Cowgirl Thrillers

by Barbara Neville

Next morning the steady drone of raindrops has stopped and we are up to greet the sun. We step out of the teepee to find a dusting of snow on the ground, less than a’ inch. Coati’s cats rub on my boots.

  “Gruesome and Glacier,” says Spud.

  The bitch comes out from under a thick tree. The heavy branch cover has kept her warm and dry. She wags her tail, ready to work. The cats hiss once and she cowers. Pecking order is established, they are friends.

  The trio follows us around as we feed. “I fucking love the smell of hay and horse shit in the morning,” I say.

  Spud says, “Cain’t argey that.”

  We hop through the chores. A long night of wild and crazy sex has left us hungry and just a mite tired.

  After the stock is checked and fed we get another good Coati cooked feed in our own bellies.

  “Now I know why you and Wolf are such good cooks.”

  Spud says, “Runs in our family. Let’s go wash off the trail dust.”

  We walk out into a stand of trees and over to the base of a big red hill. Ground fog is rising with the heat of the sun.

  As we round a bend a magnificent male body, all in the buff is standing on a rock above a steaming pool of water.

  “Oh my gods, hell of a bathtub, love the lifelike statue,” I exclaim.

  Wolf naked, long, lean and mean, smiles and dives into the spring. Plenty well endowed, I just happen to notice.

  “Damn,” I say and lean over to see just how cold it is. “Holy shit, Spud. Another hot spring?”

  “Life is good on the Rock.”

  We strip and join Wolf, soaking our trail weary bones.

  “Paradise,” I say.

  Sir Jacob and Coati have wandered up, disrobed and joined us.

  “Yep, that’s what we call it. But never to others, we no like share. This Injin Nation,” says Wolf from across the pool.

  Spud says, “We cultivate the MadDog image expressly to keep out the riff raff.”

  Sir Jacob adds, “There are a plethora of other places like this on this continental edge, it is an active volcanic slip zone. Plenty of room for others to find their own paradise. We like ours private.”

  “Yes,” agrees Coati. “But this the best spring of all. We find, we claim. Homestead for MadDog Clan. Summer here, but move with sheep. Winter, sheep go to Spud homestead, low warm country, powerful ocean, good Spirits.”

  Sir Jacob has closed his eyes and he and Coati, who has tilted her hat over her eyes, seem to be asleep. Or just in Nirvana.

  “Yikes, you folks are all buff. Do you have a work out group or are you all gay?” I ask.

  “Scared?” asks Spud.

  “Okay, yikes may be the wrong word. I ain’t complainin’. The inner worlds, full of fatties. Set at a desk all day, gross.”

  “We actually work. Hard, physical, outdoors. Came to this world, it had nothing but dirt, rocks, plants and animals. Brought, hauled and built all the rest ourselves. Only real problem we got here is a shortage of frontier compatible women. Not an upscale life here.” Spud pokes Sir Jacob with an elbow and adds, “‘Less yore Jakey’s gal.”

  “But the Spirit Cave? More than just dirt.”

  “If it exists. Intriguing, eh?” says Spud. He gets out of the pool and walks into the woods to take a leak.

  Wolf swims across the pond and sets on the underwater shelf by me.

  “Morning, White Eyes,” greets Wolf.

  “Actually I have blue eyes, I wonder why they called them white?” I comment.

  “From distance yours look white, ours look black, to man who never see only brown eyes, White Eyes look scary, maybe Spirit. After use of gun by White Eyes to kill Injin, Injin learn White Eyes is evil Spirit. White Eyes not brave like Injin who count coup by touching enemy with stick but not kill. Much more brave,” says Wolf.

  Spud has walked back over. He sticks a foot in to join us and says, “Plus he memorized all them Hollywood Cowboy and Injin stories.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “Hmm,” agrees Wolf. “Hollywood: Truth.”

  I look at Spud who is now soaking alongside us. “He jokin’?” I ask.

  “Naw, well, truthfully, it’s hard to tell. Wolf is generally no dummy, but sometimes I wonder.”

  Wolf grunts, “Hmph.”

  We soak for a while, swim for a while. Man it feels good, washin’ yesterday and a thousand other cold, rain soaked outdoor days away.

  “Mmmm, finest times,” I say, then close my eyes and settle down to soak some more. Soon I wake up.

  Still soakin’ in the hot springs and stokin’ up another pipe, Spud and Wolf have far away looks in their eyes

  Wolf asks, “I’m sittin’ here right in front of ya. I’m real right? Aren’t I real?

  “I’m sittin’ here right?”

  Wolf looks down at himself.

  “Yeah, I am! I am absolutely certain that I exist.”

  His body flickers.

  “Pretty much certain...”

  “If you put your mind totally into it, there is nothing you cannot accomplish,” says Spud.

  I’m unconvinced. “People like to say that.”

  Wolf looks at us and asks, “What is real? Is what we experience real or is it a dream? Is here here? Or have we slipped into a different dimension? When we share the Hollywood stories, are we visualizing them or are we actually in them? Are we then or are we now?”

  “Oh good gods, Wolf, not trans dimensional migration again. Next you’ll be spouting time travel,” says Spud.

  “White Eyes!” Wolf says in mock disgust. “Wolf slip into past time now, before White Eyes ruin Injin peace and quiet.”

  Spud says to me quietly, “See? Complicated,” and laughs.

  We finally drag our wrinkled bodies out of the pool into the rapidly warming morning air. The snow is about all gone except in the deepest shadows.

  “Last few warm days of fall, methinks,” proclaims Sir Jacob.

  “Best we enjoy ‘em while we can,” agrees Spud.

  “Our booty awaits, let us reassemble at the teepee map table,” says Sir Jacob.

  “Map table?” I ask rhetorically. No one answers, so I guess that makes it retroactive rhetorical.

  We dress and clomp down the trail into a second teepee, where there is indeed a tabletop set on folding saw horses.

  “We store in root cellar for winter,” says Coati. “Some things stay, less to move to new camp.”

  “When do you move?” I ask, the greenhorn of the bunch.

  “Tomorrow. You help, earn yore beans,” says Spud with an arm hugging my shoulders.

  “Whole camp?”

  Coati nods.

  “Be glad of the extry horses. You may not have to walk.”

  Wolf and Sir Jacob are bent over the maps and papers, consulting in low voices. I pass around cups of joe.

  Spud and I go to an unoccupied end of the table and they pass things they have examined to us. Coati floats around taking it all in.

  After a few hours of inspection Coati grunts, “Hmph,” and goes about making lunch.

  “I’m glad to help,” I offer.

  “Coati think better while working, you read more.”

  After a while we sit down to buffalo backstrap, greens and sourdough biscuits.

  Wolf intones, “Life is long and wonderful, it ebbs and flows, like perennials in a garden.

  “Sometimes they are blooming, sometimes they are dormant, but they are always alive.”

  I shrug my shoulders and say, “Things change, unexpected things happen. Is that what you are saying?”

  “Mm. The only constant in life is change,” remarks Wolf.

  “He’s a well-read Injin,” Spud says.

  Coati looks at Wolf. “You have thoughts, my son?”

  “Sir Jacob and I see too many Spirit Caves on map, take lifetime to ride to them all.”

  “It still looks like misdirection or code,” Sir Jacob says. “Or a shitload of bloody Spirit Caves.”

  “How spir
itual were the forefathers? Many tribes, many caves? But how all make one map? No, Sir Jacob, you are right. Something different is going on here,” says Wolf.

  “Maybe they are missile emplacements, disguised,” says Sir Jacob.

  Laughter all around, then sober expressions appear on our faces. Thoughts of the warlike centrists and their past atrocities can’t help but send shivers down our spines. Please not here too, we must all be thinking. I surely am.

  After lunch we look and read more, the afternoon passes by. We get out for a short midafternoon walk and inspection of the camp and grounds. So beautiful, helps clear our minds from all the words and drawings. And gives tired eyes a rest.

  “It is indeed a case of too much information, not really informational, just a bunch of saved papers, with no rhyme or reason,” I say as we return to the table. “My head is spinning.”

  “Yeah, but there are some things...” Spud speech tapers off as he reads a new treatise.

  Wolf sits back, groans and moves over by the fire, throwing a log on the coals. As the sun lowers, the air is cooling the teepee.

  “Okay, time for pipe, food, digest, take dream journey. Later.” Wolf leaves.

  “He’s goin’ Zen again,” jokes Spud

  “Wolf can’t go Zen, Wolf is Zen,” says Sir Jacob.

  “True, native is Zen. Proud to be his brother,” says Spud.

  “What do we do?” I ask.

  “Follow Wolf’s lead. The mind needs time to ponder all we have seen and work it out.”

  “I got a couple of things to check,” says Spud and rifles through a stack of papers. “One of us is bound to have found a trigger to get our minds wrapped around it. We think, we mull, we dream, we talk. By the time we move camp down the hill tomorrow, we are likely to have an idea. Hopefully, a good one. Let’s go scarf up some grub. We still got the evening to look at all this again. In the morning, weather permitting, we pack up. Load the travois. When the mind is occupied with menial tasks, it works best.”

  We go to the other teepee. Coati is standing by the fire. Wolf is stirring something that smells delicious and flipping tortillas on the skillet.

  “What’s for dinner, brother?”

  “Wolf stew. Coati shot a big one the other day, can’t let it go to waste, homemade tortillas to dip,” Wolf says.

  “Mmmm, dog tacos, my favorite.” Spud curls his lip in disgust and hugs Coati. “Hope there’s lots a salsa to cover the dog taste.”

  Later I slide into sleep, mulling, wondering. I am standing on the edge of a cliff shouting across a canyon. Does the response come from the spirits or is it my own voice echoing back at me? It seems from my side of the canyon that the quest for unity with the spirits is the source of much of the worlds’ unhappiness. All I have learned thus far in life is that there are no answers, only more questions. The more I learn the more there is to learn, vastly more.

  29 Nomadic Migration