Hey, Cowgirl, Need a Ride?

by Baxter Black

  “Oh, I just thought I might try and persuade her one more time to tell us where the money is,” answered F. Rank.

  “It won’t do any good now. I’ve given them both a little sedative cocktail, which should last until morning. Besides, I’m afraid we are going to be much too busy to worry about her while we’ve got guests to attend to.”

  “Oh,” answered F. Rank, who was sinking into a deep depression.

  “Do not weaken on me now, F. Rank. We have a magnificent day ahead of us. I have paired you with the Wall Street banker, who has asked to be called Count Downs. He has chosen to hunt the clouded leopard using the machine-gun motorcycle. A good choice, a worthy adversary.”

  Ponce put his arm around F. Rank and steered him back toward the atrium and their rooms.

  Cody followed them at a safe distance. When he reached his room he inserted the key card, took a deep breath, and opened the door. The pungent, tangy smell of a women’s aerobic class assailed his nostrils.

  61

  DECEMBER 13: MORNING OF THE HUNT

  Day broke over an anthill of activity at Ponce Park. A Cessna-eye view showed a large field buzzing with vehicles, horses, and people in quasimilitary uniforms crawling over the landscape. Large outside lights burned bright holes in the gray of morning.

  Cody and Chrisantha walked down the hall into the atrium. He was wearing, as per his wardrobe request, khaki hunting pants, an insulated shooting shirt with suede elbows and shoulder patch, a baseball cap, and his own boots. She was dressed in army issue desert camouflage pants and shirt, and was wearing black lace-up army boots. A matching bill cap and mirror aviator sunglasses completed her trappings. They looked ready to invade Normandy.

  “Something to eat?” he asked.

  “Vel, shure,” she said, smiling. “I’m really quite hungry.”

  They picked and tasted their way through the exotic breakfast buffet, trying the Galapagos-turtle-egg soufflé, dolphin tongue, and a side of cured, smoked Przewalksi’s horse meat.

  “Vat do you think?” she asked, savoring the tenderloin of San Joaquin kit fox.

  “Lick taught me you can eat anything if you put enough Miracle Whip on it,” he said, slathering a dollop on a fillet of short-nosed sucker.

  F. Rank Pantaker spotted them at their table and came over.

  “How y’all doin’ this mornin’?” he boomed.

  “We’re fine,” said Cody.

  “I’ll bet you are,” smiled F. Rank, leering at Chrisantha. She smiled back.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get to come visit with you personally, but what with you bein’ in Zurich and Antwerp and Wall Street and all those places hangin’ out with them socialist foreigners, I couldn’t keep track of you! Ha, ha! Just as well, you sendin’ the money. Hope everything is to your likin’,” he said, winking toward Chrisantha. “Oh, and we got the clouded leopard lined up. All the way from Borneo, I think. They’re little boogers, no bigger’n a coyote. Pretty fast, but if we can get him up a tree it’ll be a snap. Anyway, the whole fifty sections is fenced, so, worse comes to worst, we can corner him. We got radio collars on all the big cats anyway, so trackin’ him won’t take all day. . . . I see the little lady is goin’ with ya, right?”

  Cody nodded.

  “Good. When yer ready, we can go over to the staging field and pick up your mode of transportation.”

  “I’m ready,” said Cody.

  “If you gentlemen vill excuse me, I vill join you in a few minutes,” said Chrisantha, rising and wiping her lips.

  “Shorley, ma’am,” said F. Rank graciously. “Follow me, Count,” he said, and they headed toward the staging area.

  62

  DECEMBER 13: PIKE PEAKS

  T.A. stirred and the pain of her bruises and scrapes came to life. Her arms had been untied and she found herself lying on the bed. Lick lay beside her under his own blanket, tied to the bed frame by his neck and ankle. He was snoring peacefully. She sat up against the headboard with some difficulty. The room was getting light. There was a clock on the wall: 9:01 a.m.

  T.A. looked around the room. She saw Pike sitting in a straight chair beside the top of the stairs. He was watching her.

  “What now?” she asked Pike. He made no reply.

  Ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Pike rose and opened it. A tall blonde woman dressed in army fatigues stood in the doorway, a large tray in her hands.

  “They sent me here to see if you vould like some brakefest.” She smiled and looked at T.A. “You and the nice lady.”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Pike. “Put it there on the table.”

  Chrisantha strode across the room. “Monsieur de Crayon hopes you all had a very good night’s sleep,” she said.

  “You saw him?” asked Pike.

  “Ya, I yust delivered him some cappuccino in his office. He vas talking vit a man vat looked like Saddam Hussein. Anyvay, he vants you all to eat something.” Chrisantha uncovered the large tray she was carrying. A smell of bacon and cinnamon rolls filled the air.

  “Who vould like caffe?” she asked, holding up a large pot.

  “Well, I dang sure could use somethin’ for a headache,” observed Lick, now awake and trying to push himself into a sitting position. The rope around his ankle prevented it, so he lay on his side.

  “I think you better go,” said Pike. “I’ll serve the . . . these people.”

  “You don’t have to vorry, mister. Ponce has told me they are being detained for the authorities,” Chrisantha explained.

  “I’m not sure you should stay,” said Pike, worriedly.

  “Vell, if you don’t vant me here, I can go. Vould you like some caffe? You look tired.” She poured a cup. “Cream and sugar?” she asked Pike.

  He studied her a moment. “No. Black,” he said.

  Chrisantha served a plate of breakfast to both Lick and T.A.

  “Reckon you could untie either my neck or my ankle, so’s I could sit up?” Lick asked Pike.

  “Nope,” answered Pike.

  Lick and T.A. ate with gusto and each drank two bottles of water. Lick had to use the chamber pot as well. Chrisantha offered Pike a sweet roll. He declined, choosing to drink his coffee and watch the others.

  “Are you two man and wife?” Chrisantha asked the couple tied in bed.

  “No questions,” instructed Pike. He continued to stare at Lick.

  “Why don’t you ask him, Pike,” said T.A.

  “What?” asked Lick.

  T.A. looked at Lick and said, “Pike there thinks you’re a hero.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “He said you rode that bull.”

  “Don’t amount to a hill of beans now,” Lick mumbled.

  “You can’t say that,” T.A. said. “Tell him, Pike. He can’t say that, can he?”

  The pause hung in the air.

  “Nope,” said Pike. “He can’t. Nobody that did what he did can say it didn’t matter.”

  Lick’s forkful of Denver omelette hung in the air. He took a hard look at Pike and spoke. “Look at me now, Pike. Two years ago I was king of the mountain, now I’m workin’ on a cow outfit on the edge of nowhere, prob’ly not now, they’ve done fired me, I’m sure. Bein’ chased by a bunch of thugs that I don’t even know. Maybe two friends to my name, if I could think of another one, and not knowin’ what I’m gonna do tomorrow whether I get outta here or not. That buckle don’t mean diddly-squat if ya don’t have yer act together. I couldn’t even buy this breakfast if they handed me the check. How’s that for a hero?” Lick concluded matter-of-factly.

  T.A. stared at Lick. “Well, aren’t you the whiner.”

  “Hold on, Mrs. Pantaker,” said Pike.

  “You shut up, Pike,” snapped T.A. “I’ve got more invested in this man than anybody here, and if he’s a world champion—”

  “He only won the average,” interjected Pike.

  “If he’s a world champion, that doesn’t say much for the sport of rodeo. You probably d
on’t deserve that buckle,” she said to Lick.

  “Yes, he does,” said Pike, curtly. “He deserves it. I don’t care what else he does, or is doin’, or has done, he rode Kamikaze. He rode him like he owned him. He gave us all a day in the sun. Every fifty-dollar-a-day puncher, every gunsel, every wannabe, everybody that’s doin’ day work at the feed store or drivin’ a truck ’cause he can’t afford to be a cowboy. Say what you want, Missus, but you can’t take that buckle away from him. No sir. He earned it—the hard way. I know. I saw him do it.”

  The room was stunned to silence. T.A. stared at Pike open-mouthed. Lick was blushing.

  Chrisantha knelt down beside Pike’s chair. She put her hand on his leg and looked at his face. She had tears in her eyes.

  A volley of gunshots broke the mood. Several big booms and some smaller fire continued. The sound of vehicles rumbling and engines being revved added to the cacophony. An unintelligible voice over a loudspeaker crackled in and out.

  “They’re moving out,” said T.A. “Let us go, Pike. There’s enough decency left in you to do the right thing.”

  “What do you know about the right thing?” asked Pike, still irked at her criticism of Lick. “’Member, I’ve been watching your act for . . . what, two years, now?”

  “You’re right. You’re absolutely right,” she answered. “And that’s the reason for my stealing the money and escaping F. Rank’s prison. It was never about the money. Heck, I’d give it back right now if they’d stop the hunt. But they won’t. I’m just trying, for once in my life, to do the right thing. So I can look at myself in the mirror and not be ashamed. I’m ashamed for you, too, Pike. I think there’s a good man, a good cowboy, still inside you somewhere. And if I can find the grit to change my life, you can, too.”

  Chrisantha was kneading Pike’s leg gently and still looking at him. He placed his hand over hers. She stopped kneading. He didn’t lift his hand. He seemed frozen in thought.

  Finally Lick said, unrhetorically, “You wanna know what I think?”

  Pike, who’d been staring into the space behind them, focused his eyes on Lick and answered, “Yeah. I would like to know what you think.”

  “I think she’s a better man than either one of us . . . that’s what I think.”

  Pike stared at Lick. All the posturing and pride washed out between them as they held eye contact. Lick’s last humiliatingly honest observation sank to the naked heart of Pike’s discontent. He took a deep breath and exhaled. “I couldn’t have said it better.”

  Chrisantha leaped onto Pike and knocked his chair over backwards! She had her arms around him and was kissing him like a toilet plunger doing CPR!

  63

  DECEMBER 13: CHARGE!

  Pike and Chrisantha untied T.A. and Lick and found their boots. They all ran downstairs and raided the workers’ locker room. Lick easily found a nice down jacket with a fur collar and some work gloves. Somehow his cowboy hat had made it to the tower. T.A.’s choice was not as wide. The lockers were used mostly by men.

  Pike ran back upstairs and returned in a minute. “Maybe this will fit!” he said, holding up a red-and-black matador’s jacket elaborately embroidered with silver brocade. “It was in Ponce’s costume closet. There’s a cape, too!”

  T.A. had been holding a long white lab coat. “Let me try it on,” she said, taking the heavy chaqueta from Pike and putting it on over the khaki shirt. “A little long in the sleeve but warm enough, especially with this here,” she said, pulling on the lab coat.

  “Take these,” said Lick, handing T.A. a pair of work gloves.

  They were ready. The four of them headed for the door. They could hear the roaring and revving of engines getting louder.

  Meanwhile, on the staging field, Cody had chosen one of the motorcycles. F. Rank preferred to ride in one of the big pickups. He switched on the handheld receiver that would monitor the signals from the radio-collar transmitter on the clouded leopard. He was also in radio contact with Cody through the custom-made headset built into the motorcycle helmet.

  “We’re moving out, Count Downs,” F. Rank crackled over the walkie-talkie on channel 7.

  “Go ahead,” Cody responded. “I’ve got to run behind the barn!”

  “I’ll wait,” said F. Rank.

  “Just drive slow,” said Cody. “It’ll just take a second!”

  “Okay,” said F. Rank. “They won’t release the leopard until we give them the signal.”

  Cody wheeled his big dirt bike back toward the tower building. He dismounted and raced to the door. Just as he reached for the handle, the door swung open, knocking him back. The helmet he was wearing absorbed the blow but he still staggered.

  As T.A. pushed through the door she shouted, “Grab him, we’ll take his motorcycle!” Pike followed her through and delivered a hard punch to Cody’s stomach. It doubled him over. The air went out of his lungs as he dropped to his knees.

  “Vait!” cried Chrisantha. “It’s Countdowns!”

  “Who?” yelled T.A.

  “Countdowns, I mean, Rory! Cory! Colby! Your friend! Vat’s his name!”

  “Cody?” asked Lick.

  “Ya! Cody! Countdowns, the hunting poster,” she confirmed, not understanding the fine line between poster and imposter.

  Lick helped pull the helmet off while Cody gasped for air.

  “The . . . hunt’s begun,” Cody wheezed. “Why did you hit me?”

  “I didn’t,” said Lick. “Pike did. Why were you wearing a helmet, anyway?”

  “That’s enough!” shouted T.A. “Is this your friend, Lick?”

  “Yeah . . . Cody,” Lick explained. “He and I intercepted one of the official hunters. Cody took his identity and—” Then Lick remembered where he had seen Chrisantha. “And you.” He looked at Chrisantha. “That’s what you’ve been tryin’ to tell us, that Cody’s—”

  Chrisantha interrupted, “Ya, that’s Countdowns, I mean Coty, he’s already unfiltered the hunting trip and is waiting for us to escape, so you can rescue the girl, this girl here.”

  “Did he tell you that this girl here, Teddie, is going to stop the hunt?” Lick asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said questioningly. “I think ve vas mostly to save the girl.”

  T.A. dove into the breach. “Boys and ma’am, I have been through hell and Mountain City to stop this hunt. There is still time. I am going to take that horse and with a gun or a knife or my fingernails I am going to mess up Ponce’s day. Any help would be appreciated. Where do you stand, Pike?”

  “I’m with you, Mrs. Pantaker,” he said.

  “You may call me Teddie,” she said politely.

  “And I,” spoke up Chrisantha, sliding up next to Pike and putting her arm through his, “am vit him.”

  T.A. looked back toward the field and the cloud of dust beyond. Two company pickups were still parked in the staging area along with a gas truck, a beer wagon, and an ambulance. “Okay,” she said, “Pike, you—”

  They all heard the noise at the same time. It was a distant rumble, the sound of vehicles at high speed. Horns honking, but in the opposite direction of the staging hunters.

  Lick ran over to the Cyclone fence gate that allowed big trucks into Ponce Park. It had a lock the size of a ham hanging on an equally oversized chain. Lick peered through the fence to see the cause of the uproar. It was a conglomeration of pickups, horse trailers, U-Haul trailers, cars, and at least two semis in procession.

  The first pickup came speeding up to the main entrance. The driver suddenly swerved to his left and came directly toward Lick. Lick’s first thought was to turn and run, but then he saw a body lean out of the passenger-side window. It was waving a beer. It was the old man.

  The car slid to a stop sideways in front of the gate.

  “Al! It’s you! I’d fergot all about you!” said Lick in surprise.

  “Yessir, my young rodeo mongrel, I have arrived with reinforcements!” exclaimed the old man. “When does the party begin?”
/>   “They just left, Al. We’re fixin’ to chase ’em and muck up the hunt,” replied Lick.

  “Well, open the gate, pawdner, we’ll just go with ya!” said Al.

  “She’s locked,” said Lick.

  “Stand back, take the women and children, and cover yer eyes!” proclaimed the old man.

  They watched while the old man directed his chauffeur to back up along the line of vehicles that were idling in the immediate area.

  Suddenly T.A. and Lick heard a diesel engine rattle and catch. They turned back toward the staging field to see the gasoline truck, a ten-wheeler, swinging in their direction. Before Al could give the command, Pike, behind the wheel of the gas truck, put one right down the center.

  It tore through the gate! Great screeching noises accompanied the blowing apart of the wire, aluminum, and steel. Pike had a smile on his face. Chrisantha squeezed his knee.

  Within ten minutes all the old man’s army had passed through the mangled gate and were in the staging field. They quickly commandeered the two pickups and the ambulance.

  “This fine assemblage,” the old man was expounding to Lick, Cody, and T.A., “is the Old Timer Rodeo Cowboys Association, the Turtles, along with a few specialty acts and . . . the Rodeo Clown Reunion. If lies, exaggerations, broken bones, forgotten rides, and just-outta-the-moneys were flammable, this bunch could heat London for a fortnight! Just tell us the battle plan, General Custer, and we will charge the beachhead, swim the Ganges, scale Mount Olympus, and defeat the foe, five, and six of ’em! All ye need do, Fair Miss, is purnt the way!”

  “Cody,” T.A. turned to him and asked, “have you got a plan?”

  Cody considered his answer, then spoke. “They all left this point right here and fanned out. Each hunter has his prey preselected and the guide can find their particular beast by tuning in to its radio-collar transmissions. The birds, too, I reckon, have a collar, but they have their wings clipped so they can’t fly too good, anyway—”

  “Listen, Cody, my son,” suggested Al, leaning out of his pickup window, “what say we just sic the cavalry on ’em and go fer broke.”