood around talking about my daring capture of the outlaw, then they packed up their things and went home.
No fireworks, no more singing or pitching horseshoes
. I mean, what’s the point of throwing a party if the guest of honor can’t attend?
But the important thing is that I had solved the case, saved the ranch, brought the crook to justice, and won a whole shoe box full of medals and ribbons. And fellers, that’s as good as it gets around here. This case is . . .
Wait, hold everything. You’re probably wondering what happened to Rosebud, the Secret Weapon. Okay, here’s the scoop on that. In all the confusion, he walked away, scot-free, but two weeks later, I caught the little creep trying to steal some of our dog food and . . . never mind.
Too many encounters with a skunk can mess up a happy ending, so let’s just say that I had learned my lesson about skunks and never saw him again.
And with that, 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