The Case of the Three-Toed Tree Sloth. John R. Erickson

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СКАЧАТЬ it possible that the Tree Sloth was driving around the ranch in a vehicle? Probably not. Any creature that eats trees can’t drive a pickup, so skip that. This appeared to be something entirely new and unrelated to Pete’s phony report.

      I came to a stop, lifted Earoscanners, and began pulling in Earatory Data. It confirmed my original impression: there was something not right about this deal. I dove into a clump of ragweeds…wait, is “dove” the right word?

      Dive, dove, diven. Diven.

      I diven into some ragweeds and went undercover. There, peeking through the weeds, ACHOO! I sneezed. This was the fall of the year, don’t you see, and we’d had enough rain over the summer to produce a huge crop of ragweeds, I mean, they were tall and thick and everywhere.

      ACHOO!

      And one of the things you might not know about ragweeds is that they are Sneezaromic Plants, which means ACHOO they release high levels of ACHOO that cause people and dogs to go into fits of ACHOO! See what I mean?

      ACHOO!

      This was pointless, trying to do a Stake Out of an unidentified creeping vehicle, while sneezing my fool head off. I leaped out of the stupid weeds and took up a position right in the middle of the road. If the trespassers planned to break into the machine shed and steal tools, they would have to deal with me first.

      Oops. I allowed my suspicion to slip out, so we might as well go public with it. See, I had a strong suspicion that whosomever was inside that pickup might be working for Midnight Supply. You’ve never heard of Midnight Supply, right? Well, it’s a secret code word we use in the Security Business, so let me explain.

      Midnight Supply is code for crooks, thieves, and bad guys who steal tools. They case out a location during the daylight hours, don’t you see, then come back after dark and rob things.

      Midnight Supply. It’s a pretty clever way of putting it, isn’t it? And you know what? I invented it myself. No kidding. I get a kick out of experimenting with language and inventing new terms.

      Now…where were we? Hmm. Okay, language. Language is very important to anyone who isn’t an ignoramus. Wait. Thieves in a pickup.

      The pickup was still coming at that same creepy speed, I mean, the driver obviously had some kind of mischief on his mind. He was now approximately a hundred and fifty feet away and closing. It was time for me to move beyond our Hide In The Weeds procedure.

      I hit Sirens and Lights, and cut loose with three crisp Warning Barks: “Halt! Stop! This is a Secured Area and we’ll need to see some ID!”

      The vehicle kept coming. Okay, this would require sterner measures. I spread my legs apart, took a firm grip on the earth below, and fired off three more Big Ones.

      “Pull over and get out, hands over your heads, move it!”

      I wouldn’t have been surprised if the jerks had sped up and tried to run me over. They do that sometimes, and blow their horn and hang out the window and yell insults as they go roaring past. The mailman is one of the world’s worst, and on several occasions, he has even spit tobacco juice at me.

      I’m not kidding. The guy has no respect for authority. None.

      But all at once, this crisis took a surprising turn. You won’t believe this. Neither did I. The pickup actually came to a sudden stop, and we’re talking about Full Brakes and sliding on the gravel. Both doors flew open and two male suspects leaped out of the vehicle, and get this: They came out with HANDS UP!

      Do we have time for a description of the bad guys? I guess so. The one on the passenger-side was kind of stocky in the shoulders. The driver was tall and skinny. Both wore jeans, faded shirts, baseball caps, and lace-up boots, and those were important clues.

      Do you see the meaning? They weren’t cowboys! Cowboys wear cowboy clothes. These guys were dressed like…I don’t know, like farmers or welders or robbers. Yes, they wore the standard uniform of barn robbers.

      Okay, at that point, it got very interesting. When they got out of the pickup, you’ll never guess what happened next, so pay attention. They were really scared and had their hands high in the air, and the skinny one said, “Don’t shoot, officer, we’re just tourists from Dallas!”

      Tourists from Dallas?

      “We heard there’s a world-famous guard dog on this ranch.”

      A world-famous…what was going on here?

      “They call him Hank the Cowdog. Have you seen him around?”

      What? Hey, that was ME!

      “He’s known all over the world, even in Dallas.”

      No kidding? Wow, did you hear that? I had no idea…hey, those guys weren’t barn robbers. They were just a couple of tourists from Big D, and they had come to meet…well, ME, what else can you say?

      I was overwhelmed. I mean, Dallas is a huge, important city, and it’s a long way from the Panhandle. These two fine gentlemen had driven six or seven hours just to…all at once, a wave of humility washed over me, and I must admit that in my long and colorful career, waves of humility had seldom washed over me, but this time…well, I was speechless.

      I shut off Sirens and Lights, and lowered the strip of hair that had risen up along my backbone. Holding my head at a dignified angle, I marched toward them. After making such a long drive, they deserved…

      Huh?

      I heard the sounds of laughter, the kind of rude, irreverent snorting you’d expect from…never mind, we’ll skip the rest of this.

      Look, I’m a very busy dog and don’t have time for nonsense. I mean, somebody on this ranch has to WORK once in a while.

      You know, they’re always complaining about how hard it is to make a living in the ranching business, battling drought and blizzards and the cattle market, but oh how different things might be if they stopped pulling childish pranks on their dogs and DID A DAY’S WORK.

      It’s shocking, all the things I have to put up with around here, and we’re talking about every day. They think they’re so funny, but they’re not. They’re nothing but a couple of goof-offs, in the same class as the mailman, only twice as bad, and I refuse to say one more word about it.

      Don’t beg, I’m not going to talk about it.

      Oh well, you’ve probably figured it out anyway. We might as well get it over with.

      Those “tourists from Dallas” turned out to be my so-called friends, Slim and Loper, the so-called cowboys on this ranch. They’d spent the morning planting wheat, which is one of the routine chores on this ranch in the fall. They plant wheat in the ground, in hopes that it will sprout wheat plants and make winter pasture for the cattle.

      That’s why they weren’t wearing their cowboy clothes. When they do the farming (which they don’t enjoy), they wear regular work clothes, and any dog would have missed that clue.

      Hey, when they wear different clothes, how are we supposed to know who they are? And why were they creeping along in the pickup? СКАЧАТЬ