The Phantom in the Mirror 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: 2015-05-08T21:04:20+00:00

“I thought you said you had a mouthful of petunias.”

“No, I did not say that. I said ‘patooey,’ not ‘petunias.’”

“I’ll be derned. What’s a patooey?”

The runt was beginning to strain my patience. “Patooey is the sound one makes when one is spitting feathers.”

“Oh. Well, that makes sense ’cause you’ve got feathers all over your mouth. Maybe that’s why you were spitting feathers.”

“I know that, you brick. Once again, you’re repeating the obvious and beating a dead plow.”

“Horse.”

“What?”

“A dead horse.”

“A dead horse? Where?”

“Well . . .”

“Hurry, Drover, we don’t have a second to spare! Where’s the horse?”

“Well . . . you said ‘dead plow’ and I think you meant ‘dead horse.’”

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”

“I don’t know, I’m all confused and quit yelling at me! I can’t stand to be yelled at.”

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and walked several paces away. “All right, patooey, let’s start at the beginning.”

“My name’s not Patooey.”

“I KNOW YOUR . . .” I caught myself and lowered my voice. “I know your name, Drover. What concerns me right now is whether or not you’ve gone insane. First you talked about petunias, then you said something about a horse that had been murdered in cold blood. Then there was some nonsense about . . . what was it?”

“A dead plow?”

“That’s it. Drover, a plow can’t possibly be dead because it was never alive to start with.”

“I know but . . .”

“Let me finish. You see, Drover, death grows out of life, and life is what this life is all about. Is that clear?”

All at once his eyes seemed to cross. “I’m so confused I think I’ll go back to bed.”

“No chance of that, son. During my interrogation of J. T. Cluck, I learned that we have a skatooey skunk running wild on the ranch.”

“Oh my gosh! What’s a skatooey skunk?”

I looked deeply into the huge vacuum of his eyes. “Are you trying to make a mockery of this investigation? Have you no respect for law and order? Is nothing sacred anymore? Tell me, Drover, because . . .”

My ears shot up. Operating entirely on their own, they had picked up the sound of the screen door slamming up at the house.

“. . . because it could very well be scrap time up at the yard gate. In other words, drop everything and go to Red Alert. Unless we hurry, the cat might get some of our scraps!”

And with that, we went streaking down to the yard gate. We never did get around to finishing our conversation, but that was okay with me. Trying to carry on an intelligent, coherent, meaningful conversation with Drover can be very discouraging.

Sometimes I even think . . . oh well. There’s no sense in beating a dead plow.

We went streaking up to the . . . I’ve already said that, but the important thing is that we got there before the cat did. I mean, we beat him BAD, which is one of the best things that can happen to a cat on our outfit.

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