Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

by Tom Robbins

  Noticing that both Jelly and Debbie were collecting tears in their eyes, Sissy asked, “How did this business get started, anyhow? How did you end up with this flock of birds?”

  Debbie blew her nose on her embroidered bandanna. “You were aware that we were feeding them weren't you? We fed them brown rice last fall and they stayed over a couple of extra days. This spring we decided to try something different. We mixed our brown rice with fishmeal—whoopers love seafood (minnows and crawdads and little blue crabs), and fishmeal is cheap. Then Delores suggested another ingredient, and we think that's what did the trick.”

  “You mean . . . ?”

  “Peyote!” said Debbie and Jelly together.

  “Then that professor was right. They are drugged.”

  “Aw, come off it, Sissy,” said Jelly. “What do you mean, 'drugged'? Every living thing is a chemical composition and anything that is added to it changes that composition. When you eat a cheeseburger or a Three Musketeers bar, it changes your body chemistry. The kind of food you eat, the kind of air you breathe, can change your mental state. Does that mean you're 'drugged'? 'Drugged' is a stupid word.”

  “You've been smoking pot,” said Linda. “You're drugged. How do you feel? Could we make you do something you didn't want to do?”

  Debbie joined in. “Look at them, Sissy. Do they look like they're drugged? They hunt, they eat, they crap, they preen, they roost; they laid eggs, hatched them and took care of their young. They dance and whoop from time to time, and every now and then they go up for a flight. Only thing they don't do that they've always done is migrate. Is that so drastic?”

  Framing the flock in a hole in her cheese sandwich, Sissy had to say, “No, I guess not. One of the largest whooping crane flocks we know about, the one that once inhabited the yellow grass country of Louisiana, never migrated. So it must not be absolute to the species.” She lowered her sandwich. “But the peyote is obviously affecting their brains. It's made them break a migratory pattern that goes back thousands of years. And it's made them less timid of people. Not even I could get this close to them before, and I have . . .”

  “A way with birds!” Jelly and Debbie sang together. “A way with birds, a way with birds!” Their little song skittered shrilly over the pond, reminding neither bird nor bird watcher, one hopes, that early American settlers made flutes from the wing bones of cranes.

  Sissy blushed.

  Jelly kissed her.

  “The way I see it,” said Debbie, swinging her reddish brown pigtails from lakeside to hillward, “is that the peyote mellowed them out. Made them less uptight. They were afraid of bad weather and humans. That's why they migrated and kept to themselves. But the peyote has enlightened them. It's taught them there is nothing to fear but fear itself. Now they're digging life and letting the bad vibes slide on by. Don't worry, be happy. Be here now.”

  Did Sissy buy that? Not a feather of it. “Fear in wild animals is completely different from paranoia in people,” she argued. “In the wilderness ecosystem, fear is natural and necessary. It's merely a mechanism for maintaining life. If the cranes hadn't had a capacity for fear, they would have disappeared long ago and you'd be having to get loaded with common old everyday meadowlarks and mallards.”

  “This here discussion is destined to become academic,” said Jelly, “because we've got less than half a bag of peyote buttons left and Delores's run ended up in the Mottburg jail. So any day now we'll get a chance to see how the whoopers behave when they come down, to see if the peyote experience really changed them or not. But in the meantime, I want to say this about fear . . .”

  As Jelly pronounced the word fear, it suddenly materialized around about them.

  A noisy unstoppable churning wheel of fear that rolls out of the altitudes like the flat tire off God's Cadillac; an ear-filling, stomach-tightening busy beater of death-egg fear that has poisoned the dreams of Southeast Asia's children.

  The helicopter came in low over the hills from the south, chopping the blue September sky into war meat. It headed straight for the tea party.

  108.

  "HOLD YER FIRE!" yelled Bonanza Jellybean. “Hold yer fire!"

  Luckily, her cry was heard above the oxygen-slicing swipes of the helicopter rotors, above the fusillade that resounded from the panicky cowgirls at the barricades. The shooting stopped as abruptly as it had begun. The only casualty of the outburst was a horse that was struck in the temple by a ricochet. The horse died with fresh grass in its mouth. Even so, death is the last straw.

  Jelly had detected in the amateurish stripes of black and red paint with which the copter was decorated the hand not of law but of outlaw. She was correct. When the machine, having blown the floral display into disarray, settled in the wheatgrass a few yards to the north of the dome foundation, out stepped Billy West. Dressed entirely in black, like Delores, he had all he could do to bend his girth sufficiently to allow him to pass under the whirling blades without being beheaded (The co-pilot, a young man with hair to his waist, remained at the controls).

  Jelly jumped off the foundation into an elephantine hug. Held above the ground in Billy's arms, her six-gun clattered against his six-gun.

  “Git some gals over here and help me unload,” Billy said. “I brauch ya a few more boxes of ammo. And some Wonder Bread. And some beans. What ya think of my whirlybird? Got it in a deal over in Montana. Shit. Your trigger-happy chicks went and messed up my new paint job.” Fat fingers pointed at a streak of bare metal where a bullet had grazed the helicopter. “Well, c'mon now, let's git unloaded; I gotta git loose and vamoose. The feds are gonna be on my tail for sure.”

  Boxes of ammunition, crates of bread, cases of beans were passed hurriedly from the chopper, then from girl to girl, finally to be stacked beside the chuck wagon. Then, blowing a chubby kiss, Bill West oozed back into the helicopter and off it flew for God knows where, its fearful churning agitating the hills.

  The quiet that followed was overpowering. Manna from Heaven was never like this. Except for a few Trappist clouds, the sky was empty now. No use looking up there. Look instead at the new provisions. At the dead horse. At stunned and embarrassed faces. At the radio, which alone had the gall to infringe upon this contemplative moment.

  Agreeing with the turning Earth that the “time” was now six o'clock, the radio was extracting news from the ether. More than one silent cowgirl heard the news announcer say that Judge So-and-So, at the request of the ACLU, had granted a forty-eight-hour extension of the deadline by which the Rubber Rose cowgirls must comply with his order. Negotiations between the cowgirls and the government were expected to follow.

  Well, that development wasn't entirely unexpected. The next one was, though. The announcer informed his listeners that Rubber Rose forewoman Delores del Ruby was free on bond, her bail having been paid by the owner of the besieged ranch, Countess Products, Inc. The surprising and puzzling announcement that the Countess was going Ms. del Ruby's bail came from the tycoon's personal adviser, a certain Dr. Robbins of New York.

  109.

  THAT NIGHT, Sissy and Jelly lay under the same stars, under the same clouds, under the same blankets, under the same spell. Like political candidates, they frequently switched positions. In the campaign of 69, the polls didn't close until dawn.

  As dawn's famous rosy fingers grasped the life preserver of the horizon, the early-rising cranes overheard Jelly say, “Every time I tell you that I love you, you flinch. But that's your problem.”

  Answered Sissy, “If I flinch when you say you love me, it's both our problems. My confusion becomes your confusion. Students confuse teachers, patients confuse psychiatrists, lovers with confused hearts confuse lovers with clear hearts.” She chuckled at her awkward aphorism. “I think I need to see the Chink,” she added quietly.

  “I think so, too,” said Jellybean. “We cowgirls got two days now with nothing to do but play word games with lawyers. Why don't you slip away for the ridge?”

  “I will,” said Sissy.
And as the new day pulled itself onto the deck of the prairie, she did.

  110.

  SHE HADN'T INTENDED it to go like this. When it had happened in her mind, it had happened differently. In her mind, there had been a fond embrace, a cool dipper of water to tame her thirst after the steep climb, a restful sitting in the shade of a rock and wise words filtered through a Sunday school beard, words that barked and snapped at the fleeing heels of confusion.

  In her mind, he had kept his robe on, at least until bedtime. There had been no hand in her pants, not right off the bat. And certainly he had had more to say than “Ha ha ho ho and hee hee.”

  Expectations v. Realizations. We all remember that old case. In truth, he had spoken more than sniggerese. Immediately upon seeing her—only the rocks know how long he had been watching her climb—he had laughed “Ha ha ho ho and hee hee,” but then he had nodded from thumb to thumb and said, “That's wonderful. I like that combination. Now you're balanced.”

  “Balanced?” Sissy had asked. “Balanced? but one's short and skinny and the other long and plump.”

  “Don't confuse symmetry with balance,” he had answered.

  In vain, Sissy waited for an elaboration. Instead of a discourse on opposites and paradox, however, there had been another snigger. Then it was off with jumpsuit and robe. The reader can guess what followed, although the reader probably couldn't guess with what frequency and duration. Were he obliged to do so, the author could describe it: each drip of sweat, each contraction of muscle, each pant, each moan, each slish of slippery tissue. Were he of a mind to, the author could make you hear slurps as plainly as if you were the briny Popsicle that was being licked; could make you smell the rising tide of toadstool musk as sharply as if he had pulled the funky blankets over your head. However, such descriptive passages might be misconstrued to be an appeal to your prurient interest. Moreover, the author has other data to impart, and the twentieth century is running out of pages. So, let what is sufficient suffice. Until Sissy and the Chink are on their feet again, the author is going to turn his back on them and read the newspaper. Here, I'll read it aloud. On page 31, we find

  HOUSEHOLD HINTS

  Dear Heliose: What does one use to polish rosebuds?

  G.S.

  Dear G. S.: Bluebird spit and sugar should do the trick. Apply with a bee muff.

  Heloise

  111.

  OKAY, THEY'RE THROUGH NOW. They can barely walk to the cliff edge to watch the sunset, the naughty kids. In retrospect, though, we must consider that the Chink was trying to help Sissy chase her confusion. Having spent the night making love with Jellybean, had she not then spent the day making love with the Chink there could have been no accurate comparison. And the Chink might have thought a comparison necessary, although he would not have seen any necessity for a choice.

  Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need. Perhaps there are times when the contradictions of love are so intermingled that the only way to see the truth of love is to pit it against the irreducible reality of lust.

  Of course, love can never be stripped bare of illusion, but simply to arrive at an awareness of illusion is to hold hands with truth—and sometimes the hard light of lust affords just such an awareness.

  At any rate, it was a calm and satiated Sissy who stood on the parapets of Siwash Ridge, watching snowy specks of whooping cranes melt in the dusk. Neither Jelly nor the Chink occupied her thoughts; instead, a quiet ecstasy gathered around her immediate sense of awareness of her own illusions, and that ecstatic overview filled the spaces between her and the distant lake.

  “What do you think of this business of the cowgirls and the cranes?” she asked. It no longer seemed absurd to her that it had taken an entire day for them to broach the subject.

  Was that a sigh that elbowed its way through the tangles of the smoky beard, or was it the higher octaves of an exhausted snigger? “The cranes are beautiful. For that matter, so are the cowgirls. It's a shame they're relating to each other in such a compromising way.”

  “I think I share your feelings,” said Sissy. “The cranes are still skittish—they insist on a certain distance and maintain some integrity—but I can't help seeing them as being rather like pets now. Domesticated. It was you who taught me . . .”

  “I've never taught you anything.”

  “Oh, shut up, you old turkey!” Sissy laughed. It was almost a snigger. To keep the Chink from turning away and escaping the dialogue, she seized his limp member and held fast. She was learning how to deal with him. “It was you who made me aware that the domestication of animals was one of history's major mistakes, a devastating error not only in terms of ecology, but in terms of the psychological and philosophical consequences that are still being suffered. You know, I don't really hate dogs per se, or even dog owners; it's the idea of pethood that turns me off, the taming of wild things, the use of animals as surrogate children—or surrogate lovers.” She pondered a moment, without loosening a fraction her grip on the Chink's dick. “It's ironic, isn't it? All the great agrarian cultures of old Europe were matriarchal; then along came the nomadic herds-men from Central Asia with their love of the bull and their concomitant belief in penis power. The herding tribes gradually overran the feminist states, replacing the Great Mother with God the Father, substituting the Christian death trip for the pagan glorification of life, venerating beasts ahead of vegetation and oh, yeah, let's see, placing the notion of spirit ahead of the fact of matter—you first called my attention to this, you fart. The women who planted, cultivated, harvested and got high were crowded from their central position by men who drifted from worn-out pasture to virgin pasture, fighting and getting drunk. Well, it's ironic. Because cowgirls are, by their very name, herders. And these particular Rubber Rose cowgirls not only keep horses and goats, they've semidomesticated the grandest, wildest flock of birds in the world. Ironic.”

  The Chink shook his beard in the evening breeze. He was hairy inside and out. His beard sent out shocks of milkweed and mutton. “Yes, ironic, finding women who would be women imitating men. But there are other aspects of this saga that I bet you haven't considered.”

  “If you'll tell me, I'll turn you loose.”

  “Makes no difference to me. Actually, I was hoping you'd hold on, just in case I yield to this impulse to jump off the cliff.”

  She let go.

  “Ha ha ho ho and hee hee,” said the Chink. Then he swept his smirk under the rug. “I was merely thinking about the significance of the fact that there are cranes involved in this confrontation between girls and government. The crane is the bird of poetry. It was Robert Graves who pointed out that the crane has been traditionally connected with poetry all the way from China to Ireland. The crane is the national animal, the totem animal of Hungary—and as Graves wrote, there are twenty times more poems written and published in Hungary each year than in any other country. Obviously, cranes bring luck to poets, and vice versa. The only country in Europe where cranes are still breeding is Hungary. The last crane in the British Isles was shot in nineteen six. Russia's cranes are hiding in Siberia. Japan's, too. And we know the state of U.S. cranes. Graves says, 'While there are still cranes in Hungary, poetry is bound to continue.' He's right. And if poetry continues, Hungary will continue. Religion and politics are unnecessary to the culture—or the individual—that has poetry.”

  “You really don't believe in political solutions, do you?”

  “I believe in political solutions to political problems. But man's primary problems aren't political; they're philosophical. Until humans can solve their philosophical problems, they're condemned to solve their political problems over and over and over again. It's a cruel, repetitious bore.”

  Sissy thought she had the old goat this time, and not just by the pecker, either. “Well, then, what are the philosophical solutions?”

  “Ha ha ho ho and hee hee. That's for you to find out.
” She didn't have him. “I'll say this much and no more: there's got to be poetry. And magic. Your thumbs taught you that much, didn't they? Poetry and magic. At every level. If civilization is ever going to be anything but a grandiose pratfall, anything more than a can of deodorizer in the shithouse of existence, then statesmen are going to have to concern themselves with magic and poetry. Bankers are going to have to concern themselves with magic and poetry. Time magazine is going to have to write about magic and poetry. Factory workers and housewives are going to have to get their lives entangled in magic and poetry. As for policemen and cowgirls . . .” The Chink wagged his beard at the ranch below. It was a beard that a nesting crane might enjoy.

  If Sissy failed to comprehend completely, at least she no longer felt confused. Through a pinhole in the peace that dropped like the dusk around them, she squeezed one last question. “Do you think such a thing can ever happen?”

  “If you understood poetry and magic, you'd know that it doesn't matter.”

  The moon rose.

  The clockworks struck.

  A crane whooped.

  She understood.

  111A.

  POETRY IS NOTHING more than an intensification or illumination of common objects and everyday events until they shine with their singular nature, until we can experience their power, until we can follow their steps in the dance, until we can discern what parts they play in the Great Order of Love. How is this done? By fucking around with syntax.

  [Definitions are limiting. Limitations are deadening. To limit oneself is a kind of suicide. To limit another is a kind of murder. To limit poetry is a Hiroshima of the human spirit. DANGER: RADIATION. Unauthorized personnel not allowed on the premises of Chapter 111a.]