The phantom in the mirro.., p.7
The Phantom in the Mirror,
p.7
“Nobody, I guess.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I care. I shouldn’t, but I do. I can’t help it. I guess that just goes with being a cowdog.” I pushed myself up. “Come on. We’ve got a skunk to whip.”
“But I thought you said . . .”
“Never mind what I said. There’s more to this life than potato soup.”
“What does that mean?”
I gazed at him in the starlight. “I’m not sure. It just popped out. Stars were put here to shine. People were put here to sing, and dogs were put here to protect the ranch from skunks. Does that make sense?”
“I guess so.”
“Good. Let’s move out. We’ll have to jump the fence.”
“Okay, but this old leg . . .”
I leaped over the fence and made my way around the southwest corner of the house. There, I picked up visual readings of the skunk. He was sniffing around in the iris patch, slowly working his way toward the open crawl space. At his present course, bearing, and speed, he would reach the hole in fifteen seconds.
I went straight to the spot and blocked his path. He waddled forward, raised his head, wiggled his nose, and stared at me with his beady little eyes.
“Scram, Rosebud. The choir’s practicing and you need to run along.”
As I’ve already mentioned, skunks don’t seem to have any fear of dogs—or much of anything, really—and Rosebud chose to ignore my warning. He had it in his mind to go under the house, and by George, I think he would have walked right between my legs, if I’d let him.
I didn’t, of course. I stopped him with a sharp growl. He wiggled his nose and started forward again. This time I stopped him with something more substantial. I clubbed him over the head with a paw.
Suddenly his tail fanned out and he hopped up on his front legs. Then he darted to my left . . . his left . . . he darted to the left and tried to make an end run on me. At that point, I found it impossible to avoid getting involved.
Over the years, I had tested out several techniques for skunk work, and the one that worked the best was the one I used. I abandoned the soft touch and went to Sterner Measures.
I jumped him, grabbed him behind the neck, and pitched him up into the air.
WHOOSH! SPLAT!
By George, that got his . . . cough, choke, arg . . . attention. All at once he had that tail spread out and he wasn’t looking for bugs . . . cough, choke, arg . . . anymore, although it was a little hard for me to see exactly what he was . . . wheeze, arg, snork . . . doing because my eyes were suddenly stinking.
Stinging, that is. But the important thing is that I’d gotten his full undivided attention, and with a skunk, that’s important.
Step Two calls for more of the same, only the second time I pitched him toward the yard fence—a not-so-subtle hint that I wanted him to leave. I grabbed him behind the neck and gave him the old heave-ho.
In return, he gave me the old whoosh-splat, and did I say that I kind of like the smell of skunk? Let me back up and rephrase that. A little of that stuff goes a long way, and after a dog has been off Skunk Patrol for a few months, he tends to forget what happened the last time he did it.
In close quarters, in hand-to-hand combat, those guys REALLY STINK. But the nice part about skunking is that once you’ve taken the first hit, you hardly notice the second, third, and fourth, because that first one knocks out all your sensory equipment, and we’re talking about sparks, smoke, shorted wires, blown circuit breakers, and all the lights out on the control panel.
I survived the first hit, lost all my instruments, and kept barking and pitching that little feller away from the house, until he finally got the message.
By that time, the singing inside the house had stopped. Doors flew open and people were outside and I heard them talking about “skunk in the yard” and “pew-weeee!”
Then I heard Sally May’s voice above the others. “Loper, your dog has done it again! We can’t even have a party without him . . .”
“No, now wait a minute, hon. Look here. Somebody left the crawl space uncovered. Hank kept the skunk from going under the house.”
“Oh. You really think so?”
Suddenly I was surrounded by a crowd of admirers. All the members of the church choir had come out into the night to congratulate . . . well, ME, you might say, for heroic actions and service above and below the call of duty.
A few voices stood out above the murmur of the crowd. Let’s see if I can remember them:
“What a wonderful dog!”
“Yes, Sally May’s so lucky to have him!”
“Gee whiz, I wonder if they’d take a thousand bucks for that dog.”
“Oh no, they wouldn’t sell Hank, not for any amount of money.”
And so forth. I sat there in the middle of the adoring masses, drinking in their praise and trying to appear humble. It was the fulfillment of every cowdog’s dream.
But then came the very best part of all. Sally May knelt down beside me—and I mean, right there in front of the whole church choir—knelt down beside me and, you won’t believe this, gave me a hug. That’s right, hugged my neck and kissed me on the cheek.
“Hank, all these years I’ve misjudged you. I’ve been cruel and small-minded and I’ve ignored the obvious fact that you’re probably one of the finest dogs in the whole world. Why, everyone in the choir wants to buy you and take you home. In the last five minutes, we’ve had three offers of ten thousand dollars cash!
“But we can’t let you go, Hank, not for any amount of money. Instead, we want you to move into the house and live with us. I’ll fix up the guest bedroom, just for you. We’ll move the gas tanks inside, if that’s what you want, and spread out your gunnysack on top of the bed.
“We want you to eat your meals with us at the kitchen table—sirloin steak three times a day. And I don’t care that you stink. From now on, my house will smell of skunk and dog, and I’ll be proud to tell the neighbors that Hank lives with us!”
Well, I couldn’t have come up with a better ending for this yarn if I’d written it myself. As a matter of fact, I did, and yes, I might have stretched the truth a bit here and there, but the point is that Sally May was proud of me and I became her hero.
And before we let that pleasant feeling slip away, let’s shut this thing down.
Case closed.
And I never did believe Pete’s phony story about the Phantom in the Mirror.
No kidding.
See you around.
Further Reading
Have you read all of Hank’s adventures?
1 The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog
2 The Further Adventures of Hank the Cowdog
3 It’s a Dog’s Life
4 Murder in the Middle Pasture
5 Faded Love
6 Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
7 The Curse of the Incredible Priceless Corncob
8 The Case of the One-Eyed Killer Stud Horse
9 The Case of the Halloween Ghost
10 Every Dog Has His Day
11 Lost in the Dark Unchanted Forest
12 The Case of the Fiddle-Playing Fox
13 The Wounded Buzzard on Christmas Eve
14 Hank the Cowdog and Monkey Business
15 The Case of the Missing Cat
16 Lost in the Blinded Blizzard
17 The Case of the Car-Barkaholic Dog
18 The Case of the Hooking Bull
19 The Case of the Midnight Rustler
20 The Phantom in the Mirror
21 The Case of the Vampire Cat
22 The Case of the Double Bumblebee Sting
23 Moonlight Madness
24 The Case of the Black-Hooded Hangmans
25 The Case of the Swirling Killer Tornado
26 The Case of the Kidnapped Collie
27 The Case of the Night-Stalking Bone Monster
28 The Mopwater Files
29 The Case of the Vampire Vacuum Sweeper
30 The Case of the Haystack Kitties
31 The Case of the Vanishing Fishhook
32 The Garbage Monster from Outer Space
33 The Case of the Measled Cowboy
34 Slim’s Good-bye
35 The Case of the Saddle House Robbery
36 The Case of the Raging Rottweiler
37 The Case of the Deadly Ha-Ha Game
38 The Fling
39 The Secret Laundry Monster Files
40 The Case of the Missing Bird Dog
41 The Case of the Shipwrecked Tree
42 The Case of the Burrowing Robot
43 The Case of the Twisted Kitty
44 The Dungeon of Doom
45 The Case of the Falling Sky
46 The Case of the Tricky Trap
47 The Case of the Tender Cheeping Chickies
48 The Case of the Monkey Burglar
49 The Case of the Booby-Trapped Pickup
50 The Case of the Most Ancient Bone
51 The Case of the Blazing Sky
52 The Quest for the Great White Quail
53 Drover’s Secret Life
54 The Case of the Dinosaur Birds
55 The Case of the Secret Weapon
56 The Case of the Coyote Invasion
57 The Disappearance of Drover
58 The Case of the Mysterious Voice
59 The Case of the Perfect Dog
60 The Big Question
61 The Case of the Prowling Bear
About the Author and Illustrator
John R. Erickson, a former cowboy, has written numerous books for both children and adults and is best known for his acclaimed Hank the Cowdog series. He lives and works on his ranch in Perryton, Texas, with his family.
Gerald L. Holmes has illustrated numerous cartoons and textbooks in addition to the Hank the Cowdog series. He lives in Perryton, Texas.
John R. Erickson, The Phantom in the Mirror
