The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog

by John R. Erickson

  At last he saw them. We were down at the corral. He shook his head and muttered, “Hank, when are you going to learn about porcupines? How many times do we have to go through this? Drover never gets quills in his nose.”

  Well, Drover was a little chicken and Loper just didn’t understand. Nobody understood.

  He got a pair of fencing pliers out of the saddle shed, threw a leg lock on me, and started pulling. It hurt. Oh it hurt! Felt like he was pulling off my whole nose. But I took it without a whimper—well, maybe I whimpered a little bit—and we got ’er done.

  Loper rubbed me behind the ears. “There, now try to stay away from porcupines.” He stood up and started to dust off his jeans when he noticed the wet spot.

  His eyes came up and they looked kind of wrathful. “Did you do that?”

  I was well on my way to tall timber when he threw the pliers at me.

  I couldn’t help it. I didn’t do it on purpose. The quills just got to hurting so bad that I had to let something go. Was it my fault that he had me in a leg lock and got in the way?

  Make one little mistake around this ranch and they nail you to the wall.

  I laid low for a while, hid in the post pile and nursed my nose. It was about ten o’clock when Sally May discovered the murdered hen.

  Chapter Three: An Enormous Monster

  I debated for a long time about what to do next.

  Should I hide out and play it safe, or go on down to the chickenhouse and get blamed for something that wasn’t my fault?

  Curiosity got the best of me and I trotted down to see what was going on.

  Drover was already there when I arrived, wagging his stub tail and trying to win a few points with his loyal dog routine. I walked up to him and said, out of the corner of my mouth, “Thanks for all the help this morning. I really appreciate it.”

  I think he missed the note of irony, because he said—and I mean with a straight face—he said, “That’s okay, Hankie, it wasn’t nothing.”

  Dang right it wasn’t nothing.

  Loper was kneeling over the hen, studying the signs. Sally May stood nearby, looking mighty unhappy about the dead chicken. Loper pushed his hat to the back of his head and stood up. His eyes went straight to me and Drover, only when I glanced around, I noticed that Drover had disappeared. It was just me, standing in the spotlight.

  “Hank, if you hadn’t been out barking all night, you might have prevented this. Why do you think we keep you around here?” I hung my head and tucked my tail. “Do you have any idea how much money it costs to keep you dogs around here? Seems that every time I turn around I’m having to buy another fifty-pound sack of dog food. That stuff’s expensive.”

  Maybe this ain’t the time or place to argue the point, but just for the record let me say that Co-op dog food is the cheapest you can buy. I don’t know what they make it out of, hulls, straw, sawdust, anything the pigs won’t eat, and then they throw in a little grease to give it a so-called flavor. Tastes like soap and about half the time it gives me an upset stomach.

  The point is, I wasn’t exactly eating the ranch into bankruptcy. Thought I ought to throw that in to give a more balanced view of things.

  Loper went on. “We can’t afford to keep you dogs around here if you’re going to let this sort of thing go on. Everybody has to earn his keep on the ranch. I don’t want this to happen again.”

  What did he suppose I wanted? Sometimes I just don’t understand . . . oh well.

  He picked up the dead chicken by the feet and carried it down to the trash barrel. I got to admit that I watched this with some interest, since it had occurred to me that there wasn’t much any of us could do for the dead chicken.

  The more I thought about chicken dinner, the more my mouth watered. Couldn’t get it off my mind. I like chicken about as well as any food you can name. Has a nice clean taste except for the feathers. Feathers are pretty tasteless, if you ask me, and they kind of scrape when they go down.

  Sure was hungry for chicken, but I decided against it. Wouldn’t look too good if I got caught eating the murder victim, after all the trouble I’d gotten into that day.

  I tried to concentrate on the scene of the crime. I studied it again, went over the ground and sniffed it out. Nothing, no clues, no tracks, no scent. Could have been a coyote, a coon, a skunk, a badger, even a fox.

  But there was one thing I was sure of. It wouldn’t happen again, not while I was in charge of security, not as long as I could still stand up and fight for the ranch.

  I saw Drover peek his head out of the machine shed. “Get some sleep, son,” I told him. “Tonight we throw up a double guard, and we could get ourselves into some combat.”

  We slept till dark. When the moon came up, we went out on patrol, made several laps around headquarters. Everything was quiet. Off in the distance we heard a few coyotes, but they weren’t anywhere close.

  Must have been after midnight when Drover said his feet hurt, he wanted to rest a while. I left him in front of the chickenhouse and told him to sound the alarm if he saw anything unusual. I went on down and checked things at the corral, made the circle around the place, and ended up back at the chickenhouse about half an hour later.

  Thought I’d drop in unannounced and check on Drover, make sure he was taking care of business. As I sneaked up, I could see him in the moonlight. His ears were perked. He’d take about two steps and pounce on something with his front paws. Then he’d take two more steps and pounce again.

  He wasn’t paying a lick of attention to the chickenhouse. A guy could have driven a truck in there, loaded up all the hens, and been gone before Drover ever got the news.

  I walked up behind him. “What are you doing?”

  He screeched and headed for the machine shed. I called him back. He came out, looking all around with big eyes. “Is that you, Hank?”

  “Uh-huh. What were you doing?”

  “Me? Oh nuthin’.”

  It was then that I saw the toad frog jump. “Playing with a toad frog? On guard duty? When we got a murderer running around loose?”

  He hung his head and went to wagging that stub tail of his. “I got bored, Hank.”

  “Sit down, son, me and you need to have a serious talk.” He sat down and I marched back and forth in front of him. “Drover, I’m really disappointed in you. When you came to this ranch, you said you wanted to be a cowdog. I had misgivings at the time. I mean, you didn’t look like a cowdog. But I took you on anyway and tried to teach you the business. Can you imagine how it breaks my heart to come up here and find you playing with a dad-gummed toad frog?”

  His head sank lower and lower, and he started to sniffle.

  “If you had gone into any other line of work, playing with a frog would be all right, but a cowdog is something special. You might say we’re the elite. We have to be stronger, braver, and tougher than any brand of dog in the world. It’s a special calling, Drover, it ain’t for the common run of mutts.”

  He started crying.

  “Drover, there’s only one thing that keeps you from being a good cowdog.”

  “What is it, Hank?”

  “You’re worthless.”

  “Oh no,” he squalled, “don’t say it! It hurts too much.”

  “But it’s true. I’ve tried to be patient, I’ve tried to teach you, I’ve tried to be a good example.”

  “I know.”

  “But it hasn’t worked. You’re just as worthless today as you were the first time I saw you.”

  “Oh-h-h!”

  “You’re just a chickenhearted little mutt, is what you are, and I don’t think you’ll ever make a cowdog.”

  “Yes I will, Hank, I just need some time.”

  “Nope. Duty’s duty. I got no choice but to let you go.”

  He broke down and sobbed. “Oh Hank, I got no place to go, no friends, no fa
mily. Nobody wants a chickenhearted mutt. Give me just three more chances.”

  “Can’t do it, Drover, sorry.”

  “Two more?”

  “Nope.”

  “One more?”

  I paced back and forth. It was one of the most difficult decisions of my career and I didn’t want to rush into it.

  “All right, one more chance. But one more dumb stunt and you’re finished, and I mean forever. Now dry your eyes, shape up, pay attention to your business, and concentrate on being unworthless.”

  “Okay, Hank.” He started jumping up and down and going around in circles. “You won’t be sorry. No more frogs for me. I’ll guard that chickenhouse and give my life if necessary.”

  “That’s the spirit. I’m going to make the rounds again. If you see anything suspicious, give a holler.”

  I started off on my rounds and left him sitting in front of the chickenhouse door. I was down at the feed room, checking for coons, when I heard him sound the alarm.

  I turned on my incredible speed and went tearing up the hill. I have several speeds, don’t you see: slow, normal, and incredible. I save the last one back for special emergencies. When I turn on the incredible speed, I appear as a streak of color moving across the ground. Anything that gets in my way is knocked aside, often destroyed, and I’m not talking about little stuff either. I mean trees, posts, big rocks, you name it.

  As I was streaking up the hill, I met Drover.

  “Hank, I seen him, he’s up there, my gosh!”

  I had to slow down. “Give me a description.”

  “Big, Hank, and I mean BIG, huge, enormous. Black and white, gigantic tail that whishes through the air, long pointed tongue that flicks out at you, and horns growing out of his head.”

  “Good grief,” I whispered, “what is it?”

  “It’s a monster, Hank, a gen-u-wine monster!”

  I stopped to think it over. I’d never tangled with a monster before. “You think I can whip him?”

  “I don’t know, Hank. But if anybody can, it’s you.”

  “You’re right. Okay, here’s the plan. I’ll go in the first wave, make the first contact. We’ll hold you in reserve. If I holler for help, you come running, get in there with them teeth of yours and bite something. Got that?”

  “I got it.”

  I took a deep breath. “And Drover, if I don’t come back from this one, you’ll have to go on alone. Take care of the ranch and be brave.”

  It was kind of a touching moment, me and Drover standing there in the moonlight just before the big battle. I said good-bye and loped up the hill.

  I stopped and peered into the gloom. At first I couldn’t see anything, but then my eyes fell on a huge shadowy thing standing right in front of the chickenhouse door.

  Drover hadn’t exaggerated. It was a horned monster, all right, and he was fixing to bust down the door and start killing chickens. I didn’t have a moment to waste. It was now or never, him or me, glory or death. I bared my fangs and attacked.

  First contact was made only a matter of seconds after I launched the attack. The monster must have heard me coming, cause he kicked the tar out of me and sent me rolling. I leaped up and charged again but this time I made it through, sank my teeth into him and gave him a ferocious bite. He slung me around, but I hung on.

  He was big, all right, big as a house. I figgered he stood, oh, fourteen feet tall at the shoulder, had three eyes, a long forked tongue, and a tail with deadly stingers on the end of it, also horns that glowed in the dark. And tusks. Did I mention that? Big long tusks growing out of the side of his mouth, the kind that could rip a dog to shreds. Green slobber dripped out of his mouth and his eyes were red.

  It was a fight to the death. “Come on, Drover, attack!” I set up a howl to alert the house. I would need all the help I could get.

  I’ll give Drover credit. He came tearing out of the weeds, yapping at the top of his lungs, and got within three feet of the monster before he veered off and headed for the machine shed.

  The lights came on down at the house. The door slammed and I heard Loper running toward me. I hoped he had the gun. I was getting beat up and tired. I wasn’t sure I could keep up the fight much longer.

  The gun exploded, lit up the night. The monster ran and I started after him, ready to give him the coop de grass, as we say, but Loper called me back. I figgered he didn’t want to risk losing the Head of Ranch Security, which seemed pretty sensible to me.

  So I went back to him, limping on all four legs at once because they all hurt, and so did everything else. Wagging my tail, I went up to him, ready for my reward.

  I didn’t get no reward. To make a long story short, Drover had sent me into battle against the milk cow and I got cursed for it.

  I thought very seriously about terminating Drover—I mean his life, not his job—but I couldn’t find him in the machine shed. So I dragged my battered carcass down to the gas tanks and curled up on my gunnysack bed.

  I could have sworn that was a monster.

  Chapter Four: The Boxer

  I slept late the next morning. To be real honest about it, I didn’t wake up till sometime in the early afternoon. Guess all that monster fighting kind of wore me down.

  What woke me up was the sound of the flatbed pickup rattling up to the gas tank, right in front of my bedroom. Loper got out and started filling the pickup. He looked at me, gave his head a shake, and said something under his breath. I tried to read his lips but couldn’t make out what he said. Probably wasn’t the Pledge of Allegiance.

  Slim went around to the front of the pickup and opened up the hood. I was just getting up, right in the middle of a nice stretch, when I heard him say, “Hank, come here, boy.”

  Geeze, at last a friendly voice. How long had it been since someone had spoken to me in a kind voice? In my job, nobody ever says a word when you do something right, only when you make a mistake, and then you hear plenty about it.

  I trotted around to the front of the pickup—limped, actually, because I was pretty stove up from the battle—wagged my tail and said howdy. Slim bent down and rubbed me behind the ears.

  “Good dog,” he said.

  Good dog! I just melted on those words, rolled over on my back, and kicked all four legs in the air. It’s amazing what a few kind words and a smile can do for a dog. Even as hardboiled as I am, which is something you have to be in my line of work, I respond to kindness.

  Slim rubbed me in that special place at the bottom of my ribs, the one that’s somehow hooked up to my back leg. I’ve never understood the mechanics of it, but if a guy scratches me there it makes my back leg start kicking.

  Slim scratched and I kicked. Felt good and made Old Slim laugh. Then he told me to sit. I sat and tried to shake hands. Shaking hands is one of the many tricks I’ve learned over the years, and I can usually count on it to delight an audience of people.

  But Slim didn’t notice. He reached under the hood, pulled out the dipstick, and wiped it off on my ear. “Good dog.” And that was it. I waited around for some more scratching or handshaking, but he seemed to forget that I was there. He slammed the hood and stepped on my paw. “Oops, sorry, Hank, get out of the way.”

  The sweet moments in this life are fleeting. You have to enjoy them to the fullest when they come, before some noodle steps on you and tells you to get out of the way.

  Slim and Loper got into the pickup, and Loper said, “Don’t you dogs try to follow us.”

  He gunned the motor and pulled away from the gas tank. Drover suddenly appeared out of nowhere and hopped up into the back of the pickup.

  “Come on, Hank, we’re supposed to go.”

  In the back of my mind I knew that wasn’t right, but I didn’t have time to think about it. I chased the pickup until it slowed down for the big hill in front of the house, and jumped up in the back.
r />   “Where we going?” I asked.

  Drover gave me that famous empty-headed look of his, the one where you can gaze into his eyes and see all the way to the end of his tail, and there’s nothing in between. “Beats me, but I bet we’re going somewhere.”

  Loper drove up to the mailbox and turned left. If he had turned right, it would have meant that we were going to the pasture. A left turn meant only one thing: we were going to town. And that meant only one thing: Loper was going to be mad as thunder when he found out we’d jumped in the back and hitched a ride.

  But what the heck? You can’t be safe and cautious all the time. If you’re too timid in this life, you’ll miss out on all the fun and adventure. You’ll just stay home and snap at the flies, and when you get to be an old dog, you’ll look back on your life and think, “All these years I’ve been on this earth, and I’ve never done anything but snap at flies.”

  And you’ll regret that, when the opportunity came up, you didn’t sneak a ride into town.

  Drover curled up behind the cab and watched the scenery go by. I sat on my haunches, closed my eyes, and just let the wind flap my ears around. Felt good, restful. There for a little while I forgot all my cares and responsibilities.

  That lasted until we got to the highway. Loper pulled onto the blacktop and started picking up speed. The wind began to sting and my ears flapped a little harder than I like them to flap, and the crumbs of alfalfa hay on the pickup bed started to swirl.

  I laid down beside Drover. “Say, before I forget, I want to thank you for all the help you gave me last night with that monster.”

  He gave me a shy grin. “Oh, that’s okay. It was the least I could do.”

  “It sure as heck was. If you’d done any leaster, you’d have been fighting for the other side.”

  The shy grin disappeared. “You mad about something?”

  “Forget it.” I didn’t want to talk. Alfalfa leaves were getting into my mouth. I slept all the way to town.