The Case of the Swirling Killer Tornado (7 page)

Chapter Twelve: Wow, What a Great Ending!

Y
ou ever sing the kind of song that's called a “round”?

It's a song that . . . hmmm, that's kind of hard to describe, come to think of it. Everybody sings the same verse, don't you see, but they come in at different times and somehow it all fits together.

Examples? Okay, “Three Blind Mice” is one, and so is “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” and so is “Why Doesn't My Goose Sing as Well as Thy Goose.” And I'll bet that at some time in your life, you've sung one of those songs as a round.

And that's what we did, only we spiffed it up. See, we started off singing “Why Doesn't My Goose” as a round. Then we split up and each of us took a different song and we sang them ALL as a round, at the same time.

Pretty impressive, huh? You bet it was. Old Mister Sour Puss took the “Goose” song, Junior took “Row Your Boat,” and Drover took “Three Blind Mice.”

Never in all of history had two dogs and two buzzards attempted such an amazing musical fiasco in the middle of a tornado.

Furthermore, whilst the other three guys were singing the other three songs in a round, I contributed snippets from . . . you'll never guess and boy, will you be surprised . . .

. . . from the “Hallelulia Chorus.”

I told you you'd be shocked, stunned, speechless, impressed beyond description, and sure enough, you were.

You should have heard it. In fact, you ought to hear it. It's on the cassette tape version of this story.

Anyways, it turned out to be a total knock-out song and we were all thrilled with it . . . everyone but Wallace, that is, who was determined to be unthrilled and unimpressed, but nobody cared what he thought anyway.

We might have kept right on singing but for one small detail that you probably forgot: We were taking a ride on a runaway tornado, and all at once . . . something changed.

Maybe the winds slacked off. Maybe the tornado went up or down. Maybe the tornado didn't like our music. But something happened, and the next thing we knew, the tornado had spit us out, so to speak, and we found ourselves, all four of us, blown into the topmost branches of a huge cotton­wood tree.

And this was a normal cottonwood, the kind with its roots in the ground on Planet Earth. The tornado went roaring away, and suddenly we found ourselves surrounded by total silence.

Wallace broke the silence with his hacksaw voice. “Junior, where are we at?”

“W-w-well, I d-don't know, P-pa, but I th-think w-w-w-we're out of the t-t-t-tornado, th-thank g-g-goodness.”

“It was a cyclone, son.”

“T-t-tornado.”

“Cyclone.”

“T-t-t-tornado.”

“Son, it was a cyclone but never mind because we have survived, which is wonderful news, but I wonder if them two dogs might have suffered a . . . you know, we ain't had full grub in several days, Junior, and why don't we check on our buddies and see.”

“Sorry, Wallace,” I said. “We're over here and doing fine, and we sure appreciate your concern.”

He heaved a sigh and gave his head a shake. “A buzzard is always an optimist and that's why we get our hearts broke so many times. All right, Junior, we've had all the fun I can stand, it's time to get airborne and hunt grub.”

“It was fun, Wallace.”

“Fun for you, puppy dog, 'cause you've got nothing better to do than to goof off and sing silly songs, but we buzzards get paid by the job, yes we do, and no workie, no eat. Come on, Junior, my belly button's rubbin' a hole in my backbone.”

He pushed himself off the limb and went flapping off into the darkness. Junior grinned and waved a wing good-bye and said, “W-w-well, s-s-see you n-next t-t-time, d-d-doggie.” And then he flew away, leaving Drover and me alone with our thoughts—and with a pretty serious problem.

See, you might have thought our story had reached a happy ending, but that's not the case. Yes, we had just ridden a wild bucking tornado completely into the ground, and yes, we had even managed to spend a couple of hours in Sally May's house without getting ourselves strangled or shot.

Not bad for one night's work, but now we faced another stern challenge: We were hung up in the topmost branches of a very large cottonwood. And in case you didn't know, we dogs are not tree­climbers. We don't climb up trees, and we don't climb down trees either.

And to make matters even worse, we had no idea where we and that tree were located. We might have been in Oklahoma or Kansas or Nebraska, for all I knew, which means that this story might end with us . . .

Gee whiz, just think about the terrible possibilities. We might starve to death in the top of the tree, or fall to our deaths below, or become orphans and vagabonds in a strange location.

And this is Chapter Twelve and we're running out of time and space to come up with a happy ending.

Pretty sad, huh? You bet it was but don't give up yet.

With nothing better to do, we hung onto our respective branches, and I mean hung on for dear life. We got zero sleep and I had to listen to Drover whimper, cry, squeak, and moan for the rest of the night.

Then, at last, I saw the faint glow of morning appear on the eastern horizon. Knowing that the sun could not possibly rise without a good stern barking from the Head of Ranch Security, I was forced to perform this crucial task from the top of the tree.

I mean, if we didn't get that sun barked up, fellers, we might have been stranded in total dark­ness for days or weeks. So I did my duty and barked it up, and whilst I was in the midst of my Bark Up the Sun Procedure, what do you suppose I heard?

A door slam. Then a voice . . . a voice that sounded slightly familiar . . . a man's voice which said, if I can remember the exact quotation, which said, “Shut up, you idiot dog!”

HUH?

My goodness, that voice sounded quite a bit like Slim's, and then I glanced down and noticed a house down there on the ground, and a tall skinny man, wearing nothing but underpants and boots, standing out on the porch.

Holy smokes, that was Slim the Cowboy! The tornado had carried us two miles down the creek and deposited us in that big cottonwood right in front of Slim's house—what a terrific struck of loke—and all at once I was filled with joy and began barking with all my heart and soul.

Stroke of luck.

And Drover added a few squeaks. His squeaking and my massive barking made just enough noise to draw Slim's soggy red eyes away from ground level and up to the top of the tree.

And at last, yippee, he saw us there! His eyes popped open and his jaw dropped several inches.

And he said—this is an exact quote—he said, “Good honk, I've got huge barkin' squirrels in my tree, where's my gun!”

No, no! We weren't squirrels! It was us, Hank and Drover, his loyal dogs.

Okay, it appeared that he was joking. You know Slim and his warped cowboy sense of humor. It gave me a little scare.

Well, he got a big laugh out of our miserable condition. Yes, while we were up there, clinging for dear life to branches that were rolling like ocean waves in the wind, he got big chuckles.

But suddenly the laughter stopped. He scratched his head and squinted up at us and said, “Hmmm. I wonder how a guy goes about rescuin' two ranch mutts from the top of a cotton­wood, 'cause I ain't fixing to climb up there myself. Hmmm.”

How did he do it? Well, he called Loper on the phone and Loper came. He had spent most of the night in the cellar, so you can imagine how glad he was to see us dogs up in Slim's tree.

Not glad. Much grumbling and muttering.

But by then he and Slim had figured out how we got there and were ready to call it a good deal. I mean, the tornado hadn't killed anyone or destroyed any ranch property, so they decided to count their blessings.

They got us down, but it was no instant rescue. It took 'em several hours and it ended up involving several of the neighbors, chainsaws, ropes, ladders, and a windmill repair truck with a telescoping crane.

Loper had to pay two hours of rig time on Jay Cox's windmill truck, but I'm sure he considered it a huge bargain. He got his dogs back, that was the important thing.

Well, we had dodged another bullet and had . . . oh, I almost forgot. Sally May never did learn the Awful Truth, that her little stinkpot son had let us into the house that night. But I heard through the grapevine, so to speak, that she found fleas in Alfred's bed.

They weren't mine.

Anyways, it was a great moment in history when Drover and I finally made it back to headquarters and to our gunnysack beds, which is where this had all started, with me and Drover trying to catch a few winks of sleep between assignments.

And that was exactly what I planned to do now. After saving the ranch from the Swirling Killer Tornado, I figured I was entitled to a few winks.

I had just about drifted off into a pleasant dream about Miss Beulah the Collie when I heard Drover's voice.

“Hank, are you awake?”

“Murk snork not if I can help it.”

“I was just thinking. Remember that song I wrote about barking at a funnel-shaped cloud? It turned out just that way. We really barked at one. Do you reckon I can see into the future? Gosh, maybe I'm a prophet or something.”

I raised my head and managed to open both eyes a crack. “Drover, one of the great challenges we face in this life is trying to distinguish between prophecy and indigestion. Yours was indigestion. Good night.”

“It's the middle of the day.”

“Shut your trap.”

“Good night, Hank.”

And with that, we drifted off into our respective dreams and ended another exciting adventure on the ranch.

Case clo . . . snork murk sassafras zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Further Reading

Have you read all of Hank's adventures?

1
The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog

2
The Further Adventures of Hank the Cowdog

3
It's a Dog's Life

4
Murder in the Middle Pasture

5
Faded Love

6
Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

7
The Curse of the Incredible Priceless Corncob

8
The Case of the One-Eyed Killer Stud Horse

9
The Case of the Halloween Ghost

1
0
Every Dog Has His Day

1
1
Lost in the Dark Unchanted Forest

1
2
The Case of the Fiddle-Playing Fox

1
3
The Wounded Buzzard on Christmas Eve

1
4
Hank the Cowdog and Monkey Business

1
5
The Case of the Missing Cat

1
6
Lost in the Blinded Blizzard

1
7
The Case of the Car-Barkaholic Dog

1
8
The Case of the Hooking Bull

1
9
The Case of the Midnight Rustler

20
The Phantom in the Mirror

21
The Case of the Vampire Cat

22
The Case of the Double Bumblebee Sting

23
Moonlight Madness

24
The Case of the Black-Hooded Hangmans

25
The Case of the Swirling Killer Tornado

26
The Case of the Kidnapped Collie

27
The Case of the Night-Stalking Bone Monster

28
The Mopwater Files

29
The Case of the Vampire Vacuum Sweeper

30
The Case of the Haystack Kitties

31
The Case of the Vanishing Fishhook

32
The Garbage Monster from Outer Space

33
The Case of the Measled Cowboy

34
Slim's Good-bye

35
The Case of the Saddle House Robbery

36
The Case of the Raging Rottweiler

37
The Case of the Deadly Ha-Ha Game

38
The Fling

39
The Secret Laundry Monster Files

40
The Case of the Missing Bird Dog

41
The Case of the Shipwrecked Tree

42
The Case of the Burrowing Robot

43
The Case of the Twisted Kitty

44
The Dungeon of Doom

45
The Case of the Falling Sky

46
The Case of the Tricky Trap

47
The Case of the Tender Cheeping Chickies

48
The Case of the Monkey Burglar

49
The Case of the Booby-Trapped Pickup

50
The Case of the Most Ancient Bone

51
The Case of the Blazing Sky

52
The Quest for the Great White Quail

53
Drover's Secret Life

54
The Case of the Dinosaur Birds

55
The Case of the Secret Weapon

56
The Case of the Coyote Invasion

57
The Disappearance of Drover

58
The Case of the Mysterious Voice

59
The Case of the Perfect Dog

60
The Big Question

61
The Case of the Prowling Bear