It’s a Dog’s Life
John R. Erickson
Illustrations by Gerald L. Holmes
Maverick Books, Inc.
Publication Information
MAVERICK BOOKS
Published by Maverick Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 549, Perryton, TX 79070
Phone: 806.435.7611
www.hankthecowdog.com
First published in the United States of America by Maverick Books, Inc. 1984,
Texas Monthly Press, 1988, and Gulf Publishing Company, 1990.
Subsequently published simultaneously by Viking Children’s Books and Puffin Books, members of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 1999.
Currently published by Maverick Books, Inc., 2011.
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © John R. Erickson, 1984
All rights reserved
library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Erickson, John R.
It’s a dog’s life / John R. Erickson ; illustrations by Gerald L. Holmes.
p. cm.
Originally published in series: Hank the Cowdog ; 3.
Summary: Duped into thinking the world is coming to an end, Hank the Cowdog winds up in town for some more adventures including getting in and out of a case of “soap hydrophobia.”
ISBN 1-59188-103-X (pbk. ; alk. paper)
[1. Dogs—Fiction. 2. West (U.S.)—Fiction. 3. Humorous stories. 4. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Holmes, Gerald L., ill. II. Title. III. Series: Erickson, John R. Hank the Cowdog ; 3.
PZ7.E72556It 1999 [fic]—dc21 98-41811 CIP AC
Hank the Cowdog® is a registered trademark of John R. Erickson.
Printed in the United States of America
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Dedication
I dedicate this story to the kids of my tribe: the little Sparkses, Dykemas, Ericksons, Marmadukes, Pattersons, and Harters.
Contents
Chapter One The End of the World
Chapter Two The Thick Plottens
Chapter Three Playing for Big Steaks
Chapter Four The Case Is Solved
Chapter Five A Singing Buzzard, as Incredible as That Might Seem
Chapter Six A Happy Reunion with My Sister
Chapter Seven Garbage Patrol
Chapter Eight The Big Showdown
Chapter Nine The Mysterious Ivory Dog Bar
Chapter Ten On Death Row
Chapter Eleven Another Case Is Solved
Chapter Twelve The End Ends Happily After All
Chapter One: The End of the World
It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. One morning around ten o’clock Drover brought me some incredible news. He said the world was coming to an end.
I had gotten in from work around daylight, washed up in the septic tank, and hit my gunnysack just as the sun peeked over that big cottonwood tree down by the creek. It had been a slow night but still I was bushed. Must have been the accumulation of long nights. This security work begins to wear on a guy after a while.
I had given Drover the night off, so by the time I came dragging in he was all fresh and ready to go exploring or some such foolishness. He asked if I wanted to go with him.
“No sir, I certainly don’t, and here’s the rest of it. I plan to be sound asleep when the mailman comes by. You get your little self up there by the mailbox and give him a good barking. You got that?”
The smile left his face. “Okay Hank, but I sure did want to go exploring.”
“That exploring can keep for another day, son.” I scratched my gunnysack until it was fluffed up just the way I like it, then I flopped down. What a beautiful feeling! “We tend to business first, Drover, and then if there’s any time left, we tend to pleasure. Why do I have to keep telling you that?”
“I don’t know, Hank. I forget things.”
I looked at the runt and shook my head. “You forget things. How can you forget that the mailman comes by here every day at the same time? How can you forget that one of our most important jobs is to bark at him? How can you forget that you’re wasting my time and I’m ready to go to sleep?” I noticed that he was staring at my ear. “What are you staring at?”
“You got three fleas crawling on your ear.”
They were coming out of my bed. Derned gunnysack was getting a little ripe and needed changing. You’d think the cowboys would notice something like that and give me a fresh cake sack every six months or so, but they can sell ’em back to the Co-op for a nickel apiece, see, and that sort of puts a price on my services.
You never really know these ranch folks until there’s a nickel involved. Give the Head of Ranch Security a five-cent bed every six months? No siree, not with cattle prices the way they are. That new gunnysack just might take the ranch down into bankruptcy.
So if you want to know why my bed was full of fleas, there’s your answer. It had nothing to do with my personal hygiene. I bathe in the sewer every single day, I make a sincere effort to keep the sandburs out of my tail, I scratch every flea that shows himself.
In other words, I’m one of the cleanest dogs I ever met except Beulah the collie, and oh, just the mention of her name makes my heart start whammming around in my chest!
How could she love a bird dog when she could have me? What did Plato have that I didn’t have? I’ll answer that question. Plato was so homely, so pitiful, so incompetent that Beulah felt sorry for him. That’s all I could figger. I mean, in a contest of looks, brains, courage, brute strength, or anything else you’d want to mention, Plato came in dead last.
How did I get started on Beulah? I can’t let myself do that and what the heck was I talking about?
I can’t remember.
Okay, I’ve got it now. Fleas. I was discussing fleas. It doesn’t matter how careful you are with your personal hygiene, if the ranch executives are too tight to give you a clean gunnysack every six months or so, you’re going to by George come up with fleas, and Drover was correct in saying that I had three of the little devils crawling on my left ear.
Know what I did? I got my hind leg up and went to kicking them fleas, and fellers, I wouldn’t want to be a flea in that situation because my hind legs are very powerful and my claws are just death on fleas.
“I think you got ’em,” said Drover. “I hope they don’t get into my bed.”
“Son, when this dog takes after a flea, it needs more than a bed. It needs a cemetery, and that goes for larger animals too. Now I’m going to sleep. Tell me what your assignment is.”
He twisted his mouth around and squinted one eye. “Uh . . . let’s see . . .”
“Mailman.”
“Mailman. Mail-MAN. MAIL-man.”
“Bark.”
“Bark.” He shook his head.
“Bark at.”
“Bark at . . . bark at . . . mailman bark at . . .bark at the mailman!”
“Very good, Drover. Now, keep saying that to yourself and run up to the road before you forget again.”
“Okay, Hank, bark at the mailman.” He started off but stopped. “Hank, how come we bark at the mailman?”
I stared at him. “Are you asking why we bark at the mailman?”
“
Yeah. If he brings the mail, how come we bark at him?”
“Holy cats, Drover, at your age you’re still asking a question like that? Son, if you don’t know the answer by this time, it wouldn’t do any good for me to tell you. Now go on before I lose my temper.”
“Okay, Hank. Bark at the mailman, bark at the mailman.” And off he went to the mailbox.
I settled into my gunnysack and released my grip on the world. But you know what? I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. I kept asking myself, “Why DO we bark at the mailman?”
If you look at it in a certain light, it really doesn’t make much sense. As far back as I can remember, no mailman has ever killed a chicken, robbed a nest, broke into a sack of feed, or done anything worse than deliver the mail.
But that right there is one of the primary dangers of having an active, superior type of intelligence. On the one hand, it’s necessary for security work. On the other hand, it can come up with foolish questions. Ma used to say that back at the beginning of time, God built a thousand questions but only two hundred and fifty answers, so there you are.
Why do we bark at the mailman? Because, by George, cowdogs have always barked at the mailman and they always will.
And with that out of the way, I went to sleep.
It was wonderful, delicious. Geeze, I love sleep. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to lie there with my paws in the air and have dreams that make me twitch. I don’t know what it is that makes twitching dreams special, but they’re the very best kind.
So there I was, twitching and rolling my eyes and at peace with the world, dreaming of fresh bloody bones and . . . well, Beulah, when all at once I heard a high-pitched squeal.
“Hank, oh Hank, it’s awful, wake up, I’m so scared I can’t stand it, wake up!”
One eye popped open. It was a short-haired, stub-tailed white dog, and he was jumping up and down. “Bzelwykqe dkeithsle pclkenck qghbnesl,” I said.
“What?”
My other eye slid open. “These are my fresh bloody bones and next week’s an entirely different matter.”
He twisted his head and looked at me. “What are you talking about, Hank?”
I pushed myself up and staggered over against the gas tank. My head began to clear. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“The meaning of what, Hank?”
“The meaning of . . . I don’t know. Whatever it is we’re talking about.”
“You mean . . . bloody bones?”
“Okay, stop right there. Whose bones and why are they bloody? Try to remember every detail. Reconstruct the scene of the crime just as you saw it. So far, we’ve only got one clue: the bones are bloody. What kind of bones were they?”
“Uh . . . fresh bloody bones.”
“Very good. That’s two clues: fresh and bloody. Now you’ve got to concentrate. Whose bones were they?”
Drover rolled his eyes. I could tell he was trying to concentrate. “I guess they’re yours, Hank. I haven’t seen ’em yet.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well . . . I’m not sure.”
“Then what is the meaning of this conversation? Why am I standing here?”
“I don’t know, Hank. Maybe you better sit down.”
I sat down and took a deep breath. “Drover, I was asleep and you woke me up. Why did you wake me up?”
“Oh. Oh-h-h-h-h Hank, I just heard the awful news and I thought you ought to know!”
“What awful news?”
The little mutt was shivering all over by this time. “Oh Hank, the world’s going to come to an end tomorrow at three o’clock!”
“HUH? The world . . . three o’clock . . . that’s impossible!”
“No, it’s true, I know it’s true! Oh, I’m scared, Hank. This has never happened to me before!”
Just then, Sally May came out of the house, jumped into her car, and went roaring out of the driveway, throwing up gravel and dust. She turned left at the country road and headed west toward town.
Drover’s eyes got as big as plates. “There, you see that? She must have heard the news.”
Well, this was, shall we say, shocking. We didn’t have much time to prepare. Furthermore, how do you prepare for the end of the world? As I was sifting through the various options, I heard a commotion up around the house.
It was Pete the Barncat. He was jumping up in the air and rolling around on the ground and yowling. It appeared that he’d taken the fits.
“Come on, Drover, we’d better check this out.”
We ran up the hill. Something terrible was happening on the ranch and I had to find out what it was.
Chapter Two: The Thick Plottens
When we got to the top of the hill we found Pete rolling around in the dirt in front of the yard gate. I studied the scene and came up with an explanation for his odd behavior: he had choked on a chicken bone.
I couldn’t think of anyone who deserved it more than Pete, and yet there’s a heart beating inside this massive body of mine and every now and then it can be touched by tragedy. I kind of hated to be there, watching Pete in his last moments of life.
Drover went up to him. Pete was on his back, kicking all four paws in the air and rolling his eyes. “What’s wrong, Pete?”
He quit twitching and looked up at Drover.
“The end of the world is coming! I can feel it.”
Drover glanced at me. “Did you hear that?”
“I heard it but I don’t believe it. Step aside and let me check this thing out.” I pushed Drover out of the way and stood over the cat. “I’m going to order this cat to open his mouth. When he does, we’ll find a chicken bone caught in his throat.
“This is a classic case of greed, Drover, which is very common in cats. I recognized the signs the minute I got here. They get to thinking they can eat anything and the first thing you know they get choked on a bone. Now watch. Open your mouth, cat.”
He opened his mouth. Drover and I looked inside. I spotted two tonsils and the little punching bag that hangs in front of the throat. No bone.
I stepped back. “I was afraid of that. Sometimes the bone . . .”
“It’s not a bone, Hank,” said Pete in an eerie voice. “I can feel the end of the world coming.”
Drover gasped. “Hank, he said it again! Oh my gosh! What are we going to do?”
“First, we don’t panic. Second, we interrogate this cat. And third . . . we look for the third point in our plan of action.” I went back to Pete. “Exactly what makes you think the world’s coming to an end?”
“Cat’s intuition.”
“I don’t believe in cat’s intuition. There’s no way to test it.”
“Yes there is. Just ask me any question about the end of the world.”
“All right.” I paced back and forth. “What day is it due?”
“Tomorrow.”
“What time of day?”
“Three o’clock.”
“Hmmm.” His answers matched Drover’s report. When you get the same answers from two different sources, you have to take it seriously. And then there was Sally May rushing away from the house. That had been pretty suspicious too.
Pete lay there with his eyes closed. “I know how you can check it for sure.”
“Well, by George let’s hear it, and be quick about it.”
“You have to say please.”
I chuckled at that. “Me, say please to a cat? Do you realize you are speaking to the Head of Ranch Security? I will not say please to a cat—ever.”
I bent my head down and showed him some fangs—growled, narrowed my eyes, raised the hair on the back of my neck as well as all the way down my spine, gave him the whole nine yards of threatening gestures. And as you might expect, he changed his mind.
“Well, maybe I will tell you.”
“You bet you will, and you’ll tell the truth and nothing but the truth. So start talking while I still have myself under control.”
When a cat has some running room or a tree to climb, he’ll talk trash and very seldom will you hear him tell the truth. But put one flat on his back on the ground, stand over him with some deadly fangs, and fellers, you can make a Christian out of any cat. I guarantee it.
Well, we finally got the truth out of him. I don’t know why he didn’t tell the truth in the first place. It would have been so much simpler and easier for all of us, but cats are just that way. They seem to get a kick out of being deceitful. It’s just part of their nature.
Under severe questioning Pete finally confessed about where he’d learned that the world was coming to an end. Just as I had suspected, it had nothing to do with so-called “cat’s intuition.” He’d been sitting on the window sill when Sally May got a phone call. He’d listened to the conversation (it’s called eavesdropping and cats are very good at it) and he’d seen her write this message down on her calendar: “End of the world, 3:00 p.m.”
I glanced at Drover. “Well, there’s the scoop on this end-of-the-world business. Now all we have to do is check the calendar. Of course there’s one small problem.”
“Sure is.”
“And what is that small problem, Drover?”
He gave me a blank stare. “I was just asking myself that same question.”
“The small problem is that we have to get into the house because that’s where the calendar is. Come on, son, we’ve got work to do.” I turned to Pete. “You can leave, cat, but don’t go far. We may have some more questions for you later on.”
Pete gave me a very strange smile and went up toward the machine shed, twitching the end of his tail. I watched him for a long time. I didn’t like that smile. There was just something about it that made me suspicious.
But we had work to do. Drover and I jumped the fence and began circling the house, looking for a way to get inside. All at once I heard an odd noise. I stopped.
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