by Baxter Black
“So, how does this feel?” She licked her finger and traced a wet line from his right ear under his mustache and gently pulled down his bottom lip. His heart skipped a beat. It was like being licked by an anteater.
“Do you know what is behind this big rock?” she asked.
He shook his head no.
“Follow me,” she invited and rose.
“What about . . .” he started to say the obvious as he pushed off the rock after her.
“He’s twenty years older than me, and shooting the elks is what turns him on . . . Not I.”
“Gosh, Ma’am,” he stammered.
“You are not worried about the buckskin cheerleader, are you?” she asked.
“Well, yes, no . . . I’m not but . . .”
“Do I smell smoke?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
Cooney’s mind was immediately brought back to his most-pressing problem: the tent that lay destroyed back in camp. To distract her he quickly said, “So, where do you hurt, exactly?”
By the time Cooney had begun to think of a way to explain the fire in camp to Angelique, she was sitting yogalike on his heavy coat. Her shirt was unbuttoned. Cooney was kneeling behind her on his knees, hands up under her shirttail, kneading his heart out and all the while trying to think about baseball!
“Oooo,” she groaned, “unbuckle that retaining strap, Coney Island, to give you more freedom.”
He obliged. She straightened up, then laid back against him and slid forward so her head rested in his lap. She lay on her back, looking up at him. “How about massaging my aching shoulders and the shooting muscle? I’ve been carrying that rifle all day.”
I hope she likes it, thought Cooney, the rifle, that is. It’s the only one she has left!
Her shirt was wide open, but her white, lacy B-cups covered the positive and negative poles of her estrogen battery.
“Umm, that is so wonderful,” she said. “Anything I could do for you?”
Cooney mustered what was left of his resolve. “Yes, Mrs. Nuen . . .”
“Angelique!”
“Yes, Mrs. . . . Angelique . . . I need a serious favor. I wasn’t quite truthful about Pica. I’ve got a . . . something, some feeling for her, but I keep messing up and turning her off.”
“I could give you some lesson on how to turn her back on,” Angelique purred.
“No, oh, no, not that kind of messing up . . . I keep, well, like today. I was sitting there by the fire with Firmy, and he sent me to get his rifle. Apparently, he, which I didn’t know, kept it loaded, in case of camp invasion, I guess, but anyway, I stumbled, and the gun went off and hit our box of propane bottles, which exploded and caught the tent on fire.”
“Well,” said Angelique, “they can always get a new tent.” She assumed the big four-man tent that belonged to Juneau was the one that had been immolated.
“There was stuff in it,” Cooney went on. “Ya know, guns and personal items.”
“They are mountain men, Cooney boy,” she said. “Their stuff’s not worth much. So, then what can I do to help you with your ‘mussing up,’ as you say?”
“Maybe you could just shake off the burnt tent. Tell ’em it’s no big deal. Accidents happen, et cetera,” he explained. “I think if you don’t get mad, then they might think I’m not as stupid as I seem to be. That would help me out a lot.”
“I guess that would not be too much to ask,” she acknowledged. “In return, how about you slide down on this big coat and let me loosen your sore muscle.”
Rock and a hard place. Obviously the strong feelings Cooney has for Pica would preclude any dalliance that might occur with this older, though supremely seductive siren sitting in his lap.
However, the devil on his shoulder could easily justify a lusty participation (faking it, he could tell himself) by pointing out that the price of earning Pica’s trust might ironically involve satisfying Angelique’s itch.
We, as author and reader, are holding out for his ability to resist temptation. But in doing so, we must consider the consequences of spurning Angelique. For instance, it could easily result in a cancelled hunting trip, loss of future business, bad blood between Juneau and Cooney . . . And, in the end, goodbye Pica.
He is between the devil and the deep blue sea. But, because I am in the writer’s seat, a miracle is still an option to help him overcome any possible character flaws.
Cooney didn’t move. She looked up at him suspiciously. Cooney was frozen! Eyes wide open, his mouth a large O!
She brought her gaze down to where his rested and saw a bear as big as a Volkswagen! It was within rock-throwing distance!
“Don’t move,” she said, as cool as gazpacho in the shade. She slowly reached to her right and behind to locate her octagonal-barreled Blaser K 95 Stutzen .30-06. In trying to retrieve it, her right sleeve fell off her shoulder and impeded her motion.
“Pull it off,” she whispered. Cooney slipped the loose-fitting cuff over her hand and peeled off the sleeve.
In one steady movement she raised the rifle, sat erect, gently jacked the bolt to load the chamber, thumbed the safety off, and said, “Whattya think, Coney Island?”
“If it was me I’d shoot him ’tween the eyes,” said Cooney.
“A tough shot, mon ami. I think the heart would be better. A word of caution: I hope you can run or climb. Ready?” And before he could answer she squeezed the trigger!
The crack of the bullet was immediately followed by a growling wail! Then a second shot!
“Run!” she screamed.
Cooney rose and stumbled! She passed him, and they were sprinting through the high brush and pine trees to the trail to camp!
CHAPTER 46
November 19, Saturday Afternoon
The Bear Attack
Pica’s father had asked her to head back to camp and check on Mrs. Nuen while he and Mr. Nuen stayed to cape and gut the elk and strap it onto the pack mule.
As Pica approached the camp in the late afternoon, she smelled smoke. The mule she was riding smelled it as well and required some controlling. No smoke was visible, but she sped up anyway. Something was wrong.
In a short three minutes she trotted into the camp. The tent was still smoldering in the corners. Skeletons of nonflammable infrastructure stood in place as if somebody had burned down a playground. Struts, stays, metal poles, gun barrels, braces, and a $249 Woodsman Axe lay in the blanket of ashes.
A woodwind of snores snuffled and snorted from the four-man tent. She recognized Uncle Firmy’s emanations. Suddenly, close behind her, back in the trees she heard two rifle shots three seconds apart and the roar of a wild animal!
Pica glanced at the four-man tent. The snoring continued. She levered a cartridge into the chamber of her Ruger .44-caliber lever-action rifle. Coming toward her out of the forest was the clatter and respiratory noise of running beasts!
She shouldered her gun. Bursting into the clearing was Angelique Nuen, as bareback as Tarzan! Her hair flying out behind her, her eyes wide open, and her mouth screaming!
Pica, with lightning reflexes, dropped the barrel of her gun. Her brain was trying to process what was happening. Mrs. Nuen was being chased? A bear, Pica thought and immediately swung her rifle back into firing position. In the next two seconds she took in the crashing, brush-breaking thunder and a bone-chilling growl that sounded as close as her next breath!
Hot on the heels of Mrs. Nuen came, in all his glory, Cooney Bedlam, pounding after her like some famous quarterback taking the field. At this juncture, Pica lowered the rifle again.
“Don’t shoot!” yelled Cooney. The deafening animal growl came so fast that it almost drowned out his voice. “Shoot!” he said. By then he was twenty feet in front of her, and the bear, who had just appeared, was about twice that distance behind him.
Her bullet severed the spinal cord between cervical vertebrae 4 and 5. The massive beast pitched forward with momentum, rolled sideways, and skidded another ten feet. Pica could see his eyes from where he lay less than ten feet away. As she watched, life left them as if someone had closed the Venetian blinds. He was dead.
Firmy stepped from the tent and rubbed his eyes. Mrs. Nuen, as yet to remember her nakedness, stood like a wild woman, arms hanging down holding the rifle across her waist, gaping at the bear. Cooney had fallen and come back to one knee. His gaze, too, was locked on the dead beast. Pica, in her hunting cap and fluorescent vestment, still held the rifle to her shoulder, pointing at the bear.
It would have made an interesting Charlie Russell painting.
It could be entitled Nude in Hunting Camp or Bearly Nude or Nudely Bear. But, alas, no one was there to take the photo, and each participant has a different picture forever implanted on his or her brain.
Because Mrs. Nuen—Angelique—had bought an out-of-province license that included bear, and she had shot him first, it was logically her kill. Firmy, Pica, and Cooney set about skinning the bear while Angelique busied herself in Juneau’s four-man tent, dressing, cleaning up, and dropping the level of the rye.
Within an hour Juneau and Dr. Nuen arrived with their elk. Completing the skinning, dressing, and preparation of both animals took two more hours. Everyone was aware of the tent ruin that was as obvious as a dead mule in a car trunk, but they were so busy that no one had time to address the issue.
Firmy and Pica managed to put together a nice meal of fresh elk steak, potatoes, and bear paw dip. They ate around the fire, sitting in camp chairs or on coolers. Pica and Juneau assumed that Angelique had burned down the tent and waited patiently for someone to say something. Coincidentally Dr. Nuen thought his wife had done it as well. Angelique’s afternoon was filled with a Technicolor collage of feelings: roars, rubdowns, gunpowder, the scent of man, whispers, explosions, pursuit, fear, bear blood, butchering in the wild, and vodka! The burnt tent wasn’t on her radar.
Firmy helped Pica discreetly rearrange the four-man tent for the Nuens so that when they had enjoyed one more cognac for the road and were ready to retire, they went comfortably. They were both snoring within minutes.
Cooney sat with the D’TroiTs around the fire.
“So,” said Juneau, looking at Firmy, “how’d it happen?”
“You’ll never believe,” said Firmy, lighting his pipe.
“Somehow I thought you’d say that,” said Juneau. “Did lightning strike on a clear day? Did Angelique rosin her bullwhip and create so much friction she set the tent on fire? Let me guess: You went over to search through her pack for Copenhagen and unwittingly stepped on a land mine she had placed at the door, and it exploded?”
“No, my clever but innocent brother,” explained Firmy. “I merely fired my gun accidentally and hit the propane canisters we had stored in their tent.”
Cooney listened to Firmy take the blame. It embarrassed him. He remembered what he almost did with Angelique to cover his tracks. All for the sake of impressing a girl.
He thought of President Clinton, who had lied about his adulterous adventures and brought impeachment down upon himself. Pica can take it, he thought to himself, and if she can’t, I’d rather her think of me as a fool than a liar.
“That’s not true,” said Cooney.
Firmy gave him the slant eye.
“I can’t let you take the blame, Firmy. I know you mean well, but,” Cooney turned to Juneau, “it was me who blew up the propane tanks. I was getting a gun out the big tent, tripped on the tent cord, and pulled the trigger.”
“What were you getting the gun for, anyway?” asked Juneau.
“There was a bear, probably the same bear Angelique shot, standing just outside the camp. Just me and Firmy were here.”
“Yep,” said Firmy. “A big sonuvagun. It was the same one, all right. I coulda shot ’im with my eyes closed. So close he was.”
“Yes,” said Juneau. “That bear will make the trip for them. And that she shot it will keep them coming back, I’ll bet. It’s good size and will make a beautiful mount.”
“Mr. D’TroiT,” said Cooney, “I can pay for the tent and the camping stuff, their guns that were burnt up. I’m havin’ a good year, and I can afford to do it.”
“Thank ya, Son. We’ll see. They might have insurance, hey? And if they don’t, we might have some,” said Juneau. “One way or the other it will all come out in the wash.
“I know you are trying to help Pica with her smuggling charge. She tells me that’s why you are here . . . just to help. I hope you know how much that means to her mother and me. Your faith in her innocence makes us that much stronger.”
Cooney snuck a look at Pica. She had a soft look on her face, but her eyes still showed a little puzzle. Cooney knew it had something to do with her memory of him running out of the brush chasing a half-naked Angelique. He still didn’t know what he was going to tell her.
Half an hour later the time came. Juneau had asked the two of them to go check the mules on the picket line.
Cooney laid a hand on her arm. They stopped in a small snow-covered clearing lit by the half-moonlight. “Pica, I’d like to try and explain to you about this afternoon. It wasn’t what it looked like . . . not exactly, I mean. I . . .”
She stopped him. She put a finger to his lips. “Cooney, sometimes being around you is so bizarre. There must be a side of you that . . . attracts calamity. I am so, so mixed up about how to feel about you. It’s like being around a jack-in-the-box. I, like, never know who’s going to pop up.
“So, here’s how I’m going to deal with it. I’m not going to ask why you came running out of the woods chasing a naked woman . . .”
“Well, not naked, just . . .”
“With a naked woman. I’m not going to worry about it,” she said firmly. “You get a pass. No questions asked. Okay?”
“You need to know that nothing . . .” he started.
“No explanations. I do not want to know. It is not going to be an issue between us,” she said.
“But . . .” he said.
She put her finger on his lips again and shook her head sideways. The highlights in her hair sparkled in the moonlight. Her skin shone. Her eyes were hooded. It took his breath away.
He felt butterflies in his chest; the urge to speak arose, but he restrained. They held hands ’til they were within sight of the camp.
How often does that happen? Unconditional forgiveness.
ACT III
CHAPTER 47
November 25, Day after Thanksgiving
Philip, South Dakota
Crocus Rink, mother of Cooney Bedlam, stuck her head into the living room and asked, “Anybody need more coffee?”
Cooney, his stepfather Cline, Aunt Trinka, cousin Sherba, older sister Ellie, her two kids, and husband looked up from the football game on the television. Cline and Ellie both held up their cups. “I’ll help,” said Sherba, rising and heading into the kitchen.
It was the day after Thanksgiving, and Cooney had been sleeping and lazing about, resting. He still had a little restive tickle in his chest every time he thought of Pica.
The National Finals Rodeo started Thursday, December 1, and ended Saturday night, December 10, and he had qualified for the finals in both saddle bronc and bull riding. He was driving by himself. Straight had not qualified. His OTT presence was not needed, so he had chosen not to go. Pica was virtually “under house arrest” due to the
smuggling charges she faced. But Cooney could do it alone. He was brought up by this fine family to be responsible for himself.
Although it would have been nice to share the trip and the rodeo with someone, he was still pumped. This was his best season finish ever, and he was going to make the most of it. Lick and his wife were coming, and they planned to meet up. Cooney got him seats with the rodeo participant families.
At the beginning of the second half Cooney’s cell phone rang. The ring tone showed that it was Straight. Probly callin’ to encourage me, Cooney thought.
“Straight,” said Cooney, “how . . .”
Straight cut him off: “Cooney, guess what? No, don’t guess, I’ll tell ya. I’m going to the finals. Yep, Slidell broke his leg. Was skiing in Colorado and broke his leg. Shoot, he was in sixth place.”
“Fifth,” said Cooney.
“Okay, fifth, but he’s now eliminated, and I’m movin’ up! Can you believe it? I was already resigned to not qualifying. Ready to jump in next season . . . But now I’ve gotta get tuned in again. Man, oh, man. What luck, hey?”
“I’m pullin’ outta here on Monday,” said Cooney. “I could sure use some company.”
“Any chance Pica would be able to make the trip?” asked Straight.
“Nope. The law has got her pinned down.”
“Sorry,” said Straight, “but if she doesn’t come I won’t have to clean out the truck! I’ll be talking to you, hey. Oh, and Nova Skosha has already called and said I’m back in OTT booth! It’s almost too good, Cooney.”
“Naw, you deserve it, amigo,” said Cooney. “I couldn’t be happier if it was me! See ya this weekend!”
Meanwhile back in the mountains west of Pincher Creek, Pica D’TroiT was slicing potatoes for the hunting party that was in its third day of a five-day trip. She, Firmy, and Juneau had taken a pair of teenage boys and their father hunting for elk. She had been out of cell phone range and had had no contact with Cooney, much less the civilized world.
