The Case of the Raging Rottweiler by John R. Erickson

Author:John R. Erickson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: cowdog, Hank the Cowdog, John R. Erickson, John Erickson, ranching, Texas, dog, adventure, mystery, Hank, Drover, Pete, Sally May
Publisher: Maverick Books, Inc.
Published: 2015-05-06T19:41:29+00:00

Chapter Eight: Much Too Scary for Most Readers

What? You’re still here? I guess you think I’m going to change my mind and tell you the rest of the story, huh?

Nope, can’t do it. Sorry. It’s just too tense and scary. Think of the kids. It might scare ’em so badly, they’d . . . I don’t know what might happen. We’ll skip over the bad part and go on to something else.

It’s for your own good, honest.

Okay, here we go. It was morning on the ranch and there was no raging rottweiler on the porch, not even a sign of one. Not only was Bruiser not there, but we’d never heard of him and maybe he didn’t even exist. Yes, that was it. There was no such dog as Bruiser, and even if there had been . . .

Oh, what the heck, maybe you can handle it. Shall we give it a try? Okay, but don’t blame me if you get scared all the way into next week. Here we go. Hang on.

There they were, Slim and Bruiser, heading for a faceful confrontation. Fateful, I should say, and neither showed any sign of backing down. Gulp. But one of them had to back down. In this game of nerves, there could be only one winner.

Slim held the loop out in front of him. Bruiser didn’t look at the loop. His steely eyes were fixed on Slim. Closer and closer . . .

At that very moment, when it appeared that Slim and Bruiser were heading down a path of no return, we heard the rattle of a pickup coming our way. It was Joe McCall. Bruiser turned his head and looked toward the sound. Slim eased the loop over his head and snugged it up—not tight, but snug.

I held my breath and waited to see what Bruiser would do. He . . .

You won’t believe this. He felt the rope, looked up at Slim, and . . . began wagging his stub tail! Slim leaned down and rubbed him behind the ears.

“That’s better. Nice dog.” He straightened up and made a low whistling sound. “Whew! I guess he ain’t as mean as he looks.” He turned to me and grinned. “It’s safe for you heroes to come down off the woodpile now.”

Was he suggesting . . . hey, for his information, I had chosen to sleep on top of the woodpile because it was cooler up there. It had nothing, almost nothing at all, to do with any uneasy feelings I might have had about . . .

Hey, Bruiser was nothing but a big windbag, and I’d known it the minute I’d first laid eyes on him. Scared of cats. Scared of his face in the mirror. All bark and no bite, all talk and no fight. Why, he was just lucky I was such a kind and generous dog, otherwise, I might have . . .

I hopped down off the woodpile and walked boldly up to Mister Phony Rottweiler and put my nose in his left flank.

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