Murder in the Middle Pasture. John R. Erickson

Murder in the Middle Pasture - John R. Erickson


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      Murder in the Middle Pasture

      John R. Erickson

      Illustrations by Gerald L. Holmes

      Maverick Books, Inc.

      Publication Information

      MAVERICK BOOKS

      Published by Maverick Books, Inc.

      P.O. Box 549, Perryton, TX 79070

      Phone: 806.435.7611

      www.hankthecowdog.com

      First published in the United States of America by Maverick Books, Inc. 1984,

      Texas Monthly Press, 1988, and Gulf Publishing Company, 1990.

      Subsequently published simultaneously by Viking Children’s Books and Puffin Books, members of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 1999.

      Currently published by Maverick Books, Inc., 2011.

      1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

      Copyright © John R. Erickson, 1984

      All rights reserved

      library of congress cataloging-in-publication data

      Erickson, John R.

      [Hank the Cowdog and murder in the middle pasture]

      Murder in the middle pasture / John R. Erickson ; illustrations by Gerald L. Holmes.

      p. cm. — Hank the Cowdog ; 4.

      Originally published: Hank the Cowdog and murder in the middle pasture.

      Summary: When a calf is murdered, Hank, a wiley cowdog and head of ranch security, pursues a gang of wild dogs and a clan of coyotes to find the killer.

      ISBN 1-59188-104-8 (pbk.)

      [1. Dogs—Fiction. 2. Mystery and detective stories. 3. West (U.S.)—Fiction. 4. Humorous stories.] I. Holmes, Gerald L., ill. II. Title. III. Series: Erickson, John R. Hank the Cowdog ; 4.

      PZ7.E72556Mu 1999 [Fic]—dc21 98-41854 CIP AC

      Hank the Cowdog® is a registered trademark of John R. Erickson.

      Printed in the United States of America

      Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

      Dedication

      This one is dedicated to the Ellzeys of Wolf Creek.

      Contents

      Chapter One The Case of the Wild Hogs

      Chapter Two How Was I Supposed to Know She Didn’t Want Me to Go?

      Chapter Three Outlaws on the Ranch

      Chapter Four Attacked by a Horned Moron

      Chapter Five The Cold Weather Cowdog Blues

      Chapter Six Rooster J.T.

      Chapter Seven Murder in the Middle Pasture

      Chapter Eight Amongst the Buzzards Again

      Chapter Nine My Dangerous Mission

      Chapter Ten Confused, Captured, and Condemned

      Chapter Eleven Locked in a Dismal Cave, Escape Impossible

      Chapter Twelve Another Amazing Conclusion

      Chapter One: The Case of the Wild Hogs

      It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. On December 19, we got a snow. On December 20, it snowed again. On December 21 the overflow of the septic tank froze up, making it impossible for me to bathe.

      By December 22 we had four inches of snow on the ground and fellers, it was cold. It was that morning, at approximately 9:00 o’clock, that I awoke from a deep sleep and noticed something very peculiar.

      My bed was shaking.

      My bed consisted of two old gunnysacks and under normal conditions it didn’t shake. Some­thing strange was afoot, and it was my job to check it out.

      I opened one eye, perked one ear, and I sniffed the air. In the security business we call this a preliminary scan. In other words, at that point I wasn’t using all my sensory equipment. There’s no sense in squandering your gifts, no matter how many you have.

      Well, I sniffed and I looked and I listened. I smelled diesel fuel but I always smelled diesel in my bedroom because the tank on the north side leaked and the cowboys on our outfit were too lazy to fix it. Now, if they’d had a fuel leak in THEIR bedrooms, they would have fixed it pronto, but this was only Hank’s bedroom so nobody was worried about it.

      Anyway, I sniffed and I looked and I listened. And then I heard it: a strange grunting sound. And my bed was shaking again. I had no choice but to open my other eye and put my other ear into service.

      I scanned the area from horizon to horizon and suddenly realized that there was something in my bed—something small, white, short-haired, and stub-tailed.

      “Drover?”

      “Uhhh.”

      “Drover?”

      “Huh?”

      “Get out of my bed.”

      “What?” He lifted his head and stared at me. His eyes were out of focus. “Hank, is that you?”

      “Who else would be in my bed at this hour?”

      “I don’t know. Oh Hank, I had a terrible dream!”

      “You’re fixing to have a genuine nightmare if you don’t get your carcass out of my bed.”

      “I dreamed we had snow on the ground and it was bitter cold and I was freezing and . . .” He looked around. “Oh my gosh, my dream’s come true.”

      “This is your lucky day, son. Now scram.”

      He raised up and stood there shivering. “Oh Hank, I’m so cold and miserable! Let me stay in bed with you where it’s warm.”

      “No dice. Did you know that you grunt in your sleep?”

      He stared at me. “Grunt?”

      “That’s right. You’re worse than a bunch of hogs. A guy can’t sleep with all that nonsense going on in his bed.”

      “No, that wasn’t me, Hank, honest it wasn’t. I woke up in the night and I could have sworn I saw,” he rolled his eyes around and dropped his voice to a whisper, “a bunch of hogs—right over there!”

      “Do you expect me to believe that?” He nodded. I chuckled. “Well, I’ve got news for you, Drover. I don’t believe anything I hear and only half of what I see, so there’s very little chance that I’ll swallow your story.”

      “Well, okay. Sure was a good one though.”

      “I’m sure it was. Now, if you’ll just . . . were they wild hogs or domestic?”

      “Wild.”

      “Nonsense. We don’t have wild hogs around here. What makes you think they were wild?”

      “Well, they had big long white things . . .”

      “We call them tusks. Go on.”

      “And


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