by Baxter Black
He didn’t, other than his sphincter, which slammed shut.
Teddie Arizona crawled closer to him, gently placing the muzzle of the .22 caliber pistol behind his ear.
“You know what this is?” she asked.
“I, uh, assume it’s a weapon of some kind,” he stammered.
“Just big enough to make this the last conversation you’ll ever have.”
“I’m just the pilot,” he whined. “I don’t even know what’s going on. You must be Mrs. Pantaker.”
“Who’s with you?” T.A. asked, pressing the pistol barrel against his skull. “Valter and Pike, right?”
“Right,” he said.
“Just the three of you?” she asked.
“Uh, actually, there’s another guy. Daniel Boon is his name. He’s coming behind with some horses, I think.”
Teddie Arizona looked over her shoulder toward the road that led back to Pandora’s Thumb. It was empty. She pressed the pistol barrel into Busby’s skull again for emphasis. “My friends and I are armed and prepared to shoot. Unless you want to put yourself in harm’s way for F. Rank Pantaker, the world’s largest orifice, I’d suggest you just lay right here till the smoke clears.”
“No, ma’am, I don’t! I’m just the pilot . . . with no plane. I don’t even have a gun.”
“Good. I’m gonna slide over to the side of the road, but I’ll have you in plain sight. You understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Cover your ears,” she directed. He complied. She put a bullet each through the front tires on her way out.
Lick was sneaking along the west side of the horse barn, in plain sight of the old man up on the ridge. He stopped a minute to listen and to quiet his breathing. Not five seconds later, the old man fired his .30-30 again! Lick bit his tongue! The boom echoed against the canyon wall. He heard the clatter of footsteps out of sight around the corner of the barn. He sneaked a quick look. Two men were running toward the house at full speed. Thirty feet away to his left the two horses tied to the corral fence were pulling back on the reins.
Another shot boomed just behind Pike and Valter, and they disappeared behind the south side of the house. Lick slipped along the south face of the barn and under the big pole gate, creeping in the shadows toward the horses. He fingered the automatic pistol in his coat pocket. He’d never shot anything but a revolver. He pulled it out awkwardly and broke into a run.
“By gosh, Paul,” Pike was saying as they hunkered behind the house, “these hayseeds sucked us into a trap. Lured us down here with these horses, then ambushed us.”
“It sure seems that way,” said Valter. “See if you can wave Busby up here. He can pick us up and we can get back on the high ground. Otherwise we’re pinned down.”
Lick took the opportunity to cross under the board fence, untie the horses, and lead them quietly down along the edge of the corral to the creek. He heard the .30-30 boom again, twice.
Teddie Arizona watched as Lick came up the creek with the horses. “Get in the car and drive down toward the house!” she yelled at Busby from her vantage point twenty feet away.
“But the tires are flat,” he whined.
She leveled the pistol in his direction.
“Okay, okay,” he said. He inched in through the left front door like a burglar and started the engine. Looking into the rearview mirror, he saw T.A. aiming the pistol at the back of his head. He dropped the old Ford into D. It crunched forward on its flat tires and slowly moved down the road.
T.A. ran across the marshy grass in a low crouch to meet Lick. They mounted up in the coming darkness and rode around to where the old man and his dogs still stood sentry.
“Al, I gotta hand it to ya,” Lick said. “I woulda never believed it in a million years.”
“Just like clarkwork,” Al said. “Just like clarkwork.”
Teddie Arizona stepped off the old man’s horse and held it for him. She gave him a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek as she handed him the reins. “Thanks, Al,” she said.
T.A. climbed up behind Lick, the old man fired two more shots at the house, then aimed one at the slow-moving car. “Good-bye, old friend,” he said and shot out the windshield. They all watched as Busby bailed out the front seat and ran into the stone barn. “C’mon, dogs.”
They trotted down the road into the dwindling sunset.
“Where to?” asked Lick.
The old man was feeling good. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “I’ve got an idea.”
18
DECEMBER 3: ROMANCE IS KINDLED
The old man stopped them as they approached a fork in the road. “These dudes will expect us to head directly north for Scotland, ’specially if Davy Crockett is doin’ their scouting. He musta caught up with ’em by now with the horses. Besides, it’s an easy trip and they’ll all be tired and ready to go someplace civilized.”
An odd description of Scotland, Lick thought to himself. He’d been there several times, since it was where one turned off Highway 51 to reach all the ranches and country that ran up against the Bruneau Canyon. The only thing there was a store that was like an 1880s concept of a Kwik Chek: just a bar, liquor store, pool table, junk food staples, meager hardware supplies, a post office, and a rusty three-hundred-gallon gas tank with a hose that dangled like a knotted rope.
“We go south, the opposite direction,” the old man continued. “The hard way, ’cept it ain’t any harder if you’re well mounted. There’s a ranch maybe fifteen miles from here. We can stop there if we need to, and if we don’t, well, there’s always Goose Valley or Mountain City.”
Lick knew that they better find that ranch because it would take more than two or three hours to ride cross-country to Mountain City. With no food, and ice already formed on the still water in the creeks, it would be like running the Iditarod.
An hour down the road, they crossed Goat Creek again. They stopped and watered the horses in the moonlight.
“Better get a move on,” said Al. “Don’t want them catching up with us.” They left the road, being careful not to leave an obvious trail, although the ground was frozen and even tracking a wounded diplodocus across the desert would be difficult tonight.
Two hours later, they connected to the gravel road that headed south. The horses were tiring, slowing down.
“Where’s that ranch, old man?” asked Lick, shivering. “I thought you said it was right around here.”
“Well, I’m not exactly certain where. Maybe two miles more, maybe twenty, but it’s surely along here somewhere,” Al said.
“Let’s just find someplace to build a fire and warm up,” said Lick. “I can hardly feel my hands and feet.” Teddie nodded and sent Lick a grateful look.
They rode up a small draw and found a clay bank that was shielded from view of the dirt road. It didn’t take long to get a small but toasty fire going. They loosed the cinches and hobbled the horses. The beasts found a few pickin’s and started grazing. The old man laid back in a handy sagebrush and was soon snoring.
“Wish we had some coffee,” Lick said to T.A. as they huddled together near the small fire and stared into the flames.
“I’m so nervous I’m still shaking,” she said. “If Valter and Pi . . . if those guys catch up with us—”
“You know them?” he asked.
“Yeah, I guess I do. They work for my, uh, my fiancé, F. Rank.”
“I thought you were married,” he said.
“I am not officially married. It’s a long story,” she sighed.
“Maybe it’s none of my business, but if you wanna tell me, I’ve got a few minutes,” he offered.
T.A., out of habit and self-defense, had for years kept a very tight rein on her feelings. She had to mentally shovel off a layer of armor even to give Lick a civil answer. However, her nerves were frayed and her heart kept trying to raise its hand to ask permission to speak. It wanted to say, “This cowboy’s gone out on a big limb for you. Don’t you think a little of the truth would be
in order?” For once, T.A. decided to listen to it.
“F. Rank’s family, my ex-whatever’s family, I mean, wouldn’t give him an advance on his inheritance,” she started. “If he wasn’t ‘stable,’ as they called it. So he made me an offer a girl couldn’t refuse.” T.A. paused, waiting for Lick to react. He didn’t. “That was twenty months ago. I only have another four months to go in our arrangement. Then we split, he cements his inheritance, and I get paid.
“Everybody thinks we’re married. F. Rank and I are the only ones who know the real story. He and I, and now you. We act like we’re married . . . in every respect,” she added, so Lick would have no illusions about her deal with the devil.
“So that’s why he wants you back . . . not out of love, but so the deal won’t go sour?”
“That and something else. I, uh, took some money.” She swallowed hard. “A lot of money,” she whispered.
“Why didn’t you just wait another four months and get your money then?” Lick asked.
“The money I took . . . it’s not exactly just the money he would have owed me. It was more,” she said.
“A little more?” asked Lick.
“A lot more than a little more,” she said.
Lick waited for her to continue.
“I don’t know if I can explain it,” she began. “I’m not sure I understand myself. There’s lots of reasons. Let’s just say I got sick of it, of the arrangement, of him, of the game, of faking it, of myself, what I’d let myself in for. Then I found out he’s involved in a scheme that’s so horrible, so callous, so wantonly cruel, so . . . just so rotten I couldn’t handle it. I know what I did was stupid, but I didn’t know any other way to stop it. And now I’ve put y’all in danger, too.” Her shoulders sagged. “Now he’s got to catch me to find out where the money is. And he’s runnin’ outta time, has to have the money soon. So they’re not gonna give up tryin’ to find me.”
Lick was staring at the ground.
“It’s not drug-related, if that’s what you’re thinking. Well, not exactly. At least takin’ the money isn’t drug-related,” she said, reading his mind. “It’s . . . it’s hard to explain. He and another rich Vegas big shot are putting on a big-game hunt and charging billionaires a pile of money to take part—the money I took.”
“That’s legal,” interjected Lick. “Big-game hunting. We do that in Texas all the time. It’s a big business.”
“Yes, but F. Rank is selling the opportunity to shoot endangered species.”
“What?” said Lick. “You mean like bald eagles or condors, spotted owls?”
“More like black rhinos, Bengal tigers, mountain gorillas, pandas, Himalayan snow leopards—and blue whales, if he could get a tank big enough.”
“So, he’s discussed this with you?”
“No, but his partner is the famous wild-animal trainer and magician Ponce de Crayon. You’ve heard of him, no doubt.”
“I think so,” said Lick, although he thought he was the guy who founded the YMCA.
“Anyway, they’ve been planning this for quite a while. I heard F. Rank plotting on the phone with Ponce. He’s not very discreet. I’m just part of the furniture to him.”
Bedroom furniture, Lick thought with a slightly green twinge.
“F. Rank and Ponce have already lined up ten hunters from all over the world. Each has paid a hefty down payment. Half down. Each is guaranteed a genuine endangered species kill. There’s a lot of money at stake. So, to make a long story short, I stole his strongbox of down payments.”
“How much money are we talkin’ about?”
“Five hundred thousand,” she said. “Each.”
Lick had about seventy-five dollars in the money clip in his pocket. He was mentally calculating the difference. It seemed substantial. “When’s the hunt gonna be?”
“On December thirteenth, during the big rodeo.”
“The National Finals?” asked Lick. “In Vegas?”
“Yep. The National Finals. Out on Ponce’s big ranch and wildlife preserve north of town. If I can stay out of their way and keep them from getting the money to pay out the hunters, maybe they’ll have to cancel the whole deal. I wasn’t being rational, Lick. I just thought if I took the money, it would stop them. I guess I didn’t think it through.”
“What’ll they do if they find you?” Lick asked. “Don’t they just want their money back?”
“I don’t know if it’s that simple. I might be able to negotiate with F. Rank. He’s got something on me, he knows I can’t go to the police. But exposing our fake marriage could make things messy with his family and inheritance.
“Ponce’s another story. He’s crazy. F. Rank’s scared of him. He’s liable to feed me to the tigers, money or no money.”
T.A. hugged her knees more tightly to her chest and looked sideways at Lick to see his reaction. He showed incredulity and concern.
Good. It was what she’d hoped for: sympathy. The practical side of her confession to Lick was that she needed a bodyguard, a foot warmer, and a backcountry guide to get away from Valter and Pike.
This is the barter that often comes with any relationship. One example: she’s beautiful, he’s rich.
But T.A. gave Lick more of the truth than she intended. It slipped out like steam from a cup of hot chocolate. It was not her nature to be so forthcoming.
She’d been playing a role, acting. Even through these last few days with the cowboys, everything was done with her own selfish interests in mind. The long-term effect on Lick and the old man had never been a consideration.
Yet when she was telling Lick about her arrangement with F. Rank and about stealing the money, there was a physical sensation accompanying each confession, like she was peeling a scab, lancinga boil, pulling a splinter . . . as if poison was being released from her body.
She was a moment away from tears.
“I’m just so sorry I dragged you into this.”
They sat in silence for a few moments.
“Warm enough?” Lick asked. His practical question broke the spell. Her tears receded.
That single question changed her back from vulnerable to vamp. From clay to rebar. From open to closed. From honest to opportunist. From relinquishing her feelings in a tender moment to regaining control of herself and whoever had what she wanted.
T.A. slid her arm under Lick’s jacket with the smoothness of a snake crawling under the covers. He looked at her face in the firelight’s glow. She had a wry smile on her face. Not what he expected.
“What?” he said.
“Just reading your mind, cowboy.”
He raised an eyebrow, leaned forward, and kissed her lightly on the lips.
Her lips toyed with his. She gently ran her tongue along his upper lip under the moustache. He pressed his lips firmly against hers and slid his right hand inside her ski jacket.
With the deftness of a kangaroo rat unwrapping a Hershey’s Kiss, he unsnapped her shirtfront and touched the rising topography. His fingertips followed the undercurve, sliding over the thin knit tank top encasing the straining swell that rose and fell. It was light as a grape, heavy as a melon, soft and resilient at the same time. A peach ripe for picking.
Her kiss became more aggressive, her tongue more curious, her lips more agile. Her left hand began exploring on its own. As it continued to search his tender places, his own right hand became more couragous. Inspired by its brother’s boldness, the left hand took a dive into the abyss between her back pockets.
He fell back onto the rough ground. She rolled over on him, straddling his left leg. His left hand dove farther. He pressed with his palm. She squeezed with her legs. Their lips locked, their breathing became heavy, their chests were heaving, their exhaustion turned to frenzy, their bodies pushed hard against each other, then . . . released!
Silence settled for a moment, then silent tears . . . comfort . . . discomfort . . . sitting up . . . straightening up . . . a deep breath and . . . “I better wake up Al if we’re gonna
make that ranch before dawn. We’d make an easy target in broad daylight.” Disentangling himself from T.A., Lick pushed himself to his feet, walked over to the sagebrush, and poked the snoring old man with his toe.
“C’mon, Al. Let’s get movin’.”
“Huh?” Snuff, snort. “Are the heathens bombin’ us agin, Cap? Or is it Admiral Perry needin’ supplies?”
“I’ll get the horses,” said Lick.
T.A. watched him in silence, a look of wonderment on her face like she’d just tasted a tantalizing new flavor of ice cream. “Ummm,” she said.
There are those who might question the veracity of Teddie Arizonaand Lick being able to engage in erotic exploration in the midst of a heart-gripping, life-threatening, environmentally inclement chase across the high desert at night.
To those of premature maturity and suppressed hormones: It has been shown that desire is sometimes enhanced by danger. It is a throwback to the frenzied mating of the mayfly in the face of an impending storm, or the blind groping of a macho black widower who somehow senses this is his last kiss, or the hyperventilating backseat teenagers swarming each other like termites as the clock on the car radio whirls toward curfew.
In truth, we are not discussing something as lofty as love. We are merely acknowledging that lust has been ripening on the vine and suddenly seems primed for plucking. Lust, that primitive previewof coming attractions that induces a sticky sensual static electricity.An uncontrollable force that strips you to the waist from the bottom up and blindfolds you from the top down. The threat of dangerengenders emotional instability, behaviorial insurrection, and desertion of the last shreds of self-discipline.
The effect is all heightened by the deep contention that life appears to be short, and there’s nothing left to lose, so lust insinuates itself between two minds, which quickly degenerate into the live-for-the-moment mentality. And this is where our two hormonically charged characters now find themselves, not to mention the fact that the fervor helps them keep warm. In other words, some survival heavy petting was going on.
19
DECEMBER 3: T.A., LICK, AND AL ON THE ROAD