Ride, Cowboy, Ride!

by Baxter Black

  A cab ride soon found File checking in at the resort hotel where Pica was registered. He left a message on her room phone, then called Oui Oui: “Hey, Babe.”

  “Oh, Filio, Felio, Folio, I am so buzzed!”

  “It’s gonna work,” he said joyously. “It’s brilliant. I haven’t opened the box but . . .”

  “It’s endangered feathers,” she described. “Real light, flat, easy to hide.”

  “I’m thinkin’ I could put it in the lining of one of her bags,” he said.

  “Right, and there’s a small packet of marijuana. Just rub a little on the bag that you hide the feathers in. Their dogs or chemical sniffing machine will pick right up on it. Plus my friends are gonna make a little call to Nassau airport security just after her plane leaves for Miami and alert them. The locals will call their counterparts in Miami and voila! Our little Canadian ragweed is down for the count.” Oui Oui sighed, “It’s the right thing to do, isn’t it, Filoflow? I mean, she stole the job from me, so I’m just, you know, just getting what I deserve.”

  “Yes, yes,” File agreed, “you don’t worry about her. She’ll get what’s coming to her. Speaking of which, I might be able to slip out this evening, a little wine, a little moonlight . . . my plane doesn’t leave until tomorrow at one-thirty. We could . . .”

  “Oh, Fily, Fily, Fily, you know how much I’d love to. It’s just that . . . well, my friend down here, I’ve already promised . . . ya know. But it’s you I love, Filovaceous, only you. I’m only doing this for our future. You know that. And we have to make sacrifices. Gotta go, Fi Fi.”

  “Okay. Good night,” he said wistfully.

  The next morning File’s dream girl was back on the yacht completing her week in the sun.

  “Un momento, mi Toro,” said Oui Oui. She took one more look in the mirror, swung open the dressing room door, and entered the yacht’s plush salon wearing a halter top made of feathers from the Tetuchtan Pavo Real, spiked heels, a jaguar thong, and a Glandular Y Cock fetish behind each ear.

  Bright flashes popped as the camera followed her as she prowled sensuously back and forth in front of a grinning Hurtado Herman Huachuca, sugar daddy and fairly good amateur photographer. “Buena, buena,” he exclaimed, “maravillosa, espactacular, se parese de una leona abrazando una quetzal! Eyii! ”

  Fifty nautical miles from the yacht, while Pica was taking her last lazy hours on the Nassau beach, File “inviggled” his way into her room. Stealthily he inserted and sewed the two feather jujus under the lining in her big, hard-sided bag and rubbed it with marijuana. The setup was complete.

  CHAPTER 53

  December 8, Thursday, Midday

  South of Waterton Park, Alberta

  Five miles south of the Canada-US border in Glacier National Park, Pica D’TroiT looked down on Montana State Highway 17. It was a sunny day and very cold: minus-9 degrees centigrade at midmorning. Pica was warm as toast, as determined as a brass section marker, and as strong as a Chinook comin’ off the Rockies!

  She was headed for a scenic rest stop three more miles south of her position on the west side of the highway. She didn’t have the specifics of her plan worked out, just the general outline, but she was confident it would work. Adrenaline still stoked her progress as she marched on, staying near the tree line along the highway to travel surreptitiously.

  She purposely pushed the painful pangs of guilt behind her . . . her father . . . how could she hang him out like this? He had put their ranch up as collateral. What would happen if she didn’t . . . didn’t what? Prove herself innocent? Even if she did find the smugglers, would her father still forfeit his bail because she had left the confines of her parole, the ranch?

  Can’t think about it, can’t think about it, can’t think about it . . . then she saw the rest area.

  It was not bustling, but six vehicles were parked in front of the viewing area and three more near the washroom area. An old, well-used, flatbed truck was parked in a handicapped space with the engine running. It had a Montana license plate. The metal dump bed was full to the top of the sideboards with something. A blue tarp hid the contents.

  Next to it was an SUV with a pod on the top for storage. The family who belonged to the SUV was standing by the low cable fence that defined the edge of the scenic viewing area: mom, dad, two kids, Pica noted. I could hitch a ride with them. But . . . maybe they wouldn’t be comfortable picking up a stranger . . . even, she thought, one who looked like a college kid on Christmas break.

  Then, looking at her image in the SUV’s tinted rear window, she realized she didn’t look like a snow bunny just bumming around! She was wearing her old hunting jacket, scuffed backpack, nylon pants with blood on them, a ratty fur cap, felt-lined boots, and snow goggles. Her appearance brought to mind a brain-washed terrorist on her way to blow up a theme park. And she was packing a Ruger KP 141 .357 magnum revolver with a four-inch barrel under her jacket.

  She looked over at the idling flatbed. To her it had the advantage of her not having to be seen and of her being able to avoid socializing. However, as any woman reading this knows, hitchhiking, especially stowing away, holds a real danger.

  SUV or flatbed? The family members seemed to be gathering for a snapshot. They’d be back to the car very soon. She could just wait and ask them for a ride. SUV or flatbed? The truck engine still growled. Its driver or drivers? Men? Man? Man and woman? Old? Young? Samaritans or sadists? She felt the hilt of her skinning knife and the bump of the pistol under her coat. Can you take care of yourself? Absolutely, she decided. She stepped behind the truck, slid under the tarp, and crawled in.

  Her heart was pounding. She realized she was holding her breath. The greasy canvas tarp allowed in very little light. She sat frozen in place and absorbed her surroundings. Her back was up against something firm, almost bony. A piece of furniture? She peeled off her right Thinsulate skiing glove and reached back just as the driver’s-side door opened with a metallic screech! Pica’s hip pockets came up off the metal floor as she jumped in fright. The door slammed! The transmission ground as it sought reverse, followed by a tinny rumble and jolt—both signs that the truck was backing out of the parking space.

  Acutely aware of the vehicle’s every move and direction, Pica sighed with relief after she was sure the truck was headed south. Highway 17 would connect to Highway 89 across the Blackfeet Indian Reservation to Cut Bank and eventually to Great Falls, which would be her jumping-off place to Las Vegas. Exploring her surroundings, she laid a bare hand on the sofa or whatever it was. It felt like horse hair. As she felt farther she soon realized it was not a horse-hair sofa but rather a dead horse. Not long dead, either, because it was not frozen, just cool on the surface.

  She rolled to her side. There was less than a foot of clearance between the floor and the tarp, though the tarp was quite flexible and flapped lightly as the truck ran down the highway. Pica ran her hand up to the horse’s head and hit a sticky, crusty slick of blood.

  She reached over the back of the horse next to her and felt another. Oh, well, she thought, in for a loonie, in for a liter. I don’t know, and I don’t care. She closed her eyes and drifted into the first sleep she’d had since two mornings ago.

  CHAPTER 54

  December 8, Thursday, Noonish

  On a Side Road off Highway 89 near

  Browning, Montana

  Pica lurched out of her sleep with a bang! The truck had hit a drainage cut in the dirt road and bounced. She was tossed around but soon got her bearing. She felt the flatbed gearing down and ascending a slight incline up a snow-packed gravel road. The truck pulled into what she assumed was a driveway, followed it, maneuvered, then backed up and stopped. The driver’s door opened, but the truck engine was not turned off.

  She lay there sharpening her senses. She was in quiet place. No sounds of traffic or the bustle of a town. Voices came in and out but were
unintelligible. Footsteps in the snow came her way. There was no way to slide out of sight. The bungee cords holding the tarp down were popped off, but to her surprise no one lifted the tarp.

  She heard the clunk of a gear engaging and the whine of a heavy winch. The truck bed began rising at the front! She had no place to brace her feet, plus the horses began pushing against her. At 45 degrees everything started moving to the back of the truck bed!

  Pica slid out on her side, hit the deck, and rolled out from under the avalanching horses! A stiff limb caught her between the shoulders and knocked her down. The third horse, whose carcass was solid with cold, bounced beside her as she ducked away. It rocked back and lay gently across her right leg.

  It all took place in less than five seconds. Then the winch stopped.

  Pica had not screamed nor said a word. The driver, who was operating the winch from a switch just behind the cab on the truck frame, never saw her. But the heavy, blackhaired Blackfeet man standing on the other side of the truck was staring at her. He looked over at the driver, then back at the scene before him.

  Ah, dear reader. I am sure many thoughts raced, or at least speed-walked, through his mind as he watched the scene unfold. Not the least of which was, Did she come with the deal? And how much more would it cost?

  Pica shook and tried to raise her head just as the driver stepped around the corner. He screamed! Hit falsetto, sounding like the Ink Spots attempting a yodel! Grabbed the side of the truck, then fell to his knees holding his chest! It was beautiful.

  Pica squinted her eyes and said, “Spiral?”

  “Pica?” he asked.

  In the next few minutes Spiral Keets, independent businessman, lifted the horse off her leg with the winch, collected $125 from the Indian man for the carcasses, and, with Pica beside him in the truck cab, headed toward the junction of Highway 89 and Highway 2 that went to Cut Bank, Shelby, and Interstate 15.

  Spiral started talking: “I can’t believe my luck. Just like in a fairy tale or a movie, ya know, like a romantic comedy where you are Sandra Bullock, and I’m Tom Cruise and, like I’m a sports agent, hey, and you’re a policewoman whose tough and can fight, but Tom gets you in a pageant thing, and we’re both on a bus that we can’t slow down or stop because the bad guy will set off a bomb which can release a meteor or an earthquake or a giant tidal wave, and we’re on the Poseidon, hey, in the perfect storm, and we’re trying to free Willie . . .”

  Pica was immediately taken back in time. What she remembered most about Spiral from their middle and high school coincidal matriculation was his exuberance—excessive exuberance and earnestness.

  “Man,” he continued, “what luck. What if you had crawled in the back of another rendering truck or in front with a logger or maybe a meth addict who had just murdered his wife, or sister, ya know, or ex-wife, even, or maybe you would have met a nice family who could have taken you with them, maybe kidnapped you, even though they looked innocent to start with. Even their children would have been kidnapped earlier but now were under the influence of the . . . something effect when the Black Panthers or the rubber underground, or whoever, the Weathermen who were also women, but what the . . . hey? What if you have been tricked by the family, and you’d become their slave? Whew!”

  “Where you going?” she asked.

  “Cut Bank. I live in Cut Bank. I have a green card. Oh, I make it back to Pincher pretty often. Mom and Dad keep an eye on me, but, as you can see, I’ve started my own business. After the States passed the horse slaughter ban I figured, what are all those backyard, city-type people gonna do when they can’t get rid of the horses they have?

  “I talked to a vet. He said a hundred dollars to euthanize them, hey? Then whattya do with a dead horse? Bury it? . . . big backhoe expense, rent a hole somewhere to put him in? Hire somebody to take him to the dump!

  “So, I set out to make it work. And the kicker! Guess what?” He stared at Pica. She stared back. “Recycling!” he said and waited for overwhelming complimentary response.

  “I’ve got a list of six people now who will pay for dead horses. Ya know, dog trainers, one guy has two half-wolf pets, likes to train them with real meat. I’m workin’ on a zoo in Conrad . . . it’s not a big one, but if I can furnish them meat for, like, a mountain lion exhibit or wild boars . . . They’ll eat anything, them boars. And that last guy where we just dumped the three horses, I’m not sure what he wanted them for, but I can tell ya, he sure had his eye on you!”

  “Spiral,” she said, “I just want to thank you . . .”

  He interrupted, “I’m glad to, I’m glad to. I told you, it’s my lucky day. Anyway, I also am spreading word that I can euthanize horses right at their place and haul ’em off!”

  “How do you . . .” she started.

  “Forty-five-caliber S&W. That’s when I can get up close. Sometimes I’ve had to use my .30-30. Forty-five is great if you hit the brain the first time, and I’m a pretty good shot. But if, ya know, they’re in the corral and hard to corner, I can do a heart shot or even a head shot, hey.

  “I’ve even thought up a name for my company. You know, paint it on my truck, maybe a ball cap. How’s this . . . Heaven’s Helper . . . Equine Demise and Disposal?”

  “That’s great,” said Pica.

  “Ya know,” said Spiral, “I’ve never held it against you when you wouldn’t dance with me at the eighth-grade graduation party. I was just a kid. No job, no sophistication. You were cute. Not very well developed, like Amber, I mean, but still, you could tell you were a girl and . . .”

  “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings,” she said.

  “No, naw, you didn’t. My mother said it was my braces. But it wasn’t a big deal. Sure, I cried a lot, actually cut myself . . . accidentally, I told everyone, but it didn’t matter. I just lived for the day when my braces would come off and I could ask you to dance again.”

  Pica was having mixed feelings between having hurt him so deeply and thinking, I could be in the back seat of a station wagon having conversation with a functional family.

  “You remember the Mexican Beach Party?” he asked. “I think we were juniors, had a Mexican theme?”

  A vision hit her like a cyclone! A specter walking toward her dressed as the Aztec Pyramid of the Sun carrying a large bowl of guacamole dip and a pour-on dipper full of the blackened green substance.

  She was wearing a brand new, bought-for-the-Mexican Beach Party western blouse, with lace and a bit of a low neckline. It was unclear in her memory whether the lights went out or somebody did a table dive or the Pyramid of the Sun was pushed from behind, but she went over backward, and the bowl of guacamole hit her décolletage like a pie in the face!

  She was humiliated!

  For months after the incident Spiral had written her apology cards. Store-bought ones, handmade ones, ones in cookies, cakes, boxes of candy, and flowers, begging forgiveness. Finally her father and Uncle Firmy had made her see the humorous side of the whole thing. At their insistence she had written Spiral back, thanked him for the flowers, and forgiven him.

  She received a thank-you letter weekly for a couple of months, and then he was mollified.

  “Yes,” she said. “I remember the Mexican Beach Party . . . and the guacamole dip,” she said. “I finally saw the humor in it.”

  “I was so embarrassed,” Spiral said. “Mother said I should write you an apology, so I did. I think somebody pushed me that night. I still relive it in my mind. I tried to write my version of it, but I don’t know who pushed me, so I can’t finish the story. I must have five or six boxes full of my notes and speculations. It still keeps me up at night.

  “But then I got to thinkin’, hey, it could be a movie! Somebody good write the screenplay, maybe I could be cast as the narrator. I’m imagining Renée Zellweger playing you, sort of the funny but good-looking character, who knows? Bu
t in the movie that somebody, an evil somebody, pushed me, and I, you and I could spend the entire movie trying to find the guilty party, the one who pushed me. Matthew McConaughey could play the role of me, the wounded, innocent victim . . . I could be injured in the fall. A little artistic license.

  “We’d keep the villain, the bad guy’s identity unknown until the very end when we find guacamole dip on a broom handle hidden in his basement.”

  Spiral paused. Then, “Whattya think? Pretty good, hey?”

  She looked at him warily.

  His features softened, and he spoke, “Pica, this must be fate. I can’t tell you how often I’ve fantasized about you and I. How could something like you sliding out of my Heaven’s Helper truck just be an accident . . . a coincidence?

  “I don’t want to rush you. It’s all so new, so sudden, but I believe you and I are destined to . . . to, to be a part of each other’s lives.”

  “How far is it to Cut Bank?” she asked quietly.

  CHAPTER 55

  December 8, Thursday

  Still on the Trail with Pica

  Spiral continued to drone on, explaining in depth his dreams for their future.

  The droning of the truck tires and the driver soon had Pica, in spite of herself, remembering long-suppressed memories of her high school days. She had been a late bloomer. Not physically but socially and emotionally. She had resisted acknowledging her feminine side.

  She had been sixteen the fall that Spiral had “guacoed” her. It had set her back months in her maturation.

  Unfortunately Spiral was one of those intelligent but insensitive humans who had convinced himself that if she only knew him better, she would like him more. He had persisted in trying to explain and apologize. In self-defense, she agreed to go steady with Albert Chrz that Christmas of her junior year.