The Case of the Red Rubber Ball

  John R. Erickson

  Illustrations by Nicolette G. Earley

  In style of 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., 2020

  Copyright © John R. Erickson, 2020

  All rights reserved

  Maverick Books, Inc. Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59188-175-9

  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 our bossy sons, Scot and Mark, who have insisted we rebuild the house we lost in the fire.

  Contents

  Chapter One - Morning At Slim’s Place

  Chapter Two - A Raccoon Crosses the Road (Major Clue)

  Chapter Three - A Town Mutt Shows Up At the Ranch

  Chapter Four - I Give Roy Some Schooling

  Chapter Five - Drover Becomes a Smarty Pants

  Chapter Six - Our Prison Song

  Chapter Seven - I Run Afoul of Radar Woman

  Chapter Eight - I Go Searching for Drover

  Chapter Nine - Eddy Walks Into My Trap

  Chapter Ten - The Chase-Ball Olympics

  Chapter Eleven - Forced By Circumstances to Say “Please”

  Chapter Twelve - Incredible Ending, Amazing

  Chapter Thirteen - Chapter Deleted, CLASSIFIED, Sorry

  Chapter One: Morning At Slim’s Place

  It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. The mystery began in the fall, as I recall, on a Monday. Or was it Tuesday? Wait, it might have been Thursday.

  You know what? I really don’t care what day it was, and neither does anyone else. I’m telling the story and I can make it whatever day I want, and I say it was Monday.

  There! A dog has to step up and take charge.

  So, yes, it was a normal Monday in a normal week on the ranch. Monday followed Tuesday and Tuesday followed Wednesday, and now we’re ready to get on with the business.

  What were we discussing? I don’t remember.

  This is frustrating and it makes the Security Division look like a bunch of goofballs, dogs who wake up in a new world every day and can’t tell you whether it’s raining or Tuesday. That might describe Drover but not me.

  Wait. The weather. Now we’re cooking.

  Okay, Tuesday started out as one of those gorgeous days we get in the fall: soft air, not much wind, and golden light that made long shadows. The leaves on the elms and chinaberry trees had turned yellow, and the wild plums and skunkbrush added splashes of bright red to the overall so-forth. In other words, we had us a beautiful autumn day on the ranch, the kind of day that dogs and people would like to hang onto for a long time.

  Drover and I had spent the night at Slim’s place, down the creek and two miles east of headquarters. As usual, I flew out of bed before first light and was ready to go out and face the new day. Drover remained conked out on the living room floor, sleeping his life away.

  I found Slim in the kitchen, slurping on his first cup of coffee and cooking breakfast. That’s a joke, by the way, “cooking breakfast.” He’s a bachelor and doesn’t cook anything for breakfast. He boils his coffee in a pan, and if he eats breakfast, it comes out of a can or a box…although once in a while, he’ll eat a left-over boiled turkey neck.

  Have you ever looked at a cold, boiled turkey neck first thing in the morning? Gag.

  But, most usually, if he eats breakfast, it comes out of a box or a can, and on this particular morning, a Thursday, as I recall, it came out of a box of Roastie Toasties. That’s a brand of cereal, don’t you see. He dumped some flakes into a bowl and added a splash of milk.

  You’ll be proud to know that I was right there at his feet, cheering him on to a good, nourishing breakfast and…well, hoping he might share some of it. Not a lot, just a few morsels. I mean, dogs need nourishment too.

  I moved my front paws up and down and scootched a little closer.

  He shoveled the first bite of Toasties into his mouth and crunched them up. His soggy eyes popped open and the spoon froze in mid-air. “Huh. That milk’s a little blinky.”

  Blinky? Never heard of it.

  He gazed into the bowl. “And what are those things?” He looked closer. “They’re swimming around. You want to finish this, pooch?”

  What? Yes, of course! What an amazing piece of good luck.

  He set the bowl on the floor in front of me and I flipped all the switches for the Obedient Dog Program. It’s a silly little ritual, and we have to play along with it. We have to sit like perfect doggies until he gives us permission to eat. I told you it was silly.

  Tensing every muscle in my highly-conditioned body, I looked up at him and waited for his command. He lifted his right hand. I leaned toward the bowl.

  “Not yet.”

  Fine. I could wait.

  “Hank, we need to start with our Thought For the Day.”

  Could we get on with this?

  “Here it is. Pay attention.”

  Oh brother.

  “See no weevil, eat no weevil.” His hand swept downward and pointed toward the bowl. “Go for it!”

  I hit the Launch button and began lapping milk and…you know, it had an odd taste, the milk did, kind of…not terrible, but not so great either. No problem. I plunged on with the procedure and thirty seconds later, I had devoured the cereal, lapped the milk, licked the bowl, and was giving him our look that says, “Is that all?”

  He wasn’t watching because he had opened a can of jalapeno bean dip and was eating it with a spoon. Breakfast.

  It smelled pretty yummy, so I lit up the “Starving” sign in my eyes and began sweeping the floor with my tail. He shook his head. “That’s all you get, and it’s more than you deserve. How were the weevils?”

  Weevils? The cereal had been okay, but the milk…you know, it had left a bad taste in my mouth. I had ignored it during the Eating Experience, but now…well, it lingered and I noticed a sourish taste.

  And suddenly I understood the meaning of “blinky.” The carton of milk had been in his ice box so long, it had gone bad! But instead of throwing it out or feeding it to an ungrateful cat, he had dumped it off on his loyal friend—ME!

  You know, a ranch dog can never relax or let down his guard. If we’re not being attacked by Charlie Monsters, we’re being fed tainted food by our so-called “friends.”

  Oh well, we take what we can get for breakfast. Now…what about that bean dip?

  Too late. He had hogged it all. “Let’s go to work, pooch. The boss’ll be pacing the floor till we get there.”

  Rats.

  I left the kitchen with a heavy heart and turned to the task of rooting Drover out of bed. As you might have guessed, he was still curled up in a little white ball in the middle of the living room floor. Filling my air tanks as I went, I marched over to him and leaned down until my nose almost touched his left ear.

  Once in position, I activated “Train Horns,” a barking procedure that has a wondrous effect on sleeping slackers. BWONK! Heh, heh. Mister Squeak and Grunt sprang two feet in the air and appeared to be trying to swim.

  “Help, murder, skiffer pork chopping the gingerbread cottage!”

  He crashed back to the floor and stared at me with wide eyes that expressed…well, not much. No kidding, we’re talking about Lights On But Nobody Home. In other words, I was getting a glimpse into the emptiness of his Inner Bean.

  Wait, hold everything. “Inner Bean” and “bean dip.” Was this some kind of clue that needed to be checked out? I studied on it for a few seconds, then…nah, nothing there.

  Anyway, Drover stared at me and said, “Oh my gosh, I heard a terrible noise!”

  “You heard me. I did Train Horns to wake you up.”

  “You were training the corn to wake me up?” He glanced around and blinked his eyes. “Where’s the corn?”

  “There is no corn.”

  “Then where did all the cornbread come from?”

  I knew this was just a trickle of gibberish, leaking out of his sleeping mind, but I was curious to see where it might lead. Sometimes our best clues come from strange sources, don’t you know, so I began my interrogation. “What cornbread are we talking about?”

  “Well, there was this gingerbread house.”

  “You said it was a cottage.”

  “No, there was some cottage cheese.”

  “All right, go on.”

  “The house was made of cornbread.”

  “Whoa, stop right there. A gingerbread house can’t be made of cornbread.”

  �

�How come?”

  “Because it would go against the Laws of Figgy. A brick house is made of bricks. A gingerbread house must be made of gingerbread. A house made of cornbread would be a cornbread house.”

  “I’ll be derned. Well, it was cuttered with buvver.”

  “Hold it. Do you mean it was ‘covered with butter’?”

  “Yeah, did you eat some?”

  “No.”

  His gaze swept around the room. “Somebody did. It must have been the frog.”

  “What frog?”

  “Well, there was this frog.”

  “I need details, Drover, a description. What did he look like?”

  “Well, he was ugly and had a big frog mouth.”

  “All frogs have a big frog mouth.”

  “What about little frogs?”

  “A little frog has a little big frog mouth. Was the frog little or big?”

  “Well…he was big enough so that his feet touched the ground.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. So you think this frog ate the cornbread house that was covered with butter?”

  “No, it was a gingerbread house.”

  I roasted him with a glare. “Drover, it was a cornbread house. We’ve already covered this.”

  He twisted his head to the side and gave me a puzzled look. “Who’d want to make a house out of cornbread?”

  “I don’t know. This was all your invention. I’m just trying to…I don’t know what I’m trying to do.”

  Just then, Slim’s voice boomed. “Come on, dogs, load up, we’re burning daylight!”

  Drover glanced around and lowered his voice. “See? He said, ‘Come on, frogs.’ He’s calling the frogs.”

  What a waste of time. I stuck my nose in his face and gave him a growl. “He said ‘dogs,’ not ‘frogs.’ Wake up, soldier, and return to base.”

  He blinked his eyes. “Gosh, was I asleep?”

  “I hope so, because if you weren’t asleep, you’re crazier than a bedbug. Let’s move out.”

  And that’s how my Wednesday got started, listening to Drover’s nonsense. But just then…you’ll never guess what happened.

  Chapter Two: A Raccoon Crosses the Road (Major Clue)

  Well, my interrogation proved to be a waste of time, but in my line of work, we have to follow every lead and clue, even the ones that seem pointless. Sometimes a pointless clue will point the case in an entirely new direction, but this time…

  Let’s disregard the interrogation, just wad up the transcript and pitch it into the trash. All we need to take from this experience is that Drover is a weird little mutt.

  Back to business. As we were leaving the house, the telephone rang.

  In some parts of the world, the ringing of a phone is no big deal and nothing out of the ordinary. At Slim’s place, it was unusual because…well, who would call a bachelor cowboy who lived twenty-fives miles out in the country?

  Yet somebody was calling. Slim was halfway out the door and I heard him grumble, “Why can’t people just leave me alone? I’m going to have that thing disconnected. Get out of the way, dog.”

  He stumbled over me (was that my fault?) and snatched up the phone. “Hello. Yes. Well, I’m tripping over dogs and trying to get some work done. Who is this? Oh. Well, I’ll get there as quick as I can. No, I won’t hurry. I’ll drive my usual speed and I’ll get there when I get there. I’d already be there if people would quit calling me on the dadgum phone. Bye.”

  He hung up the phone and looked down at me. “Loper. He’s got ants in his pants and needed to bother someone. I never should have given him my phone number…course, he’s the one who pays the bill. Let’s go.”

  Aye, aye, sir! Back to work.

  Slim went to the door and held it open for us. “Hurry up, I don’t have all day to wait on a couple of soup hounds. Y’all make termites look like Olympic sprinters.”

  He loves to go on like this, blustering and complaining about the dogs, and blaming us for things we didn’t do…such as termites. Was it our fault that termites spent all their time running races? No, but you’ll notice who borp, excuse me, got blamed for it. The dogs.

  And while we’re on the subject of indigestion, let me point out that no dog in history was ever enough of a scrounge to give his friend A BOWL OF SPOILED MILK, but that’s exactly what Slim had done to me. He had forced me to consume a bowl of poisoned milk laced with…

  Remember those “weevils” he mentioned? At the time, the word didn’t register on my registration, but after a few minutes of thought, the true meaning of the word had come into focus.

  A weevil is a BUG. Slim saw bugs in his cereal, I mean, they were swimming laps around the bowl, and he didn’t want to eat a bunch of bugs. So what did he do? He gave it to his trusted friend, his loyal bupp, excuse me, his loyal dog and forced me to swill it down like a common hog.

  What an outrage! Is this what we’ve come to, you can’t trust cowboys any more? Let down your guard for one minute and they’ll feed you bugs and poisoned milk?

  It’s a sad state of affairs, that’s all I’ll say.

  Okay, there might be one more question. Why do I keep eating the garbage he puts in front of me? That’s a toughie and we’re out of time. Sorry.

  Actually, spoiled milk isn’t as bad as you might suppose and it beats nothing. What’s a dog supposed to do, eat a bowl of air for breakfast? And I’ll tell you something else. Some experts on nutrition have demonstrated that a few bugs in your Toasties isn’t such a bad deal. Weevils are a form of meat, don’t forget, and they increase the protein level of the ork, excuse me.

  So there you are. Don’t make snap judgments about dogs and what we eat. We’re just trying to make a living. Furthermore, that little spell of indigestion had passed, further proof that a determined, red-blooded American dog can digest anything that doesn’t digest him first.

  Sorry, I didn’t mean to get carried away, but this gives you a glimpse at the kind of issues a Head of Ranch Security has to deal with in an average day. We’re talking about MAJOR ISSUES, hundreds of them. Ordinary mutts are free to goof off and live careless lives, but those of us on Life’s High Ground must carry a heavy load.

  Wait. Should we do a song about this? Maybe so, because I just thought of one. Here, listen to this.

  We Have Bugs

  We have bugs in the cereal and bugs in the bowl.

  I have bugs in my belfry and weevils in my soul.

  They are frolicking like porpoises and swimming down my back.

  They are playing water polo in my alimentary tract.

  The data suggest we have bugs.

  The evidence is clear, we have bugs.

  We have bugs.

  What do you think? It was kind of a simple song, but it had a powerful message about all the so-forths of Life In the Real World, and any time a dog can dress up Ordinary Experience in the finery of melody and song, by George, he should do it.

  Now…where were we? Oh yes, it was a lovely, soft autumn morning when we loaded up in Slim’s pickup and drove west on the county road. As usual, I took my position beside the shotgun-side window.

  As usual, Drover started whining. “Can I ride Shotgun?”

  “Absolutely not, and do you know why? Because you led me into a ridiculous conversation about cornbread houses and frogs.”

  “Well, you woke me up and made me answer a bunch questions.”

  “Asking questions is part of my job.”

  “You never let me ride Shotgun.”

  I heaved a sigh. “Drover, what would you do if I let you ride Shotgun? Would it change your life even a tiny bit?”

  “Well, I could stick my head out the window and breathe fresh air.”

  “What’s wrong with the air you’re breathing now?”

  “It smells like dogs.”

  “What did you expect? When dogs are riding in a pickup, the air should smell like dogs—honest, hard-working ranch dogs.”

  “Yeah, but it stinks.”

  “Had you thought of taking a bath?”

  “I hate water.”

  “You have too many problems. I can’t help you.” I turned my back on the runt.