The Case of the Midnight Rustler (5 page)

Chapter Eight: The Mysterious Visitor in the Night

I
n many ways Slim is a fine guy, but a great singer he will never be.

By the time he'd finished the song, darkness had fallen across the canyon and we found ourselves looking up at the black velvet sky, sprayed with thousands of glittering stars.

Slim pointed to the sky and said, “Well, Hank, there's the Big Dipper.”

Oh really? I studied the sky for a long time and saw nothing but stars.

“And there's O'Brien the Hunter.”

Okay, some big guy named O'Brien was up there hunting and dipping snuff, and just in case he decided to spit, I moved my business into the tent. It was past my bedtime anyway.

I spent a minute or two digging around on the bedroll, until I had created a spot that was soft enough to hold my freight for the night, and then I collapsed.

It felt wonderful and I fell right off to sleep, and would have stayed asleep through the entire night if Slim hadn't come blundering into the tent and started accusing me of “hogging” his bedroll.

Hey, who'd gotten there first? Who'd taken the time to dig it up and fluff it up and warm it up? ME. But never mind property law, never mind what was good and right. He bullied his way onto the bedroll and managed to push me off onto the cold hard ground.

I didn't sleep well on the cold hard ground, and before long I began hearing strange noises coming from Slim's side of the tent. I sat up and listened. Slim had mentioned something about “hogging.” Now I was hearing sounds that almost surely were coming from hogs. Was there a pattern here?

My goodness, did we have HOGS in the tent with us? Yes, by George, someone or something had turned a bunch of hogs loose inside our tent!

Well, you know me. I'm not the kind of dog who'll turn over and go to sleep while a herd of wild boars is running loose in the tent, so I did what any Head of Ranch Security would have done: I barked. Boy howdy, did I bark!

Suddenly the oinking stopped. Slim sat up in bed. “Hank, shut up. It's just me snoring.”

Oh.

“And if you can't handle that, go sleep outside.”

No, that was fine, no problem. I'd just thought . . . hey, I'd never heard sounds like that coming from a human, I mean, we're talking about real heavy-duty pig noises.

“Now go to sleep.”

Okay, fine. You never know until you check these things out. I'd done my job and checked it out and . . . boy, that guy made an incredible amount of noise in his sleep. Beat anything I'd ever heard before.

I waited until he started snoring again and then I slipped back and reclaimed my spot on the bedroll. That was much better than the cold hard ground, although I had a little trouble drifting off because his nose kept poking me in the ribs.

I don't know how long I'd been asleep, but sometime in the middle of the night my ears shot up. I lifted my head and waited for my eyes to stop rolling around.

Unless I was badly mistaken, I'd heard a sound in the distance, and this time it wasn't Slim's snoring. No, it sounded more like . . . holy smokes, it sounded like the hum of a pickup motor and the rattling of a stock trailer!

A growl began to form in my throat, then I leaped to my feet and began to bark. Suddenly and out of nowhere, a foot appeared out of nowhere and booted me out of the tent!

“Dadgum barking dog, get out of here!”

Oh, that must have been Slim's foot and he had . . . but obviously he hadn't heard what I had heard, and what I had heard just might be a
gang of cattle rustlers coming into the pasture.

I mean, that's why we were camping out in the pasture, right? And it was my job to sound the alarm when I heard strange noises out there in the pasture, right? Okay, that was my job and I had every intention of . . .

SPLAT!

He had just clubbed me with a pillow. Can you believe it? There I was, trying to fulfill the mission that had been assigned to me and . . .

“Dry up, Hank!”

Okay, fine. I could dry up. I could let him sleep his life away, if that's what he wanted, and I could let the rustlers carry off all of Uncle Johnny's calf crop too.

What did I care? I hadn't asked for a combat assignment. I would have been perfectly happy to stay back at headquarters. Did he think that camping out on the hard ground and listening to him snore and eating poisoned weenies was my idea of fun?

Hey, he wanted me to dry up? Fine. He wanted to sleep? Terrific. I could sleep too. I didn't have to take all his screeching and kicking. I got paid the same whether I caught cattle rustlers or not, so phooey on him and his lousy . . .

But you know what? I tried to sleep but I couldn't. I tried not to care but I did. I guess that's one of the marks of a true top-of-the-line blue-ribbon cowdog: we care about things, even when nobody else does, even when there seems to be no reason to care.

Your ordinary dog would have turned over and gone back to sleep, but my ma didn't raise me to be ordinary. It appeared that I would have to tackle this thing alone, solve the entire case without the help of anyone else, and before I could ponder the consequences of such a bold decision, I left camp in a run and headed out into the deep darkness of the canyon.

If I had stopped to ponder this deal, one of the things I might have pondered about was that I would be traveling alone through a canyon that was known to be infested with cannibals.

That would have been dangerous enough in the light of day, when most cannibals are asleep in their holes, but traveling at night . . .

Gulp. My bold decision was looking worse all the time. I mean, there's a fine line between bravery and really stupid behavior.

Well, there was nothing to do but mush on and hope for the best.

We had made our camp near the north end of the pasture and the rustlers, if that's who they were, would be coming through the south gate, about a mile away. How did I know that? Simple, That pasture was so rough, there was only one road in and and one road out.

I must have run a good half-mile when I stopped on a high bluff to catch my breath and reconnoiter the country ahead. Looking south down the canyon, I could see . . . holy cats, the flash of headlights!

Sure enough,
somebody was driving around in
the pasture.
Not only did that give me a creepy feeling, but it proved that I was wearing a very sensitive and high-quality set of ears. I had suspected all along that they were pretty good ears, and this was sure 'nuff proof of it.

Picked up the sound of a stock trailer rattling a whole mile away. Pretty good ears.

And that led naturally into the next question, which I posed aloud to myself. “Okay, Hankie Boy, we've got this investigation going in the right direction. What do we do now?”

I was surprised—nay, shocked, astounded,
and stupified—when a voice other than my own responded to that question. The voice said, “You
know, I've been sitting here, axing myself that
very same question.”

My mouth suddenly went dry. Was I dreaming this mystery voice in the night? No, I was wide awake. Did that voice belong to Slim? No way. Was there any other voice that I might want to hear in the middle of a pasture in the middle of the night? Absolutely not.

Hence, I reached for the afterburners and . . .
WHAM .
. . ran into something big, hairy, and
immovable—something so big that even the force of my afterburners didn't make an impression on it. And fellers, that was BIG.

I was in the process of picking myself off the ground and trying to restart my breathing mechanisms, when I heard the thing say, “Oops, sorry. I didn't see you there.”

Oops?
Hadn't I met someone in recent days
who had used that expression? I ran that through my data banks, calling up a search using “Oops” as the key word. The massive mainframe that resides between my ears clicked and whirred, and within seconds it spit out a single name.

“Brewster? Is that you? Please say yes, because if you say no, it will mean that I just ran over a cannibal in the darkness.”

“Yeah, it was me all right, and I'm no camel. Just a dog.”

“Great, oh boy, that's a relief, but I said cannibal, not camel.”

“Oh. I wondered. Never saw a camel around here.”

“There's a reason for that, Brewster. We have no camels on this ranch, but unfortunately this pasture is crawling with cannibals.”

“Aw heck. What does a cammibal look like?”

“They look like coyotes, they're always hungry, and they will eat a ranch dog if given the
slightest opportunity. But never mind that. What in the name of thunderation are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

He yawned. “You know, that's a long story, and I just don't know whether I have the energy to tell it or not.”

“Make the energy, Brewster, and tell it. It
could be very important to this case.”

And with that, I began the long and tedious process of interrogating Brewster the Dog, which proved to be a long and tedious process, but one
which yielded some very important information—
such as . .
.

Well, you'll see. Just keep reading.

Chapter Nine: YIKES!

L
ittle by little, piece by piece, yawn by yawn, I dragged the story out of the huge sleepy-eyed German shepherd–St. Bernard crossbred dog before me.

First, Uncle Johnny was a restless little cuss who couldn't sleep when he thought rustlers might be stealing his cattle.

Second, he had wanted to see if he could penetrate Slim's and my early-warning defense systems.

Third, Uncle Johnny had thought that he could drive through the pasture without headlights. Fourth, Uncle Johnny had sure been wrong about that, because, fifth, he had driven his pickup into a ravine, and sixth, he was now stuck somewhere in the pasture.

Pacing back and forth in front of Brewster, I made careful notes and entered all the data. “All right, Brewster, I have a few more questions and then we'll have this thing wrapped up. Were you guys pulling a stock trailer?”

“Let's see. Stock trailer.”

“One that rattled?”

“One that rattled. Hmmm.”

I waited. “A simple yes or no will do.”

“Well, let me think here. I was taking a little nap, see.”

“Are you saying that you don't know whether you were pulling a stock trailer or not?”

“No, I didn't want to come right out and say that.”

“But is it true?”

“It'ud make me sound a little neglectful, wouldn't it?”

“Yes, Brewster, I'm afraid it would.”

“Then if it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon not . . .” His statement trailed off into a big yawn. “Boy, I'm not used to these late nights.”

I stopped pacing and went nose-to-nose with him. In the darkness, I had the feeling that I was facing the head of a stuffed moose.

“Brewster, I must know the answer. On the night of . . . well, tonight . . . were you or were you not pulling a stock trailer?”

“Well, I wasn't. Not me myself. See, it's not my pickup, although I sleep in it quite a bit of the time.”

I heaved a sigh and walked a short distance away. “Brewster, you're a very large dog and I would never accuse a large dog of being stupid, but sometimes your answers border on being stupid. I must know if Uncle Johnny was pulling a stock trailer tonight when he entered this pasture.”

“Okay, let me think here.” I could hear him yawning. I was close to becoming annoyed with his yawning, but then he spoke. “No, I don't think we were pulling a trailer.”

“Great! Thanks for a straight answer.” I began pacing again. “All right, next question. Brewster, what are you doing here?”

“Well, let's see.” Long pause. “Boy, that's a good question.”

“Thanks. Do you have a good answer?”

“Nope, not really. It's kindly peculiar, ain't it?”

“Yes, Brewster, it is. Try to reconstruct the sequence of events. Where were you when Uncle Johnny drove into the ravine?”

“Uh . . . boy, that's a toughie. Knowing me, I was probably in the back, asleep.”

“You sleep a lot, don't you, Brewster?”

“Yeah,” he yawned, “it takes a lot of sleep to keep this old body running in top shape.”

“So you were asleep in the back of the pickup. What happened then?”

“I guess I woke up. Yeah, I did. It was quite a shock.”

“So how did you get from there to here?”

“You just keep firing those questions, don't you?”

“Firing questions is my job, Brewster. I'm Head of Ranch Security. How did you get from there to here?”

“Well . . .” Long silence, punctured now and then by big yawns. “Okay, Uncle Johnny cussed himself for driving off in a hole. Then I heard him say that he was too old to walk all the way down to Loper's place. Then . . . you know, you're going to wear me out with all this talking.”

“Just a little more, Brewster, and then we'll be done.”

“Oh boy.” Yawn. “I guess the next thing was that he told me to go find y'all's camp.”

“And?”

“Uhhhhhh . . . I guess I didn't find it. I'd just laid down to catch a few winks when you came along. That was pretty lucky.”

I chuckled. “Not luck, Brewster. In this business we call it ‘Brute Skill.' You see, I had a suspicion that I'd find you out here, and sure enough, I did it, traveling strictly on instruments.”

He yawned. “My instruments don't work that good.”

“Because they're always asleep, Brewster. Nobody's instruments work when they're asleep. You need to work on staying awake.”

“Yeah, right. Speaking of which, do we have time for a little nap? These late hours are killing me.”

“I'm afraid not, for you see, Brewster, while I was looking for you, I picked up the telltale sounds of a stock trailer rattling around in this pasture, and if that reading was correct, then it can mean only one thing.”

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

“Brewster?” He had fallen asleep. “All right, you big lug, you want to sleep, so sleep. I'm leaving and you can find your own way out of here. I have work to do and I didn't want you tagging along anyway. Is that clear?”

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

“Fine. Good-bye, and I hope you get bedsores.”

And with that, I left Brewster where he lay and went on about my business, solving the Case of the Midnight Rustlers.

I struck out across country, heading in a southwesterly direction toward the glow of the phantom headlights. Yes, they were still in the pasture, working their crinimal mischief, and they would soon learn some bitter lessons about stealing cattle in MY part of the world.

At last I reached the last bluff between me and the lights. I slowed to a walk and then to a crawl. I lowered my body to ground level and began inching my way to the top of the hill. And suddenly I was there, looking down at the scene before me.

A single figure dressed in cowboy clothes was walking in the beam of the headlights. He was carrying a partially filled sack of cattle feed and scattering it out on the ground. And he was calling the cattle in to feed: “Woooooo, cow! Wooooo, darlings!”

And did I mention the portable corral panels? That was pretty slick. See, he had rigged up some racks on both sides of his stock trailer so that he could carry enough portable corral panels to build a small pen. He had already set up three sides of the pen and he was scattering the feed so as to lure the cattle inside.

Yes, I had his MO down now. Once he had drawn a little bunch of cattle inside, he would slip out and close the circle with the rest of the panels.

Oh, this guy was clever! I had to give him credit for that, and also for his understanding of livestock. You can tell, just by the way a man moves and carries himself, whether or not he's accustomed to working around cattle. If that guy had made any sudden moves or loud noises, the cattle would have scattered to the four corners of the pasture.

But his manner was smooth and quiet, and derned if the cattle weren't coming in to feed. I wouldn't have bet he could do that. I mean, cattle are pretty stupid but they're naturally suspicious of a stranger who shows up in their pasture in the middle of the night.

It made me suspect that this creep had been coming over here for months, feeding little bunches at night to get them used to his routine. Cattle are suckers for a routine, don't you know, especially when it involves free food.

Well, I had seen enough to wrap this case up. It was time to swoop down and . . . someone was standing beside me—Brewster, no doubt, who had finally dragged himself out of the vapors of sleep and decided to make a hand.

“Well, it's about time you got here. I thought I was going to have to . . .”

Brewster didn't have yellow eyes, did he? Or a sharp-pointed nose? And if this was Brewster, how come I was seeing double all at once?

I, uh, glanced from one set of eyes to the other. “Brewster, if this is your idea of a joke, I'm not amused.”

And then a voice replied, “Not rooster, and not joke. Only Rip and Snort, ho ho!”

YIKES!