Hey, Cowgirl, Need a Ride?

by Baxter Black

  Qpid d’Art and her entourage of seven had turned away from the designated skeet-shooting range and joined the guide and two drivers who were watching the approach of the horsemen.

  Teddie Arizona, with her white lab coat flowing out behind her, mounted on the Arab horse, looked like Lawrence of Arabia’s nurse. Several yards behind her, in a thin company front, rode her companions.

  “It’s a girl!” said one of the drivers, lowering his binoculars.

  “Is somebody else allowed to shoot at the eagles?” asked Lefty “Lime Green” Jefferson, one of Qpid’s hulking bodyguards.

  “No. We’re not expecting anyone,” said the guide. He looked at one of the drivers. “Check with car one, we’re in section twenty, and see if there is a party on horseback that’s supposed to be here.” He turned back to see T.A. within a hundred yards.

  “The eagles are fine,” assured the guide. “We’ll wait and see what’s going on here, then we’ll get back to the hunt. Everybody that Miz d’Art says will be able to take a shot. We’ve got eight of them altogether, plus some pygmy owls and koalas at the next stop.”

  “Oooh,” said one of the girls in the entourage, “I’ve got a koala Beanie Baby! Now I’ll have the real thing! I think I’ll, like, stuff ’em, ya know, and maybe have a, you know, like, a family unit, ya know. Cool.”

  “Shut up, Azure Blue,” said Qpid, without rancor. Qpid had chosen her hunting wear from the Neiman Marcus army-surplus department. Her fatigue pants with big pockets on the side were tucked inside combat boots that had gold lamé designs embossed on the toes and peppermint-stick shoelaces. The tails of the large polka-dot scarf tied around her head flapped in the breeze like streamers on a main-sail mast. But the pièce de résistance was the combination fur-lined pullover vest and hunting bodice with sewn-on bandoleras. It was as if Pancho Villa, Rambo, and Aretha Franklin had colluded to out-Cher Cher.

  Teddie Arizona rode up on the group, signaling her backup riders to stop where they were.

  “May I help you?” asked the guide politely. He was a handsome man in his thirties, wearing khaki short pants and a camouflage jacket with many pockets. He sported a Pharaoh’s Casino baseball cap and aviator sunglasses. He was the kind of person you’d expect to see doing security at the Rocky Mountain Elk Club annual meeting.

  “Yes. I am Mrs. F. Rank Pantaker and I have come to discuss the gravity of what you are doing.”

  “Mrs. Pantaker?” asked the guide.

  The driver, also wearing a company ball cap, leaned out of the Suburban window and said, “Nobody answers F. Rank’s radio, and de Crayon told us he had a special shooter and would be out of contact. Let me see if—”

  “She says she’s Mrs. Pantaker,” interrupted the guide.

  “Well, I don’t know. I just work here,” said the driver. “Wait a minute, somebody’s callin’.”

  Muffled radio transmission and a conversation could be heard coming from the dashboard. The driver stuck his head out the window and reported, “It’s Valter, you know, that works for Pantaker. I think he went with one of the hunters. He says if it’s Mrs. Pantaker then we should detain her immediately. And he is firm about it.”

  “What!” exclaimed the guide.

  “Arrest her, he says!”

  “Who says?” asked the guide.

  “Valter!”

  T.A. sat calmly on her horse during the conversation.

  The guide started to raise his gun when he heard a shotgun shell ratchet into a chamber. It is a distinctive sound and will stop one in their gun-raising.

  Qpid held her Mossberg 10-gauge full-choke level with her waist, but pointing in the direction of the guide.

  “I think I’d like to hear what she has to say,” said Qpid.

  “Thank you,” said T.A. “I’m sorry I don’t recognize you, ma’am, but you seem to be in charge here. I assume you have paid my husband and Ponce de Crayon a million dollars to hunt endangered species.”

  Qpid scrutinized T.A.

  T.A. continued, “Yes, I know all about it. I was there while they were planning this whole horrendous weekend. I have nothing against hunting, but what they’re doing, and involving you in, is absolutely illegal, and not a very decent thing to be doing. I assume also that you have money to burn and you can afford to take your friends out for a good time. What are you shooting here?” she asked.

  “Bald eagles, pygmy owls, and some kind of stork,” answered Qpid.

  “Whooping crane,” interjected the guide.

  “What are you going to do with the whooping crane once you shoot it?” asked T.A.

  “Whoop it!” interjected one of her peanut gallery.

  “What’s it to you, and what business is it of yours, anyway?” asked Qpid.

  T.A. was trying to think of a good reason that might connect with this hardened rock star in front of her. She resorted to the truth.

  “It’s nothing to me, really, and it’s . . . everything at the same time.”

  Qpid looked at her, puzzled.

  “She’s a delusional paranoid schizophrenic,” observed the hypochondriac in Qpid’s entourage, with a giggle.

  Qpid continued to look at T.A.

  “I used to be like you,” began T.A. “I had no core, I valued nothing, I took money for favors, I bought what I thought I needed. I partied hardy. But after a while I found that what I really needed couldn’t be bought. So I changed my life and gave up everything I had that money could buy, and found what I really needed— self-respect. And you just happened to be caught in the middle of me taking my life back.

  “Am I going to stop you from killing these endangered species? Yes, I am. I don’t even know how, but I will, because this is the hill that I’m willing to die on. And I am betting that you won’t shoot me. Am I wrong?”

  The moment was pregnant with expectation.

  “My gosh, that’s about the best speech I’ve heard since Brigham kicked the domino players out of the temple,” said Posthole Jones, recidivist Mormon.

  “Lookie yonder comin’!” shouted one of the entourage.

  A cloud of dust was heading in their direction at high speed.

  T.A. never dropped Qpid’s gaze. T.A. was quivering slightly.

  Qpid slowly looked around at her entourage. She was a long way from her childhood in the backyard of Detroit. The only reason that her entourage, the dependents clinging to her shirttail, were here today, and not in jail for dealing drugs, prostitution, robbery, or car theft, was because she herself had fed their habits to keep them off the streets. Her mother was raising her two children, her managers were spending her money, her friends were smoking her pot, and her stud was two-timing her with her makeup girl. This madwoman on a horse had just shined the naked light of day into her soul, and found it empty. Not surprisingly, Qpid had known it all along. A fleeting consideration of the half million she’d laid out in down payment caused her a moment’s pause. People magazine had estimated her worth at $160 million. She shook her head and grinned slightly. Is this party worth takin’ this crazy white chick out? she wondered. Not today, Sister, not today.

  “Back in the truck, everybody, we’re done here,” instructed Qpid.

  A chorus of oohs and aws immediately rose from the group, as from children being told to go get ready for bed.

  “Maybe you better give me that gun,” Qpid said to the guide.

  “You sure you don’t want to shoot just one?” the guide asked her graciously. Then he noticed the shotgun she held was pointing below his belt buckle.

  “Eagle, I mean!” he blurted, blushing.

  “Positive,” she said. Then she turned back to T.A. and said, “You go, girl!”

  67

  DECEMBER 13: LANCEL LOTT AND DUNE BUGGY TIGER

  Meanwhile, in section 32, Lancel Lott, twenty-four-year-old number-three pro football draft pick from Rolling Hills, California, sat watching two guides unload a dune buggy with balloon tires, headers, a roll bar, and no windshield from the back of their one-t
on flatbed.

  “Man, that is cool,” he said admiringly. He climbed into the single-seat cockpit, adjusted his safety helmet, and buckled up.

  “Okay, Lancel, you remember the plan,” said his guide. “You start out toward that flag down there in the swell. When you’re within fifty feet of that blind, they’ll release the tiger. It’s the same one Ponce made disappear in his show—”

  “I’ll make him disappear for good, this time!” laughed Lancel.

  “Right, just don’t start shooting too soon. You’ll have a level ride there for a good three minutes. And don’t forget to wear your goggles. You might be shooting out the front, and the wind and sand can sure throw off your aim. The tiger shouldn’t be able to run faster than thirty-five, and only for a couple minutes, and your buggy there will do sixty easy.”

  “I know. How ’bout this gun?” Lancel asked.

  “A .357 Magnum, six shots. There’s another in the holster attached to the dash. Get close enough to see his eye before you shoot. Get alongside and aim just behind his elbow. If by some chance you can’t hit him, or change your mind, the grenades are in this box beside you. Reach through the rubber flap on top, grab one out, pull the pin with your teeth, just like we practiced with the dummies, and throw it at him. When you throw, immediately veer away from the grenade. Don’t want to hurt that million-dollar throwin’ arm, do we?”

  “Ten million,” smiled Lancel to his guide.

  Within two minutes Lancel Lott, boy-wonder athlete, Southern California All-State Everything, a future as bright as Prince William, was roaring across the cool Nevada high desert. A cirrus cloud of dust covered his tracks; the wind snapped at his cheeks and roared by his ears as he bore down on the target. The tiger burst from the blind in a spectacular leap and was running at full speed within five seconds!

  Lancel was within field goal distance. He tried to hold the dune buggy steady with his left hand while readying the heavy pistol with his right. He swerved behind the racing tiger so that he could approach from the left rear quarter. He was close enough to throw a Hail Mary. He leveled the gun. He cocked the hammer. He could see the tiger’s exhaust outlet. The dune buggy actually rared back like Trigger! The front wheels rose from the ground. All Lancel could see was blue sky! A shot rang out! A hole appeared in the chrome-plated bumper guard. He was out of control!

  He heard a roar. Not like a tiger’s roar, which he assumed was like a lion’s roar, which he was familiar with because he’d watched the MGM trademark lion at least a thousand times as a youth and had practiced roaring. No, this was more like the roar of a drag racer leaving the starting line, or at least a bus passing through the Eisenhower Tunnel. It was as if they’d poured two hundred pounds of tyrannosaurus roar into a five-gallon bucket and pulled it down over his ears. He looked back over his shoulder and the sight he saw caused him to add a monarch butterfly silhouette to the design on his Calvin Kleins.

  An old man with his hat pulled down over his ears was standing at a rakish angle behind a 50 mm machine gun mounted on top of a Humvee. He was grinning wildly and pointing it at Lancel. It was Al Bean, senior important character. His accompanist, Hubie McCormick, ex-Almost World Champion Bronc Rider, veteran of the early days, now a resident of Mesquite Thicket Adult Care, Pomerene, Arizona, was behind the wheel, so to speak. The Humvee was cockeyed because his right front tire was still up on the rolled steel bumper of the dune buggy, which was now moving across the terrain at 40 mph tail down, like a dog scooting across the carpet.

  Lancel had a brief thought that he might shoot back over his shoulder, but the menacing gun barrel and the old man’s maniacal smile gave him pause. He’d seen that same look on a mentally deranged linebacker just before he was dropped for a ten-yard loss in a game where his high school had played the local halfway house in a scrimmage. He threw the pistol out the right-hand side. The dune buggy crashed back down when the Humvee backed off. It swerved to the right.

  The old man saw his chance and pulled the trigger. A blast of gunfire exploded the dune buggy’s right rear tire. The buggy rolled over in a lefterly direction and settled on its back. Lancel Lott hung from the seat like a fruit bat waiting for a new idea.

  The old man leaned down into the cab and shouted to Hubie. Hubie stepped on the gas, swerved to his right, and drew a bead on Lancel’s guides, who were now headed toward them in their fancy Ponce Park truck.

  As the Humvee drew near them at an alarming pace, the guides in the approaching pickup began to doubt the wisdom of their decision. They could see the old man crouch down behind the machine gun.

  “Surely he wouldn’t,” said one of the guides. At that very moment, their radiator blew up in spectacular fashion, steam and steel flying away in whiffs and bits.

  The guides wheeled around and hightailed it back south. They made it a mile and a half before the engine froze up. They jumped out and discovered, to their great relief, that they had not been followed.

  68

  DECEMBER 13: BUSBY AND THE CONDOR

  Ponce and F. Rank had gone to great lengths to accommodate their guest from South America, one Matís Poblano Coctil, or, as he was known to his illicit pharmaceutical friends and enemies, Lagarto. When F. Rank Pantaker had solicited Lagarto through his father’s contacts at the American Embassy in Colombia, Señor Coctil had expressed interest in the hunt. He had a specific request. Since he already had an Andean condor stuffed and hanging from the sixteen-foot ceiling in his den, he would like to have the American counterpart. F. Rank had checked with Ponce to see if that particular endangered species was available. Ponce said, in so many words, “for a price.” It turned out to be an additional two million.

  “Cheeken feet,” said Lagarto, using the movie-rental slang he was acquiring from his continuing education courses.

  The guide that Ponce had chosen to escort Lagarto was an actor named Esubio Martinez from Los Angeles who had done a quick study of condorology and was passing himself off as a college professor of ornithology. Lagarto and Esubio sat in the plush backseat of F. Rank’s personal Humvee stretch limo.

  The actor’s voice was as smooth as rich Corinthian leather. “This bird is as magnificent a creature as I have ever seen. It is almost prehistoric. The wingspan is nine feet, six inches. There are only a couple of hundred of these babies in the world. This one is as black as . . .” He started to say “a drug dealer’s heart,” but changed it to “the inside of a snake.”

  “When I get him, I will cut out his heart and feed it to my anaconda,” said Lagarto, grinning. Lagarto was not your stereotypical South American contrabandista. He was a large balding man with a florid face and small round glasses with dark lenses. He was dressed to hunt: mud-and-snow-grip work boots, a beautiful red wool serape hunting jacket with appropriate patches, and a baseball cap that said MARY KAY, in pink letters.

  Esubio thought his job was to appeal to Lagarto’s love of birds, but it seemed Lagarto’s only interest was in hanging one on the wall. He quickly switched tacks. “As we discussed last night, you will be using an AK-47. A shotgun simply would not be powerful enough. The machine gun will allow you to scatter shot and still penetrate.”

  “I don’t understand exactly how you were going to release the zopilote,” said Lagarto.

  “In truth, my fine amigo,” answered Esubio, warming to the role and recalling with glee the Zopilotes, a bicycle gang of pachucos in his grade school that had tee shirts with a one-eyed vulture as their symbol, “the bird will never actually be released. It would be too big a chance to take. If he ever got away he would go back to California, I guess, and we would lose him,” and my job, he thought. “But! . . . Señor Ponce has devised a wonderful plan. He has arranged to have the condor tethered to an ultralight. We simply fly around over you until you shoot him. Simple.”

  “What is ulterlight?” asked Lagarto.

  “It’s a small plane,” answered Esubio, “not really an airplane, more like a flying go-cart—”

  “Go card?” said L
agarto, thinking it was a variation of a green card, which he manufactured by the hundreds of thousands and sold to exchange students planning to cross the U.S. border in the dark of night.

  “No, no, go-CART! A flying go-CART,” said Esubio.

  “Will I be in the go-cart?”

  “No. No one will be in the go-cart. It’s an ul-tra-light. Ultralight. And you will not be in it either.”

  “Then where will I be?” asked Lagarto.

  “You, my esteemed cazador (Esubio remembered the word because he was familiar with the tequila of that brand name and knew that it meant “hunter”), will be on the ground, shooting up at the muy grande California condor.”

  Five hundred feet above Stinkwater Meadow, chief pilot and part-time buzzard walker Charles Lindbergh Busby was freezing his buns. He crouched behind the controls of a single-seat, fixedwing, 15-horsepower, propeller-driven ultralight aircraft, which was attached by a leash to a twenty-five-pound condor.

  Busby wasn’t a risk taker. He was a pilot, a careful pilot who didn’t drink the night before, had his annual physical annually, and always did his preflight check with the meticulousness of an astronaut. He was certain there was nothing in the manual that covered this situation.

  After three unsuccessful attempts at taking off simultaneously with the tethered bird, during which the condor bounced and drug like a bone tied behind a wedding car, he loaded the condor in the seat with him and went aloft. That wasn’t a pleasant task either. The condor was difficult to hold and very powerful. It also smelled like rotten meat.

  Ponce’s crew had built a harness that fitted around the bird’s body but did not interfere with wing movement. The hundred-yard leash was attached to a self-winding reel and strung with 200-pound-test fishing line strong enough to hold a breaching marlin on an automatic reel. It hooked to an eyelet on the back of the condor’s harness.

  When Busby reached his assigned altitude, he tossed the bird overboard, allowing the line to play out. The condor dropped like a rock! Busby pointed the ultralight down to prevent the sudden snap. It was masterful flying on his part. He managed to stop the descent gently and slowly climb aloft. The condor began to flap and eventually got his sea legs, so to speak.