The Case of the Fiddle Playing Fox (3 page)

Chapter Four: The Case of the Phoney Fiddle Music in the Night

L
oper closed the door, gave us one last scorching glare, and stomped back down to the corrals. Needless to say, I had little desire to go with him. There are times to be a loyal dog and there are times to be invisible. I choose invisible.

As soon as Loper's footsteps faded into the distance, I turned to my assistant. “Well, you sure made a mess of this deal. Where were you last night when the robber strolled into the chicken house and had himself a feast?”

“I don't know. I never saw him.”

“Exactly. Now, the next question is, why didn't you see him? What were you doing that was more important than guarding the chicken house?”

“Well . . .”

“Nothing. That's the answer. Nothing was more important than guarding the chicken house, and that is precisely what you were doing.”

“Oh. Well, I guess I was doing the right thing, huh?”

“Absolutely wrong.”

“Oh drat. But Hank, if nothing was more im­portant than guarding the chicken house, then I was doing the more important thing, seems to me.”

I glared at him. “Are you trying to confuse me?”

“Not really.”

“Good. It would be a waste of your time to try. Furthermore . . .”

At that moment I realized that I was being stared at by a pair of rooster eyes—at close range. You ever been stared at by a rooster at close range? They have this funny way of twisting their heads, see, and blinking their eyes, as if they're not sure what it is they're looking at.

As you might have guessed, J. T. Cluck had returned—without being invited, I might add.

“Oh, it's you again,” said J.T. “I was a-wondering what that was. Did you just come out of the chicken house?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Who do you think, you darn fool dog? ME! I want to know who's going in and out of my chicken house. You may not know it, mister, and you may not care, but we've been losing eggs in the night.”

“I'm aware of that, and as a matter of fact, I just happen to be working on the case at this very moment.”

“Huh. Somehow that don't thrill me the way it ort to.”

“Oh yeah? Well, thrilling chickens ain't something I'd care to do, even if I didn't have anything else on my agenda, which I do. But while you're here and wasting my time anyway, I might as well ask you a few questions.”

“Go ahead, ask me some questions, ask me anything. My life's an open book.”

“I know. And if you had to make your living selling it, you'd starve to death.”

“Say what? What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” I fixed him with a stern gaze and began to pace back and forth in front of him. Did I mention that my mind works better when I . . . yes, I did. “All right, let's get down to the brass tacks.”

“Fine, I'm ready, ask me anything. Say, you ever been pecking for gravel and swaller a brass tack? I did that once, and you talk about indigestion! That was the first time in my life that I ever got cavities in my gizzard gravel.”

“That's very interesting.”

“Yeah, I know. We ain't got teeth, maybe you didn't realize that. We swaller gravel and it goes down to the gizzard and the gizzard grinds up our food.”

“Yes, I know.”

“So we never have problems with our teeth, see. You can't have problems with what you ain't got.”

“I'm very happy for you but . . .”

“Pretty good system most of the time, but like Elsa says, she says a rooster my age has got no business swallering tacks and nails and running all that hardware through my gizzard.”

“J.T.?”

“Causes cavities in the gizzard gravel and gives me indigestion.”

“Tell me about last night.”

“Huh? Last night? Naw, this happened several weeks ago.”

“Never mind your indigestion. What happened last night? Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary?”

“Well, let me think here.” He cocked his head and raised one foot off the ground. “Yes, I did. I heard something last night that I won't forget for a long time.”

“Okay, tell me about it. Describe exactly what you heard and keep to the facts.”

“You bet, here we go. You know what was strange about the whole deal?” He glanced over both wings and moved closer. “What was funny about that deal of the busted eggs was that sometime in the deep dark of the night, I woke up—I was on the roost, see, sleeping real good—I woke up in the deep dark of the night and heard . . .”

I stood motionless, waiting to hear the rest. “Yes? You heard something? Go on.”

“Naw, you wouldn't believe it.”

“Try me.”

“Naw, it's just too outrageous, and I ain't sure I believe it my own self.”

“TELL ME WHAT YOU HEARD!”

“Well, you don't have to screech. I ain't deaf yet! Okay, I'll tell you the rest of the darned story. I woke up in the deep dark of the night and I heard something. And what I heard was . . . fiddle music!”

“Fiddle music?”

“Yes sir, that's exactly what I heard. Fiddle music.”

I swung my eyes around to Drover. He was looking up at the clouds. “Have you been talking to this rooster behind my back?”

His gaze drifted down and settled on me. It was as empty a gaze as I'd ever seen. “Oh, hi. I was just watching the clouds. Kind of looks like rain.”

“Never mind the rain. This rooster says he heard fiddle music last night.”

“I'll be derned, so did I.”

“That's quite a coincidence, wouldn't you say? Two unreliable witnesses making the same outrageous claim on the same day?”

“Sounds pretty crazy, all right.”

“Exactly, that's my whole point. If only one of you had made such a claim, I might have passed it off as mere chance, but the fact that both of you told the same story points to something deeper and darker.”

“Yeah, it makes you think we heard the same fiddle.”

I couldn't help chuckling at his nativity . . . niavity . . . naw-eev-ity . . . at his simple-minded re­sponse. “Except that there WAS no fiddle, Drover, and therefore no fiddle music. Now the question becomes, why would you and J. T. Cluck go to the trouble to tell me the same incredible yarn?”

“Oh, it wasn't any trouble.”

I stuck my nose in his face. “Could it be that I have exposed a little conspiracy here? Perhaps you were bored and thought it would be fun to pull a practical joke on old Hank?”

“I don't think so.”

“Tell him a crazy story about fiddle music in the night, get him stirred up and running off in all directions? Yes, of course. Nice try, Drover, you almost pulled it off, but you forgot one small detail.”

“I did?”

“Yes. You got a rooster to corroborate your story, never realizing that you had picked the most unreliable witness on the entire ranch, never realizing that when interrogating chickens, I always use the Principle of Reversal.”

“You do?”

“Exactly. Which means that to arrive at the truth, I reverse the chicken's testimony. Hence, if a chicken claims to have heard fiddle music, it means that he heard either a tuba or nothing at all.”

“I'll be derned.”

“So there you are. You walked right into my trap, Drover.”

“Maybe it was tuba music.”

Having unmasked Drover, I whirled around to expose J. T. Cluck. “And as for you, rooster . . .” He was gone, so I whirled back around to Drover. “There, you see? Your partner in this little sham . . .”

Hmmm. Drover was gone too, just vanished without a trace. I sat down on the gravel driveway and scratched a troublesome spot on my right ear.

Since I had never interrogated myself, I could only speculate on how J.T. and Drover must have felt as I bored into their tiny minds with my drill-bit questions. It must have been a terrifying experience, and who could blame them for running away at the first opportunity?

Sometimes I'm frightened by my own powers—those blinding flashes of insight that light up the dark night of darkness and iffumigate every crack and corner in the murky cellar of . . . something.

Well, I had wrapped up the Case of the Phoney Fiddle Music in the Night in what must have been near-record time. But the Case of the Broken Eggs hung over me like a dark cloud—a gloomy, rolling dark thundercloud that . . .

Raindrops?

Rain?

Hard rain?

Pellets of hail?

Yikes, it was raining snakes and weasels, and also hailstones the size of . . . I made a dash for the machine shed, but not soon enough to escape getting drenched and peppered with hailstones.

Inside, I shook myself and sat down to watch the downpour. All at once, I began to feel that I was being watched. Very slowly, I turned my head on its pivotal mechanism and cast a glance to my right.

There, only a few feet away, sat J. T. Cluck and Drover.

Drover grinned. “I thought those clouds might do something.”

“We was a-wondering,” said J.T., “how long it would take you to come in out of that rain. It's like I told Elsa one time, I said, ‘Elsa . . .'”

Never mind. I may have been all wet, but I would soon dry off. There was no cure for being a dumb chicken.

Chapter Five: The Deadly Shower of Sparks

I
t was one of those sudden downpours that we get in the fall of the year. The clouds pile up in the . . . well, in the sky, of course, and all at once they open up and drop buckets of rain.

It's no disgrace to get caught out in one of those downpours because they come very suddenly and without any warning.

It rained hard for about 10 minutes. Then it stopped just as suddenly as it had come. The moment it stopped J. T. Cluck went streaking out of the machine shed. Something about getting the worms when they were out of their holes and worms being good for his digestion.

Something like that. Not that I cared, you un­derstand. I was glad to be rid of him, regardless of the reason.

I had planned to do a routine search for tracks and scent around the chicken house, on the slim chance that it might turn up a lead in the case. But the rain had taken care of that and had reduced my chances of finding anything to near zero.

“Well, Drover, it's pretty clear what must happen now.”

“Yeah, the sun'll come out and before you know it, we'll be dry again.”

“We've got no clues, no leads, no suspects. So far, it's been a dry run.”

“Yeah, but every little bit of moisture helps.”

“If you were in charge of things, what would be your next move?”

“Oh, I'd bring out the sun for a while and dry things out. Then I'd let it rain again.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“Oh, I just said . . . I don't think I said anything.”

“I thought I heard someone speak.”

“Not me. I didn't say a word.”

“Hmm, that's odd. I could have sworn . . . Drover, this case has me stumped. I can't seem to find a handle.”

He looked around in a circle. “No, there aren't many around here.”

“Oftentimes, when we reach a dead end in a case, the best way to proceed is with a radical departure, something that will blow the case wide open. If you agree with that, as I'm sure you will, then tonight at dark we will stake out the chicken house and wait for the villain to strike again.”

“Who's
we
?”

“We, Drover, meaning the entire Security Division.”

“Well, I don't know, Hank, I'm liable to be . . .”

“We're going to throw all units into this case, and stay with it until we've got a suspect. I guess I don't need to tell you that this could get us into some combat.”

He stood up and began limping around in a circle. “You know, this change in the weather has sure done something to this old leg of mine. I don't know but what . . .”

“A good long nap will fix you right up, Drover. Come dark, you'll be good as new.”

“I don't know. This dampness . . .”

“Try it, Drover. I'm sure it'll work. But just in case it doesn't, think about life without dog food.”

“It does feel a little better, now that I've worked some of the soreness out.”

“Good. Now let's get some shut-eye. I've cancelled all the afternoon's operations. Everything is on hold until we break this case. Good night, Drover. Or maybe I should say, good afternoon.”

“I think it's still morning.”

“Very well, good morning.”

“Good night, Hank, I hope I can sleep with all this pain.”

We curled up inside the machine shed and spent the entire afternoon throwing up long lazy lines of Z's. It was a wonderful experience.

Oh, there were a few minor interruptions. The flies were bothersome, but we expect that in the fall and take certain corrective measures to reduce the nuisance factor. We're able to put our ears on Automatic Twitch, don't you know, and that pretty muchly takes care of the fly problem.

Then, sometime in the middle of the afternoon, Loper came blundering into the machine shed and spent half an hour running the high-speed grinder. I have no idea what he was doing over there—grinding on a piece of steel, I suppose, and it was very noisy, and after a while he must have gotten bored because he turned the grinder around so that it threw a shower of sparks on ME.

There are certain people in this world who can't stand to see someone else enjoying a peaceful sleep. It seems to bring out the very worst qualities in their nature. It turns them into maniacs and statistic pranksters. They won't take a hint, they won't go away, they won't quit tormenting the innocent party until the innocent party is dragged from the warm vapors of sleep.

I ignored him as long as I could. I mean, I was aware of what he was doing. I knew that tiny fragments of red hot metal were hitting the lower dorsal quadrant of my body. But I also knew that my hair would trap the sparks and allow them to cool before they made contact with my skin, which meant that I was fairly safe.

I knew what he wanted: a big explosive reaction from me. Maybe it was stubbornness on my part, but I didn't want to yield to his childish prank. Twice I raised up and gave him a long patient stare, and whapped my tail on the cement floor, as if to say, “Okay, you've had your fun. Now go away and leave me alone.”

Do you think that was good enough for him? I'm telling you, these cowboys are childish beyond your wildest dreams. No sir, that wasn't good enough for him, and do you know what he did?

He bore down harder on that piece of steel, which caused the grinder to throw out sparks that were even bigger and hotter than the ones it had thrown out before, and it was only a matter of time until his infantile wish was granted.

Yes, at last one of the bigger and hotter fragments of steel burned through the outer protective layer of hair, dropped down to the skinalary region of my left dorsal hiney, and burned itself into the consciousness of my mind.

At which point I erupted from the warm vapors of sleep, leaped several feet in the air, screeched, and moved my business to the northwest corner of the machine shed, where I took up sleep between Loper's canvas-covered canoe and three dusty boxes that contained Christmas tree decorations.

As I passed Drover, he opened one eye, which resembled a single grape suspended in a bowl of red jello, and muttered, “Murgle pork chop skittle ricky tattoo.”

To which I made the only sensible reply: “Oh shut up!”

Well, judging by the amount of laughter that went up over by the grinder, Loper got a big kick out of his stupid, childish, infantile, stupid prank.

Oh yes, a big chuckle. In fact, at one point he sank to his knees and pounded the cement with his hands, while I glared daggers at him from the gloomy darkness of the machine shed and thought unkind thoughts about him.

As far as I could determine, the thought never entered his mind that he had intruded into the precious rebuilding and restoring time of the HEAD OF RANCH SECURITY.

Did it ever occur to him that soon, all too soon, I would be out on the front lines, alone in the darkness, facing some horrible trudging Thing of the Night? Providing his ranch with its First Line of Defense? Protecting HIS ranch, HIS chicken house, HIS wife's daily supply of eggs without which . . .

Oh, no, none of that. He thought only of his own childish, infantile pleasures, and tormenting a poor, overworked, unappreciated dog and depriving him of his precious sleep.

Now, if he had done the same thing to Drover, that would have been a slightly different deal, seeing as how Drover is used primarily in a backup capacity and his role in the overall . . . but no, he chose ME as his victim and . . . oh well.

Sometimes the mind reels at the follies of this life.

Okay. At long last, Loper had his fill of childish follyrot and went back to . . . I almost said “work” but that might have been overly optimistic. He went back down to the corrals and did whatever it was that he had been doing before.

But the important thing was that he left me alone so that I could sleep and prepare my body for the deadly combat that almost certainly lay ahead of me.

At last I dropped off to sleep, but for the next four hours I dreamed of high-speed grinders and showers of sparks, and every time a fly landed upon my body, I twitched and groaned and waited to be scorched.

It was, to put it briefly, a fistful sleep. Fitful sleep, that is.

Then the moment came for awakening. I pushed myself up from the rags and shreds of cardboard upon which I had been forced to sleep. I saw the rays of the twilight sun pouring through the cracks in the big double doors.

And I knew that the time had come. In slumber, my life had marched on through time to the roll of the invisible drums, bringing me closer, ever closer, to the moment when I would face . . .

Limbering up my body, doing a few callusthinkus . . . calthelenics . . . callus—the freshly awakened mind has trouble grasping big words—while going through several exercises to promote the flow of bodily fluids, I found myself wondering who HE was.

A deadly badger? A skunk, perhaps carrying rabies? A member of the wild coyote tribe? An enormous boar coon with teeth that could rip a dog to shreds?

And I wondered what he was doing at this very moment, what preparations he might be making for his slouch through the darkness, what thoughts were passing through the shadows of his mind.

I could only guess, and guessing about such matters seldom leads to happiness. In the end, I preferred ignorance over bliss, or whatever the old saying is.

I made my way through the gloom of the machine shed and called to Drover in a soft voice. “Drover, the moment has come. We are called to meet our fate in the night.”

Didn't faze him, so I gave him a boot and yelled, “Get up, Half-Stepper, it's time to go to work!” That did the trick.

He staggered around in circles for a minute or two. And then we marched out into night's last day . . . day's last light, I should say, and began our lonely virgil.