Cowgirl Thrillers

by Barbara Neville

 We walk on down the tunnel until we come to another fork.

  Mose stops and says, “Seems like she’d not be so far ahead. She an’ I usually stay togethah. Maybe y’awl stay heah, I go ahead.”

  “Which way?”

  “Her tracks right here, Annie,” says Wolf.

  “Oh, of course. Guess I need to look at the ground occasionally.” At least he didn’t straight out use the word stupid. I do admit to being shook up by it all, especially after crawling in and out of that deep, dark, closed in crawly space yesterday.

  I hear a locomotive approaching.

  “Trains, you got trains on the Rock?” I ask Wolf.

  He is standing stock still.

  “Shit! What the fuck? You feel that?” I say, having just been thrown to the ground. I roll onto my hands and knees as the earth continues to shake, rattle and roll. The sound of grinding bedrock is deafening in the tunnel. It quiets down as the movement lessens.

  “Earth move.” Wolf is still standing but I saw him holding onto a wall for support a matter of seconds ago. “Sound like hurricane.”

  “Merely a small tremor,” adds Buzz, standing up and dusting off his pant legs.

  “You don’t sound scared.”

  “What is, is,” says Wolf.

  “Bãngh has many quakes,” says Buzz.

  “Is there an entire mountain over your head during these quakes?” I ask.

  “We are helpless before nature. The planets have powers beyond the imagination,” says Buzz, shrugging.

  “Are you another Zen motherfucker like Wolf here?” I ask.

  Wolf and Buzz both look at me. Long, tall and good lookin’ Buzz is slim like a runner. Wolf is more of a powerhouse. Now, if I had my druthers…

  “Okay, she heah, come on,” Mose yells back at us.

  Snapped back to reality, I say, “Damn, hope we get there soon so we can git outta this rock crusher.” Guess I’ll have to examine my druthers more closely later.

  “Relax Annie, be here now,” says Wolf.

  “Right, right.” Maybe it’s low blood sugar, I am definitely not here now. I try imagining sandy beaches, blue skies, anything but trembling black tunnels. Hey, I could think about hot men. We got ‘em. Right here, right now.

  We catch up to Mose and Shaz.

  “She okay?” I ask. “Looks mighty scared.”

  Shaz is wild eyed and pale. Like she saw a ghost. She is looking right at Buzz.

  “Um...” I start to ask.

  “Hey gal, what yo’ problem? Buzz’ our friend. You met him.”

  “Actually, we haven’t met,” says Buzz. “She was captured before I arrived.”

  He looks at Shaz and says, “Pardon, my dear. I am Buzz, a friend of Mose.”

  “Yeah, we old friends, go way back. Buzz and me, and Sir Jacob, too. We cause all kinda trouble way the hell back when. Oh yeah.”

  Shaz is unmollified.

  “Miss Shaz, I have come here to help you and your friends. I am an ally.”

  “See? He talk funny jes’ like Sir Jacob. Y’awl know him. That funny Brit way of tawlkin’, not civilized like me.” He smiles.

  “But still good tawlk. We all friends. Y’awl will get used to the big guy here. Might take some time. But hell, y’awl got used to me. ‘Member how scary I was when we first met?” Mose nods toward Buzz. “He okay.”

  Shaz looks a little better, not much.

  “Come on gal, show us where you were and what happened before Annie found y’awl.”

  Shaz finally relents. She turns and starts once again down the tunnel.

  “Is this tunnel goin’ level, up or down?” I ask, just to make noise and keep my dizzy mind busy.

  “Level,” says Wolf.

  “Up,” counters Buzz.

  “Day-own,” Mose replies. “Ever’one has they own opinion.”

  He chuckles.

  “I’m thinkin’ sideways,” I add, just to be colorful. And keep my mind off the thought of the rock walls closing in on us.

  Shaz has no comment.

  “On Britannia we would suspect a tunnel system such as this to be a hideout for illegal immigrants,” says Buzz.

  “Oh?” I ask. “What is a’ illegal…whatcha call it?”

  “Immigrant. Traditionally, on a more heavily populated planets, if the population of an area falls upon hard times, the people there will emigrate or move out to more prosperous areas in search of lucrative employment.”

  “Oh, yeah. I have hearda that. Sure. Hell, I did that myself even. Michael and I moved here to the Rock fer not only better pay, but also fer living conditions more to our likin’. On Terrania it was all hard work fer low pay and wall-to-wall people. We couldn’t hardly stay alive on the wages there. Got lucky, heard about the Rock. We come up with a way to scrape up enough dough to git out just ahead of the posse.”

  “Are you here illegally, also?” asks Buzz.

  I stop, turn back to look at Buzz and say, “Smile when you say that, stranger. Hereabouts, it ain’t polite to ask. Them is, in fact, killin’ words.”

  “Ah, I see, you are. I meant no offense. It, meaning immigration, the movement of people into new places in order to obtain better circumstances is how and why new places and even worlds are explored in the first place.

  “For example, on Earth, the Siberians crossed Beringia by foot and boat to find better hunting, less competition. They found a home in the Americas.

  “That Columbus fellow crossed an ocean to find gold for Queen Isabela. He found not only gold, but also silver, and cochineal.”

  “Coach…what?”

  “Cochineal. It is a red dye created from the secretions of a scale insect on Opuntia cacti that became the third most valuable export to Spain. He also found tomatoes, chocolate, corn and the pineapple. As new societies prosper, gentry from older, overcrowded societies move to join with other more prosperous cultures in hopes of bettering their lot in life. They migrate to escape starvation, persecution, torture, and even death.

  “One country in North America, which as all countries are, was founded by immigrants, had a welcoming statue in their biggest harbor. On the statue was a poem which said, in part:

  ‘...Give me your tired, your poor,

  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!...’ -Emma Lazarus.

  “Curiously, they changed their minds, but never removed the poem.

  “They built huge walls along their southern border, hoping to stem the tide. Uselessly, of course. People snuck in anyway. If existence in one’s birthplace becomes awful enough, the intelligent choice is to take any risk to better one’s condition.

  “Bear in mind that new blood energizes planets. Pioneers are the hardest workers of all. As newcomers, they must work struggle to survive. It is human nature to fight for life to continue. You humans are a very successful species because of it. Humans continue now to explore new worlds, to go where no human has gone before. There is always a new frontier.”

  “I hope so. I sure seen people movin’ into places with cartloads of new rules,” I say, “or primitive places with dinosaurs and their killin’ ways. A cowhand’s gotta stay ahead of the tide to survive and not get et alive by the crowd.”

  “Quite.”

  “Actually, I never did do no paperwork comin’ to the Rock. Just a dumb cowhand. If anyone asks, I plan to claim thet I cain’t hardly write mah name, much less fill out a damn form. Did you?”

  Buzz shakes his head in the negatory and says, “I love anarchy. As does my home planet. Our ancestors left Earth for just that.”

  “Escape from government forms and paperwork?”

  “Quite. Along with governments in general.”

  We laugh.

  Buzz says, “Here, another fork in the tunnel. Perhaps you and I should take a different route. We can cover more area that way.”
/>
  “But, Shaz is taking us to where she was captured,” I say as I point my headlamp down the other fork. “Wait, I wanna look at that outcropping.”

  I see that Wolf is walking back toward us. He says, “We find spot, hole. Them drop Shaz down hole, not expect back door for you to crawl in for her.”

  “Wow,” I say, “Anything else?”

  “Un-uh.”

  “Okay, I am going to look at those crystals real quick. I’ll catch up.”

  “What about quake?” asks Wolf.

  “I got crystal fever. Come with me, might need a strong Injin to rescue me after the next quake.”

  Shaz and Mose arrive. Mose says, “Buzz, y’awl got any idee how long it’s been since that big fight on Brit with all them crazy she males?”

  “Many years. Ah yes, I remember it well,” says Buzz, looking thoughtful. “Seems like the large blonde floozy left you with quite the shiner the next day. And blue balls. Sir Jacob and I chided you mercilessly.”

  “Ha ha ha,” laughs Mose. “’Twere true. I nevah guessed she were a he, ‘til too late. May of had a bit too much to drink theah.”

  They head back toward the cave entrance talking companionably.

  “Vamanos,” says Wolf. “Wolf hungry.”

  “Soon,” I say.

  I lead the way to the crystals. The outcrop has more magnificent amethyst crystals growing among the quartz.

  “I love purple,” I say following the vein. Just as the tunnel turns, it widens into a small room with an alcove on one side. We walk around admiring the crystal formation which is glittering in the light from our carbide headlamps.

  “Look,” says Wolf.

  I look up to where he is pointing.

  “Holy guacamole!”

  There is a high shelf, like giant size, just above our heads. Standing on the shelf is a quartz buffalo statue.

  “Now that, is a knick knack,” I say.

  Wolf climbs up the crystal wall next to the shelf and crawls over to it.

  “Spirit buffalo, Annie,” he says reverently. “This the secret he capture Shaz to save. Sign left on shelf of another buffalo, already taken. Track in dust show it was here. Reading sign, it was taken same day Shaz captured. Footprints leaving deeper from added weight of buffalo carving.”

  He removes his shirt and wraps it carefully around the sculpture.

  “You gonna take it?” I ask.

  “Must save from others, bring back to cave when safe. Annie right, spirit live here. This is prophecy of papers we find in root cellar. Map has clues, but there must be a code, cave not in same place as mark on map.”

  “You been studying up on the map again, eh?”

  “Wolf come prepared.”

  “Why didn’t they take both buffalo with them yesterday?” I ask.

  “Only tracks of one man deeper when he leave, because buffalo heavy. Big track, big guy, but not big enough to carry two buffalo.”

  Wolf heads for daylight cradling the buffalo. The weight of the large gemstone sculpture makes his muscles bulge. I walk happily behind, admiring them.

  29 Jakey Boy