The Case of the Missing Cat (2 page)

Chapter Two: Pete Makes a Foolish Wager

I
t didn't take me long to catch up with Pete. “Hold it right there, cat. It appears to me that you're moving toward a certain cottontail rabbit. Before you get yourself into some serious trouble, I should point out that the alleged rabbit belongs to me.”

“Oh really? I thought you were too busy for rabbits, Hankie.”

“I was misquoted. What I meant to say was that the rabbit belongs to me and you can keep your paws off of him.”

“Now Hankie, be reasonable. You don't have any use for a rabbit.”

“Oh yeah? Says who?”

“In the first place, he's not bothering anyone. He's just a cute, innocent little bunny who's eating grass.”

“Yeah, but it's MY grass, see, and he's down there by MY gunnysack and he doesn't have a permit to eat my grass in the vicinity of my gunny­sack.”

Pete grinned and licked his front paw with a long stroke of his tongue. “And in the second place, it's a well-known fact that a dog can't catch a rabbit.”

I stared at the cat and began laughing. “
A dog can't catch a rabbit?
Is that what you just said?”

“Um-hmm, because a dog goes about it the wrong way. Instead of being patient and stalking the rabbit, as a cat would do, a dog just blunders in and starts chasing.”

“Blunders in and starts chasing, huh? Go on, cat, I'm dying to hear the rest of this.”

“Mmmm, all right. And once the rabbit starts running, the game is over because a dog can't catch a rabbit on the run. That's a well-known fact.”

“No, Pete, that's well-known garbage, just the sort of half-truth and gossip that a cat would spread around. What you're saying is so outrageous that I refuse to discuss it any more.”

“Whatever you think, Hankie.”

“Except to repeat what I've already said: Leave my rabbit alone. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got . . .”

“I'll bet you can't catch him.”

“. . . two weeks' work lined up for . . . what did you just say?”

“I'll bet you can't catch him.”

I lowered my nose until it was only inches away from the cat's face. “You want to bet me that I can't catch a sniveling little cottontail rabbit? On my ranch? When I'm Head of Ranch Security?”

“Um-hmmm.”

My first thought was to meet his challenge head-on, take him up on his foolish bet, and settle the matter once and for all time. However . . .

It was too easy. Something was wrong here.

See, when you've worked around cats as much as I have, you develop a certain degree of caution. They're stupid animals, but they're stupid in a cunning sort of way.

They have a talent for twisting things around. It's a minor talent, it doesn't compare at all with the larger and grander talents you'll find in even your average breed of dogs, and I'm talking about, oh, just to mention a few: good looks, high intelligence, courage, tremendous physical strength, good looks, speed, quickness, determination, endurance, and devilish good looks.

I must give Beulah the Collie most of the credit for spotting those qualities in . . . well, ME, you might say. Otherwise I might never have known they were there, which would have been a real shame.

Where was I?

Funny how Beulah seems to creep into my thoughts, but I was talking about something else, seems to me, and . . .

Oh yes, cats. They have this minor talent for twisting things around, and over the years I've learned that when a cat makes a simple statement or says something that appears on the surface to make sense, it's time to pull back and study the deal from a different prospectus.

I walked a short distance away and switched over into Heavy Duty Analysis Mode.

Pete had just offered to make a foolish wager with me, one which he had no chance of winning. Now, why would a cat do such a thing?

Answer #1: The cat is just dumb, and you must expect a dumb cat to make dumb mistakes.

Answer #2: The cat is dumb, but not quite as dumb as he appears to be, in which case he should be approached with caution.

Answer #3: The cat is actually pretty smart and . . . I didn't need to follow this one out any further because it was too outrageous to consider. I mean, this was the same cat who had invented a nonexistent game called “Checkerless Checkers,” right? Nothing more needed to be said.

And so, having dismissed Answer #3 in record time, I ran Answer #1 and Answer #2 through my data banks. What the printout revealed was a confirmation of Answer #1, which I had suspected all along.

Pete had made a dumb mistake and had thrown down the goblet, so to speak, and challenged me to enter into a foolish wager. Foolish for Pete, that is.

Okay, the only question left to ask was, “Would Hank the Cowdog consider taking unfair advantage of a dumb cat?” And I didn't need to run that one through the data banks.

In a word YES. I would, with all my heart and soul.

Stealing glances as I paced back and forth, I studied the cat, measured him, sized him up, and prepared my next move. A strategy began to take shape in my mind, and at that point I was ready to respond.

I swaggered back over to him. “Okay, I'll take you up on your bet, kitty, but only if there's something at stake.”

He looked up at me with his big cattish eyes. “Hmmm. You mean something valuable?”

“Exactly. I don't enter into bets with cats for my health. If you can't put up something that makes this deal worth my time and trouble, I'm not interested.”

“My goodness, Hankie, you get pretty serious about these things, don't you?”

“You got that right, cat. I'm a very busy dog and the nickel-and-dime stuff doesn't interest me.”

“Well, let me think. I'll bet you tonight's supper scraps.”

“Not enough.”

“Well, then I'll throw in tomorrow's breakfast scraps too.”

“To be real blunt about it, Pete, scraps don't excite me right now. If we're going to bet, I want to bet something that really matters—something that, if lost, will hurt BAD.”

“Ummm! That kind of bet!”

I smirked and gave him a worldly, sideways glance. “Now you understand, Pete. No penny ante here. This is go-for-broke. Do you want into the deal or do you want out?”

He studied his claws for a moment, I mean, the cat was obviously scared and stalling for time. “All right, Hankie, if that's the way you want it.”

“That's the way I want it.”

His eyes came up. “I'll bet you your job as Head of Ranch Security.”

“HUH? My job as . . . now wait just a minute.”

“You wanted big stakes, right? You wanted to go for broke, right?”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“There's the bet,” he grinned, “if you're dog enough to take it.”

My eyes narrowed and a growl began to rumble deep in my throat. “Watch what you say, cat. Your words could come back to honk you. And if your words don't honk you loud enough, I might consider doing a little honking of my own. Repeat the bet.”

“I'm betting your job as Head of Ranch Security that you can't catch that rabbit.”

My data banks whirred. “Let me get this straight. If I lose, you get my job as Head of Ranch Security. But what are you putting up? What happens if you lose?”

“Well, if I lose, you win the job as Head of Ranch Security. We'll both be playing for the same prize, and if the prize is the same for both of us, it has to be a fair bet.”

I didn't like the way he was grinning, so I took the time to study the deal from every possible angle. It checked out. For the first time in years, this cat had offered a deal that was equal, fair, square, level, and plumb.

“All right, cat, you've got yourself a bet. It's a done deal and there will be no backing out.”

“You only get three tries.”

“Sure, fine, don't bore me with details.”

“But what if you lose, Hankie? Will you pay off?”

I laughed. “That's not likely to happen, Kitty, but if it does, I'll pay off. You've got my Solemn Cowdog Oath on it.”

“Mmmm. And a cowdog never goes against his oath, right?”

“Exactly. And now that you've committed yourself to the deal, I can reveal that you've made a very foolish blunder. Pete, old buddy, old pal, you're fixing to lose it all on one roll of the dice.”

He gasped! Yes, he tried to hide it but I saw him gasp. Hey, that cat was beginning to feel the jaws of my trap closing around him.

All that remained was for me to lumber down and catch the rabbit, which would be a piece of cake for this old dog. I mean, catching rabbits was no big deal for me—just by George run 'em down and snatch 'em up in the old iron jaws.

Yes sir, and when that happened, fellers, Pete the Barncat would be out of luck and out of business.

Chapter Three: The Case of the Lumber-Pile Bunny

A
s you might expect, old Pete was shaking in his tracks, and we're talking about worried sick and scared to death.

I guess he'd finally figgered out that he'd bet his entire future on this deal and that his chances of winning had come down to Slim and None.

Slim Chances, not Slim the Cowboy. There are several Slims around here, don't you see.

Anyways, I headed down to the gas tanks to find the Lumber-Pile Bunny.

Did I mention where he got his name? Maybe not. Okay, here we go.

One of my jobs on the ranch was to identify and track the movements of every rabbit within the perimeter of ranch headquarters. At that particular time, I was following the movements of three alleged rabbits: the one we called the Cake-House Bunny, who stayed under the cake house; the Cattle-Guard Bunny, who lived in the cattle guard just north of headquarters; and the Lumber-Pile Bunny.

I knew them all on sight, had memorized their markings and habits, and had been keeping all of them under pretty close surveillance for months and months.

“How could one dog keep track of three rabbits at the same time?” you ask. Good question. All I can say is that I did it. A lot of dogs would have found it difficult, if not impossible, but for me, it was just part of the job.

The next thing you're probably asking yourself is, “Where did the Lumber-Pile Bunny get his name?” Another good question.

I had assigned the code name “Lumber-Pile Bunny” to this particular rabbit because . . . well, because he lived in a lumber pile, and maybe that was fairly obvious. But there was nothing obvious about where the lumber pile came from.

Here's the scoop on that. Back in the spring, the cowboys became so embarrassed by the appearance of their corral fence that they took the drastic step of replacing twenty or thirty rotten, warped, moth-eaten boards with new lumber.

Any time those guys give up on using a baling wire patch the action can be regarded as drastic. Yes, they did in fact replace the old boards with new boards, but did they
haul off the old boards?

No sir. Throwed 'em in a pile on the west side and drove away, saying, “We'll haul that lumber off when we get caught up with some of this other work.” But did they? No sir.

That's a pretty sorry way to run a ranch, seems to me, but did anyone ask the opinion of the Head of Ranch Security? Again, NO. I'll say no more about it.

Except that lumber piles attract rattlesnakes and skunks and provide a place of refuse for sniveling little rabbits, speaking of whom . . .

Would you care to guess who took up residence in the lumber pile? That's correct, a certain cottontail rabbit, to who or whom I assigned the code name “Lumber-Pile Bunny.” This was the guy I was after.

Okay. Some ten feet north of the gas tanks, I throttled back to a slow gliding walk, switched my ears over to Manual Liftup, began testing the air with full nosetory equipment, and directed my VSD's (Visual Scanning Devices; in ordinary dogs also referred to as “eyes”) toward a patch of grass directly west of the gas tanks.

This procedure soon bored fruit . . . bared fruit . . . produced results, as my instruments began picking up the telltale sounds of a rabbit munching grass.

It was the Lumber-Pile Bunny.

He was munching tender shoots of grass some 25 or 30 feet to the west of my bedroom. The foolish rabbit seemed unaware that he had entered a Secured Area and that the Dark Shadow of Doom was slipping toward him like a dark shadow in the night.

Well, maybe not in the night. You wouldn't be able to see a dark shadow in the . . .

Even though I had switched over to Silent Mode, the bunny heard me coming. They have pretty good ears, don't you know, and it's hard to slip up on one.

But get this. Instead of running away, he stood up on his back legs, looked straight at me, and wiggled his nose in what I would describe as “a provocatory gesture.”

Okay, what we had here was a rabbit who had never been taught his place on the ranch. Or else one that had lost his mind. He wanted to play with fire, so he was fixing to learn about fire.

Well, this was it. I glanced back to be sure that Pete was watching (he was), took a deep breath, and rolled my shoulders several times to loosen up the enormous muscles that would soon propel me at speeds unknown to ordinary dogs.

I turned back to the rabbit, locked in all guidance systems, and began the countdown procedure, which goes something like this, in case you're not familiar with technical stuff:

“Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Launch, liftoff, charge, bonzai!!”

And in a puff of smoke and a cloud of dust, I went streaking toward the target.

Rabbits are famous for their speed, right? What many people don't know is that your better grades of cowdog are every bit as fast as a rabbit, and in a few rare cases (me, for example) are even faster.

I'm not one to boast, but speed was just built into my bloodline.

In other words, the Lumber-Pile Bunny was in big trouble from the very beginning. I closed in on him fast and was only inches away from snapping him up in my jaws when . . .

Let's call it luck. He got lucky, that's all. And why not? After all, he was carrying around four lucky rabbit's feet.

Luck kept him a couple of feet ahead of me as we went streaking out into the home pasture. Inches, actually. We made a wide loop, some 25 yards in front of the corrals, and then I realized that Bunny had changed directions and was high-balling it straight to the lumber pile.

It was an old rabbit trick. I recognized it right away and took appropriate measures. I went to Incredible Speed and . . . like I said, he was carrying four lucky rabbit's feet.

I never denied that rabbits are pretty swift and, okay, maybe he beat me to the lumber pile, but not by much. If the chase had gone another ten feet, I would have nailed him.

I returned to the gas tanks to wait for him to come out again, as I knew he would. Off to the north, I heard a familiar whiny voice say, “Mmmm, that's one, Hankie.”

“Don't worry about it, Kitty, that was just a warm-up.”

I waited. And waited. The minutes dragged by. Perhaps I dozed. Then . . . the munching of grass reached my ears. He was back, same place. Munching grass right in front of my bedroom. Foolish rabbit.

Within seconds I had gone through the launch procedure and was back on the chase. You should have seen me! Made that loop out into the pasture and virtually destroyed three acres of good buffalo grass and virtually had that bunny trapped in the deadly vice of my jaws, and if the chase had gone another five feet, that little feller would have been a stasstistic.

Stasstisstic.

History.

Real close race, almost got him, a huge im­provement over the first run, and as long as a guy can see improvement, he knows that he has won a moral victory. And so, with a victory hanging in the trophy room of my mind, I returned, triumphant and victorious, to the gas tanks.

A little winded, yes, but beneath the huffing and puffing was the warm glow of satisfaction that comes when a dog knows he's done his job right.

“Mmmm, that's two, Hankie,” said the cat. “Only one shot left.”

I chuckled and didn't bother to reply. I knew what the cat was trying to do—put pressure on me so that I would choke. What he didn't know was that some dogs
thrive
on pressure, I mean, it's like throwing gasoline into a . . .

CHOKE! GASP! ARG!

On the other hand, I was beginning to feel a small amount of . . . I mean, my job, my position, my entire career was riding on the next . . .

WHEEZE! ARG! GASP!

Holy smokes, if I didn't catch the rabbit on the next run,
Pete the Barncat would be the next Head of Ranch Security!
Not only would that be a personal disaster for me personally, but it would be disaster for the entire ranch.

Gulp.

Pressure. It weighs heavy on the mind, smashes creative impulses, crushes the little flowers of courage that try to bloom in the warm soil of . . . something.

I was curled up in a ball, in the process of pretending that I was a puppy again, back in the sweet days before I had assumed all the crushing responsibilities of running a ranch, when all of a sudden . . .

I lifted my eyes and narrowed my head . . . lifted my head and narrowed my eyes, I should say, and there sat the Lumber-Pile Bunny, not ten feet in front of me.

Okay, this was it. My whole career had come down to this moment, this last chase.

I arose from my gunnysack bed and prepared myself for what was sure to be the most important mission of my life.