The Case of the Coyote Invasion
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 Viking Children’s Books and Puffin Books, members of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 2010.
Currently published by Maverick Books, Inc., 2012
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Copyright © John R. Erickson, 2010
All rights reserved
Maverick Books, Inc. Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59188-156-8
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
For my friends, Nancy, Rick, and Michael Pearcey
Contents
Chapter One Cheapo Brand Dog Food
Chapter Two I Steal a Great Idea from the Cat
Chapter Three We Launch the Mission
Chapter Four Healing Waters
Chapter Five Spurned by Sally May
Chapter Six J. T. Cluck’s Report
Chapter Seven A Serious Case of Worms
Chapter Eight Drover Cheats
Chapter Nine Pullybones and Drumsticks
Chapter Ten The Darkness in a Dog’s Mind
Chapter Eleven Thrown in a Coyote Dungeon
Chapter Twelve The Coyotes Invade the Ranch!
Chapter One: Cheapo Brand Dog Food
It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. Through our network of spies and undercover agents, we learned that the coyotes were planning a big raid on the chicken house, but that came after the Birdseed Fiasco. I would rather not discuss the BSF, but I guess we must, since it helps explain a few details about the coyote invasion.
See, it wasn’t my fault. If the people around here didn’t want me stealing birdseed, they should have put some decent food in my dog bowl. What’s a dog to do when they put out slop for the dogs? I don’t expect steak for every meal, but for crying out loud!
Okay, let’s slow down and take this one step at a time. I can point to the very moment this whole mess began, Friday afternoon at five o’clock. On a lot of outfits, five o’clock on Friday afternoon means quitting time, the start of a long weekend of fun, frolic, and goofing off. On this ranch, it means nothing of the kind. It means that another endless day of work is fixing to melt into an endless night of work, then another day and another night, on and on.
We have no weekends around here, just work and more work. Am I complaining? No sir. Work is what I do. It’s what I want to do. All I expect is a place to sleep and enough Co-op dog food to keep me going. But, see, that’s where the whole problem began.
At five o’clock that Friday afternoon, Loper returned from a trip to town, wheeled into headquarters, and stopped his pickup in front of the machine shed. I happened to be there and saw the whole thing. He stepped out of the pickup and gave me a grin.
“Hank, this is a good day. I’ve figured out how to cut ten bucks a month off my dog food bill.”
Somehow, that didn’t thrill me, so I went to Slow Puzzled Wags on the tail section.
He continued. “There’s a new store in town: The House of Thrift. Their motto is, ‘We’d skin a flea and sell the hide.’” He chuckled and gave me a wink. “It’s a cowboy kind of store, and they’ve got their own line of dog food.” He pointed to a fifty-pound sack in the back of the pickup. “Cheapo Brand dog food. You’re going to love this, pooch.”
Oh really?
Chuckling to himself, he opened a corner of the sack and filled the overturned Ford hubcap that served as our dog bowl. “Okay, bud, dig in. Tell me what you think.”
I moved my nose closer to the heap of brownish kernels and gave it a sniffing. We’ve discussed Co-op brand dog food, right? It has the smell of stale grease. This stuff had the smell of . . . I couldn’t even describe it. Bad.
I gave him Sad Eyes and Slow Wags, as if to say, “You’re kidding, right? This is a joke?”
His smile faded. “Hank, this isn’t the Waldorf-Astoria. Give it a try, you might be surprised.”
Okay, I gave it a try, one bite, and sure enough, I was surprised. It tasted even worse than I’d expected. It was like cardboard. Goat droppings. I backed away from the bowl and used my tongue to sweep the crumbs out of my mouth.
Angry lines gouged a path across Loper’s face. “Well, it’s dog food, and you’re a dog. When you get hungry, you’ll eat it.” He went to the house, shaking his head and muttering about “fussy eaters.”
Oh yeah? When I got hungry, I might eat tree bark, but I would NOT eat Cheapo. What an outrage, feeding such garbage to the Head of Ranch Security! For years I had put up with the Co-op brand and that had been bad enough, but this stuff made Co-op look like a gourmet meal.
If he thought Cheapo was so good, he ought to eat it himself . . . but of course that would never happen. The people around here would never think of eating anything that came out of a fifty-pound sack, but when it comes to their dogs . . . oh well.
You’ll be proud to know that I imposed a boycott on all Cheapo products. Friday night, I went to bed hungry and by Saturday morning, I was weak from poor nutrition. We’re talking about trembling, stomach growling, hardly able to walk, the whole nine yards of food deprivation.
And that’s what led to the problem with the birdseed. See, I never would have considered . . . we’ll get to that in a minute.
For now, let’s set the stage. Saturday morning came right after Friday night, and Sally May had made plans to drive into town and spend the afternoon, doing . . . what was it? Scrapbooking. She was going to attend a class on how to make scrapbooks, and she had lined up Loper to babysit the children.
And, naturally, I would be in charge of the rest of the ranch while she was gone. No problem there, except that I was in the middle of a Food Boycott.
When Sally May and Little Alfred came out of the house that morning, everybody seemed to be in a good mood. That was important. See, I want My People to be happy and, you know, satisfied that the world is treating them right. I can’t always solve their problems, but by George, I always try—especially when it comes to Sally May, our