Lost in the Dark Unchanted Forest (4 page)

Chapter Six: A Witch in the Forest

W
e don't have many forests in our country, which is mostly rolling prairie with caprocks and canyons. Here and there you find a heavily wooded area down along the creek, don't you see, so you might say that I hadn't spent much time training for rescue work in a forested situation.

Myself, I'm more of a prairie dog—not one of those little rodents that digs holes in the ground. They're called prairie dogs too, even though they're not dogs at all. No, I'm a prairie dog in that I prefer working in open country where I can see for miles in all directions.

I dig holes in the ground every now and then, but I've never been a rodent. You couldn't pay me to be a rodent.

The point is, I prefer the wide open spaces. Heavily wooded areas give me the creeps be­cause I can't see what lies ahead or to the sides, and I have this active imagination that is very good at turning bushes and shadows into . . . well, monsters.

Fellers, once I entered that dark spooky forest, I saw more monsters in five minutes than I'd seen in my entire life. You never saw so many monsters! I saw three Leaf Monsters, four Bush Monsters, two Shadow Monsters, and seven Tree Monsters.

Which sort of gets me back to what I was saying about training. If a guy has trained in a spooky forest situation, he learns that even though these monsters look scary, the stastics . . . sassticksicks . . . sta-tis-tics, the statistics show that they don't often eat dogs.

And once he knows this, he can go on about his business without being distracted. In other words, he can follow the scent.

What I'm driving at in sort of a roundabout way is that I got so busy dodging forest monsters that, dern the luck, I lost the scent.

As you might expect, we have a response to that problem. When we lose a scent, we turn around and backtrack until we pick up the scent again.

I turned around all right, but once I turned around, I found myself . . . well, turned around, you might say, and it's a well known fact that you can't backtrack if you've lost the track and don't know which way is back.

All at once I found myself basically lost. I had lost the scent, the trail, my sense of direction, my sense of well being, my courage, my confidence, my curiosity, and my devotion to duty. But most of all, I had lost all desire to be where I was.

Fellers, I was lost and scared, surrounded by forest monsters and strange sounds—hoots and tweets and cheeps, twitters and crackles and slith­ers, coos and moans and sighs, whispers and lispers and laughter.

Why didn't I leave the forest? There's a very simple explanation for that. A guy can't leave what he doesn't like unless he knows where to find something better. And I didn't.

Completely lost and turned around is what we're talking about here, an important mission so badly botched that I would dearly love to drop the whole subject. I mean, it's embarrassing to be the Head of . . . 

Better mush on with the story.

Okay. I was lost, I admit that. And with no better plan in mind I chose one direction out of the hat, so to speak, and went stumbling through the vines and so forth, hoping that in the process of stumbling I might stumble onto a more coherent plan of action.

I hadn't gone far when, all at once, I thought I heard a voice. At first I dismissed it as just another of the many spooky sounds of the forest. But then I heard it again, and this time I couldn't dismiss it.

“Oh my goodness!” said the voice. “Who should be coming through the forest but Hank the Rabbit!”

“Huh? Who said that?”

“I did. I think I did. Or maybe I didn't. It de­pends on what you heard.”

“I heard someone say something about Hank the Rabbit.”

“Oh yes, 'twas I who said that.”

“Yeah, well, there's a couple of things we ought to get straight right away. Number One, I can't see you and it makes me uncomfortable to carry on a conversation with nobody.”

“If you're talking with nobody, and if nobody hears, then nobody cares, so it really doesn't matter, does it?”

“Well uh . . .” There was something familiar about that voice. Hadn't I heard it before? Seemed to me that I had, but I couldn't place it. “I'd feel more comfortable if I could see you. Tell me where you are.”

“I'm here and you're there, and we don't know any more than we did before, so what's the point of knowing where we are?”

“I'd like to look you in the eyes, is what I'm saying.”

“Well of course you would. Find me and you'll find my eyes. Or find my eyes and I won't be far behind.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“But you can't find either one—I or eyes—so I will look you in the eyes while your eyes look for mine.”

I sat down and peered into the gloomy vine-covered gloominess of the forest. Couldn't see anybody.

“You know, you have a way of confusing words, and it seems to me that I met somebody once who talked that way.”

“Oh my goodness, who could I be?”

“Well, I don't know. That's what I was fixing to ask.”

“Go right ahead and ask.”

“Okay. Who could you be?”

“Well, I could be a tree if I had roots. Or I could be a cloud if I could float. Or I could be a dream if I could sleep. But I can't and I'm not, and I'm only who I am instead of who I could be.”

“All right, I guess that sort of narrows it down. Who are you?”

“I hate simple questions. They require simple answers, and whoever I am, I'm not simple. I simply can't answer your question.”

This was getting me nowhere. “All right, then let's move to my second point.”

“Oh no, how dull! Let's skip the second and go on to the third.”

“Huh? No, I don't have a third point. Just two.”

“All things have three parts: the first half, the second half, and the third half which we didn't know was there. But it is there, so skip the second part and go to the third.”

“Well . . . all right, I guess . . . my second point, which is the same as your third part . . .”

“Now you're getting in the spirit!”

“. . . is that you called me ‘Hank the Rabbit,' and I'm not a rabbit, see. I'm a dog, Hank the Cowdog, Head of Ranch Security.”

“Oh, I know all that! But I like Hank the Rabbit better than Hank the Cowdog, so I will call you Hank the Rabbit.”

“Well, whatever you . . .” Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle began falling into place. I remembered running into somebody once who had called me Hank the Rabbit. “Say, I think I just figgered out who you are! You're Madame Moonshine, the witchy little owl.”

I waited for her to answer but she didn't. There was a long throbbing silence.

“Madame? Madame Moonshine? Speak to me.”

“Rubbish!”

“You're the one who cured me of Eye-Crosserosis.”

“Double rubbish sassafras horseradish balderdash!”

“And that explains why you've been talking in circles. Shucks, you're a witch.”

“Yes, I'm a witch but also a switch.”

“Huh?”

“Where would you look to find a switch?”

“Well, let's see . . . a switch . . . hmmm. In a tree?”

“A switch in a tree, a witch that is me. Make the switch and find a witch, trah-lah, trah-lah, trah-lah.”

Hmmm. All the evidence was pointing . . . maybe if I raised my eyes from ground level . . . heck, I'd been looking for her on the ground but . . . 

I raised my eyes and studied the circle of trees all around me, and . . . mercy, there she was, hanging upside-down from a vine that was draped over a big hackberry tree.

“Ah ha! There you are. I've found you at last.”

She smiled—upside-down, which was a little peculiar since an upside-down smile is about the same as a frown.

“I knew you could do it!” she said. “You not only found who I am but where I am. Oh Hank, you're such a clever rabbit and I do need your help.”

“I'm still not a rabbit, Madame, but I'd be glad to help you if I can, because to tell you the truth, I'm in kind of a jam myself.”

This was a real struck of loke, me running into Madame Moonshine, because I had a feeling that she could find Little Alfred and help me save him from the bobcat.

Chapter Seven: Disorientation

S
o there I was in the Dark Unchanted Forest. I was lost, but I had found Madame Moonshine hanging upside-down by one foot from a vine.

“Well, what sort of help do you need, Madame?”

“Oh Hank, I have a dilemma here. I've caught my foot in this vine and I'm hanging downside-up.”

“Hmmm. I would have said ‘upside-down.'”

“Picky picky! It's all the same, isn't it? Downside-up and upside-down, wrongside-up and rightside-down, backside-up and topside-down! The problem is the same, and the problem is that I'm backwards.”

“Yes, I see what you mean. You do look sort of backwards, hanging up there. I noticed that right away.”

“How clever! But that is only the first half of the three-halved problem. There are two more halves to my dilemma.”

“Well shucks, Madame, if I was a witch like you, I'd use my special powers to get myself unhooked.”

“No you wouldn't.”

“Huh? Well . . . yeah, I think I would. Why not? If you've got special powers, you might as well use them.”

“But what if the power works backwards? There is always that danger with power. If I am backwards, maybe my power is backwards too, and my goodness, we don't know what might happen then! I wouldn't dare try it . . . unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

She looked at me with her big upside-down eyes. “Unless you were absolutely convinced that I should, and then I might. Or might not, depending upon my mood.”

“I think it's worth a shot, Madame.”

“Do you now? And tell me again what your title is?”

I sat up straight and lifted my chin a few inches. “Head of Ranch Security, ma'am.”

“My goodness, the Head of Ranch Security! How could we go wrong if we're in the presence of the Head of Ranch Security?”

I smiled to myself. “A lot of people ask that same question, ma'am, and the answer I always give 'em is that with me around, there ain't much that can go wrong. Let's give it a shot.”

“Very well, if you're sure.”

“Go for it.”

She closed her eyes and mumbled some magic words. Let's see if I can remember what they were:

Topsy-turvy, downside-up, vertigo and spirally.

I wish, O Power, you'd intervene: reverse the scene entirely.

Sounded like pretty good words to me. The only problem was that, all at once, I heard a rush of wind and felt myself flying through the air; and the next thing I knew, I was hanging upside-down from the same vine as Madame Moonshine!

She stared at me and blinked her eyes. “My goodness, what have we done?”

“Well, we've changed the scene entirely, Madame, but I think it came out backwards.”

She clicked her tongue. “I was afraid of that. Oh Hank, I shouldn't have listened to you. I knew better. But on the other hand . . .” She rolled her head around, funny how she could do that, and looked at me with her big owl eyes. “On the other hand, I've been in worse places before.”

“You have?”

“Oh yes. And now that you're up here with me, I don't feel upside-down anymore.”

“You don't?”

“Oh no. We can pretend that everything else is upside-down and that we're right-side up, can't we?”

“Well . . . uh . . .”

“And who knows, maybe we are. There are so many strange things happening these days. Maybe my backwards power made the whole forest turn topsy-turvy, and now we're the only objects that are right.”

“No ma'am, I don't think so. I think we're hanging upside-down and I'm completely disoriented.”

“What's wrong with that?”

“Well . . . I don't like it, is all I can tell you. Let me see if I can explain it.”

At that point, as strange as it may sound, my being upside-down and everything, I sang her a little song.

Disorientation

Now, Madame Moonshine, tell me truly,

If your view of life's unruly,

How can you figger it out?

See, my down-side is up, I'm confused as a pup,

I can't distinguish up from about.

I'm told the world spins 'round the sun,

What's here is here, what's done is done,

And I can accept that as true.

But the normal world looks strange enough without this bunch of other stuff,

I'm backwards, Madame, how about you?

Disorientation

It's a revelation

It will turn your head around.

'Cause it's hard to keep your feet on the ground,

When you're hanging upside-down.

Then Madame Moonshine sang back to me. Here's how it went:

Now, early in our history

The world was cloaked in mystery

But two sides began to take shape:

The up-side was up and the down-side was down.

A simple logic hard to escape.

But why should simple logic rule

This universe, this whirlpool

That's vast beyond our wildest surmise?

You've no idea what might could be, you're just a dog and cannot see

That certainty in life's the real surprise.

Disorientation

It's a revelation

It will turn your head around.

'Cause it's hard to keep your feet on the ground,

When you're hanging upside-down.

Well, that was pretty good so I sang the next verse and she did the one after that.

That's well and good but I say that

A dog's a dog and a cat's a cat

A blackbird's black and a bluebird is blue.

But when they're walking upside-down, the ground's sky and the sky's the ground,

I tell you, Madame, I am confused.

The answer, Hank, is plain to see:

You think you're you, you think I'm me,

But sometimes we're not what you think.

There's a lesson to be learned from reality upturned:

That everything can change in a blink.

Disorientution

It's a revolution

It will turn your head around.

'Cause it's hard to keep your feet on the ground,

When you're hanging upside-down.

“You sing pretty well, Madame,” I said when we were done with the song.

“Well, thank you, Hank. And you don't do badly yourself. You see, disorientation isn't such a bad thing after all.”

“I said you sing well, Madame. I didn't say that I agreed with everything you said.”

“In other words . . .”

“In other words, hanging upside-down from a tree is for the birds.”

“Maybe that's what it is! I'm a bird, you know.”

“That's true, hadn't thought of that, but the point is that my paws have no business pointing towards the sky, and if it's all the same to you, I'd like to get these old feet back on the ground.”

“Yes, I see. Oh dear.”

“What do you mean, ‘Oh dear?'”

“I mean, oh dear, that brings up the third half of my problem. The first half was that I found myself hanging upside-down from this tree. The second half was that I suspected my power might work backwards.”

“And the third half?”

“Yes, there's always a third half, isn't there? The third half is that, only moments before you arrived, two very hungry-looking coyotes were sitting at the base of this tree.”

“Hmmm, yes, I see what you mean.”

“And they gave me the feeling that, were I to fall back to the ground, they would snatch me up in their jaws and eat me in two bites.”

“That would make a guy feel a little happier about hanging upside-down from a tree, wouldn't it?”

“I thought so. So there are the three halves of my problem. Now tell me about yours.”

Holy smokes, I'd almost forgotten about Little Alfred and the bobcat! In fact, you might even say that I had
completely
forgotten about them.

I told her all about it. “And I've got to get down from here and find that boy before something happens to him. I'd never forgive myself if . . . Madame, if you could help me find the boy, I'd sure be grateful.”

“Oh dear. Let me think. If we work ourselves loose and fall back to the ground, we might be eaten by savages. But as long as we remain here, my powers will be backwards and I can't be of any help to you. We do have our problems, don't we?”

“So it seems, Madame so it seems.”

“And what do you suggest we do?”

I studied on that for a minute. “Madame, as I was coming up to this tree I didn't run into any fresh coyote tracks. And looking in all directions from this observation point, I still don't see any sign of coyotes.”

“Yes?”

“And while I'm naturally soft-spoken and modest about my talents, I might mention in passing that tracking and observation are two of the many things a dog must do well if he plans to make a career in the security business, and at the risk of thumping my own tub, so to speak, I might also mention that I'm pretty salty at both of them.”

“And?”

“And my preliminary scans have come up with negative results, leading me to suspect that the alleged coyotes have left the country and gone on to better things.”

“You're quite sure about that?”

“Oh yes ma'am. Preliminary scans aren't quite as thorough and reprehensive as your complete scans, don't you see, but based on the evidence at hand, I'd have to say that the immediate area is clear of . . .”

At that very moment, two heads appeared from behind a bush near the base of the tree. Both heads were attached to bodies, and both showed the usual characteristics we look for in positive IDs of . . . coyotes, you might say.

Madame Moonshine swiveled her head in my direction. “Did you want to finish your sentence?”

“Uh . . . no thanks, I was about done anyway.”

“Do you see what I see?”

“Let me emphasize that preliminary scans are often faulty and . . .”

“Am I wrong or are they coyotes?”

“They are, uh, the alleged coyotes, I would say, which means we're getting some faulty data on our . . .”

“Do you suppose that they would eat one or both of us, if given the opportunity?”

“Yes ma'am, in a New York minute. It happens that I've had a little experience with those guys, couple of drunken brothers named Rip and Snort, and I'm sorry to report that they're double-tough and always hungry.”

“Oh dear. What shall we do?”

“Oh, let's just hang around for a while and see what happens.”