The case of the three to.., p.1
The Case of the Three-Toed Tree Sloth,
p.1
The Case of the Three-Toed Tree Sloth
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
Published in the United States of America by Maverick Books, Inc., 2018
Copyright © John R. Erickson, 2018
All rights reserved
Maverick Books, Inc. Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59188-172-8
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
To the memory of Carlos, a good honest dog.
Contents
Chapter One - The Mysterious Creature
Chapter Two - Barn Robbers
Chapter Three - The Whistling Rooster Blues
Chapter Four - Elsa’s Frightening Report
Chapter Five - The Funnel of Logic
Chapter Six - The Double-Dirty-Trick Trick
Chapter Seven - The Plot Plottens
Chapter Eight - Bad News For the Runt
Chapter Nine - The Law of Gravy
Chapter Ten - Quills!
Chapter Eleven - Emergery Surgerncy
Chapter Twelve - Paybacks
Chapter One: The Mysterious Creature
It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. When I got the first intelligence reports about a Three-Toed Tree Sloth, I couldn’t believe it. They’re rare, exotic creatures that live in the jungles of South America, and no one had ever seen one in the Texas Panhandle. They eat trees and sometimes dogs too.
I was floored, shocked, and you will be too. I must warn you that this case is liable to get pretty scary before it gets any scarier. Does anyone feel brave enough to tag along? Use your own judgment.
Okay, let’s get started. We’ll take nothing but weapons and ammo for this mission.
You might recall that I run this ranch from my office on the twelfth floor of the Security Division’s Vast Office Complex. Looking out the huge windows, I can see ocean liners and tug boats in the harbor, and lines of traffic inching along on Broadway.
Great view. Most dogs don’t get an office with such a view, but don’t forget that I’m Head of Ranch Security. When a guy rises to a lofty position, he needs a lofty view of the world, right?
Well, I’ve got it. Sometimes I wonder if I really deserve it, but most of the time, heh heh, I’m pretty sure that I do.
The first report about the Tree Sloth came in around noon, as I recall. Yes, it was noon and I had already put in an eight-hour day, going over the crime reports that were stacked up on my desk.
It had been a quiet morning and I’d gotten a lot of work done, but then a stranger burst into my office and started yelling nonsense. “Hank, you’d better wake up!”
“Murgle honking the pork chop salad bowl.”
“Pete just saw some kind of strange animal.”
“Honk snerk…it was Beulah, and don’t call her strange.”
“It wasn’t Beulah and you’d better wake up.”
I opened my eyes and saw a smallish mutt with a stub tail. “Halt, stop in the name of the law! Who are you?”
“Well, I’m Drover, your best friend. Remember me?”
I narrowed my eyes and took a closer look. “Are you wearing a disguise? You look different now.”
“Yeah, ‘cause you were asleep.”
“I was not asleep.” I jacked myself up to a standing position and took a few faltering steps. “Drover, I must ask you a very important question. Where am I?”
“In our bedroom, under the gas tanks.”
I glanced around at my surroundings. “Okay, this is starting to fit together. When you came in, did you see any pork chops?”
He giggled. “No, I think you were dreaming.”
“Please don’t giggle. I told you, I wasn’t…” I took a deep breath of air. “All right, maybe I had dozed off. The work never ends around here, you know. What is the point of this intrusion?”
“Well, let me think.” He rolled his eyes around. “Oh yeah. Pete saw some kind of strange creature.”
“Strange creature? Why wasn’t I informed? How can I run this ranch if nobody tells me about all the strange creatures running around?”
He let out a groan. “I tried but you were asleep. That’s all you ever do.”
I strolled over to him and looked deeply into his eyes. “Soldier, I’m going to forget you said that. I know it’s been a hard year, but you mustn’t spread mustard about your commanding officer.”
“You mean gossip?”
“Yes, exactly. That’s what I said.”
“No, you said mustard.”
“That’s absurd. Why would I have been talking about mustard?”
“I don’t know, maybe you were dreaming about hamburgers.”
“No, they were pork chops. There’s been a mistake.” I glanced around the office. “But let me remind you that we’re in this thing together. A chain is only as strong as its winkest lick.” He winked one eye and licked his chops. “Why did you do that?”
“Well, you said something about winks and licks, and all at once...”
“I said, ‘weakest link.’ We are a chain, Drover, and we’re only as strong as our weakest link. Please try to remember that.”
“Okay, I’ve got it.”
“Good. Now, let’s go see what kind of lies the cat is spreading around.”
We turned out the lights and rode the elevator down to the ground floor, then went streaking away from the gas tanks and roared up to the gravel drive behind the ranch house. There, I went to Total Lockdown on all four paws and slid to a sliding slop...stop, that is. I slid to a sliding slop beside the yard gate.
On the other side of the fence sat the cat. Mister Never Sweat. Pete.
Have we discussed my Position on Cats? I don’t like ‘em, never have. As a group, they’re arrogant, lazy, and prone to sneaky behavior, and Pete is worse than most. I rarely do business with cats, but sometimes it can’t be avoided. This appeared to be one of those situations.
The little pest was licking his front paw with long strokes of his tongue. He looked up and gave me his usual smirk. “My, my, it’s Hankie the Wonderdog! What brings you to my little corner of the world?”
I swaggered over to him. “Never mind the small talk, Kitty. I’m on a tight schedule.”
His eyes grew wide. “Really!”
“That’s correct. Drover said you turned in a report.”
“Did I? I wonder what it could have been.”
My lips twitched into a snarl. “Hurry up, Pete. I know you love wasting my time but this isn’t the day for it.”
He fluttered his eyes and grinned. “Oh, you mean the strange animal?”
“Drover said it was a strange creature, not just an animal. Tell me about the so-called strange creature.”
“Oh, that! Well, yes, I saw one.”
“Go on and stick with the facts.”
“Well, Hankie, with my own eyes, I saw…” He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “…a Three-Toed Tree Sloth.”
“That’s rubbish. Toads don’t live in trees.”
He heaved a sigh. “Not a toad, Hankie. It’s a creature that has three toes and lives in trees. It’s called a sloth, a Three-Toed Tree Sloth. I’ll bet you can’t say it.”
I laughed in his face. “Oh yeah? Check this out. Free-Toed Tree Toad.”
“That’s wrong, Hankie. Three. Toed. Tree. Sloth.”
“Pete, if I can’t pronounce it, I don’t believe in it.”
He shrugged. “Well, I guess you’re not interested.”
“I guess I’m not.” I whirled away from the little crook. “Come on, Drover, this cat is wasting our time.”
As we marched away, I heard Pete’s voice behind me. “Maybe you don’t care that he’s eating trees.”
A buzz of electricity leaped down my spine. I stopped in my tracks, whirled around, and marched back to the fence. There, I beamed the cat an icy glare. “He was doing what? Did you say the creature was eating my trees? Without permission?”
“Um hm, that’s what Tree Sloths do, Hankie. They eat trees, chew them right down to the ground. But I’m sure you already knew that.”
“Of course I did. If you knew it, I knew it, only I knew it first. Don’t forget who’s Head of Ranch Security.” I moved closer and lowered my voice. “Maybe it was a beaver, Pete. Beavers eat trees, you know.”
The cat shook his head. “It wasn’t a beaver, Hankie. Beavers live in the water. Sloths climb trees. I saw him up in a tree.”
I paced a few steps away and tried to sort things ou
But what bothered me most was that…how can I say this? What bothered me most was that I had never heard of a Tree-Toed Slip Slop, and I sure didn’t want Kitty to know what I didn’t know.
Before I exchanged another word with the little scrounge, I needed to gather some more information about this mysterious creature, before something really bad happened to our ranch trees.
Chapter Two: Barn Robbers
We call it “research,” gathering background information for a case we have under investigation, and it’s a very important part of my work with the Security Division. See, a lot of dogs won’t take the time to do a proper job of researching a case, because…well, let’s face it. It’s too much trouble. It’s hard work. Ordinary mutts would rather chew a bone, snap at flies, or sleep.
Show me a dog that sleeps his life away and I’ll show you a mutt that never solves a case.
Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, I had just finished an interrogation of the local cat and had managed to extract an incredible pack of lies and half-truths about a mysterious creature called the Hammer-Toed Slip Slop.
Wait. It was called Three-Footed Toad Frog.
I don’t care what Pete called it, but he claimed that it had devoured and destroyed three hundred trees on my ranch.
It was called the Three-Toed Tree Sloth. There we go.
But regardless of what we called the thing, I was pretty sure it was nothing but a pack of lies, because…well, the story came from a cat, and cats would rather spin lies than eat ice cream. They are notorious twisters of the truth, and we never build a case around the testimony of a cat. Never.
On the other hand, it was a pretty disturbing pack of lies, and a dog in my position must remain open to the possibility that, once in a great while, a cat will mess up and tell the truth. In other words, I had to do some more digging on the case, and that brings us back to that word we discussed before, “research.” I had to do my research on this deal.
I left Drover with the cat, which tells you a lot about Drover. He was so bored with his own little life, he had nothing better to do than hang out with a cat, but let’s don’t get started on that.
I hiked up the hill to the machine shed, doing Visual Sweeps for any sign of a mysterious creature. The VS turned up no leads, but then I began picking up signals of an unauthorized vehicle that was approaching headquarters from the north. It was moving at a low rate of speed, creeping along, and that seemed pretty suspicious.
Was it possible that the Tree Sloth was driving around the ranch in a vehicle? Probably not. Any creature that eats trees can’t drive a pickup, so skip that. This appeared to be something entirely new and unrelated to Pete’s phony report.
I came to a stop, lifted Earoscanners, and began pulling in Earatory Data. It confirmed my original impression: there was something not right about this deal. I dove into a clump of ragweeds…wait, is “dove” the right word?
Dive, dove, diven. Diven.
I diven into some ragweeds and went undercover. There, peeking through the weeds, ACHOO! I sneezed. This was the fall of the year, don’t you see, and we’d had enough rain over the summer to produce a huge crop of ragweeds, I mean, they were tall and thick and everywhere.
ACHOO!
And one of the things you might not know about ragweeds is that they are Sneezaromic Plants, which means ACHOO they release high levels of ACHOO that cause people and dogs to go into fits of ACHOO! See what I mean?
ACHOO!
This was pointless, trying to do a Stake Out of an unidentified creeping vehicle, while sneezing my fool head off. I leaped out of the stupid weeds and took up a position right in the middle of the road. If the trespassers planned to break into the machine shed and steal tools, they would have to deal with me first.
Oops. I allowed my suspicion to slip out, so we might as well go public with it. See, I had a strong suspicion that whosomever was inside that pickup might be working for Midnight Supply. You’ve never heard of Midnight Supply, right? Well, it’s a secret code word we use in the Security Business, so let me explain.
Midnight Supply is code for crooks, thieves, and bad guys who steal tools. They case out a location during the daylight hours, don’t you see, then come back after dark and rob things.
Midnight Supply. It’s a pretty clever way of putting it, isn’t it? And you know what? I invented it myself. No kidding. I get a kick out of experimenting with language and inventing new terms.
Now…where were we? Hmm. Okay, language. Language is very important to anyone who isn’t an ignoramus. Wait. Thieves in a pickup.
The pickup was still coming at that same creepy speed, I mean, the driver obviously had some kind of mischief on his mind. He was now approximately a hundred and fifty feet away and closing. It was time for me to move beyond our Hide In The Weeds procedure.
I hit Sirens and Lights, and cut loose with three crisp Warning Barks: “Halt! Stop! This is a Secured Area and we’ll need to see some ID!”
The vehicle kept coming. Okay, this would require sterner measures. I spread my legs apart, took a firm grip on the earth below, and fired off three more Big Ones.
“Pull over and get out, hands over your heads, move it!”
I wouldn’t have been surprised if the jerks had sped up and tried to run me over. They do that sometimes, and blow their horn and hang out the window and yell insults as they go roaring past. The mailman is one of the world’s worst, and on several occasions, he has even spit tobacco juice at me.
I’m not kidding. The guy has no respect for authority. None.
But all at once, this crisis took a surprising turn. You won’t believe this. Neither did I. The pickup actually came to a sudden stop, and we’re talking about Full Brakes and sliding on the gravel. Both doors flew open and two male suspects leaped out of the vehicle, and get this: They came out with HANDS UP!
Do we have time for a description of the bad guys? I guess so. The one on the passenger-side was kind of stocky in the shoulders. The driver was tall and skinny. Both wore jeans, faded shirts, baseball caps, and lace-up boots, and those were important clues.
Do you see the meaning? They weren’t cowboys! Cowboys wear cowboy clothes. These guys were dressed like…I don’t know, like farmers or welders or robbers. Yes, they wore the standard uniform of barn robbers.
Okay, at that point, it got very interesting. When they got out of the pickup, you’ll never guess what happened next, so pay attention. They were really scared and had their hands high in the air, and the skinny one said, “Don’t shoot, officer, we’re just tourists from Dallas!”
Tourists from Dallas?
“We heard there’s a world-famous guard dog on this ranch.”
A world-famous…what was going on here?
“They call him Hank the Cowdog. Have you seen him around?”
What? Hey, that was ME!
“He’s known all over the world, even in Dallas.”
No kidding? Wow, did you hear that? I had no idea…hey, those guys weren’t barn robbers. They were just a couple of tourists from Big D, and they had come to meet…well, ME, what else can you say?
I was overwhelmed. I mean, Dallas is a huge, important city, and it’s a long way from the Panhandle. These two fine gentlemen had driven six or seven hours just to…all at once, a wave of humility washed over me, and I must admit that in my long and colorful career, waves of humility had seldom washed over me, but this time…well, I was speechless.
I shut off Sirens and Lights, and lowered the strip of hair that had risen up along my backbone. Holding my head at a dignified angle, I marched toward them. After making such a long drive, they deserved…
Huh?
I heard the sounds of laughter, the kind of rude, irreverent snorting you’d expect from…never mind, we’ll skip the rest of this.
Look, I’m a very busy dog and don’t have time for nonsense. I mean, somebody on this ranch has to WORK once in a while.
