The Case of the Booby-Trapped Pickup. John R. Erickson
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу The Case of the Booby-Trapped Pickup - John R. Erickson страница 4
Название: The Case of the Booby-Trapped Pickup
Автор: John R. Erickson
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Учебная литература
Серия: Hank the Cowdog
isbn: 9781591887492
isbn:
Slim was chuckling when he stepped out of the cab. “Are you hurt?”
“If I was, I wouldn’t tell you about it.” Loper snatched his hat off the ground and slapped it back on his head. “Find a nylon towrope and let’s haul this wreck into town.”
“You going to trade it off, finally?”
“No, I’m going to get it fixed. That’s a good pickup.”
“Oh yeah, when it ain’t dead or blowing up. Loper, that thing’s got two hundred thousand miles on it.”
“That’s right, and we’ll drive it another two hundred thousand. Let’s head for town.”
“Loper?” Slim walked over and laid a hand on Loper’s shoulder. “As one of the few friends you have left in this world, I need to tell you something.” Loper shot him a suspicious glare. Slim leaned closer and whispered, “Half your mustache got blowed off. Before we go to town, you might want to trim the other side so you don’t look like a crazy person.”
Loper’s hand went to his upper lip and felt around. He seemed surprised that Slim was right. “Get the towrope,” he snarled, and went down to the house to trim his whiskers.
Well, that had started the morning off with a bang. (A little humor there. Did you get it? Started the morning off with a bang. Ha ha.) But when the cowboys left the scene of the explosion, I glanced around and realized that . . . Drover was missing! Fearing the worst, I searched the immediate area around the pickup and found no trace of the little mutt. What I found was . . .
I’m not sure that I should reveal this next part. I mean, all my training in Security Work had prepared me for the tragic side of life, but I’m thinking of the kids. You know my Position on Kids: I hate to scare ’em or shock ’em too badly, or give ’em stories that’ll make ’em cry. And when I saw those little pieces of white fuzz on the ground . . .
Oops. I wasn’t going to say anything but it just popped out, so now the cat is out of the sandbag. Okay, we might as well plunge into it.
In the course of conducting an All Points Search for Little Drover, who was missing in action, I found several fragments of whitish fuzz lying on the ground. They looked very much like . . .
I can’t say it. It’s too hard, too sad. I mean, Drover was the weirdest little met I’d ever mutted, but we’d worked together for years, and after all we’d been through together . . . a guy gets attached to his comrades, you know. We shouldn’t. In a dangerous business like Security Work, we’re always aware that, well, one of us might not come back from a haderous mission.
A hadderzous mission.
A hazzzeruss mission.
A hazzarduss mission.
HOW DO YOU SPELL THE STUPID WORD? I don’t care. Skip it.
Now I don’t remember what I was talking about. This really burns me up, because I know it was something important. The weather? Maybe that was it. The weather that morning was pretty nice, a little chilly but . . .
We weren’t talking about the weather. Bones? Maybe so. I love bones, all kinds of bones, but I guess my favorite is steak bones. Ham bones are pretty nice, especially when they’ve been cooked in a big pot of pinto beans, but for flavor and chewing excitement, you can’t beat . . .
Wait. Drover had vanished, remember? And we had just discovered a few pitiful fragments of his . . . well, his exploded body. I hate to put it that way (the kids), but sometimes we can’t escape life’s terrible tragedies, no matter how hard we try.
I heard a voice beside me. It said, “Boy, the air filter sure got shredded.”
“That’s not an air filter, pal. You’re looking at the remains of a friend of mine.”
“Gosh, how sad. What was his name?”
“His name was . . . ” I turned and looked at the mysterious stranger who had . . .
HUH?
Never mind. Skip it. Sorry I brought it up.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.