The Case of the Midnight Rustler. John R. Erickson

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СКАЧАТЬ pays the same, whether they’re patting you on the head or making you the butt of their laughingstock.

      In typical childish cowboy fashion, they found great pleasure in my misfortune. Fine. I didn’t care. Through watering eyes, I glared daggers at them. Someday they would be sorry, and until then . . .

      Drover arrived at that very moment. “Hi Hank. Did you just hear a loud crash?”

      I gave him a withering glare. “I WAS the loud crash, you moron, and you’re just lucky I wasn’t killed.”

      “Boy, that was lucky. What happened?”

      “The owner of this dismal place set off an air wrench under my tail, and I came within inches of destroying the entire south side of the barn.”

      “I’ll be derned. That’s quite a tale.”

      “Thanks. It’s the best one I’ve ever had.”

      “Oh, I don’t know. You’ve had some pretty good ones.”

      “No, this is the original equipment, Drover. It’s been through some hard times, and there’s a tale behind every misfortune it’s seen.”

      “Yep, there’s a tail behind every dog.”

      “Exactly. But dead dogs have no tales.”

      “Yeah. I wonder what they do with all of ’em.”

      “Oh, they’re passed down from generation to generation and become part of our collective folklore. One of these days, Drover, our children will be telling of our adventures.”

      “I don’t have any.”

      “That’s because you’re too chicken. Chickens miss out on all the adventures.”

      “I mean children.”

      “Chickens have children, Drover, but no adventures. Chicken children are called ‘chicks.’ They’re hatched from eggs.”

      “Boy, I love eggs.”

      “And mother chickens love their children.”

      “Yeah, but I don’t have any. And even if I did, they wouldn’t want my tail. It’s too short.”

      “Actually, Drover, the shortest tales are often the best. There’s an art to telling a story in just a few words.”

      “Gosh, Hank, that’s the first nice thing you’ve ever said about my tail. Always before, you made fun of it. Thanks.”

      “You’re certainly welcome.” I stared at him for a moment. “Are we involved in the same conversation?”

      “I’m not sure.”

      “Drover, sometimes when I talk to you, I begin to wonder if I’m going insane.”

      “Yeah, I’ve wondered about that myself.”

      “Let’s just drop it. Who is this trespasser who just pulled up in the strange pickup?”

      “I don’t know, but I sure barked at him.”

      “You barked at him, Drover, but he came on the ranch anyway. You need to work on your barking. You couldn’t scare a flea on a grandpa’s knee.” All at once he sat down and began scratching his left ear. “Don’t scratch while I’m talking to you.”

      “I’ve got a flea.”

      “Of course you do. If you’d work on your barking, you wouldn’t have so many . . .”

      By George, all at once I had a flea problem myself. I could feel the little wretch crawling around on my . . . hee hee, ha ha . . . on my belly, and it tickled. I jumped into the air, bent myself double, and spun around in a circle, trying to catch up with my . . .

      You know what? As long as a dog runs in circles, he can never catch up with his own anatomy. It keeps moving, see. You have to shut everything down, sit on the floor, and attack the stupid flea with teeth and lips. That requires deep concentration and large amounts of self-deception.

      Self-discipline, I should say.

      I got ’er done, but it was no easy deal. I bit the flea and the flea bit the dust, and at that point I was ready to pursue the investigation.

      Who was this guy who had dared to drive his pickup onto MY ranch in broad daylight? I began by observing that he was an older man, maybe 65 or 70. He walked slowly, wore a battered felt hat and khaki pants and shirt.

      His name was Uncle Johnny. I knew that be­cause Loper said, “Well, by gollies, Uncle Johnny! What brings you over here to the poor side of the county? And how are you at fixing hay mowers?”

      Uncle Johnny studied the mess on the floor. “Was anybody killed in this wreck?”

      “Not yet,” said Slim, “but if Loper’s disposition don’t improve, he’s liable to become the first casu­alty. He gets kind of snarly during hay season, and he wasn’t real sweet to start with.”

      Uncle Johnny chuckled to himself. “Yes sir, I used to get that-a-way myself. Old age don’t have too many blessings, but one of ’em is that you can leave the hay work to them that’s young and dumb enough to take it.”

      “Well, we ain’t so young,” said Slim, “but we’ve doubled up on the dumb.”

      Whilst they were making small talk, I decided to slip outside and attend to the routine business of applying our ranch’s trademark on Uncle Johnny’s tires. A guy never knows when that trademark will come in handy. It’s something we try to do every time a strange vehicle comes onto the place.

      I had completed my work on the two front tires and was on my way to the left rear when I heard an odd sound. I stopped and listened. There it was again. It sounded like . . . I wasn’t sure what it sounded like.

      The last gasps of a drowning victim? A diesel engine that needed some repair work?

      It appeared to be coming from the bed of the pickup, so I slipped around to the rear, went into a deep crouch position, leaped up into the back end, and landed right in the middle of something huge and hairy.

      Yikes, what was that thing? A huge fur coat? A dead horse? Whatever it was, it had a head, a BIG head, and it rose from the dead, so to speak, and revealed two sleepy eyes. For a long, tense moment, I stared at it and it stared back at me.

      At last I was able to fight back my feelings of shock and surprise and say, “I don’t know who you are, fella, but don’t get any smart ideas. We’ve got this place surrendered.” I stared at him. “Sur­rounded, I should say. Holy smokes, are you a horse or a dog?”

      I mean, this guy was HUGE!

      He grinned and yawned and spoke in a slow voice. “Howdy. Name’s Brewster. Where we at?”

      “You’re in the back of someone’s pickup, Brewster, but also on my ranch. That’s the part that concerns me. I’m the Head of Ranch Security, you see.”

      “Aw СКАЧАТЬ