The Case of the Tricky Trap

by John R. Erickson

  Okay, I was ready. I squared my enormous soldiers . . . shoulders, let us say, and took a big gulp of air. I would need that air when I got inside. Air is extremely important, and ninety percent of mission failures are caused by a lack of air.

  I went into the Crouch Position, inched toward the warped section of the shed door, and allowed my nose and head to penetrate inside. There, I switched over to Infrared Vision and scoped out the interior of the shed. I saw sacks of feed, fifteen bales of prairie hay, and Slim’s live-trap.

  Twisting the knobs on the Night Scope, I brought the trap into focus and scoped it out from one end to the other. At first the trap appeared to be empty, but closer inspection revealed that it was . . . well, empty. Phooey. Either the burglar hadn’t shown up or the trap wasn’t working. I had no choice but to go closer and check it out.

  I slithered my way inside the shed and marched straight to the trap. It was still empty, so that confirmed our first observation. The next question was, why? I ran my gaze over the trap, studying the mechanical components and the trigger mechanism.

  It seemed pretty obvious that Slim had muffed the job of setting the trap. I mean, it was a simple device and any dog could have set the thing right, but Slim had tried it on his own, without a dog around to keep an eye on things. So what could you expect? A typical cowboy job, slap-dash and half-done. I would have to enter the trap myself and conduct a complete and thorough inspection. My report would send shock waves all the way to the top, but that was too bad. It couldn’t be helped. Incompetence must be explored.

  Exposed, let us say. Incompetence must be exposed.

  I crept inside the trap and started Dictation. “March 12, 2:47 am. What we are looking at is a crude live-trap, made by a cowboy welder. Over here, we have the linkage mechanism made of metal rebar. The linkage runs from the trapdoor on the anterior side and connects to the trigger mechanism inside the trap.

  “You’ll notice that the trigger is made of an old license plate. It seems clear that the failure occurred because the trap wasn’t properly armed and set. To prove this, we will now set a paw upon the trigger plate . . . ”

  SLAM!

  Huh?

  Okay, remember that report I was dictating? We’ve decided not to use it. It contained some . . . some faulty data. See, we were operating on the assumption that the Trap Personnel had failed to arm the trap, but after testing the systems, we . . . uh . . . found this to not be the case, so to speak.

  We . . . we got caught in our own trap, you might say. Ha ha. No problem. Anyway, all systems seemed to be functioning, and testing the systems had been the whole purpose of the mission, right? It was no big deal and it could have happened to anyone.

  But it would become a bigger deal at eight o’clock. I knew what was coming and stayed up most of the night rehearsing my story:

  “Slim, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Hank blundered into the trap and set it off.’ Am I right? But let me assure you that it’s not that simple. See, I wasn’t with you yesterday when you set the trap and, well, I felt some concern . . . a great concern, actually, that maybe it wasn’t properly armed.

  “See, I’m the kind of dog who cares about these things, so I . . . I couldn’t sleep at all, Slim, no kidding, I mean you talk about a dog who really cares about his people! That’s me. Anyway, I felt it was my duty to, you know, check out all the systems. And, hey, what do you know? I, uh, trapped myself. Ha ha.”

  At eight o’clock, the shed door opened and Slim stepped inside. There was no Ha Ha in his face. I recognized several of his usual morning characteristics: a mug of coffee hooked onto his index finger, soggy red-rimmed eyes, a pillow crease on his right cheek, and a humorless slash of a mouth.

  He stared at me and I stared at him. I tried to squeeze up a smile and began tapping out a slow rhythm with my tail. Tap, tap, tap. He mumbled, “Hank, what in the cat hair are you doing in my coon trap?”

  Well, I . . . it was hard to explain. No, it was impossible to explain with him standing there, glaring at me with those horrible bloodshot eyes. No wonder he was still a bachelor. Any woman who saw that face in the morning would call the police.

  But . . . wait. He took a sip of coffee and smiled. Then he started laughing. The frost and ice in his face melted into something warmer and kinder, and I began to feel better about this deal.

  “Hank, you are such a birdbrain, and my life would be so boring if someone was to wring your neck. Well, let’s get you out of there.”

  Oh, happy day! He wasn’t going to wring my neck or leave me inside the trap for weeks and weeks! He opened the door and let me out. Oh, freedom and friendship! I leaped into the middle of him with such an awesome display of love and devotion that it knocked him into a bale of hay and he fell over backward.

  I didn’t care. I licked his face with the kind of vigor unknown to ordinary dogs. We were pals again, that’s all that mattered. He understood that I’d been trying to do my job, and I understood that his calling me “birdbrain” had been a careless slip the tongue. The old wounds were healed and all was right with the world. Yippee!

  “Quit.” He pushed me away and rose to his feet. “Hank, there’s just one thing I want to say. See that trap yonder? It’s for a raccoon.”

  Right, I understood that.

  “And I want you to promise me on your Doggie Word of Honor that you won’t spring my trap again.”

  Oh, yes sir! That was a promise. On my honor. Five long hours inside the stupid trap had made me an older dog, a wiser dog in every way. I’d had time to review my life and think about my priorities, set goals and plan for the future, and he had my solemn oath that I would never pull that stunt again. Never.

  As you can see, our clean slate was starting off on the right foot.

  Chapter Five: Voices in the Night

  I stood nearby and watched as Slim reset the trap. He propped the trapdoor open with a piece of lumber and set the trigger mechanism. I was impressed. He did everything right. Even I couldn’t have done better. Then he went outside to his pickup and came back with . . . what was that?

  He beamed a grin at me and held up a tin can. “The raccoons around here seem to like corn, so Tonight’s Special is going to be canned corn. This’ll work, pooch.”

  He gave me a wink, pulled a can opener out of his jacket pocket, and cranked it until the lid fell off the can. Then he got down on his knees and eased the can of corn onto the trigger plate. Gee, that was a pretty sneaky idea. Instead of letting the thief tear up sacks of feed, we were going to draw him into the trap with bait.

  Heh heh. Old Slim and I made a pretty awesome team, don’t you think? You bet. On our ranch, a thieving raccoon didn’t have much of a chance.

  Have we discussed raccoons? Maybe so, because we’ve had several stories about Eddy the Rac. Remember Eddy? Slim and I saved him from some stray dogs when he was just a little shaver, and Slim kept him as a pet until he became such a pain in the neck, everyone was glad to see him leave.

  You might say that I’d helped raise Eddy. In some ways he was a nice little guy, but he was also a crook. See, one of the valuable lessons Eddy had taught me was that you should never trust Eddy. Behind that cute raccoon face and pleasant personality lurked the mind of a con artist. He could talk his way out of a jailhouse or a straitjacket, and I must admit that even I had been victimized on a few occasions. Once or twice.

  Once, and that was enough. Do you remember that scam? It was one of Eddy’s famous “deals,” see. Slim had shut him up for the night inside a rabbit cage and Eddy wanted out. Eddy always wanted out. Anyway, he . . . this is embarrassing . . . the little sneak convinced me that the cage was actually an elevator, and that if I opened the door and crawled inside, we could . . . well, go for a ride up to the third floor.

  I’m not going to tell you the rest of it. It’s still too painful, too embarrassing. I thought the wound had healed, but it ha
sn’t.

  Okay, I’ll tell you, if you’ll swear not to laugh or tell anyone else. Promise? Here’s the scoop.

  I, being a trusting soul, opened the door and crawled inside, while Eddy vanished like a puff of smoke, and come morning, guess who was stuck inside the rabbit cage? Me. For days I had to endure the mockery and ridicule of the small minds on this ranch, Slim and Loper. Oh, they thought it was hilarious! Hank spending the night in the rabbit cage.

  It wasn’t hilarious. It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my entire career, burned into my memory with a hot iron. So now you know the story on Eddy: a happy little guy who could be counted on to get a dog into trouble. Eddy was Bad News, period.

  Was he the one who’d wrecked the feed shed? We had found coon tracks, but no information that actually linked him to the crime. Maybe we were gunning for Eddy or for some of his pals—it didn’t matter to me. Justice would be done. The thieves would be hauled away from ranch headquarters and dumped off in another location. If Eddy was the culprit, we would catch him and he would have to pay the price.

  See, when it comes to busting crooks and solving cases, the Head of Ranch Security has no friends.

  Anyway, that’s the file on Eddy the Rac . . . well, part of the file. There’s more but I’m not at liberty to discuss it. The rest of his file is still classified and that information won’t be released for twenty-five or thirty years.

  Where were we? As you can see, just talking about Eddy gets me worked up, the little scrounge. Oh yes, we had reset and baited the trap. Slim loaded twenty sacks of feed onto the back of the pickup and we went on with our daily routine, feeding the cows in all seven pastures. Everything went fine and we returned to ranch headquarters late that afternoon.

  Did you happen to notice that I didn’t mention Drover? The reason is that he went AWOL and spent the entire day spouting roots on his gunny-sack bed. No kidding. I mean, what kind of dog sleeps all night and then all day?

  Drover, that’s who, but don’t think that he got by with it. I wrote him up, gave him seven Chicken Marks for laziness and disgraceful behavior. Oh, he sniffled and cried, but I didn’t care. He’d brought it upon himself.

  You know what he did then? He went back to sleep! Oh well.

  Anyway, darkness fell. It happens every day after the sun goes down, don’t you see, and we think there’s some connection: sun goes down, it gets dark. I was too restless to sleep. I mean, I couldn’t take my mind off that trap. I paced around the office and tried to think of something else, but my ears kept straining to hear something down at the feed shed.

  This was exactly the wrong approach, and I knew it. When we’re deeply involved in a stakeout or a trap situation, the best course of action is to forget about it, leave it alone, let things happen in their own time. Remember the wise old saying? “A potted watch never boils.” It’s true, very true. Potted watches never boil.

  What exactly is a potted watch? I’ve wondered about that. I guess you could plant one in a flower pot and . . . I don’t know, give it water and plenty of sunshine. It seems odd that anyone would want to plant a watch in a flower pot, but the impartant poink is that when you pot a watch, it never boils.

  On the other hand, if you throw an unpotted watch into a pan of boiling water, it will boil every time. Thus, the wise old saying is wise and true.

  It’s kind of impressive that a dog would know so many wise old sayings, isn’t it? I agree, and thanks for noticing. Yes, those wise old sayings have helped me solve many a case. Unfortunately, the wise old sayings weren’t helping me much on this particular night, as I paced and fumed and waited to hear some action from our trap in the feed shed. The hours dragged by, then—it must have been around three o’clock in the morning—I heard several odd rustling sounds coming from the general vaccination of the feed shed . . . the general vicinity, let us say. Rustling sounds, then voices.

  Maybe I should have stayed out of it and let events take their course, but . . . well, you know me. I’m not the kind of dog who’s good about waiting. Give me action! So it will come as no surprise that I shifted into Stealthy Crouch Mode and began creeping toward the feed shed.

  It puzzled me that I had heard voices. See, by its very nature, the word “voices” suggests more than one suspect. It’s puerile . . . purple . . . pureed . . . phooey. “Voices” is the plural of “voice,” don’t you see, and you can’t have two voices coming from one suspect. Well, I guess you could if some nut was down there putting on a show and doing different voices, but that wasn’t likely.

  So, yes, this gave me an important clue in the case. We had multiple suspects. If that was Eddy down there, he’d brought some of his buddies with him.

  This . . . uh . . . caused me some concern. I mean, Eddy had these two cousins, Harley and Choo Choo, big guys who thought they were pretty tough, and the bad news was that they were tough. I’d tangled with them a couple of times and . . . well, those hadn’t been happy experiences for me.

  Maybe I should have dropped the case and gone to bed, but I crept on through the inky black inkiness of the darkness. Fifty feet from the shed, I stopped and listened. I could hear the voices clearly now.

  “Junior, hush. I know what I’m a-doing.”

  “Y-yeah, b-but P-p-pa . . .”

  “Quit talking so loud! There’s dogs around here and we don’t want to get ’em stirred up. The last thing we need is a bunch of noisy yapping dogs, so hush up.”

  “Y-yeah, b-but P-p-pa, I d-don’t think y-you ought to g-g-go in that sh-shed.”

  “Why? Junior, we’ve been working these roads and ditches for two weeks, and what did we get?”

  “W-w-well, one l-l-little m-mouse, mouse.”

  “That’s right. Two weeks’ work for one sorry little mouse. Son, two buzzards can’t stay in business like that. We need grub, serious grub.”

  “Y-y-yeah, b-but the shed’s d-d-dark and s-s-s-spooky.”

  “Spooky? I’ll show you spooky! Lookie here at my ribs sticking out like an I-don’t-know-what. Son, your poor old daddy is wasting away and I’m going into that shed to look for grub.”

  “W-w-well, okay, b-but watch out f-f-for g-g-g-ghosts.”

  “Ghosts? Junior, I am a ghost! I’m a ghost of my former self. I’m a ghost of a healthy well-fed American buzzard. Now, you stand guard in this tree. I’m a-going inside.”

  “Okay, P-p-pa. W-w-w-whatever y-you s-s-say.”

  Did you hear that conversation? You probably think it came from a gang of thuggish raccoons, right? Well, I’ve got a big surprise. Those voices came from Wallace and Junior the buzzards!

  Chapter Six: We Catch Something Else in Our Trap

  Well, this case had certainly taken an interesting twist. Who would have ever suspected that our barn-wreckers would turn out to be a couple of half-starved buzzards? Not me. I was astounded.

  I mean, we’d found coon tracks around the shed yesterday morning, and most of the time a guy assumes that coon tracks were left by coons, right? It was very confusing and it took me a minute to figure it out.

  Special shoes. Wallace and Junior had equipped themselves with special shoes that left the tracks of a raccoon. Very clever. I never would have thought that Wallace and Junior would be devious enough to pull such a stunt, but here was the proof staring me in the face. When you find coon tracks and no coon, there’s something fishy going on.

  I took up a position about twenty feet from the door of the shed and hid in the shadows. I heard the rustle of wings and a moment later, Wallace crash-landed in front of the shed. He hoisted himself off the ground, looked up in a tree nearby, and said, “Shhhh!”

  A voice in the darkness said, “D-d-don’t sh-shush me. I d-d-didn’t m-make a s-s-sound.”

  “Well, shush anyway.”

  Wallace rolled his head around, looking in all directions. Then he started tip-toeing toward the shed door. H
e stopped, glanced around again, and stuck his head inside. There he stood, all bent over with his tail feathers pointing toward the moon. I was sorely tempted to rush forward and take a bite out of his tail section (wouldn’t that have been a riot?), but I imposed discipline upon myself and held my position.

  We needed to gather some more evidence in this case before we sent in the Special Crimes Unit. If we gave Wallace plenty of rope, he would eventually hang out his laundry.

  Once again, I heard Junior’s voice. “P-p-pa? W-w-what do you s-s-see?”

  Wallace’s head emerged. “Junior, how do you feel about corn?”

  “C-c-c-corn? Y-you m-mean like c-c-corn f-f-f-flakes, corn flakes?”

  “No sir, I don’t mean cornflakes. I mean corn.”

  “A s-s-sack of c-c-corn?”

  Wallace stuck his head inside and pulled it out again. “It’s in a can, a tin can. Canned corn is what we’re talking about here.”

  “Oh g-g-gosh. Is the c-c-can opened?”

  Wallace scowled. “Junior, we can stand here and play twenty questions or we can eat a can of corn, but we can’t do both. I didn’t write the menu.”

  “W-w-well, I’m n-n-not too c-c-crazy about c-c-c-corn, P-pa.”

  “Fine with me, I didn’t want to share anyway. You stay up there and dream about prime rib, I’m going to eat some corn.” Wallace whirled around and started crawling into the shed. But then he backed out and looked up into the tree. “But don’t be whining about how you ain’t had anything to eat in two weeks. I can’t stand a whiny buzzard.”

  “Uh uh okay, P-p-pa.”

  Wallace wiggled and squeezed himself through the door, and disappeared inside. Well! This case was moving right along. In two minutes, we would have us a live buzzard inside the trap. I would stand guard and at eight o’clock in the morning, Slim would arrive and I would hand over the prisoner. Wouldn’t he be proud!