The Phantom in the Mirror (2 page)

Chapter Two: Try It Again

C
an we start all over?

It's me again, Hank the Cowdog. It was a normal day on the ranch, early December, as I recall. After barking the sun over the horizon, I went straight back to headquarters and saw no stray dogs or anything else out of the ordinary.

No fights, no scuffles, no violence of any kind. It was just a totally normal day, and at that point I was ready to launch my investigation into the Phantom Dog Mystery.

Maybe you're not familiar with Phantom Dogs, so let me pause here to . . .

All right, maybe I'm withholding a few shreds of information and taking a few liberties with the truth, but who wouldn't? Let's face it, getting suckered into a fight with two coyotes isn't something that most dogs can be proud of. It makes us look bad.

It's embarrassing.

Humiliating.

A humbling experience.

Who wants to be humble? Not me. Humble is what cats are supposed to be, whereas your better breeds of cowdog . . .

Okay, I'll tell you the straight story if you'll promise never ever to repeat it, and I mean NEVER EVER. If word of this ever got into the wrong hands . . . ears, I guess . . . if word of this ever got out amongst the crinimals of the underworld, it could have very serious consequences.

Have you sworn yourself to silence with a solemn oath? If not, you're not allowed to finish this story. Put your book away this very minute and go . . . I don't know what you should do . . . go sit in the corner and count to 50,000.

The main thing is, be quiet and don't peek or listen to the following Highly Classified Infor­mation.

All clear?

Those two coyotes thrashed me badly. I mean, we're talking about walking into a couple of buzz saws running at top speed. They not only thrashed me, but they made it look easy and had a great time doing it.

They may have used cheap tricks to lure me out there, but there was nothing cheap about the whipping they passed out. It was the best whipping money could buy.

Fellers, I got romped and stomped in so many different ways, I ran out of toes to count 'em. As I've said before, when it comes to tough, Rip and Snort are the champs of the world.

Somehow I managed to escape. How? Good question. Maybe they got bored, shooting baskets with me, but somehow I managed to escape their clutches and once that happened, we had Rocket Dog streaking back to the house—I mean, a cloud of dust and a puff of smoke.

I knew they wouldn't follow me up into the yard. They'd never been that brazen and bold before. They'd always chased me, oh, to the shelter belt and then turned back.

They chased me past the shelter belt, through the front gate, around the house, through Sally May's precious yard, out the back gate, and YIKES, they were still after me!

They'd never done that before. This was something entirely new, and where does a dog go when the cannibals chase him right to the house and through the yard, and where were Loper and his shotgun when I really needed them?

My original plan had been to lose the coyotes up at the shelter belt, don't you see, and then return to my gunnysack bed under the gas tanks, there to wake up Drover and tell him of my morning adventures.

Instead, I went streaking past the gas tanks and yelled, “Hey Drover, would you come out here for a second, I need to tell you something!”

I felt it my duty to inform him that the ranch was under attack, don't you see, and . . . well, the thought did occur to me that his appearance on the scene might provide a, shall we say, diver­sionary tactic that might . . .

It didn't work. As I streaked past, he raised his head and muttered, “Murgle skiffer porkchop skittle ricky tattoo.”

The coyotes didn't see him or weren't interested in eating him for breakfast, and the chase went on—back up the hill, through the front gate, through Sally May's precious yard, and things were looking pretty grim for the Head of Ranch Security, when all at once and thank goodness, Loper stepped out on the porch.

It appeared that he had come out to hang a Christmas wreath on the door, and in a matter of seconds I had taken refuge behind and between his legs.

That kind of surprised him. “Hank, what in the . . .” And then he saw the cannibals. “Hyah, go on, get out of here!”

Well, they wanted none of Loper, even without his shotgun, and they pointed themselves east and set sail. At that point I ventured a step beyond Loper's legs and cut loose with a withering barrage of barking.

“That's right, and if you ever come into this yard again, I'll give you the other half of what I did to you out in the pasture! And you didn't fool me for a minute with that Freddie business.”

I went all the way to the edge of the porch and barked until the cowards disappeared over that first hill east of the house, and then I barked some more, just to be sure they got the message.

(By the way, we've come to the end of the Secret and Classified Information. In a matter of seconds, the pages containing this highly sensitive infor­mation will hiss, sizzle, smoke, and disappear before your very eyes. Please stand back during this procedure).

HISS! SIZZLE!

SMOKE!

SELF-DESTRUCT PROCEDURE IS COMPLETED PASSAGE HAS BEEN DELETED FROM MEMORY

Okay, where were we? Standing on the porch.

Loper whistled under his breath. “My gosh, that's the first time I ever saw coyotes come right up in the yard. They must be operating on short rations. Did you give 'em a pretty good whupping, Hankie boy?”

I . . . uh . . . yes. A good whupping had indeed occurred.

In other words, yes.

I'd given them the thrashing they so richly deserved, and even though it had appeared there for a moment that they'd gotten the upper hand, they'd actually gotten the, uh, lower hand.

They were lucky to have escaped with their lives, and next time, if they were foolish enough to try it again, next time they might not be so lucky.

I barked them one last time, just to give em­phasis to my warning.

Loper grinned and scratched me on top of the head. “Pooch, it looks like you got a Mohawk haircut all the way from your ears to the end of your tail.”

He was referring to the strip of raised hair on my back. In some quarters it has been said—incorrectly, as you'll see—it has been said that these so-called “raised hackles” reveal that a dog has just been scared beyond recognition.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Those reports are based on gossip, faulty research, and misquotations. Raised hackles and hair standing on end have nothing whatsoever to do with fear.

Rather, they are part of a dog's natural defense against, uh, severe cold.

Chill.

Loss of body heat.

Hypothermometer, it's called.

Don't forget, this incident occurred in Decem­ber, and it can be very cold in the Texas Pan­handle in December, especially in the early morning hours.

Extremely cold.

Bitter.

And loss of body heat can be a serious problem for a dog in this climate, why, if we didn't raise our hackles once in a while, the entire countryside would be littered with . . . well, frozen dogs.

It's that serious, so it should come as no big shock or surprise that I had my Thermal Hair Panels raised to collect the first warm rays of the sun.

It would have been foolish of me NOT to have initiated the THP procedure. In cold weather, we just can't run the risk of a total freezedown, and that's why . . . I think we've covered the Thermal Hair Panels.

Okay. There we were, Loper and I, together on the front porch, enjoying another glorious Pan­handle sunrise. He was lavish in his praise of my handling of the Coyote Crisis and congratulated me for running the scoundrels off the ranch.

Then he informed me that I would have to handle all the ranch's business that day because he had been “drafted,” to use his word, for . . . how did he put it? “Operation Honeydew,” which meant that he would spend the entire day helping Sally May get the house, yard, and so forth ready for the church choir's Christmas party.

“Honey, do this. Honey, do that.” Honeydew. Get it?

No problem there. I mean, running the entire ranch was no big deal for me, and I assured him through wags and barks that everything would be just fine.

I was about to leave when he said, “Hey, Killer, what's this?”

He seemed to be pointing a finger down at . . . hmmm, was that a small puddle of water? Yes, his finger seemed to be directed at a small puddle of water on the, uh, porch.

Our eyes met. “Is that some of your work? It ain't mine.”

I, uh, gave my tail a slight wagging motion and . . .

Okay, remember those Thermal Hair Panels? You won't believe this but every so often, or actually more often than you'd think, they form tiny clouds of condensation, and under the right conditions, these tiny droplets of water will condense and fall to the earth—or to the porch—and actually form pools.

Or puddles.

Puddles consisting of natural mist and tiny droplets.

And so what we had there was just a simple case of water condensation caused by the raised . . .

It WASN'T what you think.

Chapter Three: The Phantom Dog in the Mirror

I
left Loper to his “Operation Honeydew” business and got away from Sally May's yard as quickly as I could. I mean, this might have been the Christmas season and all, but a guy didn't want to take too many chances with her “peace and goodwill,” not where the yard was concerned.

Now, it was okay for the cat to come and go as he pleased. He could lounge around the porch, sharpen his claws on the trees, rub on the legs of everyone who came out the door, and beg for scraps all day long. But let a dog set foot in the yard and suddenly the air was filled with sticks and rocks and harsh words.

It sure wasn't fair, and when I rounded the northwest corner of the yard and saw Pete up ahead, sitting in front of the machine shed, I decided to strike a blow for Fairness and Justice.

He was parked there on the gravel drive in front of the big double doors, see, had his tail wrapped around his hindquarters and was staring at a bird perched on the tin roof. Oh, and the last two inches of his tail were moving back and forth, a sure sign that he was up to no good.

No doubt he had it in his mind to capture and eat this bird, this poor innocent little sparrow. No doubt this poor innocent charming little songbird had planned for months and months to fly south with all her little birdy friends, but perhaps she had learned at the last minute that one of her little wings was damaged and wouldn't carry her south with all the rest of her friends and relatives.

And her family. In a tearful ceremony, she had said good-bye to her five lovely children . . . her husband of many years . . . her devoted father who now cried teaspoons of tears . . . her poor old grand­mother . . . the mother who had fed her worms and bugs and watched her grow into a beautiful charming lovely innocent little songbird.

Oh, what a sad day that had been, as all the birds on the ranch had gathered for the long and dangerous journey to . . . wherever it is down south that birds go . . . South America, South Africa, South Texas, Abilene, somewhere down there . . . oh, what a sad day that had been!

And now Pete was staring at that same bird with his cunning yellow eyes, his heartless cunning yellow eyes, and flicking that last two inches of tail.

This touching scene almost broke my heart, and since Rip and Snort had almost broke my face only minutes before, it seemed only fair and right that I should, heh heh, strike a blow for Fairness, Motherhood, and Wildlife, and give the cat the kind of pounding he deserved.

Because I never had much use for Pete in the first place. Have we discussed cats? I don't like 'em, never have, for reasons too numerous to mention.

So I went into Stealthy Crouch Mode and slipped up behind old Pete—he never saw it coming, never suspected a thing, tee hee—and I jumped right in the middle of him.

HISS! REEEEEEER!

Hee hee, ha ha, ho ho. He sprang into the air and turned wrongside-out . . . did manage to tag me in several spots with his claws, right on the end of my nose, in fact, which brought tears to my eyes, but they were tears of joy . . . I mean, a guy can't expect to get free entertainment in this life.

Yes, I did pay a small price, but hearing him hiss and yowl made every scratch worthwhile. And then I chased him up the nearest tree.

That was fun too. Wouldn't this be a sad old world if we couldn't chase cats up a tree every once in a while?

“Well, Pete, how's the bird business today?”

He looked down at me with his big cat eyes. “Mmmm, my goodness, I believe Hankie the Wonder Dog has just arrived.”

“That's correct, Kitty, here to protect our National Wildlife Heritage from the likes of you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, picking on poor innocent sparrows.”

He gave me a sour smile. “As a matter of fact, Hankie, they were picking on me. They've been dive-bombing me all morning.”

“I'm, tee hee, sorry to hear that, Pete. Maybe you should quit staring at them, as though you were thinking of eating them.”

“Me? Why, I wouldn't think of doing such a thing.”

“Of course you would. You want a nice tender little bird for breakfast, but you're too fat and slow to catch one. Too bad, Pete, but don't get discouraged. Just remember: You might be slow but you sure aren't fast. Ho, ho, ho.”

He rolled his eyes. “Somehow that doesn't make sense, Hankie.”

“That's fine, because making sense with a cat isn't something I worry about. In fact, talking with a cat, any cat, is a waste of my valuable time.”

He gave me that weird cat smile of his—a smile that makes you think he knows a secret. “Oh, I'm not so sure about that, Hankie. Sometimes we cats see things that might be of interest to the Head of Ranch Security.”

I couldn't help chuckling. “I doubt that, Kitty.”

“Mmmm, well, whatever you think, Hankie, but I can tell you that we cats are very observant.” He turned his big cat eyes on me and grinned. “We see things.”

My ears jumped to their upright position. I guess I had taken them off Manual Lift-Up and switched them over to Automatic, and in that mode they react to even the smallest of protuberations.

“What do you mean, you see things?”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. I'm sure it would be a waste of your valuable time.”

I noticed that he still wore that secret grin. He knew something, and I intended to find out what it was.

“Pete, if you've seen something suspicious, I'd advise you to report it at once. And quit grinning at me. That gives me the creeps.”

“Have you been to the machine shed this morning, Hankie?”

“No, I haven't been inside the machine shed for two days.”

“Hmmm, then you don't know about the Phantom in the Mirror, do you?”

“No, I don't, Kitty, nor do I have any . . . what Phantom and what mirror?”

He took his sweet time getting around to business. Sitting up there in the fork of the tree, he licked his front paw, wrapped his tail around his haunches, and stared down at me.

“I'm waiting, cat. You're wasting my time.”

“Patience, Hankie. What I'm going to tell you will be worth the wait.”

“I'll be the judge of that.”

“Because . . .” He widened his eyes and dropped his voice to a whisper, “. . . because I saw a very strange thing this morning.”

“Never mind the dramatics, Pete, get to the point.”

“I saw a dog in the machine shed.”

“Impossible. If we'd had a stray dog on this ranch, I would have been the first to know about it.”

“That's what I thought, Hankie, and that's what made it so strange. Maybe you were asleep.”

“Lies, Pete, nothing but lies. And for your infor­mation, I wasn't asleep. I was out in front of the house, thrashing cannibals.”

“Whatever you say, Hankie, but I saw a dog in the machine shed not thirty minutes ago.”

My first instinct was to laugh at this wild story. In fact, I did laugh, but I noticed that Pete wasn't laughing. “You're serious about this, Pete. You're telling me an outrageous story that I can't possibly believe, but you're not laughing. That bothers me.”

“Yes, it bothered me too. And I wondered what he meant when he said . . . oh, you wouldn't be interested.”

I wasn't laughing any more. “You're exactly right, Kitty, I'm not interested, but if he said something, I want to know what it was. Now.”

“He said . . . let's see if I can remember how he put it . . . he said something about taking over the ranch.”

“He said THAT?”

“Um-hmmm, yes he did.”

Suddenly I caught myself and realized that I had made a fundamental error. Just for a moment or two, I had allowed myself to get sucked into Pete's story. How could I have been so stupid?

ME, believe anything a cat said?

Yes, I had made an error in judgment but I had caught it just in the nickering of time. I marched a few steps away, took five deep breaths of air, looked at the clouds, and talked the hair on my back into laying down where it belonged.

Only then did I return to the cat and laugh in his face. “Nice try, Pete. I mean, that was a great story. No one can lie better than a cat. You've got a real talent there.”

“Thank you, Hankie.”

“But of course I don't believe a word of it. You didn't really think I would, did you? Why, that's the craziest . . . where did you see this so-called stray dog? I mean, just for laughs, I'd like to know.”

He stared at me with those big unblinking eyes. “Near the north wall of the machine shed, there is a mirror with a wooden frame around it, like a window but not a window. I could see him in the glass.”

“Oh, I see. You looked in a mirror and saw a dog. It gets better and better, Pete. I'm just sorry I can't stick around and hear the rest. Thanks for the entertainment and I hope you're enjoying the tree.”

And with that, I wheeled around and left the cat sitting in the rubble of his shabby little scheme.