Ride, Cowboy, Ride!

by Baxter Black

  “I still do. And I still ask God to change that kid’s heart every night in my prayers,” said Cooney. “And your brother, why do you think he puts you down?” asked Cooney.

  “Sibling rivalry, I guess,” said Straight.

  “How ’bout jealousy? Vying for the attention of your folks or your friends,” said Cooney.

  “Jealousy!” said Straight. “I don’t think he’s ever been jealous of me. He’s so smart! He’s big and good-looking!”

  “Maybe it’s not jealousy, but somethin’ sure keeps him jabbin’ at you,” said Cooney. “But it doesn’t make any difference what it is, he’s trying to offend you. And if you actually practice forgiveness and mercy towards him you are suddenly above all the pettiness and the insults he aims your way. His arrows don’t stick.

  “You realize how childish it seems. ’Cause you know what he is doing, he knows what he is doing, and God knows what and also why. And no one else’s opinion matters. It changes the level of the water for all the fish in the pond.”

  Straight puzzled this last allegory but let it slide.

  Cooney changed the subject. “Have you decided if you’re comin’ to the finals?”

  “No,” said Straight. “I’ve kinda put off thinking about it, hey.”

  Cooney said, “Things are heating up ’bout Pica’s problem. If we get a break we might need a hand. Pica talked to Nova Skosha about checking out some angles.”

  “If I can help, you know I’ll do what I can,” said Straight.

  CHAPTER 44

  November 15, Tuesday, 2:00 p.m.

  Lethbridge, Alberta

  Pica had borrowed the family Suburban for the two-hour drive from their place to Lethbridge, where she was meeting Cooney. Straight was dropping him off there on his way home to Buffalo. Her thoughts were fluttering around in her head like birds in a cage: Miami, OTT, Cooney, Nova Skosha, camp supplies, Cooney, Barbados, Cooney.

  The weather was overcast. Old snow piled up along the highway shoulders. The temperature was below freezing, but sun was forecast for tomorrow.

  Her impression of Cooney, or at least of his good side, had risen through their corresponding e-mails. He was very good with words. She could savor them when they were printed out. He seemed to have a logical mind as they discussed the possibility of a frame job behind her smuggling arrest. Cooney had convinced himself that somebody deliberately planted the contraband in her suitcase to get her into trouble.

  Pica continued to stay in communication with Nova Skosha, but she could not frankly discuss what she and Cooney were thinking. After all, the suspects were still on the payroll!

  She made an effort to keep her expectations about Cooney’s character modest. Every time she imagined him slipping his hand underneath her reservations, she forced herself to picture him on the sidewalk in Miles City barfing on her ankles! It brought her back to reality. She made a mental note to be friendly but formal, to stay in control. Her arrest had made her only stronger, more determined to take care of herself.

  For her “pick up Cooney” ensemble Pica had chosen tight Wranglers, Fat Boy turquoise boots, and a long-sleeve camouflage hunting shirt buttoned almost to the neck. Her wild strawberry-blonde hair was pulled back and stuffed underneath a worn-out tan Ruger baseball cap. It was like she started to get dressed up, but the higher she got, the less convinced she thought she should. Of course, it probably didn’t matter. Cooney had shown no sign of being very fashion conscious anyway.

  Two hours after dropping Cooney off in Lethbridge, Straight turned into his folks’ driveway and pulled up to the house. Forewarned by his cell phone call, members of his family were all standing on the porch to welcome him. Chalk and Fiona, his father and mother, stayed put, but his sisters, Tyra and Myra, raced down the steps to meet him. He barely got the door open, and they were squeezing and kissing him, patting his back and hugging his neck. Any trepidation or shame he might have felt about disappointing them disappeared.

  His mother actually gave him a short, tight hug, then regained her formality. His father gave Straight a firm, manly handshake and said, “We’re glad to have you home, Son.”

  While the girls were fixing Straight’s room, Chalk mixed a rye and Coke for himself and one for his oldest son. They sat in the living room in stuffed chairs inherited from Fiona’s folks. Late autumn sunlight shone in the windows on the west side of the room. It was cozy. “I’m sorry you missed the cut, Straight. Your mother and I, she follows you on the Internet, realize how close you came. We were pleased for your endorsement with OTT. You’ve done so well with your rodeo. Way more than most who try.

  “And,” he said, “you’ll be back next year. As good as you are, you will only get better. Is there anything your mother and I can do to help?”

  Straight was used to his father’s encouragement. It was never a slap on the back, or “buy you a beer” sort of good cheer, just an accountant’s assessment and a “look on the bright side” attitude. That, in spite of the terrible year Canadian cattlemen were having due to the loss of export sales to the United States and Canada’s crippling opportunities to market cull cows.

  Straight was fully aware of the financial impact that BSE had on his family’s ranch. He felt a brief chest squeeze thinking of his OTT cancellation. But his dad was right about riding broncs. He had come within one good ride of making the finals. It just wasn’t in the cards this season.

  Still, he had won over $49,000 and earned another twenty-two grand representing OTT. He wanted to tell his father the numbers, just to brag a little, but didn’t. His dad knew his rodeo winnings anyway. His mother would have kept track.

  “Thanks, Dad. I guess I did okay. I should be grateful for the run I had. You’re right, I’ve got a few more years before I have to think about givin’ it up.” What went unsaid was the real expectation of both men that Straight would be the one to take over the ranch if he wanted. Later Straight planned to offer some money, a buy-in, or a loan to his folks. He just wasn’t sure how they’d take it. They were stubbornly proud and might be insulted.

  “Dad, how ’bout I take the family out to supper tonight? I need to celebrate. It would be my treat.”

  Chalk looked at his son, about to say, “No way. We’ll pay our own way . . .,” then realized that Straight’s gesture would lend well-deserved status to this fine young man they had raised. He said, “We would be pleased to. I’ll just tell your mother.”

  Meanwhile, about 200 kilometers west and south . . .

  Cooney laid down his spoon and pushed back from the table. Mr. Juneau D’TroiT was telling hunting stories to the two other guests at the table, a well-to-do couple from Montreal. The gentleman, Dr. Lorenz Nuen was in his fifties, in good health, and loved to hunt. His wife, Angelique, was a trophy wife and pretty handy with a gun herself. They were repeat paying customers. This year they were here for five days. Their intended prey included elk, mule deer, bear, mountain lion, and maybe a mountain sheep.

  “So,” Juneau D’TroiT was saying, “we’ll leave tomorrow morning at five, hey. Two-hour drive and a four-hour pack trip to our camp. Might even get in a short scouting trip tomorrow evening.

  “Firmy and Pica will set up camp while we take a look.” D’TroiT looked at Cooney. “Cooney here will . . . I’m not sure . . . get firewood, help out, pitch in.” He paused. “He’s Pica’s friend. He won’t be hunting.”

  Dr. Nuen seemed relieved that Cooney wasn’t hunting. Less competition. They had paid several thousand dollars and assumed first-class privilege.

  “Pica and I will both be taking photographs of your hunt. All part of the service!” Juneau said, smiling.

  In the day and a half since Cooney had arrived, Pica had been schooling him on the business end of a hunting guide’s life. During that time they had also talked about her smuggling arrest problem. But in spite of the proximity of pheromo
nes and ample opportunity, nary a kiss had crossed their lips!

  And, yes, it was hard on Cooney! He was constantly on his best behavior, to the point of deferring to her obsequiously on occasion. It did not flatter him. The battle within him raged, waged by the devil of temptation and the angel of restraint.

  Even Thursday night after supper, when he called her “Patty” instead of “Pica,” he blushed, and she looked hurt. He realized what he had done and feebly attempted to explain. “Patty, oh . . . Patty was my dog . . .” the word slipped out before he could stop it.

  Her jaw dropped. She was aghast. Her eyes narrowed. “Wha . . . What?” she stammered.

  “I . . . I mean,” he literally blanked out her name. “P . . . P . . . Patty was a . . .”

  “If you say ‘good dog,’” Pica threatened coldly, “you go immediately back to square one.”

  They were standing in the mudroom about to put on their jackets and go out to the barn to finish packing the gear. In that moment he felt like a fledgling paratrooper standing at the edge of the door with nowhere to go but jump!

  He picked her up, sat her down on the washing machine, slid his hands up her back, pressed one against her neck, and kissed her large, lovely, beckoning mouth.

  Time stood still.

  She was the texture of a rose petal, the resilience of a ripe peach, the tang of Tabasco, the tenderness of a truffle, and although her lips never parted, he felt like she had swallowed him whole!

  She placed a hand on his neck. Their lips didn’t press so much as caress. The pressure lessened, then returned again and again like waves upon the shore. The inside of her lower lip sensed the searching tip of tongue, teeth parted, tips touched and retreated, then the lingual explorers separated as softly as the moon slips behind a cloud.

  They experienced a labial eclipse.

  Cooney was encompassed by rapture. Pica, in a breathless dream puff, thought, So, oh, my, that’s how it’s supposed to feel.

  Cooney stepped back to look at her. She sat on top of the old Kenmore washer, a box of laundry soap on the shelf behind her. His eyes held hers. Her cheeks were flushed, pupils dilated, wild reddish hair frizzing a halo, and that mouth. That inviting, tantalizing tulip of temptation waiting like the docking port on the international space station yearning for Challenger to come coupling her way.

  “Never,” he said, “have I drunk from such a deep well.”

  She stared into his eyes, searching for a familiar dock, a pier, a coat rack, a parking space, an embrace to use as a corner of commonality on which to build a relationship. Alas, her boat seemed to be adrift.

  “Pica,” said Juneau, poking his head in from the kitchen. “Better put in a couple bottles of Champagne.”

  “Okay, Dad,” she said without looking at him.

  Juneau started to say something, took in the scene, and ducked back into the kitchen. He closed the mudroom door behind him, smiling for the little girl he loved.

  Somehow our two star-crossed lovers realized that something had passed between them. They slowly got themselves gathered and without a word put on coats and hats and walked out to the barn.

  CHAPTER 45

  November 19, Saturday, Midday

  Hunting Trip

  Two days later Cooney found himself in hunting camp with Uncle Firmy, having a little shot of rye after a cheese sandwich lunch, while Pica and her dad were out guiding the Nuens. The conversation got around to the hunting clients they were hosting.

  “Ah, yes,” said Firmy in his best W. C. Fields imitation, “the Nuens. We have guided them before. The missus is quite demanding, hey?”

  “Well, it’s nothin’ to me,” said Cooney, “but she’s not very nice to Pica. I don’t mind pickin’ up after ’em. Shoot, she even asked me to shine her hunting boots! I said I didn’t bring any polish. What color are they anyway? That’s not real alligator skin, is it? And Angelique? Whoever named her got it square backward; it should be ‘Devilique’ or ‘Medusa-Eeek’!”

  “‘Seduca-Eeek,’ more like it,” laughed Firmy.

  By 3:00 p.m. the two men had nursed down half a bottle of rye. Firmy would later say it was already opened when they found it. He had begun to regale Cooney with what one could call only “B-roll Shakespeare.” “So, you see, my limping prince, you find yourself merely a footman at the toe of Angelique, Cinderella’s step-Nazi. She has been compared in literature with the Loch Ness Anaconda, the Hooker of Notre Dame, Mercury’s heel, Napoleon’s Waterloo, Custer’s Big Horn, and Al Gore’s Ralph Nader. After she has drawn you into her web, there are few men—and I, my young knave, am not one of them—who can resist her sulfurous jungle gardenia charms.

  “And should the occasion arrive, you would do well to remember that her bite is poisonous . . . so be aware.”

  “Ah, wise counsel,” Cooney replied in kind. “I can see from the drool on your tunic you have given this much thought. Now, I, on the other hand . . .” Cooney sat up slightly and looked in the direction of the trail to the north. The clearing was lit by the sun. “Kind sir, does that look like a bear to you?”

  “I would answer your query thus,” said Firmy. “If it is not a bear, what else could it be?”

  Cooney squinted and pulled his hat down slightly, showing his eyes. “Sasquatch,” he said, “it could be Sasquatch. Or Little Bo Peep with hairy-leg syndrome. Maybe a pilgrim tarred and feathered with mutton fat and a pillow.”

  “I don’t know,” said Firmy. “Looks like a bear to me.”

  “Do they normally come so close to camp?” asked Cooney.

  “Get my rifle,” said Firmy. “It’s in our tent under my cot.”

  Cooney arose, slipped into the big four-man tent that he, Firmy, Juneau, and Pica shared, and located the 30.06. He cradled it in his arms to exit and ducked through the tarp cover door flaps, then tripped over a ground peg, knocked the safety off as he fell, and . . . kablooey!

  The big rifle boomed! Immediately the box of pint-sized butane canisters exploded in the Nuens’ tent: the Nuens’ twelve-by-twenty-foot, heavy-duty, steel-frame, puncture-resistant, deluxe Alaknak tent! It billowed, then burst into flames!

  Cooney rose to try to rescue something, anything, from the conflagration! Firmy managed to kick him as he went by.

  “Don’t!” yelled Firmy. “Nuthin’ t’ save, hey!”

  Cooney stuck his head inside the burning tent flaps and quickly retreated but still managed to catch his hat on fire!

  An hour later nothing was left in the Nuens’ pile of ashes but skeletons, shards, shells, and smoldering clumps of the aluminum table, Lafuma reclining chairs, hammock hips, a Phillips environmental toilet, Zodi hot camp shower, Sheepherder stove and pipe, splintered butane bottles, bed frame, the twisted remains of a Browning .450-caliber bear gun, and the handle of a riding crop made out of the seven-inch tusk of an African warthog!

  One drawer was filled with the melted remains of Motorola walkie-talkies, a Garmin GPS Map 60CX, a custom-made knife with the Nuen coat of arms carved on its narwhal ivory handle, a Terrafix personal locator, Silva handheld compass and altimeter, Leatherman Seclusion 3D folding knife gadget, and a set of six Surefire high-pressure Xenon flashlights.

  Needless to say, anything vaguely cloth was ashes. Granted, they were Gore-Tex, Thinsulate, Hertgers, Pendleton, Meindl, Denali, Pronghorn, Danner, Columbia, Cabela, L.L. Bean, Scent-Lok, Silent Weave, waterproof, Under Armour, super-mesh, super-light, super-strong, and super-duper performance cammo apparel ashes, but ashes none the less.

  Unspent cartridges, unused bottles of hair care products and makeup, and a heavy turquoise-and-silver squash-blossom necklace would be identified later when the ashes were sifted through.

  “I should be going now,” said Cooney, serious as a root canal.

  “What? And leave me to take the blame? I’m actually here
on borrowed time! I’ve got two DUIs already. It wouldn’t do to be arrested for ‘hunting under the influence.’

  “I’ve got it,” said Firmy. “We take our guns, go out like we’re hunting, and just sort of drift back into camp when they do. We can claim it was a bear attack!”

  “With a gun? A bear with a gun?” asked Cooney.

  “Okay, okay, it was a mysterious hunter who wanted our . . . our food! No, guns . . . no . . . how ’bout we say that it was a bail bondsman from California, and he was carrying your picture with a warrant for your arrest because you . . .” Firmy was withering under Cooney’s gaze. “Well, okay, not so good, but we’ll think of something.”

  Forty-five minutes later Cooney was sitting under the ledge of a large rock twenty feet off the trail, pondering whether to stick it out or head for home, when Mrs. Nuen came walking by.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Oh! It’s you, Cooney,” she said. It was the first time he had heard her call him by name.

  She wandered over to him and sat on his rock. “Je suis fatigue,” she said in French. “My muscles ache. Would it be possible for you to apply a little massage to my shoulders?”

  “Where are your husband and the D’TroiTs?” he asked.

  “They shot a big elk, according to them anyway, and it was over a farther ridge. I decided to walk back. They didn’t need me.”

  “Weren’t you worried about getting lost or eaten by a bear or something?” he asked.

  “Petit chiot, I may look like a rich man’s toy but I am a hunter’s daughter. I can handle myself in the woods . . . and elsewhere,” she said and turned her dark brown eyes on him.

  “So,” she asked in her French-accented English, “are you and that teenage blonde bomber shell-in-the-rough an item?”

  “An item?” asked Cooney.

  “Are you engaged, spooning, courting, playing footsie, doing it after dark?” she elaborated.

  “No! no,” he said, not wanting to besmirch Pica’s reputation. “I just came up to visit.”