Mama Rides Shotgun

by Deborah Sharp

  “C’mon, let’s catch up,’’ I said, lifting Val’s reins as I clucked my tongue.

  Carlos’ thoroughbred didn’t need much encouragement. The big bay was off, like the racehorse he must have been. I admired the view from the rear. The man’s butt barely left the saddle; he moved like he was melded onto the horse. Marty was right. Carlos rode like a dream. I dug in my heels and brought Val alongside.

  “Hey, cowpoke, wait up. Sorry, I guess that should be ‘guabero.’’’

  He winced.

  “Pronunciation’s that bad, huh?’’

  “Guajiro. Gwa-yee-row,’’ he sounded it out for me.

  I had a flash of the two of us in his kitchen one morning, fooling around as he made me breakfast. Picking up common items, he’d drilled me in Spanish: café, he said, holding up a vacuum-packed bag of strong Cuban coffee. Cuchara, he said, handing me a spoon. Beso, he whispered, as he leaned down and gave me a kiss.

  Oh, crap. Why had I screwed things up?

  “Listen, let me do the talking with Doc,’’ I said, more sharply than I intended.

  “Whatever you say, Mace. You’re the boss.’’

  “No offense,’’ I semi-apologized.

  “None taken,’’ he said with his irritating smirk.

  I eased Val closer to the wagon. “Afternoon, Doc,’’ I said. “Enjoying the ride?’’

  The Oak Ridge Boys’ gospel classic, “I’m in Love With Jesus,” blasted from a CD player in the front of the wagon. The driver sang along. His volume was in inverse proportion to his talent. I had a moment’s sympathy for the non-believing Doc.

  “Hello, Mace.’’ Doc raised his voice, hunching up his shoulders to protect his ears. “Where’s your mother?’’

  “She and my sisters are riding along somewhere, yakking it up.’’ After three days of Mama all to myself, I was more than happy to let Marty and Maddie enjoy her company for a while.

  I performed quick introductions. Doc’s brow wrinkled when I mentioned Carlos was a police detective.

  “I hope you’re not still on that kick about Lawton’s cause of death, Mace.’’

  I was trying to think of what to say about my “kick’’ when Carlos butted in.

  “Mace told me Lawton was using a cup just before he died. I agree with her it should be tested, if only to allay any doubts that anyone, including his family, might have.’’

  Leave it to him to come right to the point. And, so much for letting me do the talking.

  “I have no doubt what killed him. But I’m not averse to testing the cup, either.’’ Doc narrowed his eyes at me. “As I’ve already told Mace.’’

  I narrowed my eyes right back. “Then why’d you give the cup to Wynonna?’’

  He shook his head. “I didn’t. It’s still sitting in my car, as far as I know.’’

  “Lawton’s daughter Belle said you did,’’ I said.

  “Well, she’s wrong. Belle is a high-strung girl. She doesn’t always think clearly. She has problems keeping things straight, among other difficulties. I may have said Wynonna wanted the cup. I didn’t say I handed it over.’’

  The Oak Ridge Boys launched into “Closer to Thee.” The mule-driver cranked the volume of his sing-along even higher. Doc put a discreet finger into the ear closest to the CD player.

  “So you wouldn’t mind giving the cup to me for analysis?’’ Carlos asked.

  “Not at all, officer.’’ Doc turned his palms up in a friendly gesture, but his voice had an edge. “I’ve worked with enough policemen over the years to know you’re a suspicious breed.’’

  “Actually, it’s Detective, not officer,’’ Carlos said. “And having suspicions comes with the territory.’’

  “Hmm, yes. I would imagine it does,’’ Doc said. “I’ll make sure you get that cup, once we reach camp.’’

  ___

  “Mace, you need to pull that corner tighter,’’ Maddie instructed. “The tent looks all lopsided on this side.’’

  Despite the morning’s delay, we made camp near Zolfo Springs by late afternoon. Maddie’s four-man monstrosity belonged at the Smithsonian as an example of early man’s recreational practices. Canvas, it weighed about two hundred pounds, reeked of mildew, and was missing a quarter of its stakes. I was doing the best I could under the circumstances.

  “Maddie, instead of standing there criticizing, why don’t you go see if you can find a dead sabal frond? I can break it into long stakes for this sandy ground.’’

  “You want me to go into the woods?’’ she looked like I’d asked her to cross a scorching desert on her hands and knees.

  “Yes. The woods, Maddie. I know you and Kenny’s idea of camping is when the Cracker Barrel restaurant’s more than a block from your hotel, but you’ve got to help out.’’ I raised my head from untangling one of the ropes for the antique tent. “Look over there at Marty. She’s got all the tack off the horses and she’s already giving them their feed.’’

  “Oh, all right then.’’ Grumbling, Maddie started for the trees. “I don’t see what’s so important about a few little pieces of wood, though.’’

  Without Maddie there to criticize, I quickly got the sleeping bags from her trunk to air out. I don’t think they’d been used since Maddie’s college-student daughter was in Girl Scouts. But at least they were intact, and they’d keep my sisters and me warm.

  The sun was still warm, but it was sinking. The air already carried a hint of chill. In the distance, Marty was finishing up with the horses, which meant she’d begin to feel the cold as soon as she sat down to rest. I whine like a baby when the temperature plunges, but Marty’s prone to respiratory problems and strep throat. All of us worry when she gets a chill.

  I called out, “Marty, why don’t you put on that jacket I left under the front seat of my Jeep?’’

  She waved at me. “Thanks, Mace. I’m just about done.’’

  I draped the last sleeping bag over Maddie’s trunk. As I did, I noticed something dark and sinewy coiled in the back seat. I couldn’t believe it! They’d brought my old cow whip, the one I loaned my niece for her film class documentary on Florida Crackers.

  I pulled out the whip, running my thumb over my initials burned onto the wooden handle. MEB. Mason Elizabeth Bauer. I gave it a couple of practice cracks. Yep, just as loud as ever.

  “Hey, Marty,’’ I yelled over the sound.

  She didn’t answer.

  I walked toward my Jeep, snapping the whip the whole way. It’s amazing how the muscles remember; like riding a bicycle, I guess. “Hey,’’ I shouted. “Why didn’t y’all tell me you brought this?’’

  Still no answer.

  My Jeep’s door was open and Marty stood rooted, staring at my jacket unfurled on the ground. Her face was ashen and shiny with sweat. She mouthed my name over and over, like a whispered prayer.

  “MaceMaceMaceMace.’’

  And then I heard another sound. Low and menacing, it was unmistakable to a girl who grew up in the Florida wilds, clambering over piles of dead wood and turning up rocks.

  Ssssttt, Ssssttt, Ssssttt . . .

  I closed the space between Marty and me by instinct. I don’t even think I was aware of the cow whip in my hand. Yet, my elbow was cocked and ready as I ran to her side.

  The tail on the diamondback stood up straight, rattles vibrating. The snake’s tongue darted to and fro. Its cat-eyes gleamed. Marty stood motionless, in striking distance.

  I prayed that all those hours of practice I’d put in by my daddy’s side wouldn’t fail me. My arm tingled with the memory of knocking tin cans off fence posts and clipping oranges off their branches. I didn’t want to think about the many times I’d missed my targets.

  I heard Carlos shout, as if from far away: “Don’t move, Marty.’’ From the corner of my eye, I saw him edge into the campsite and stoop to get a rock. It wasn’t big or heavy enough to crush the snake’s head quickly. It would only aggravate him enough to make him strike.

  “I’ve got it
,’’ I yelled, surprised when my voice sounded calm.

  I snapped my arm at the elbow and let the whip fly from about eight feet out.

  Crack!

  Marty flinched. Her eyes squeezed shut. The whip hit a few inches behind the snake’s venom glands. The force all but severed its head. For a few seconds, the body writhed across my jacket, dying. I finished it off with another whip crack. Marty probably wouldn’t want to borrow that particular piece of clothing again.

  “It’s okay, Sister. You can look now,’’ I said.

  Carlos rushed forward to catch her before she hit the ground. I snapped the whip a third time, just to be sure no strike was left in the snake. Marty hung on Carlos’ neck, her face buried in his chest. He patted her on the back.

  “You’re all right, Marty. Your sister killed it.’’

  When he raised his gaze to mine, I wondered whether admiration or anger was making his eyes so dark. Carlos wasn’t short on Latin machismo; I was unsure how he’d take a woman riding to the rescue.

  “Go ahead and look, Marty,’’ he urged her. “Mace was amazing.’’

  So it was admiration. Surprise, surprise.

  Just then, Mama, Maddie and Sal walked into the campsite. Maddie carried two dead sabal fronds, bushy side down, like a broom in each hand.

  “Yoo-hoo!’’ Mama called. “Who’s ready for dinner?’’

  At a glance, she took in Carlos supporting Marty, her tears soaking his shirt. She rushed to Marty’s side. Maddie dropped the brown fronds and ran after her.

  “What happened, Marty? What’s wrong?’’ As she stroked Marty’s hair, Mama looked over at me, recoiling my whip. Then she spotted the snake on the ground. Her eyes widened. A hand flew to cover her mouth.

  “Jesus H. Christ on a crutch,’’ Maddie said.

  “Don’t touch it,’’ I warned them. “It’s dead, but a rattlesnake has heat-sensing pits behind the eyes. Put a warm hand near it, and the head may still bite as a reflex.’’

  Carlos swallowed uneasily and took a step back.

  Sal lumbered toward us. “Rosie, you look like you met a ghost. Is everything okay?’’

  “It is now. Mace saved Marty’s life.’’ Carlos pointed to the snake. “She killed that with her bullwhip. It was like something out of the Wild West.’’

  “Cow whip,’’ I said. “Out west, they say bullwhip. But Florida Crackers have always called them cow whips. And we had cattle in Florida before there even was a Wild West.’’

  “That’s right,’’ Maddie nodded. “Spanish explorers brought the first cattle to Florida in the 1500s. It irks Mace we never get credit for starting what the Wild West made famous.’’

  Sal clapped me on the back so hard it nearly knocked me down. “Cow whip, bullwhip, whaddever. You’re a hero, Mace.’’

  I didn’t mind standing around basking in praise. But now that the adrenaline rush was waning, I wanted to know how the hell a rattlesnake had found its way into my Jeep.

  “Marty, where exactly was that snake?’’

  She turned her head to stare at the diamondback’s remains, and then hid her eyes against Carlos’ chest again.

  “N’dyak-yak,’’ came her shirt-muffled answer.

  “Say what?’’ I asked.

  Marty lifted her head, but still hung on his neck. Good thing she weighed no more than a flea.

  “In your jacket,” she repeated, more clearly now. “It was trapped in there. The zipper was pulled all the way up. The hood was folded over the neck hole, and the two sleeves were tied together over that.’’ She gazed at my Jeep, the passenger door still standing open. “And your jacket wasn’t under the seat, like you said. It was on the dashboard.’’

  A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature inched down my spine.

  “I figured you’d wrapped it up all small like that so it’d fit on your saddle. It took me a while to unfasten everything. When I did, that’s when I saw the snake.’’ She shuddered.

  “I know less about snakes than I do about horses, but they must be the acrobats of the animal world,’’ Sal said. “How the hell did he get himself all contorted inside the jacket?’’

  None of us said a word; we just stared at Sal. It took him only a moment to catch on.

  “Holy shit!’’ he said.

  ___

  Standing three people back in the potty line, I shifted my weight from foot to foot. I’m calm in a crisis. But after the threat is over, the reality of what might have happened usually hits me right in the bladder. I didn’t even want to think what might be taking so long with the big cowboy who’d closed the plastic door on one of the portable toilets a good five minutes before.

  While I waited, I thought of how kind Carlos had been with Marty. My little sister is happily married. Carlos knows that. I knew he wasn’t interested in her in that way. He’d comforted her exactly like a big brother or an uncle would. Caring. Compassionate. Platonic. As I thought about it now, it seemed awfully similar to the way he’d acted with Belle. Had I jumped to conclusions where Carlos and Lawton’s daughter were concerned?

  One of the toilets opened. Now I was two people back. I prayed my turn wouldn’t come up on the toilet the big cowboy vacated.

  Hurry, hurry, I said to myself.

  “They say that guy from Miami killed the rattlesnake with his bare hands. I heard it was six feet long.’’

  The young girl’s voice was coming from the opposite side of the toilet trailer.

  “Nuh-huh, Lauren. You’re wrong. I heard it was seven feet. And he tossed a buck knife at it and sliced it right in half.’’

  I didn’t want to lose my spot in line. But I knew if I didn’t speak to the girls, they’d turn Carlos into King of the Snake Killers before supper. Why should he get unearned credit? Craning my neck, I saw the chatty teens I’d already encountered once.

  “You’re both wrong, Amber,’’ I whispered to the closest girl. “It was me who killed the snake, and I used a cow whip, like any good Florida Cracker would.’’

  “Weren’t you scared?’’ Lauren asked me.

  “Only a fool is without fear,’’ I said, already regretting blabbing about myself.

  Amber said, “I would have been peeing my pants!”

  Which reminded me of why I was there.

  “We can talk later if you want, girls. But right now, nature calls.’’

  I was up next, and a door was swinging open. The big cowboy stepped out, waving his hat and looking sheepish.

  Ah, the joys of life on the trail.

  ___

  I held a marshmallow on a stick over the campfire. “You’re gonna love this,’’ I promised.

  “You’re burning it,’’ Carlos said.

  “Not ‘burning,’ toasting. I can’t believe you’ve never eaten a S’more.’’ I rotated the stick to finish off the top side of the marshmallow.

  “Mace, it’s black,’’ he complained. “It looks like charcoal.”

  “Trust me on this, Carlos.’’ I pulled the stick from the fire and used one half of a graham cracker to slide the marshmallow onto the other half. Topping it with a piece of a Hershey’s chocolate bar, I smashed the two crackers into a sandwich and handed it to him. “The ash only makes it taste better.’’

  He picked up the top cracker and peered inside.

  “You’re not supposed to arrest it, Carlos. You’re supposed to eat it.’’

  By the time he’d “tried’’ four more S’mores, we were both pleasantly full and floating on a sugar buzz.

  Dinner was long over. Most of the other riders had left the fire to turn in for the night. Mama and Sal were off settling Marty into a spare sleeping compartment that Mama had wrangled for her in somebody’s RV. They’d moved Mama’s horse and Sal’s Caddy to sleep closer to Marty. The poor girl had a migraine from her near-miss. She didn’t want to spend the night on the ground in a tent, and I can’t say I blamed her. She’d have lain awake all night and worried about giant rattlers. And if Marty couldn’t
sleep, neither would I, for worrying about her.

  Maddie had met up with a teacher she knew from Seminole County. The two of them were huddled together at the woman’s campsite, catching up on old times and bashing their respective school boards.

  All of us were talked out over the rattlesnake incident. We argued over who might have done it and why, and whether it was linked to my shredded tent. Then, we told the trail boss what happened. He made an announcement about it before dinner.

  “One of our riders had a run-in with a diamondback this afternoon,’’ Jack Hollister had said, mentioning no names. “There’s a chance someone might have put that snake there as a prank, or maybe as some kind of warning.’’

  Several people in the crowd gasped. Lauren and Amber stepped out of the chow line to stare at me, their eyes round as saucers.

  Jack’s stern gaze moved over the crowd. “I can’t imagine I need to say this, but I will anyway. If we find out this was intentional, the person who did it will never ride the Cracker Trail again. And we’ll hand them with pleasure over to the county sheriff’s office.’’

  Now, Carlos and I were alone by the campfire. It had burned so low it needed another log. I had two final marshmallows and half a chocolate bar left in a plastic bag.

  “Can I interest you in S’more, señor?’’

  “All that sugar is making you silly.’’ Carlos grumbled, but I saw a tiny smile cracking the granite of his jaw. “I’ll help you out and eat one more if you eat the other one.’’

  “Claro que sí,’’ I nodded, showing off some of the Spanish he’d taught me.

  This time, his smile was full-fledged. “You’re something, you know that?’’ He squeezed my shoulder. Was the touch just beyond friendly? “I still can’t get over you and that cow whip.’’

  “It was really just instinct,’’ I said, trying to sound modest. “My daddy taught me well. Back in his great-granddaddy’s day, the pioneers used their whips for everything. Scaring hogs from the garden. Snatching fruit from trees. Signaling danger on the open range or between far-flung homesteads. You know, the whip’s crack will carry a mile or more through the woods.’’