Ride, Cowboy, Ride!

by Baxter Black

  Pica pulled the mink coat around her, slung the bag over her shoulder, grabbed a harness and without buckling it on, clipped it onto the zipline. Then she clipped another one right behind the first. “Get up!” she shouted at Cooney. The attendant immediately stood and raised his hands.

  “Cooney,” she repeated. “Grab this harness!”

  He staggered up, ran an arm through the nylon strap.

  “Hold on!” she said.

  “Do jou want the safety instruckshu-nes?” ventured the OSHA-aware attendant.

  Cooney screamed again and grabbed the harness with both hands as he tipped over the edge. Pica sailed off right behind him!

  “Pues, maybe not now,” said the attendant, straightening the collar on his uniform shirt.

  From the Feliz-eye view, which was bleary, he saw Pica push Cooney into midair.

  Feliz stuck his gun into his waistline and swung over the rail, descending to the platform. The attendant threw up his hands again when Feliz hit the deck.

  But a memory straightened the dedicated employee’s spine. His zipline platform superintendent had imbued in him a sense of duty, a responsibility for those people placed in his care. Each new trainee had sworn allegiance to the Ruken Brothers Zipline Exposition Ride Company upon completion of the four-hour course.

  It was up to him to reestablish order.

  “Pongeme este! ” ordered Feliz, pointing to an empty harness hanging behind the attendant. Feliz looked down the zipline and saw his two fleeing enemies swinging wildly as they disappeared into the canopy of treetops.

  “Yes, sir, but first I must giff you the safety instrucciones.”

  “Oyeme, pendejo . . .!” Feliz began.

  “It iss no juice trying to estop the instrucciones for it iss my duty . . .”

  Feliz tried to grab the harness from the attendant. The attendant jerked back!

  “Plees keep you han’s and feets inside of the harness at all . . . Uunnn . . . times . . . ow . . . for jour own safeties pleeez do not . . .”

  “Dejalo! ”

  “Do not tush the sipline or harness attashmen ass this may . . . Oww . . . may result in dis . . . dis . . . memberment . . . Stop it! . . . off jour body members.”

  “Damelo, idiota! ”

  “Ass jou descend pleez enchoy the magnifico foligment and . . . Ayyyiii . . . and do not feed the birts and . . . Quita, Senor . . . espera . . . and the wilelifes ass they are mate of plastico . . . hu, hu, hu . . . ess a choke, una broma . . . sabes? ”

  Feliz lost his cool. His switchblade flew open. “Cuchillo,” he said.

  “Piedra,” said the attendant.

  Feliz was puzzled for a second.

  “Jou are spost to say ‘papel,’” reminded the attendant.

  “Pistola! ” said Feliz, pulling his gun.

  “Tijeras! ” said the attendant, smiling.

  “Muerto,” said Feliz, pointing his pistol at the attendant’s left eye. “Dame el chaleco . . . Pronto.”

  It took only twelve seconds to have Feliz on his way. A personal best, the attendant was thinking as Feliz left the platform swingin’ like a smoked ham on a clothesline pole.

  Put yourself in the attendant’s place. Was this a movie being filmed, and he had not been informed? Was it an elopement of some kind, maybe a reality show? Would he have to show his green card? He mentally felt his wallet in his pocket. He would be safe if the border patrol asked for it.

  Ninety-six feet and twelve seconds away, at the level of the eighth floor, Cooney and Pica swung up onto the next platform. The attendant on duty nearly backed off the edge trying to get out of the way! Cooney had one arm through the harness and the other locked around the safety rail on the platform. Pica was on his back, clinging to his harness to prevent herself from sliding back. They were still four feet from the platform!

  Cooney’s feet were scrabbling wildly! “Help!”

  This attendant, who was also a lifeguard in the summer, could tell a drowning man when he saw one! He locked one leg around a brace. Then he took Cooney’s wrist and Pica’s wrist and pulled them both onto the platform.

  “Thank you,” said Pica. “Now help me into this harness, please.”

  “Maybe you should . . .” started the attendant.

  “Now!” she yelled in his face with red-haired fury.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, unhooking both clips from the incoming line. Then he strapped her into her harness and clipped her hook on to the outgoing cable. Cooney was still on one knee when she stepped to the edge.

  “Now him,” she instructed. As quickly as the attendant complied, Pica dove off the platform and flew down the line.

  “You need to wait one minute ’til the light from the next platform turns green,” advised the attendant.

  Cooney, now strapped in his harness and slightly dazed, walked to the edge.

  “Wait!” the attendant said. “Don’t use the brake, don’t touch the line, wait . . . let me hook you to the line!”

  Cooney heard Feliz cursing from above and getting louder and louder. Cooney stepped off the edge and never looked back.

  “Have a good zip,” said the attendant.

  Back and forth down three more ziplines our characters careened. Several times Feliz saw his prey flying through openings in the trees, but, like the compassionate criminal he was, he refrained from shooting. He didn’t want to injure the pedestrians milling about on the lobby floor below.

  At the level of the second floor the zipline ended in a bowl from which descended four spiraling Teflon slides. Each slide represented one of the four humors of man: Earth, Fire, Air, and Water. Which tank was connected to which slide was unknown to the rider.

  “Unhook and slide down!” said a voice box attached to the bowl.

  “Here,” said Pica, steadying Cooney and unlatching him from the cable.

  “Where do I . . .” Cooney started, then slipped on the moving floor and slid down the spiraling slide into Earth!

  Pica looked up, saw Feliz. She unhooked her harness and turned to tell Cooney to jump . . . but he was gone! She sat down in the next circling slide and headed for Fire.

  Earth consisted of a large round tank filled with tan-colored plastic balls. Cooney managed to keep right side up when he hit the tank. It was five feet deep, and the balls kept him buoyant. He worked his way to the side, swimming and striding. He heard but couldn’t see Pica hit the tank of Fire, which was filled with synthetic gummy worms!

  Pica and Cooney climbed out of their respective tanks and headed for the big front door. Cooney stopped to look back. Feliz came off his slide and hit the tank filled with Air! Air was simulated by a large but tightly woven high-wire circus net. Feliz recoiled from his first crash back into Air!

  Cooney was mesmerized for a moment. He watched Feliz through three jumps, each a minor revision of an orangutan walking through hot coals!

  Cooney and Pica ran!

  CHAPTER 70

  December 10, Saturday, 8:30 p.m.

  Cooney and Pica

  Escape the Casino/Hotel

  Out on the street they were hit by a blast of cold air! Pica tugged her mink coat tightly around her. She felt for buttons, instead found a zipper. Before she could even look down Cooney pulled her by the arm into the crowded sidewalk.

  Weaving and fast-walking they pressed their way through the chatter, clatter, gas fumes, and neon flash of Las Vegas at night on the Strip.

  They crossed the street at a Walk/Don’t Walk sign. Pausing, Cooney looked back and saw Feliz trying to follow them in the crosswalk . . . except the light had turned to Don’t Walk. Cabs and limousines honked their displeasure as Feliz did the Caribbean jaywalk! Feliz finally hit the curb, realized he was attracting attention, and quickly affected a nonchalance, as if nothing had happe
ned.

  He patted the pistol in his pocket and the knife up his sleeve, then stretched to look over the heads of the sidewalk pedestrians. Just as he rose to his tiptoes, he saw Cooney look back. Their eyes met.

  Whew . . . maybe not the best time to interrupt with an interrogatory, but we have three protagonists with three different motives to be in this place at the same time: one to clear her name, one to claim her heart, and one to skin her hide!

  Cooney is the only one with an unselfish motive, assuming love is an unselfish motive, which I do. It is a motive stronger than either of the other two. There is a place wherein they can say, “You know it’s not worth it.” But not with love. You can’t weigh it, measure it, score it, earn it, deserve it, stop it, buy it, or spend it. True love just is, and only the heart of the lover knows if it is true.

  Three blocks down the street in the B-Zhong Wedding Chapel and Notary (“se habla Espanol ”), Bull Younumclaw and Trisket Thistle were in the preliminaries of pledging their vows. Each was dressed in their sportiest “Hell’s Angel” formal wear. Bull was a big man, a beefy man, with big arms, a big belly, and the obligatory corn maze of tattoos. He wore leather, torn denim, and chains. His black hair was slicked back, and he had shaved . . . his cheeks, anyway.

  His bride-to-be appeared to be a veteran of many a back-seat ride on somebody’s Harley. She was “chunky,” I guess, but obviously tough enough to handle any testy women’s-wear clerk or passionate motorcycle-noise protester. Her occupation was listed as sign fluctuator. “You know,” she would say, “Slow. Stop. Slow. Stop” For the big ceremony she had chosen stretch jeans, a low-necked turquoise tight T-shirt, her MoMMa membership black leather jacket, and lace-up steel-toed boots.

  She, too, was black-haired, but instead of a Fu Manchu mustache, she wore bright red lipstick and a silver and onyx ring in her right eyebrow.

  In addition to several curious spectators who had dropped in, a clutch of club members stood around enjoying the excitement. The proprietor of the place, presider, notary, and salesman Wally Okima, was fishing the crowd. “You know that the price is very fair to be wedding two fine people for the small sum of $349.12 . . . But if any of you in the party, like you, Sir,” he addressed an hombre whom Dog on the Bounty Hunter show must have used for inspiration, “maybe you have been thinking it’s time to settle down.”

  Bull interrupted, “That’s Snag. He didn’t bring nobody.”

  “Well,” said Wally, “it’s just cheaper is all. A double ceremony for only $249.12 each.”

  “What if we got married twice?” asked Bull.

  “That would be a double ceremony, okay, but I’d have to do it twice, so it would cost . . .” Wally paused, calculating on his pad, “$498.24. And, think about it, you’d only have to buy one ring!”

  “Whattya mean one ring!” glared Trisket Thistle.

  Wally charged on. “That way you’d save the money that he was gonna spend on a second ring for that honeymoon in Hawaii!”

  “You can’t buy a honeymoon in Hawaii for $35,” said Bull.

  “You two are shrewd traders,” said Wally. “Maybe if both you and Mister uh . . . Snag, there both married Ms. Trinket in the same ceremony, using one ring, I could do it for $373.72.”

  “Can’t do it. Snag and me are cousins,” said Bull. “’Course, so is me and Trisket.”

  “Second cousins, idiot,” responded Trisket testily. “It’s my son that’s married to your cousin who was my half-sister.”

  “Ah, shut it down, all you-all! Let’s git on with it!” said Bull.

  “Maybe . . .” started Wally.

  “No ‘maybe’!” said Bull. “Git out your marryin’ stuff and do your duty, or I’m gonna bend this chandelier around your neck and hang you in a basketball player’s closet.”

  A little miffed, Wally slid on a formal suit coat over his Hilo Hattle shirt, put on a straw boater, gathered his papers, and walked to stand behind the small podium under the arbor decorated with ascending plastic vines.

  He pointed to the Xs duct-taped on the floor that marked where the couple should stand.

  “Dear brethern and sistern,” began Wally.

  A sudden racket of doors banging and furniture clattering stopped the program!

  All eyes sought the source of the racket. A small woman with fly-away red hair and a fur coat came barreling through the door like a fullback goin’ over the middle! Toppling in behind her was six foot of cowboy wearin’ a black hat and carrying a garment bag over his shoulder.

  “It’s a raid!” cried Snag! “It’s a raid!”

  “I got my green card right here, officer,” volunteered Wally.

  It took a moment for the smoke to clear.

  “Oh,” said Pica, her chest heaving, “it’s not a raid, don’t call the police . . . please, it’s just . . .”

  “Sorry,” said Cooney. “Pardon us. We . . . what, did we interrupt something?”

  “Just my wedding,” said Bull aggressively.

  “Oh, man. I’m sorry. Uh, don’t mind us. We, uh,” Cooney couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Okay then,” said Wally, “let’s get on with it.”

  The door opened again; everyone looked. A handsome Latino man stepped inside. He looked around and immediately saw Cooney. Feliz evaluated the situation and nodded to everyone, then eased his way into the crowd.

  Wally noticed the immediate fear in Pica’s eyes and the tension in Cooney’s. “Are you folks here to get married?”

  “Married?” asked Cooney. “What would make you think that?” Cooney took a moment to look around, locating Feliz, who gave him the squint eye. Then Cooney’s eyes fell on the sign, B-Zhong Wedding Chapel and Notary. He nodded in understanding.

  “Well,” Cooney said, stalling, “we’ve thought about it. Given it some thought. Not a lot really but some . . .”

  Wally responded. “You couldn’t have picked a better time, better place. We are at this moment commencing to engage this lovely couple, Bull and Trinket.”

  “Trisket,” said Trisket.

  “Yes, Bull and Trisket, in the holy vows of matrimony, and it is just possible that you could join them in a double ceremony and save them a whopping $25 even.”

  “Sure,” said Bull playfully. “We’d be glad to be your Siamese bride and groom, wouldn’t we, Trisky?”

  Cooney glanced back and noticed that Feliz had moved closer. “You know, that might be just the thing!” he said. “And it’s something we’ve dreamed except for one thing . . .” Cooney looked back, staring at Feliz, who was now only ten feet away.

  Everyone within earshot looked at Feliz. Feliz returned the attention with a sickly grin.

  “Yeah, him,” said Cooney. “He’s stalking her.”

  A collective gasp rose from the crowd. Eyebrows furrowed, eyes slitted and shot daggers at Feliz, who raised a hand in protestation.

  “Yeah,” Cooney said, “he claimed he was her manager and she owes him seven more weeks working the street, but she claims he kidnapped her and forced her into dental servitude . . .” Cooney’s impromptu oration took them all aback. “I was only trying to help her escape from his evil grasp . . . We want to marry, but he thinks he owns her and . . . that I should pay him for her!”

  “Why, that scumbag!” said Trisket.

  “That’s what I felt,” said Cooney. “He wants to take her back to Caracas and enslave her, but she is suffering from an incurable disease . . .”

  “Where’s Caracas?” asked Snag.

  “Venezuela,” answered Cooney, “but she can’t get treatment there, and I’ve got insurance that will cover her organ transplant . . .”

  A cooing sigh flowed from the crowd.

  “Except . . . we have to be married for my insurance to apply. That’s all we’re trying to do, yet he want
s to ruin our lives for a few pesos.” Cooney shoulders dropped, and he sighed.

  “Oh, you poor, poor sweethearts,” said Trisket, stepping over to Pica and giving her a big hug.

  “Oh, man,” said Bull. “That’s a terrible story. Listen, I’ll even pay for your wedding. Snag, could I borrow a couple hundred?”

  Feliz could take it no more! He shoved his way toward the betrothed waving his arms and shouting, “Mentidoso! Mentidoso! ” His hand hit Cooney chest-on! With an ingrained reaction learned in his high school wrestling days, Cooney grasped Feliz’s right elbow just as it came around his neck, ducked, and, using Feliz’s own momentum, flipped him against the wall!

  Feliz caught Cooney’s ankle as he went down and jerked him off his feet. They were fighting in close, most blows not landing effectively. In one burst they got to their knees, grappled, and took out one corner of the arbor! On the ground Cooney was wriggling, trying to get face to face. Feliz’s hand came out of his pocket with a sleek black pistol.

  Snag stepped in, twisted the pistol with the finger still in the trigger guard, and heard it snap! The finger, not the gun. By then Snag had Feliz’s arm. There was another snap as the wrist broke. A howl came from Feliz! Then another snap as the radius and humerus bones disarticulated at the elbow. This was followed by a keening cry and collapse!

  Cooney crawled from under the prostrate body of Hurtado Herman Huachuca’s faithful bodyguard and black market feather smuggler.

  The crowd exhaled in unison. Snag let the double-jointed arm drop. Feliz was making whimpering noises. Snag placed the hobnail heel of his heavy-duty black leather steel-toed motorcycle boot on the side of Feliz’s face. He applied a little pressure. “If you can keep quiet for a minute or two, so’s we can finish this here wedding, or weddings, I’ll be glad to call the animal shelter to come pick you up.”