The Phantom in the Mirror (3 page)

Chapter Four: I Ignore Pete's Stupid Story

I
didn't give Pete's story another thought. The instant I walked away, it left my mind completely.

Instantly.

Totally.

Absolutely.

Without a trace or a memory.

Just as though I'd never heard it.

I mean, when you've been in this business as long as I have, you learn to disregard the testimony of cats.

Whereas your top-of-the-line, blue-ribbon cowdog will always tell the truth, never mind the consequences, your typical cat will go out of his way to tell a shabby distortion of the truth. I mean, they do it just for sport.

Which is why I have never paid the slightest attention to anything Pete . . . but on the other hand, it was kind of a fascinating lie. It showed some imagination and . . .

Phantom Dog, huh? Living in the mirror? I wondered where a dumb cat like Pete had . . . I mean, you wouldn't expect a dumb cat to . . .

But as far as giving Pete's story a second thought—no way. I had work piled up and investigations to make, and then there was the matter of supervising Mister Never Sweat, my Assistant Head of Ranch Security, which would have been enough of a job in itself.

No, I had plenty of things to . . . take over the ranch, huh? You know, there are some things I'll tolerate in another dog, but when it comes to MY TERRITORY, I get real serious, real quick. I mean, the last dog who tried to take over my ranch . . .

Anyways, I didn't give it another thought. Within minutes I'd forgotten about it. It just went in one ear and out the other.

No problem.

I threw myself into a very busy schedule that would have exhausted three ordinary dogs. Hey, I was covered up with work! I barked at the mailman at 10:00, chased two cars and a pickup on the county road, rushed back to do a routine patrol of the corrals, and did some long-range observation of Loper as he struggled through Operation Honeydew.

He and Sally May stayed very busy down there at the house, raking the yard, picking up limbs, putting up Christmas lights, sweeping, and cleaning. This party for the church choir was looking more and more like a big deal.

At one point, around noon as I recall, I overheard Loper say to his wife, “Nobody's worth all this trouble. This is the last party we'll ever have.”

But the important thing is that throughout the entire afternoon, I didn't give one minute's thought to Pete's yarn.

By five o'clock I was worn out and still had night patrol ahead of me. I trotted down to the gas tanks and found Drover curled up on my gunny­sack bed.

Why can't Drover sleep on his own gunnysack? I don't know, but given a choice, he will always pick MINE.

“Arise and sing, Half-Stepper, and make way for the night patrol. And get out of my bed.”

“Murgle muff mirk.”

“Out, scram, be gone.”

It took some pretty severe growling to get his attention, but at last he staggered out of my bed and fell into his own. At that point I fluffed up my gunnysack, circled it three times, and collapsed.

Oh, that felt good! I melted into its warm embrace, closed my eyes, and drifted off into . . . hmmmm. I couldn't sleep. Heck, I was tired enough to sleep, but for some reason . . .

I kept thinking about a stray dog in the machine shed. Yes, I knew that was ridiculous, but sometimes a guy gets a ridiculous thought in his head and he can't get rid of it.

So at last I gave up trying to sleep. I stood up, gave myself a good stretch, and decided . . . well, if I couldn't sleep, then maybe I ought to check out the machine shed.

For several days I had tried to work the machine shed into my busy schedule, and it had nothing to do with Pete's wild, improbable, silly story about the so-called Phantom Dog. I wasn't about to change my schedule, just to prove to myself that Pete was a chronic, habituating liar whose story I didn't believe.

In other words, Pete's story had nothing to do with my going into the machine shed that afternoon. I'd had it on my schedule for days. Weeks, actually.

A long, long time.

Checking out the machine shed was just a routine matter.

I did it all the time.

And so it was perfectly natural, perfectly normal that at 5:07 I poked my head into the space between the two sliding doors and peered into the half-darkness of the machine shed.

And I want the record to show that I didn't even look towards the mirror. No sir, didn't even think of looking at it. I had virtually forgotten Pete's stupid story anyway, and I had other things on my mind, such as:

A.

B.

C.

D.

Those were exactly the four items I had on my mind, and I'll come back later and add the details, because, well, they've slipped my mind at the moment.

But let the record show that I had four important things on my mind, not one of which in­volved checking out that mirror.

Okay. I poked my head through the crack in the doors, ran a quick Nosatory Scan, and sent the info to Data Control. The report came back and showed traces of diesel fuel, livestock mineral blocks, ordinary barn dust, and mouse leavings.

No major clues there, so I slipped through the doors and moved on silent paws across the cement floor. There, on that same cement floor, I came upon fresh evidence of cowboy activity: two welding leads, four stubs of welding rod, an empty pair of welding gloves, a welding hood, and several burn and splatter marks on the cement.

Someone had been welding. That was simple enough, but how did I know that the welder had been a cowboy?
Because he hadn't put his equipment back where he'd found it.
That was a dead giveaway. These cowboys around here are experts at getting out a bunch of tools and making a big mess, and then rushing off to something else.

That's a pretty poor way to run a ranch, if you ask me, but nobody ever does, so I'll keep my opinions to myself.

I picked my way through and around the de­bris, and continued my routine check of the machine shed. Everything appeared to be normal, and yet I couldn't shake the feeling that it was too normal and too quiet, almost as though . . .

At that moment I noticed a large mirror located near the north wall. I don't know what drew me over there to the gloomy shadow region of the shed, but suddenly I was grabbed by a feeling:
Somebody or something was lurking inside that mirror, and he was watching me!

If you've been in security work as long as I have, you learn to pay attention to such unsplickable feelings. You don't have to understand them or know where they come from. You just listen to them, knowing in your deepest heart and mind that they have nothing to do with anything Pete the Barncat might have said.

So I zeroed in on the alleged mirror and began creeping toward it on ultrasilent paws: tail straight out, ears up in Max G (shorthand for “Maximum Gathering Mode”), and nose-radar working at top capacity.

Closer and closer I moved, hardly daring to breathe. The mysterious feeling that someone or something was present in the shed grew stronger with every step. Cold chills began rolling down my spine and the pulse in my ears was pounding like a drum.

Was I scared? Not really. I'll admit to feeling a certain sense of excitement. Tension. Aloneness. Foreboding. The awful silence of the place seemed to be closing in on me, and, all right, I might have been just a bit scared, but not much.

I had drawn to within six feet of the mysterious looking glass when suddenly I found myself staring into HIS eyes.

I, uh, didn't bark a challenge right away, but rather went to Full Reverse on all engines. After running backward for a moment or two and stumbling over the stupid welding leads, I regained my composure and issued a stern bark.

At that point I faced a heavy decision. Should I return to the point of my deepest penetration into the machine shed and confront the Phantom Dog in the Looking Glass? Or should I leave the machine shed and go on about my business, confident that I had fulfilled the minimum requirements of a routine check?

Your ordinary run-of-the-ranch mutts would have shut 'er down right there, or maybe gone to the house to bark an alarm. Me? I wasn't quite ready to go public with this case until I had confronted the villain.

I mean, that guy in the mirror might have some crazy notions about taking over my ranch, and if that's what he had in mind, I figgered we might as well cross that bridge before we came to it.

And the sooner the quicker.

I went back for a showdown.

Chapter Five: Okay, Maybe Pete's Story Wasn't So Stupid

A
s I approached the mirror, the Phantom Dog approached it too, but from the opposite direction. I stopped and barked and . . . maybe I retreated a few steps, but so did he. In other words, my barking had served notice on him that I wasn't a dog to be trifled with.

I studied his face and began the process of piecing together a profile. He had a big nose, much too long and crude to attract women in any large numbers. It might have made a good anvil, but it wasn't likely to take him far in the romance department.

The mouth told me a lot. It was drawn in the shape of a rainbow. At the ends of this rainbow were not two pots of gold but two hanging jowls. The mouth and the jowls combined to say that this dog took himself pretty seriously and didn't spend much of his time smiling.

There wasn't a lot of humor in that mouth.

His ears were no work of art, a little on the floppy side, seemed to me, but they were perked in such a way as to suggest that this guy was alert. In other words, I couldn't count on catching him off his guard.

Then I studied his eyes. They had a hard set about them that reinforced my observation of his mouth. His eyes contained a deadly combination of utter seriousness and arrogance. My guess was that this guy was vain, self-centered, self-preoccupied, and above all, a rather boring personality.

Oh, and one other thing the eyes revealed. For all his pretensions, this dog was not very smart. I felt much better on turning up this clue, knowing that I would be dealing from a position of superior intelligence.

At that point, after completing my profile, I decided that the time had come to open lines of communication with this arrogant fraud—and to order him off of my ranch.

I pulled myself up to my full height and massiveness and stepped up to the mirror, looked him squarely in the eyes, and beamed him a no-nonsense glare. I noticed that he tried to give me back the same kind of glare, but his wasn't very convincing.

“Hey, you. Give me your name.”

He didn't answer, and at that point it occurred to me that he might not speak my language.

Have I mentioned that I'm flatulent in many languages? It's true, many languages. That's one of the things a dog must master before he becomes a Head of Ranch Security. And since I had this talent in my bag of tricks, I decided to address him in Ancient Egyptian, just to see if he would respond.

Here's what I said, in perfect Ancient Egyptian:
“Utt-whey izz-yeah oor-yeah aim-nay, ogg-day?
Eek-spay!”

(Translation: “Tell me your name and be quick about it, pooch, or you're liable to be picking up teeth all afternoon.”)

He didn't answer—too scared, I would imagine—but I got the feeling that he understood this dialect, so I continued to use it. Here's what I told the imposter:

“Okay, the first thing you should know is that my name is Hank the Cowdog, Head of Ranch Security. This is my ranch and I've had you under surveillance from the moment you set foot on it. I've been watching you for days, and the only reason you're still here is that I've been busy with other matters.

“Point two: I've done a complete background check on you. I know, for example, that you call yourself The Phantom Dog, and you claim to live in this mirror. Don't bother to deny it, pal, I've read your dossier from start to finish.”

He must have known that I had the goods on him. He didn't say a word, just stood there looking simple. And vain. By this time I had begun to feel more confident, and I bored into him with another piece of drill-bit evidence.

“Point three: Our background check tells us that dogs from your part of the world eat a lot of chickens. You might be interested in knowing that I saw your tracks in front of the chicken house this morning.”

Now get this. I hadn't actually seen his tracks, but he didn't know that. I tossed it out to see how he would respond.

He responded just as I had predicted: his eyes wavered ever so slightly, and he ran his tongue over his chops. Both reactions are 100% accurate indicators of a dog who would like a nice chicken dinner.

I pressed on with my interrogation.

“So as you can see, Mister Phantom Dog, I have exposed your plot to raid the chicken house. The way I've got it figgered, taking over the chicken house was going to be the first step in your drive to take over the whole ranch. Am I right or wrong?”

He didn't answer. I mean, that dog was so shook up, he couldn't say a word.

“That's fine, you don't have to answer. I'll supply the answers and you can follow orders. I'm giving you two choices for your next move. You can either pack up and leave this ranch immediately, or you can stick around a while and risk the consequences. Which will it be?”

He just sat there, looking vain and arrogant and about half-stupid. Then, all of a sudden and you won't believe this, he STUCK HIS TONGUE OUT AT ME.

Hey, I might have considered working out some kind of peaceful solution that would have allowed him to leave with his dignity intacted, but that tongue-sticking-out deal kind of narrowed my options. I couldn't let him get by with that.

“Did you just stick your tongue out at me? You needn't bother to answer, pal, because I saw you, and you're now in deep trouble.”

I pushed myself up on all fours and squared my enormous shoulders. And I'll be derned, he did the same thing.

“This could be your last chance to take it back. If you refuse, then I can't be responsible for what happens next.”

He didn't take it back. Instead, he leered and sneered at me, which was further proof that he wasn't nearly as smart as he thought he was.

Okay, he'd been warned. I'd given him a chance to avoid a showdown. Now it was time to go to Sterner Measures. I paced back and forth in front of the mirror. So did he. I stopped and growled. So did he. I showed him teeth, and he did the same.

This was turning into a waiting game, a war of nerves. Apparently he lacked the guts to make the first move, while I, on the other hand, didn't want to make any rash decisions that I might regret later on.

There's a big difference between those two, believe me.

This must have gone on for several minutes, until I got tired of waiting. At that point I began a barking maneuver that was calculated to test his resolve. I began diving and lunging in front of him, while barking at the same time.

You've seen world champion cutting horses at work? Same deal, only cutting horses, even your very best ones, have never quite mastered the trick of barking at the opposition.

I barked and I snapped and I snarled. I lunged and weaved and dodged and parried, and when I was sure that I had confused him with this flurry of motion, I hit the Go Button and launched my . . .

B O N K !!

When I regained consciousness, I found myself lying in a heap on the machine shed floor. Above me stood Drover, wearing his usual silly grin.

“Hi Hank, what are you doing down there on the floor?”

“I've just been mauled by the Phantom in the Mirror, you dope, and where were you when when I needed you?”

“Gosh, I don't know. What's the Famine of the Murr?”

“He's one of the biggest and most dangerous dogs I've ever encountered, Drover, and he tried to sneak onto the ranch through that mirror. I caught him in the act and gave him a terrible thrashing.”

“I'll be derned. If you gave him a terrible thrashing, what did he give you?”

I glared up at the runt. “I had him whipped, Drover, but he landed a lucky punch.”

“Must have been a pretty good lucky punch.”

“I just hope that he hasn't taken over the ranch.”

“Well, I just came from the gas tanks and I didn't see him down there. What does he look like?”

“Big, huge, arrogant, cocky. Covered with blood and scars and bruises, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was missing one of his ears.”

“No, I didn't see him.”

“I must have scared him off, Drover, which is the best news of the day. While you slept, this ranch had a narrow escape with disaster.”

“Boy, I sure hate that I missed it. I wonder where he went.”

I pushed myself up to a sitting position. My head and neck were very sore from the fight, and so was the tip-end of my nose.

“I don't know where he went. Peek into that mirror and tell me what you see.”

“Peek into . . . you know, Hank, I'd be glad to do that, but this old leg of mine sure has been . . .”

“Peek into the mirror! That's an order.”

“Oh rats.”

He went creeping up to the mirror and very slowly poked his head around the side of it. At first he gasped and jumped back, but then he looked again.

“Oh my gosh!”

“What is it, Drover? Give me a complete de­scription. Is it the Phantom of the Mirror?”

“Well, I saw a dog, but I don't think it's the one you saw.”

“Oh? There must be two of them in there, perhaps even more. That could be bad for us, son. Give me a complete description.”

He moved himself in front of the mirror, cocked his head to the side, and smiled.

“Drover, what are you grinning about? Tell me what you see, and hurry. We don't have much time.”

“Oh my gosh, Hank, it's a handsome prince!”