As the third-largest fire in Texas history came roaring across the Panhandle last spring, John Erickson and his wife were speeding down Hanks Road, the only way in or out of their canyon home.

They'd had just enough time to gather their laptops and an old mandolin before fleeing the house they’d built 30 years ago and the bunkhouse where he wrote 70 books in his best-selling Hank the Cowdog children’s series.

When they returned to the blackened canyon, bright orange flames still danced across some parts of the ranch. The prairie was black as far as he could see down Hanks Road. The charred landscape was punctured by clusters of prickly pear toasted yellow.

The house was a pile of charred wood and twisted metal. Inside the front door under a pile of black powder, all that was left of Erickson’s riding boots were the custom-made spurs engraved with the name of his cowdog character: Hank.

John Erickson, author of the Hank the Cowdog books, looks at his destroyed home after a wildfire burned through the area of Perryton, Texas, in March 2017. (Nathan Dahlstrom)

Erickson’s books have taught young Texans to read for more than three decades. The chapter books, part mystery, part Western and part comedy, have been a mainstay at school libraries across the state since Hank made his debut in 1982.

Erickson is also a full-time rancher, and real stories from the Panhandle often make their way into Hank the Cowdog’s world. The books feature Hank, the self-proclaimed head of ranch security, battling snakes and tornadoes, angry bulls and pesky barn cats. He’s even come across a fire or two, each time finding a happy ending at the M-Cross Ranch.

But standing in the remains of the bunkhouse where he wrote all those stories for all those years, Erickson couldn’t see how Hank would make it out of this one.

“I don’t think I could find a happy ending out of this,” he said. “I like music that resolves, chords that resolve. How do you get the destruction of a home you love and the memories to resolve?”

Pull of the Panhandle

Erickson grew up in Perryton, at the very tip of the Panhandle. He spent two years at Harvard Divinity School learning to become a writer but dropped out just shy of graduation. The sixth-generation Texan has said he couldn’t resist the Panhandle’s pull.

He worked as a cowboy, writing funny stories on the side for the Fort Worth-based Cattleman magazine. When he ran out of nonfiction ideas, he invented a story told from the perspective of a mutt, named for an old dog at the ranch where he worked.

That first column, "Confessions of a Cowdog," introduced readers to the characters in Hank's world: Drover, Hank's sheepish white-haired sidekick; Pete, the barn cat with a mile-wide mean streak; and Slim, the bachelor cowboy who accompanies Hank on his wild adventures.

After the fire: John Erickson's custom "Hank" spurs, the metal parts of a rifle, and destroyed paper copies. (Nathan Dahlstrom)

He adapted his cowdog stories into his first book, The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog, which he self-published from his garage. He promoted the books by visiting schools, FFA conventions and local libraries.

Librarians love the books because they appeal to a wide range of children. Kids who like animals read the books. Kids who like cowboys read them. Kids who like mysteries read them.

In all, he has sold more than 9 million copies of the Hank the Cowdog books. They’ve been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Farsi and Danish.

Every morning before tending to the ranch, he’d wake up early and walk from the ranch home in the Canadian River valley down to his bunkhouse studio. There, he’d write about Hank and his pals for hours, laughing along the way. Erickson says if he’s laughing, then it’ll probably make kids laugh, too.

He wrote two Hank books a year, each taking about five weeks of writing. Then, he placed the draft on the shelf for a few years as he polished and edited to perfect the story.

In spring 2017, he celebrated the 35th anniversary of the series. Copies of his 69th Hank book left Perryton with a release date of March 9.

On March 6, a power line shorted out near Perryton, sending sparks onto dry grass. In just a few minutes, a massive wildfire was racing toward the ranch.

1 / 3Cattle continue to graze as a wildfire burns through the area of Perryton, Texas in March 2017, destroying the home of John Erickson, author of the Hank the Cowdog books.(Nathan Dahlstrom) 2 / 3The wildfire burned everything along the only road out of the canyon.(Nathan Dahlstrom) 3 / 3A charred landscape remains after the wildfire swept through in 2017.(Nathan Dahlstrom)

Erickson got a call about 10 minutes later saying someone had reported a wildfire nearby. When he stepped outside and looked to the northwest, he could see the smoke. It was a humid day, and the wind gusts up to 60 mph told Erickson it would be a bad fire.

He and his wife, Kris, grabbed what they could and fled down Hanks Road. That evening, from Perryton, Erickson felt the wind shift and had a bad feeling. The fire would be heading straight into the canyon they called home.

'An overwhelming response'

The Perryton fire consumed over 318,000 acres. About 2,500 head of cattle and 1,900 hogs were killed in the smoke and flames. That same day, another fire closer to Amarillo killed three people.

The Ericksons returned to their ranch the next morning. Ninety percent of their property had burned. Miraculously, they lost just a few head of cattle, but they found a horse and a dog, Dixie, dead in the ash.

Even before the fire was out, friends and family showed up to help. Some mended fences and fed cattle. Others arrived with food and clothes. Others still just came to provide company.

“It’s really good they did,” Erickson said. “We didn’t want to be around anybody, but we didn’t want to be alone either. There was no comfortable place.”

Then, Hank’s fans heard the news. Donations poured in. Letters and packages stacked up in boxes and crates from all over Texas. A year later, and he still hasn’t been able to open all of them.

A boy who grew up reading Hank the Cowdog books in southern Louisiana heard about the fire and convinced his father to bring a trailer of hay north to the Texas Panhandle. Another boy from South Texas sent a Dairy Queen gift card, telling Erickson to use it for a M&M’s Blizzard to cheer him up.

“It was just an overwhelming response,” he said. “That was, I suppose, a big help in resolving the chord.”

Still, he said, his mind wasn’t in the right place to write a funny story about a goofy cowdog. He was writing daily on the screened-in porch of a small shed his son had moved to the ranch, but his happy ending was still elusive.

A few months after the fire, he decided to try writing about Hank and Drover and Slim. He started the way he begins every story: It's me again, Hank the Cowdog.

The book was finished in three quick weeks. Erickson’s editor fast-tracked it for publication.

Hank the Cowdog: The Case of the Monster Fire, by John R. Erickson. Ilustrated by Gerald L. Holmes (Maverick Books)

Erickson's 71st Hank the Cowdog book, The Case of the Monster Fire, was released in March, a year after the Perryton fire. The cover features Slim riding a horse through a culvert with Hank running nervously at his side. The background is obscured by dark smoke and red flames.

From the opening lines it is clear that the stakes are higher for Hank and the others. The canine narrator is clearly afraid of telling such a harrowing story. The back pages feature real photos of the fire and its aftermath on the Ericksons’ ranch.

“Off to the west,” Hank says in the book, “the smoke had become a wall, and it was flashing with red and yellow light. I mean, we couldn’t see flames, but they were inside the smoke -- big and coming fast!”

At the end of the book, Hank and Slim are impressed by the outpouring of support from neighbors and strangers that helps them start to rebuild. It’s clear that things are going to be OK at the M-Cross Ranch by the end of the last chapter.

In real life, however, happy endings aren’t always that easy.

'We're OK'

A few weeks after the book was released, Erickson sat a table inside the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas with a McDonald's coffee and a copy of the Livestock Weekly newspaper.

The Texas Library Association annual conference is one of Erickson’s biggest annual events. He’s been attending since the first Hank the Cowdog book was released. Here, among Texas’ librarians, he is a bona fide celebrity. Teachers lined up to get his autograph, take a selfie, thank him for his stories and ask about the ranch.

Then, there's the younger librarians who clutch copies of the new book and old favorites like treasure. Grinning wide, they place the books in front of Erickson and ask for an autograph. They grew up reading about Hank and Drover and Slim and Pete, and now can pass the stories along to their own students.

John Erickson, author of the Hank the Cowdog books, signs books at the Texas Library Association conference held at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in downtown Dallas. (Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer)

“People don’t love new flash-in-the-pan authors like that,” said Nathan Dahlstrom, author of the Wilder Good children’s books who helped Erickson mend fences after the fire. “When you care for people’s children for 35 years, it sticks.”

The librarians knew about the fire, too. Erickson came to the TLA convention last year, just a few weeks after the fire, and word had already spread about the major loss. Now, they wanted to see the new book about the big fire.

“Well, we came back from the fire pretty well, but then it stopped raining again,” Erickson said again and again. “But we’re OK.”

The Ericksons haven’t rebuilt their home yet, but are living in a doublewide trailer on the property. He’s still raising cattle on the ranch, but it’s difficult to plan a new home when you have one eye on the horizon, looking for smoke.

It’s been another scary fire season in the Panhandle. They’ve only measured three-quarters of an inch of rain since October, and the tall, dry grass makes the ranch vulnerable to another blaze.

The week of the Perryton fire’s anniversary, the Ericksons had to evacuate the ranch again because of extreme fire danger. Wildfires have already burned thousands of acres this year in Texas alone.

For a while, Erickson worried what would come next for Hank the Cowdog. With his personal recovery still in his head, would he be able to write a story that didn’t end with flames?

In January, he sat down at the laptop he saved from the fire and started a new story.

It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog.

He wrote an opening scene with Hank and Drover waking from a nap on the M-Cross Ranch. They launched into their typical banter. The old characters came back and took off on another adventure. Erickson caught himself laughing throughout the story and never once mentioned the fire.

After 12 chapters, he found his happy ending. He wrapped up the story the same way he always has: This case is closed.