Los Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles, California
I laid my H&K USP .45 on the counter at the check-in booth for TWA airlines. The attendant eyed me with wary disdain as he examined the gun to make sure it was unloaded. It’s completely legal to carry firearms underneath any commercial airliner and there was nothing he could say about it, but I could tell he was against such things. With a nod from the attendant I slammed the slide home and locked the gun back into the case. I could smell the aroma of the 91-Seeds in the suitcase and I knew the airline attendant surely could, too. But he was letting it slide, for whatever reason, and I quickly put the gun case in the suitcase, zipped it up and handed it to him to check under the plane.
I’d need the firepower where I was going. I knew every inch of those great prairies which were cleaved twain by the ruts of the old Santa Fe Trail, ribbons in the sod marking in miles the number of tears shed by those early settlers who’d tried, most in vain, to transverse the oceans of unsympathetic prairies. Even old uncle Billy Burroughs carried his six shooter when he went out for a Naked Lunch in Lawrence, Kansas and all his enemies were either dead of old age or so barbecued by China White that they posed a threat to nobody save the poor lass who dumped their bedpans, which were generally full of blood and bile and small, inconsequential organs that are never supposed to leave the human body during life.
I was bound for Kansas, home to Dodge City, Wyatt Earp, Batt Masterson and more recently, Special Agent Orange. I knew to come armed. Special Agent Orange was an old travel partner from my pro rodeo days. A great bullrider. He used to say, “the higher they fly, the cooler the breeze.” He had a predisposition towards adrenaline and when that ran dry, white lable tequila would do just fine.
Not that I was expecting trouble. I was going on vacation.
As we circled the airfield over Kansas, I looked down over those miles of endless grass and felt a little charge. I was home. Home on the range. As we circled lower and lower, I noticed that the native grass turning that familiar shade of bluish purple, signifying the end of another Kansas summer. Then the plane hit an air pocket, dropped 3,000 feet and I was reminded that I was meeting Special Agent Orange later that night.
ROCK CREEK RANCH
THE KANSAS FLINT HILLS REGION
It was late evening when Special Agent Orange rode his ’59 Panhead chopper into the ranch. The seat on his scoot was a real bronc saddle with the stirrups cut off. A horse tail hung from the back fender. Prairie-grass-polished spurs hung from his boot heels.
“What’s this you’re jabberin’ about some damned mornin’ glory seeds?” he swore, as he climbed from his barely legal machine and stuck out his scarred hand. “Hell fire, I don’t know why a man would do anything with mornin’ glory seeds but burn the sonsabitches. Damned weed drive a row-crop man clear outta business.”
I shook Special Agent Orange’s hand and noticed his sun-faded .44 revolver still hung from his left hip.
“I’ve found through my extensive FDA research that morning glory seeds are perhaps the most overlooked cure-all in medicinal history.”
“You’re eatin’ them sonsabitches?”
“A hybrid really,” I replied.
“Aye gawd. I thought you learned after that damned nutmeg fi-asco down in South Beach ta knock off eatin’ weeds. Gawd damned nearly got me kilt. Shit fire, even an old cow knows more’n ta eat a damned weed.”
“It’s what led me to discover the Muzzle Flash Theory,” I told him.
“The Muzzle Flash Theory?” Special Agent Orange snorted.
“I’ll tell you about it on the road,” I said, nodding towards the tiny bag lying near the front step of the stone ranch hourse. “Let’s get going.”
I knew better than to go into detail over the crazed experiments I’d been performing before we’d passed the point of no return.
I fired up my Kansas chopper, El Toro and we rumbled up the seven mile gravel lane that led to the only highway in the region.
OLD HIGHWAY 56
THE FLINT HILLS, KANSAS
2:00 AM
“I thought you was on vacation,” Special Agent Orange hollered, as we rode over the rolling prairies through the black night.
“I am. But I need to test this theory on pure subjects. I can’t trust my results from anyone in New Orleans or L.A. Those fuckers are so fouled by dope and red Voodoo I can’t get an honest reading.”
“Yur gonna git us shot,” Special Agent Orange ensured me, as he reached into his saddle bags, abondoning the bike to turn freely on its own. His scoot swerved violently and headed straight for a high cliff that dangled over the ditch far below.
“Jeeeeeeesus!” I cried as I leaned across and grabbed his left handgrip and righted his bike, nearly throwing Special Agent Orange off.
“Gaaaawd dammit! What in’the hell ya tryin’ ta do? Kill me!?” Special Agent Orange demanded as he handed me a Blackberry beer.
“What the hell was that?” I hollered, cracking the beer and slurping the purple foam on the rim as it blew all over me.
“What?!” Specal Agent Orange demanded.
“Turning around and reaching into your bags with both hands!” I roared.
“I was getting’ myself a frosty!”
“‘Ya ’bout got us both planted, ya dumb bastard!” I yelled.
“Man tries ta get a frosty and he’s nice enough to get the other dumb sonofabitch one and what thanks does he git? Damned neart bucked off onta the damned road, that’s what,” Special Agent Orange snapped.
We simultaneously drank our beers in one long drag. Special Agent Orange started to turn for another, but I leaned over and grabbed his arm.
“I’ll get it,” I yelled in disgust. “You see about keepin’ this rollin’ felony on the road. What flavor you havin’?”
“Believe I’ll have me a Blackberry,” Special Agent Orange said triumphantly, very happy to suddenly have room service on his flying stallion of doom.
“Good. That’s all the flavors you got,” I said as I glided El Toro in and snatched a beer from his saddlebags.
“I know.”
“Now, here’s the plan. When we get to Council Grove, we’re gonna go to that little bar they got.”
“What’s it called?” Orange said, tossing his empty can in my lap.
“Lucy’s! What the hell difference does it make what it’s called? It’s the only bar in the damned town.”
“That’s what I thought. I can’t go inta Lucy’s. Had a little incident at the July 4th rodeo in ’88, in case you don’t recall,” Special Agent yelled as we sailed along Highway 56, the old two lane blacktopper that runs along the Santa Fe Trail all the way to Dodge City, 411 miles west.
I suddenly remembered the home-made bomb which Special Agent Orange had rolled across the dance floor in Lucy’s.
He was on a stolen horse when he did it. Thought it would aid in his getaway. Probably would have if the bomb hadn’t rolled under the pool table and caused it to flip over, sending pool balls all over the floor. In the ensuing melee, the horse reared up, stepped down on one of the fated glass spheres and took a wonderful backwards flip over the bar, landing upside down and nearly killing Special Agent Orange who made one of the prettiest flying dismounts I’d ever seen in fifteen years of pro rodeo.
“Hell, nobody knows who you were,” I said, remembering the scene of furious, choking cowhands as they poured out onto the street, pistols over their heads, looking for a culprit to murder.
I cranked down my straw cowboy hat, which was buzzing in the 100 mile an hour winds.
“There was quite a slug ah smoke,” Special Agent Orange said with a smirk.
I handed Special Agent Orange another Blackberry beer.
“What the hell made you strap that gas jug to that blastin’ cap anyway?” I asked as we roared past an old Indian burial ground.
Special Agent Orange raised a brow and looked up at the stars that filled the Kansas night sky. “Hell…I can’t remember, been so long ago and all,” he shouted back thoughtfully.
Special Agent Orange had no idea just how much the product petroleum was about to affect his life in that same cowtown bar, once again.
LUCY’S BAR
COUNCIL GROVE, KANSAS
2:30 AM
Special Agent Orange tied a pair of reins which led from the front forks of his Panhead chopper to the horse-hitching post in front of Lucy’s. I parked El Toro alongside.
We walked through the double shutters of the small cowtown bar and Special Agent Orange ordered two Blackberry beers. Above the small bar was a sign which read, “Absolutely NO shootin’ inside! It makes the damned roof leak!”
“Say, Zebra, look at that,” Agent Orange whispered to me as he handed me a Blackberry.
“What?”
“On the back side of the bar, there in the oak.”
“Ohh, hog’s leg,” I said, noticing a sawed-off shotgun.
“Not the scatter gun. In the wood.”
I looked more closely. “I’ll be damned,” I said.
An inch deep in the wood was half the print of a horse shoe. It had been made by the flailing front foot of the ill-fated pony that Agent Orange had ridden up over the bar in the explosion years ago.
The place had a jukebox, a flashy new pool table not more than a decade old, a checkered dance floor, a few very old, wooden chairs held together with bailing wire and luck and tables made by flipping wooden, utility line spools onto one end.
Council Grove had been the last stop along the old Santa Fe Trail before New Mexico. National landmarks abound. There’s the famous Post Oak with its natural hole where the pony-express cowboys threw the mail, the old jail, the boot store. The original owner of the boot store did an admirable trade until one day when an Indian chief rode into town and commissioned the boot smith to build him a set of the boots he’d seen the few cowboys wearing. The boot smith did so and a few days later the chief came back and killed him with a stone tomahawk for failing to mention that the new cowboy boots would afford less toe mobility than his moccasins.
A band of rowdy hands was milling about the bar. In the back a herd of beasts that looked like crude crosses between women and bison laughed at decibels that could mangle good steel and quaffed astonishing amounts of Blackberry beer.
“Aye gawd,” Agent Orange said, looking over my shoulder to the bar.
“What?” I said, fishing into my jeans pocket to make sure the morning glory seeds were still there.
“They got himbee beans.”
“Himbee beans?”
“Rattler nuts.”
A large, glass Mason jar filled to the top with a faint, yellowish water stood behind the bar. Inside were about fifty softshelled snake eggs. A sign on the jar read, “Himbee beans, $ .50.”
“Bartender! Give me and my companero a coupla them damned Himbee beans,” Agent Orange barked.
The bartender reached in with a dirty hand and grabbed a wad of rattle snake eggs. Tossing a napkin in front of each of us, he dropped half the eggs on one and half on the other. Agent Orange slapped down a dollar bill.
The stench of vinegar filled the air.
“I don’t believe I’ll be eatin’ any of those ,” I said, as Agent Orange looked at me expectantly.
“The hell you won’t, I just paid good money fer them sonsabitches and yer gonna eat ’em.”
“Bullshit,” I corrected.
“Eat them damned snake nuts. They’re good for ya.”
“When the hell did people start eatin’ rattler abortions around here?” I asked.
“Things ain’t go no simpler here since rode out of town, Pecos,” Special Agent Orange assured me.
I forced the rancid smelling leather balls down.
“Those are awful!”
“Sure are, I jest thought I’d see if you liked ’em, since nobody else I knew did. ‘Cludin’ myself,” Special Agent Orange roared as he brushed his into the bar gutter.
I turned and hollered to the cowhands.
“Everyone listen up!”
The hard gazes of sun and wind hammered faces landed on me.
“There’s a new elixir that has yet to be released by the FDA. They’re toutin’ it as a miracle drug. Cures everything from hoof-rot to stupidity. Now I got a few of these little beauties on me and for a price, everyone here can try a couple. Don’t get any big ideas, though. This ain’t somethin’ you can just run out and pick in a field. These are specially developed herb seeds that are a result of years of botanical research at a special lab in Fort Defiance, California. You may have heard of Fort Defiance. It’s known for its botanical research.” I could tell by the blank stares that nobody had heard of California.
Then a Bison Woman piped up.
“I traveled overseas once. Been to California. Hot.”
“Okay, listen,” I continued. “I’m gonna lay these out. Everyone should take two or three according to body weight. You ladies in the back, you can have all you want. Just leave five bucks on the bar to help me pay for the refrigeration costs and we’ll call it even.”
“What thee hell’s a f-da?” a bushy mustache asked from under a sweat-stained Stetson.
“That’s an acronym. Stands for Food and Drug Administration. They’re the ones always tellin’ you ya can’t poke your cattle full of those drugs that make ’em gain so damned well,” I answered. “This drug is their way of makin’ it up to ya. They sent me with a message that anyone who eats these can inject all the growth hormones they want into their cattle for one full year.”
“Sweet Jesus, gonna be some big steers agoin’ on the trucks next year!” a grizzled cowpoke whooped as he strode forward.
“I also recommend you shoot some of those hormones into each other. Just give yourselves the dosage you’d give an eleven-hundred pound steer. Help you see farther. That’s especially good for you row-crop boys. Keep your fields straighter. Increase your yields. Help you cowhands spot strays better, too. That medical advice and these here elixir seeds are on the house, courtesy of Special Agent Zebra.”
For a moment nobody moved. The only sound was the wind blowing down mainstreet.
“Aye gawd, that’s mighty neighborly of ya,” a cowpoke piped as he strode up, scooped up a handful of morning glory seeds and laid a five on the bar.
The seeds were gone in seconds. Special Agent Orange and I decided to put the money back into the local economy and told the bartender to keep the Blackberry beers on the house until the cash ran out.
I was sipping on a Blackberry and taking notes of the initial effects on the locals while Agent Orange shot a game of pool with one of the Bison Women who had taken a particular liking to the lad, commenting that scars were a big turn on for her.
As he strolled casually past, he leaned in and spoke. “Aye gawd, Zebra, might need you to act as the barrel clown for me.”
Just as Special Agent Orange made his reference to a rodeo bullfighter, a cry split the dry air. Everyone whirled as the deafening roar of an old Smith .44 burst a pitcher of Blackberry beer.
“Som’bitch gots a poison lizard in it!” the terrified cowpoke screeched as he proceeded to put the remaining five rounds into the table and chairs of the diving occupants.
“Sweet Jeeeeeeeeeeesus, I see it too!” another cowpoke cried as he wrenched his dual six-shooters free and began to spit thunder and lightening everywhere.
“Gawd dammit, Zebra!” Special Agent Orange bellowed as the two of us dove behind the bar for cover. “What in hell’d you give these sonsabitches?!”
“Nothing!” I lied. “They’re only morning glory seeds! All they do is make people a little looser! You know, more creative!”
A bullet whizzed off the ceiling and into the dishwater next to Special Agent Orange’s head with a whining plunk.
“Ya fed ’em more of them weeds, didn’t ya?” Orange said with frank disgust.
“I’m telling you, all they do is make people more creative,” I yelled defensively.
A shotgun blast smashed the sign reading, “Absolutely NO shooting inside,” sprinkling us with a flash of debris.
“They git much more creative, we’re all gonna wind up deader’n hell!” Special Agent Orange roared, as he pulled his pistol. “We’ll be aneedin ta git to the motorcikles pretty soon, I reckon! Looks like we’re about ta git banned from Lucy’s again!”
“Git that sonofabitch offa me!” a voice shrieked.
“They’re everywhere!”
A bottle of whiskey burst above our heads, sending glass at supersonic speeds in all directions. The cool hum of a bullet died off in the distance.
“They’re in the whiskey! Them damned lizards is in the whiskey!” someone screamed.
Special Agent Orange’s eyes flew wide. “Git down Zebra! The crazy sonsabitches think they’s snakes in they whiskey!”
The liquor shelf above us sung with flying lead as The Fear took a solid hold. Bullets, glass and oak chips flew like snowflakes in a high Kansas blizzard.
The bartender, the only person besides Special Agent Orange who hadn’t eaten any of the bad morning glory seeds, reached up and grabbed the phone.
Special Agent Orange held his .44 over the bar and began firing randomly.
“What in hell are you doin’?!” I yelled over the gunfire and screams. “You’re gonna kill someone!”
“I’m softenin’ the room!” Special Agent Orange roared back. “We’re gonna have to make a run fer the scooters before one of them sonsabitches sees us as a damned legged snake!”
“We’ll burn ’em out!” someone screeched from the other side of the bar. I heard a heavy whump sound from the west side of the room followed closely by an orange flash.
“You can’t kill ’em! How will I record the effects of petroleum enriched morning glory seeds?!”
“What in hell do you mean, ‘petroleum enriched’?!” Special Agent Orange snorted as he began to jam new shells into his stinging hot .44.
“These seeds are chemically enhanced. The initial dosage was a little strong. I’ll make note of it in my research and curb the mixture accordingly. All research involves a certain amount of trial and error!”
A bullet lodged into the beer keg behind me and sent purple foam high into the air.
“You soaked them fuckers in gasoline?!” Special Agent Orange shrieked, staring at me in disbelief.
“It was 92 octane. It’s not like I used the cheap stuff.”
“Good gawd a-mighty, ya fed em motorcikle juice! Them sonsabitches’ll kill us fer sure!” Special Agent Orange yelled, waving his .44 over his head and rapid-firing over the bar.
“This is what I was telling you about,” I yelled as I pulled my H&K and began firing over the bar. “The same thing happened in The Gator Shack in Boutte, Louisiana! This is the Muzzle Flash Theory!”
“Yes, officer, Lucy’s bar! We’re taking heavy opposing fire! Come a’runnin’! The-“
A sound thump over the back of the head with my .45 didn’t knock the bartender out like in the movies, but it did make him let go of the phone and cower in the corner.
“That’s the first damned thing you’ve done right all day!” Special Agent Orange bellowed. “Hell if we don’t git kilt, we’re gonna be in Leavenworth!”
“I’ve got a plan! I’ll take you hostage! Get us to the bikes!” I hollered.
“You’ll what?!”
“I’ll take you hostage!”
“Shit cha already have!” Special Agent Orange snarled.
“Don’t worry! I’ve done this before!”
“Well you better be quick! I’m runnin’ outta rounds!” Agent Orange roared as he fired over the bar, his tremendous .44 bouncing and throwing flames with each trigger pull.
“All right, on the count of three, stand up!” I screamed.
“WHAT?!” Agent Orange retorted. “You been eatin weeds, too?!”
“Well of course I ate some of them! What possible difference could that make?”
“Aye gawd you kin stand all you want, but I sure in the hell ain’t a gonna-“
I wrenched Agent Orange to his feet and planted my H&K to his temple. A deafening silence erupted. The room was destroyed and the fire in the back was spreading, forcing the gas-crazed cowhands into one corner.
“Everyone freeeeze!” I commanded. “Anyone moves, the wrangler gets it!”
All guns were trained on us. I knew I didn’t have much time. I had little research to go on with the petroleum enriched morning glory seeds and no way of telling when The Muzzle Flash phenonmenon might erupt again.
“Aye gawd sure as hell, just like I figured I’m gonna git shot,” Agent Orange hissed.
“Shut up, you fool!” I whispered. “I know exactly what I’m doing.” This of course was a lie.
“Now I’m Head Lizard see, and I’m takin’ this miserable sombitch with me!”
Nobody moved and I began to ease Special Agent Orange out from behind the bar. His smoking .44 still hung in his hand.
“He cain’t take all of us,” a grizzled cowhand said from behind the flipped up pool table. “Let’s kill him.”
I froze. This was the loose cannon I’d feared.
“Zebra, I’m gonna shoot ya, and hang ya, and kill ya, and burn ya,-”
I tightened my grip on Agent Orange’s throat to shut him up.
“Oh yeah, you dirty sonofabitch? Then you just go right ahead and shoot!” I roared. Special Agent Orange’s eyes flew wide. I completely choked him off. “I guess you didn’t see my deputy standing over there! He’s got the drop on ya, and we’re goin’ outta here, one way or the other!”
The cowhands’ bloodshot eyes swiveled left and froze as they saw the lone pitcher of Blackberry beer standing on the table, behind them.
“That’s right you sonsabitches,” I said. “One move outta you and that lizard tears yer nuts off!”
I slowly backed Special Agent Orange out the swinging, double shutters and we bolted for the bikes.
“Gawd damned, miserable, mother lovin’, no good, dirty sonofabitch,” Special Agent Orange swore as he pulled on the reins so hard he made a knot.
I threw him my knife.
“Cut em!” I hollered, “my research indicates they could still be aggressive for the next 30 days!”
Special Agent Orange sawed on the reins with my dull pocket knife. Panicked, he whipped out his pistol and blew the knot off.
“Kill that sonofabitch!” someone yelled from inside the bar. A barrage of gunfire erupted and no doubt, my Blackberry deputy went to that big beer prairie in the sky. I crossed myself in his honor.
“Ride!” Special Agent Orange hollered as he pulled a massive wheelie down Main Street.
I promptly flooded El Toro.
“Go, go, go!” I yelled as I took cover behind El Toro. The hallucinating gunfighters came pouring into Main Street. I opened up with the H&K and sent cowboys diving for cover.
Special Agent Orange spun his chopper around and thundered back, laying down a surpressing cover fire. Flames were beginning to puke out the window and front doors of Lucy’s.
I cranked the throttle wide and bounced the kicker twice, then hit the switch. Boom! A bullet whizzed past and took off the right mirror. El Toro was born. The roar of drag pipes filled the air as the 115 inch nitrous sniffing bull came alive. I dropped the clutch, hit the gas button and hung from the apes as I sailed out of town, Special Agent Orange riding fast behind me, lying on his tanks.
There was a tremendous explosion. At first I thought somebody had shot a gas tank and blown one of us up. Then I realized Special Agent Orange had just T-boned the oncoming Sheriff’s car. Steam rocketed from the smashed radiator on the patrol car and the Sheriff looked to be unconscious. Attempting to change clips, I nearly ran into a stop sign. Two bullets rang off the back of the squadcar as I roared up. Special Agent Orange laid on the pavement 20 yards from his buckled scoot. I reached down and grabbed him by the collar with both hands, dragging his small 160 pound frame over the fatbob gas tanks of El Toro. Two rounds dinged off my rear fender. I turned and skipped a half dozen bullets off the pavement to back the renegade cowpunchers off for a few crucial seconds.
“That’s new paint, ya cocksuckers!” I hollered.
“Time to ride, Orange!” I could see chemically unbalanced cowhands running for their trucks.
I hit the gas button for a second time and the big bike ran out of town with the front tire hoovering six inches over the pavement for the first 200 yards.
Special Agent Orange’s boot toes bounced and danced off the pavement as we shot through the darkness at 135. I struggled to keep the out of balance chopper on the road.
Without warning Special Agent Orange came to. He looked around and then began swearing.
“What?!” I screamed, wiping blood off my lip. “Did you think this kind of research was easy?!”
I shut down and allowed Special Agent Orange to get on the rear fender. Not far behind I could see headlights from dozens of pickups. Kansas pickups run fast and El Toro was badly overheating from the gas. It was going to be a hard flattracker race across the open plains of Kansas with nothing but highway between us and the Rock Creek Ranch where we’d be able to hide.
“Dumb, stupid, shit suckin’, knothead!” Special Agent Orange shouted into my ear as we rode. El Toro began to cut out. She was overheating and vapor locking. The trucks were a mere mile behind us already and I could see muzzle flashes.
“Oh, have a Blackberry,” I yelled, reaching into the saddle bags and stuffing a cold black can in his hand as we rode. “Look at how much we learned tonight.”
“What in hell, did we learn?” Special Agent Orange demanded. A burst of sparks lit up the highway ahead of us. “Shit fire! They’s shootin they rifles at us!” Special Agent Orange yelled, whipping the rear fender with the remnants of his leather horse reins. “Hya, mule! Hya, mule!”
“We learned that you’re not very good at pool, that’s one thing we learned!” I yelled, lying flat over the tank and hitting the gas button for a third time.
“Not very good at pool?!” Special Agent Orange retorted loudly, nearly rolling off the rear fender as the gas took hold.
We roared past a herd of cattle who’s eyes glowed back in amazement in our headlight.
“Hell, that ole’ bison woman was making a mockery of you on that table! A damned mockery! I saved you $5 by not letting the game finish!” I shouted over the roar of the wind.
Special Agent Orange went for his wheelgun, a move I had anticipated. I ducked down behind the right gas tank and he emptied the monster harmlessly into the night sky.
“Oh that’s it, have a temper tantrum! That’s an intelligent way to act,” I chided, handing Special Agent Orange another beer.
“Nice night out, isn’t it?” I shouted, after a moment. The pickups had faded into the distance and I shut off the gas. I could tell from the chattering below that I’d geeked the rings and heads, but if big El Toro could keep us ahead of the gas drunk cowhands and get us home, that was a set of heads well spent.
“What in thee hell did you go and give them sonsabtiches them damned gasoline beans for?”
“Research,” I quipped, sizing the bullet hole in the mirror with my finger.
“Bullshit! You done that for your own damned amusement!”
“Aw hell, if I hadn’t taken you along you’d just be home herdin’ yer one damned ole’ cow around in circles.”
“I’m not just herdin’ her around! That’s a new technique of strip grazing that will revolutionize grass management!”
“Damn it’s breezy tonight,” I commented nonchalantly.
“Yeah, that nitrous sure gives an old scooter her head, don’t it?” Agent Orange commented with a smirk.
“Think that sheriff is dead?” I asked, spilling my beer as we flew past an old hanging tree.
“Believe he was just restin’,” Agent Orange chortled, causing me to nearly run off a bridge.
“Wheeeee! Mind the paint!” I squalled as I madly corrected and El Toro drug the right fuel tank along the rail, forcing Special Agent Orange and I to lift our legs and sending a tidal wave of sparks over the railing and into the creek far below.
“Aye gawd, Zebra, one thing about The Fear a man can sure count on! She ain’t never borin’!”
I looked in the remaining mirror and to my horror found a six foot tall lizard grinning stupidly back at me from behind. Sweet Jesus!, I thought to myself, yanking my H&K free and rapid firing behind me in the lizard’s general direction, only to hear the hammer falling on an empty clip. I quickly hid the gun under my torn shirt. No need to make this bastard mad, I figured. Just ride it out. When the damned thing asks to pull over to piss, hit the gas button and leave the sorry reptilian savage standing in the great abyss of grass for the coyotes and cougars to dine on. Ha, ha. Ah yes, the cougars, I thought to myself, they would take care of that lizard all right.
Later that night, as I rode through the warm, waving prairie grass on a chattering El Toro, enjoying the cool night air, I thought about how nice it was to be home.
