Rawhide Robinson Rides a Dromedary

by Rod Miller

  The Americans all but melted into the weathered stones of the buildings lining the alleyway where their hostage, still nursing a headache, led them. He indicated a rough lumber door inset into a dim archway as the place the sailors were secreted. Captain Clemmons shoved their prisoner into the archway then retreated around the corner. Rawhide Robinson and Ensign Ian Scott hid behind the opposite side of the arch; the captain stood with Major Wayne.

  Ensign Scott prodded the Mafioso with his rifle barrel, and, as instructed, he pounded on the door. A peephole slid open and the prisoner gave the password—under threat from the Americans that if he tried anything untoward, his next breath would be his last.

  The door cracked open, then flung wide when the captain, the major, the ensign, and the cowboy burst through, shoving their captive ahead. A few sailors followed while others, assigned to watch for approaching danger, stayed as much out of sight as possible in the narrow alley.

  The two guards in the room were taken completely by surprise, raising their hands immediately in surrender. Ensign Scott herded them into a corner. Rawhide Robinson laid a boot heel into an inner door, which sprung open to reveal the snatched seamen huddled in the corner of a fetid cesspool of a room the size of a backhouse. Shading their eyes from the shaft of light streaming through the shattered door, the men blinked and squinted until the silhouette of the cowboy in his thirteen-gallon hat came into focus.

  “Rawhide Robinson!” some one of them said.

  “Thank goodness you found us!” said another.

  “Oh, it weren’t only me,” the cowboy said, staring at the toes of his boots as they scratched and scraped at the cold stone floor. “The captain, and the others, they’re here, too.”

  As if in response to the introduction, Clemmons hollered from the other room. “Let’s go, men—on the double and look sharp!”

  “I reckon he’s right, boys,” Rawhide Robinson said. “We’d best beat it back to the boat.”

  “Ship,” Ensign Scott said from the other room.

  As they made their way with haste toward the waterfront, shouts and hollers echoed through the streets and alleys as word spread among members of the outlaw gang that a business opportunity was slipping away. Running feet reverberated as the hoodlums hurriedly spread the word and rounded up their ranks to prevent their ransom from escaping.

  But, within minutes, the USS Cordwood cast off and was underway, with its full complement of officers and crew. And as they drifted out of the harbor, unfurling sails in search of a favorable wind, the abandoned wharf teemed with tempestuous members of La Cosa Nostra, venting their frustration at the loss of a payday.

  And, as seemed to Rawhide Robinson the norm in the port city of Palermo, the men shouted with their arms and hands as much as their voices.

  “Gentlemen, we sail for Smyrna,” Captain Clemmons said as the ruction receded. “Our cargo awaits!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  * * *

  With the cargo offloaded and the decks of the USS Cordwood vacant, Major Benjamin Wayne pursued the completion of camel quarters with exuberance as they sailed toward Smyrna. With less than a week to complete, the work proceeded apace. The bulkheads that would enclose stalls below decks were completed, and serious construction commenced on the main deck.

  Wayne and the sailor crew assigned to the task pored over the officer’s carefully considered plans and detailed drawings and as the hours and days passed what could only be called a barn appeared on the main deck. Nearly sixty feet long and twelve wide, each stall in the barn included a porthole for fresh air, as well as a roof hatch that could be opened in fair weather for further ventilation.

  “I do declare, Major Wayne, I ain’t never seen such plush accommodations for livestock,” Rawhide Robinson said. “Even fancy-bred horses don’t get no better than this. I’ve half a mind to move in myself.”

  Wayne laughed, and advised that while the stable might seem fitting at present, it would be less appealing once permeated with the stench of camels.

  The cowboy allowed as how that might well be the case, but that eventuality did not dampen his admiration for the dromedary lodgings. “How did you come by your understanding of what would be needed? I don’t reckon I could even guess how to care for camels on a boat.”

  Ensign Ian Scott, standing nearby, reminded Rawhide Robinson that the appropriate terminology was “ship,” not “boat.”

  “When assigned to this mission, I corresponded at length with counterparts in the French and English armies who had experience utilizing camels in military operations. While they offered invaluable assistance and advice in many areas, no one had experience shipping ‘ships of the desert’ on ships,” Wayne said. “To tell the truth, Mr. Robinson, this is solely my own invention. Nothing of the sort has ever been done before, so far as I have been able to ascertain. It may well prove to be misguided and wrong in every respect.”

  Rawhide Robinson tipped back his thirteen-gallon hat and contemplated the construction. “I don’t believe that will be the case,” the cowboy said. “Looks to me like the camels ought to be content so long as their bellies are full.”

  “I surely hope so. If they are agitated or upset in transit, it could prove unfavorable to their health—and ours. I can only imagine—but imagine I have, from every angle I can come up with—what might happen if a herd of angry camels broke out and rampaged around the ship at sea. I’m not a navy man, but I suspect a mutiny would be a more inviting prospect.”

  Ensign Scott said, “Mister Rawhide. Major Wayne, follow me to starboard if you will. The men have informed me there’s something you might like to see.”

  And, indeed, it was something to see.

  Across a wide expanse of the Mediterranean Sea, fish were flying out of the water and sailing across the sky, slicing back into the sea to rise again, wings unfurled. Several members of the crew lined the rail, entranced. Likewise, the cowboy and army officer.

  “What on earth. . . .” Major Wayne whispered.

  “Cheilopogon heterurus. Mediterranean Flying Fish,” the encyclopedic ensign said.

  “I have never seen anything like it,” Wayne said.

  “They are of the family Exocoetidae, and one of many varieties of flying fish,” Scott said. “Representatives exist in the warmer waters of most all the oceans.”

  “Fish with wings. Who’d have thought . . .”

  “Actually, sir, the wings are enlarged pectoral fins. That, and other adaptations in the fishes’ physical makeup, allow it to lift off the surface and glide for half a minute or more.”

  “If Rawhide Robinson here had told me such a thing, I’d have written it off as one of the cockamamie tales he regales the sailors with. By the way, Robinson, have you ever seen flying fish before?”

  “Only once,” the cowboy said with a sly smile, “when I was riding horseback to Hawaii.”

  Silence hung heavy in the air as the major, the ensign, and every sailor in the vicinity considered the cowboy’s claim. He allowed them to contemplate for a time, then continued. “That’s an experience I’ll have to tell you about sometime. One thing’s for sure, though. There’s plenty of strange critters on this here earth. Critters with wings that fly, fins that swim, legs that walk, bellies that crawl—why, I’ve even seen creatures with wheels!”

  Flying fish forgotten, the assembled crowd launched a chorus of complaints concerning the veracity of the cowboy’s claim. In further discussion, they concurred there were numerous examples of flying, swimming, walking, creeping, and crawling creatures. But the skeptical congregation drew the line at rolling.

  “I tell you, it’s true!” Rawhide Robinson said.

  “Couldn’t be!”

  “No way!”

  “Not a chance!”

  “Can’t happen!”

  So came the replies, along with others unsuitable for repetition. These men were, after all, sailors—famous for a vocabulary as rich as it is rude, coarse, vulgar, impolite, ill-mannered, u
nrefined, and uncouth.

  Rawhide Robinson stuck to his guns. “I’ve seen it, I tell you, with my own eyes.”

  “Where?”

  “When?”

  “How?”

  And other such questions rained down.

  “You-all calm down some and I’ll tell you about it,” he said. “Somebody get me a cup of coffee, if you please. On second thought, make it cool water. There’s parts of this story that get a man mighty hot.”

  Following irrigation of his vocal cords and a suitable interval, the cowboy set the scene. “How many of you boys has ever seen a prairie fire?”

  A few sailors with roots in the heartland allowed they had.

  “Then you-all know what kind of catastrophes one of them conflagrations can cause. Smoke and flames and heat that’ll melt the spots off a pinto pony. And them fires move across the prairie faster than a hot Bowie knife through bear grease. Why, you can’t believe the country they’ll consume.

  “As that French feller François de La Rochefoucauld wrote, ‘Neither love nor fire can subsist without perpetual motion.’ Now, I won’t offer an opinion so far as love is concerned, but that Frenchie sure had it right with brush and grass fires. They’ve got to keep moving to keep burning, and the more they burn the faster they move. And when a wind comes up, like it ’most always does on the plains, that only makes it worse.”

  “Hold it right there, cowboy!” some sailor said. “What’s that you said about some Frenchman?”

  “It don’t make no never mind. I mention him as the author of a few words of wisdom wrenched from the recesses of my mind to support a point.”

  “Yeah, but what was his name?”

  Ensign Ian Scott jumped into the conversation. “François de La Rochefoucauld. A French writer. Not that it matters, sailor. Let Mr. Rawhide share his story!”

  “Yes!” came the call from the chorus of seafarers.

  “Well, here’s the deal. One time I was punching cows for this high-plains outfit with range in parts of three states. So I can’t say for sure which political subdivision was the site of this particular inferno. Like as not, it scorched shrubs and torched grass in all three states. And, the way it was moving, it may well have burned on into several more.

  “Anyhow, I was ridin’ circle and pushing strays back toward the home range when I seen this curtain of smoke on the horizon. I knew it was trouble, as it stretched side to side far as I could see. Before I could say ‘Holy smokes!’ the flames peeked over the horizon, chasin’ sparks into the sky and eatin’ grass off the ground faster’n a gaggle of Canada geese.

  “Now, as you would expect, that fire swept every critter right off the range ahead of it. As I sat there takin’ in the sight, jack rabbits started hopping past. Here come whole herds of deer, bunches of buffalo, a passel of elk, a band of wild mustangs, gangs of antelope, and whole herds of cattle. Even little critters was high-tailing it out of there—prairie dogs and pocket gophers, packrats and grasshoppers. And there was every kind of bird you can imagine winging its way away from the flames. There was crows and kestrels, meadowlarks and mourning doves, cedar waxwings and sandhill cranes, burrowing owls and barn swallows. I swear, boys, I even saw a rare loggerhead shrike—more commonly known on the plains as the butcher bird—fly by.”

  Sailor and officer alike sat riveted to Rawhide Robinson’s every word, the fascination with flocks of flying fish forgotten in the intensity of his tale.

  The cowboy sipped some more water, removed his thirteen-gallon hat and used his bandana to mop sweat from his brow—perspiration prompted, no doubt, by the recollection of heat from the flames stirred up by his story.

  “Now, that’s all well and good, so far as critters with legs and wings and such go. But what about them that creep and crawl and slither and slink? Now, I ain’t no fan of rattlesnakes, but the fact is the plains are plenty plentiful with them castanet carriers and if you’re going to be spending time out there, you got no choice but to put up with them. And the very thought of acres and acres of torched prairie eels is enough to put a feller off his feed.

  “As it turns out, I needn’t have worried.”

  Again, Rawhide Robinson paused in his telling to pat his pate dry and run water down his throat.

  Again, he allowed the lapse to extend until tension in the crowd was palpable. Crumbling under the pressure, the sailors and officers protested.

  “Get on with it!”

  “And then?”

  “Tell the tale!”

  “What happened next?”

  And so on.

  The cowboy mopped and sipped another time, then talked on.

  “Them snakes can’t fly, as you know. They can’t walk, neither, seeing as how they lack legs. They can slither along plenty fast, as you’re sure to learn should one ever take after you or if you try to chase one down. But that sort of locomotion—a word I lately picked up from Major Wayne, by the way—is only good for short distances, and not much help when it comes to avoiding fangs of fire on the prairie.

  “So them snakes found another way. At first, I didn’t know what I was seeing. Then, I didn’t believe what I was seeing. But I’ll swear to it as sure as seawater’s salty that I seen what I saw.

  “And what I saw was wheels.”

  A collective gasp rose from the assembled crowd with an intake of air so intense it temporarily luffed the sails on the USS Cordwood’s masts.

  “When I saw the first one of them wheels rolling toward me, I thought maybe somebody in a buggy or wagon was whippin’ up the team to escape the flames, hit a prairie dog hole, and jarred loose a wheel.

  “But then I saw another one coming. And another. Then another. And still another. Then more. And more. And still more. Pretty soon, there was wheels rolling across that prairie right and left. And they came in all sizes. Some big, some little. Some large, some small. Some short, some tall.

  “They was snakes, boys. Snakes. Not only rattlesnakes, but rat snakes, bull snakes, garter snakes, brown snakes, copperhead snakes, bull-nosed snakes, water snakes, glossy snakes, coachwhip snakes, racer snakes, black-head snakes, king snakes, red-bellied snakes, ring-necked snakes, green snakes, king snakes, milk snakes, worm snakes, and all kinds of other snakes I had never seen before nor seen since. And they kept on wheelin’ and rollin’ and rollin’ and wheelin’ right along.

  “It was obvious what they had done—when they saw they couldn’t slither away from them flames, they swallowed their tails and wriggled their way upright and commenced to roll. Worked right well, too. They was outrunning that fire in fine fashion.”

  Rawhide Robinson rose from his squat against the starboard rail and moseyed over to the water bucket for a refill. After refreshing his parched palate, he feigned surprise at seeing the crowd still assembled. “That’s it, boys. That’s the story. If you ain’t inclined to believe it”—his surmise based on the befuddled looks on the sailors’ faces—“I can only say it’s as true as any word I’ve ever spoken. And should you ever find yourself on the high plains out West, you’ll notice for yourselves that there are plenty of snakes slinking about, which fact only signifies the accuracy of my account.”

  “It ain’t that, cowboy,” some sailor said.

  Said another, “Whether your story is true or not, it ain’t over.”

  Now it was Rawhide Robinson’s turn to look befuddled. “Whatever can you mean?”

  Several sailors spoke at once, rendering Rawhide Robinson helpless to ravel out the thread of the question from the tangle. “Hold on, boys! You can’t all talk at once and expect me to hear what you’re saying.”

  One raised his arms, signaling the others to silence. “Here’s the thing,” he said when he had calmed the crowd. “You left yourself out there on the prairie with that fire bearing down on you. How did you escape incineration?”

  “Oh, that,” the cowboy said. He tipped back his thirteen-gallon hat and continued. “Well, I had sat there dumbstruck over what was happening for so long that there
wasn’t any way I was going to be able to ride out of there—even if the horse I was ridin’ was a fast one, which he was.

  “So I rode to the top of a little rise—you couldn’t call it a hill, as there weren’t any hills in that country—to wait. When that fire’s flames started lickin’ at the grass close by, I took down my lariat and shook out a loop. I spun it overhead, feeding it more slack with every turn. Once it got to a sufficient size, I spun out the spoke to turn it to a flat loop and let it drop down close to the ground around me and my horse.

  “Then it was a matter of spinning it faster and faster and faster until it whipped up a wind like one of them tornado twisters. That blasting breeze beat back the flames, and held off the heat while I increased the velocity of the rotation till I feared the centrifugal—or is it centripetal?—force would rip my arm right off. But, it didn’t—only stretched it out six inches or so. Took seven months, two weeks and four days to shrink back to its normal size, by the way.”

  “Get on with it!” an impatient seaman said.

  “Well, boys, as it happened me and that horse lifted off the earth and rode the vortex of my reata tornado to safety.”

  With that, raconteur Rawhide Robinson rambled down the nearest hatch, leaving the skeptical sailors scratching their heads and discussing, debating, and disputing the truthfulness of the tale.

  Despite the sailors’ skepticism, even downright disbelief, in the days to come Rawhide Robinson could not help but notice length after length of shipboard rope converted to lariats, and sailors standing inside circles of hemp attempting to master the art of spinning the flat loop.