Cowgirl Thrillers

by Barbara Neville

“Wagon?” I ask.

  Wolf shakes his head, “Only one wheel, no other track. Have tread like Pi car, rubber. But narrow.”

  “Shit, civilization.”

  “Brother know Pi, all them fancy planets. Spud come back, maybe he know,” says Wolf. “We strip out venison, hang for jerky, save some for today meals.”

  Damn, I’m thinkin’, long speech fer Wolf. He must be confabulated.

  “Yore thinkin’ progress might overtake yore fine wilderness world,” I say.

  “Mm-hm. Annie is, also.”

  “Damn straight.”

  We chew on that a bit, along with our delicious meat, a self-propelled wheeled vehicle in our beloved horse only wilderness country is a somber reality check.

  “How narrow?”

  Wolf holds his fingers maybe three inches apart, “This.”

  “They is a thing called a bicycle. Got no motor, but two wheels in line, one in front of the other. Maybe one of them?”

  Wolf shakes his head and repeats, “One wheel. No horse prints. No human prints.”

  The girl moans and rolls her head. She rearranges her arms and legs a bit. I go over and lift her head up. I tilt my canteen and get several swallows more or less down her throat. Her swallow reflex is improved and she almost focuses an eyeball on my face fer a bit. She passes back out, eyes rolling up into her head. Creepy.

  “I ain’t really no nurse,” I tell Wolf dispiritedly, picking up a stick and drawing circles in the dirt. “Hey, you ever been to the Circus Planet?”

  Wolf shakes his head in the negatory and says, holding up one finger and then two, “Rock, Pi.”

  “Oh yeah. I knew that. Anyhoo, I met a gal once who had been there. She said they had bicycles with one wheel there. People sat on a seat right atop the wheel. It had pedals to move it. The rider had to balance to stay upright. Hard to imagine. I mean you gotta balance a regular two-wheel bike already, I got to try one of them as a kid. Quite the challenge. But one wheel? Dayum.”

  Wolf skins out the carcass. I cut a long limber willow to use for stretching and drying the skin. This will solve the raft and travois lashing problem.

  We spend the afternoon companionably cutting and hanging meat to dry, feeling a lot better about our prospects with the newly filled larder. We even find time fer a little hanky panky.

  Spud rides in not too long before dark. After caring for Scout, he joins us at the fire. He looks totally disgusted.

  Wolf reads his mind and says, “Wheel?”

  Spud nods.

  “Cocksuckers,” he says.

  “What is it?” I ask as I pull my green stick full of cooked meat strips out of the fire and hand it to him.

  “Ugh.”

  “Ugh?”

  “Yep. Unmanned ground hunter,” says Spud between bites. “Technically UGV, ‘V’ for vehicle, but here on the Rock we call ‘em Ughs. They are illegal here. If they are here, they are clandestine and hunting something or someone. Ain’t no hobbyist playin’, it’s just plain trouble. Just one wheel with a brain thingy on top. Rolls down the trail. It takes pictures and such. Jacob pointed one out to me once on Pi.”

  “So, let’s blow it to smithereens.”

  “Considered that. Decided on patience, be best to figger out who is runnin’ it and what they are up to first. Right, brother?” asks Spud.

  “Ugh,” says Wolf.

  “See? Wolf knows their name,” Spud smiles as he says it.

  Wolf looks over at me, “Not worry Annie, Injin tougher than wheel thing.”

  “How is that there girl doin’?” asks Spud, nodding toward the sleeping form across the fire from us.

  “Fucked up, but improving. She drank several swallows of water earlier. Most yet. She could use a’ intravenous drip,” I say shrugging. “What ya gonna do?”

  “Yeah, not the Center here,” says Spud. “Like Mose says, ‘we gots what we gots.”

  “Maybe swift kick fix wheel.”

  “Thanks, Wolf. You got wheels on yore mind,” I say.

  “Mm-hm. Wheel trespass on Injin nation. Close to sacred spirit deer.”

  “You spot him for real this time?” asks Spud.

  “Uh huh.”

  I ask, “Will there be a spirit cave nearby for this one, too?”

  Wolf shrugs and looks at the stars. Consulting the spirits, maybe?

  We sit around looking downcast fer a while and eventually head off to our saddle blanket ‘beds’ with dark thoughts in our brains.

  “Not worry, Annie. Belly full, horses fat, all good now,” counsels Wolf.

  Spud scooches over and wraps an arm around me. “Ground’s warmer tonight and we are completely dry. Sleep tight darlin’.”

  Okay, only my thoughts are dark. The boys are right. I ain’t even comatose, unlike our new friend.

  I am mollified and, with Spud’s expert assistance, nicely fulfilled. I drift happily off to sleep.

  37 Ugh