The Warrior Sheep Go West

by Christopher Russell

  Stupid animals, she thought. Where did they think they were going? They’d be dead within a day. She had to save them—well, Stanley’s chosen two. The rest could become vulture meat for all she cared.

  Holly had got over the shock of the sheep’s escape, convinced herself it had just been bad luck. No sheep could be that clever. She was feeling confident again. She leapt into the golf cart and drove off in a dramatic swirl of dust.

  ***

  Some way ahead in the shadeless desert, the warriors had slowed from a headlong race to a brisk trot.

  After a while, Sal said, “We are going the right way, aren’t we, dear?”

  She was sure Wills had once said something about using the sun to know where you were.

  Wills’s short legs had to move fast to keep up.

  “Yes,” he gasped. “The sun’s behind us. It rises in the East, so we know we’re heading West.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Sal and she broke into a gallop again. “Onward, brave warriors!” she cried.

  Wills tried to speak but his voice got lost in the thunder of hooves and heavy breathing.

  Jaycey glanced at Sal and Oxo as she ran. It must have hurt when the Staple Gun Woman put the studs in their ears, but they did look very bling, glinting silver and gold in the sunlight. They were, she thought, wasted on Oxo and Sal.

  Oxo had forgotten all about the gold stud in his ear. The complete absence of grub was a much greater concern. There was simply no grass. He’d tried a nibble of one of the gray stunted trees dotted about the place, but it was dry and bitter—a poor second even to an Eppingham fence post. The spiny cactus plants were greenish but, whichever way you came at them, they gave you a bloody nose. He was fed up with not being fed.

  “What’s the point of a place where there’s no point stopping for breakfast?” he complained as he ran.

  “What did you expect, man?” said Links. “It’s the desert, right.”

  Wills finally made his voice heard.

  “I think we should slow down!” he called to Sal, who was still in the lead but now panting heavily.

  She skidded to a halt, then, after a moment, walked on slowly, her sides heaving.

  “West is west,” she puffed, “and Red Tongue’s about to meet the best…”

  “Right,” said Wills. “But we’ve set off too fast.”

  Behind him, he heard Links beginning a new rap, his voice croaky but determined.

  “We ain’t never been so hot before,

  But we gotta show Red Tongue the door,

  We got a job and it’s gotta be done,

  So it’s no use complainin’ ’bout the sun.

  We know we can take it, ’cause we is tough,

  The Warrior Sheep ain’t never had enough…

  The Warrior Sheep ain’t never had enough…”

  He sang quietly at first, nodding his head and flicking his damp curls from his eyes as he walked. The others listened and then joined in, gradually getting louder and stronger as they stopped puffing. Their plod became a march, their necks straightened, and their spirits rose.

  “The Warrior Sheep ain’t never had enough…”

  ***

  A little way behind them but catching up fast, Holly Boomberg stopped to take a drink from the bottle of water in the golf cart. She was no longer angry at the size of the vehicle. Or its lack of air conditioning. It went surprisingly fast and she only had to glance out of the open sides as she drove to follow the trail. She could still see the sheep’s hoofprints. She ran a comb through her hair, slicked on a smear of lip gloss, and drove confidently on. It could only be a matter of minutes now.

  ***

  The warriors sang until they were too hot to sing anymore, and then they marched in silence. They reached a long line of billboards at the side of the road.

  “I’m sooo thirsty…” whimpered Jaycey as they passed the boards.

  “Yeah, and my stomach thinks my mouth’s been tied shut,” said Oxo.

  Wills stopped and craned his neck to look up at the boards. His heart skipped a beat.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” he called. “Look at this!”

  There, way above their heads, were tongues. A whole line of Red Tongues. And under the pictures were words. Wills squinted into the glaring light.

  RED TONGUE’S GONNA SLAUGHTER THE RAMS.

  WHERE?

  FORT WILMOT, LAS VEGAS

  THEN

  ARIES END.

  BE THERE!

  Wills read the words to himself, then aloud.

  “Ohmygrass…” whispered Jaycey. “Is that a message for us? Like the pop-up?”

  “I think it must be,” said Wills, still squinting up into the sun. His head suddenly started to spin and then his legs buckled under him.

  “Sorry, guys…” he said, feeling dizzy. “I seem to be sitting down…”

  “It’s the sun, man,” said Links, giving him a little nudge. “Get in the shade.”

  Wills wobbled to his hooves and they all stepped from the road, tottered round behind the billboards, and flopped down. It was a relief to be out of the direct sunshine.

  “We gotta rest here a few minutes,” panted Links.

  “Yes. We must pace ourselves if we’re to be fit for battle,” gasped Sal. “I recall saying that earlier.”

  Gradually, their breathing steadied and one by one they closed their eyes.

  Seconds later, Holly Boomberg’s cart appeared. She didn’t even glance at the billboards as she whizzed past. She was staring intently at the road, which had briefly become too hard and stony to show hoofprints, and was anxious to pick up the trail again. Her cell phone rang. She heard Stanley’s stiff voice.

  “Did you find the sheep yet?”

  “Almost, dear. Are you being charming to our guests?”

  “Almost. They’re getting twitchy. Do you realize how many prickly pears we have in Arizona?”

  “All will be well, darling,” Holly assured him. “Just get them to the ranch.”

  She made a little kissing noise and switched off before he could tell her how busy he was and how many calculations he had to do before B-Day. Let the white-coated scientists he employed do a few, she thought. That was, after all, what she was paying them for.

  Stanley glared in the rearview mirror at his passengers. He longed to be rid of them but his wife was right: keep them happy.

  “Oh, look!” he said. “Over on your right. A very fine example of…uh, another prickly pear.”

  Tod and Gran had already seen hundreds of prickly pears. They looked at each other then turned and peered through the rear window yet again. There was still no sign of the truck carrying their sheep as they’d been promised.

  “As soon as we stop,” Tod whispered, “I’m going to find a phone and call the police.”

  “Agreed,” said Gran. “There’s something fishy going on here.”

  ***

  The warriors had dozed in the shade for only a few minutes, but it was enough to revive them. With Oxo in the lead, they stepped out from behind the billboards, back onto the stony road.

  “Onward?” asked Oxo, already feeling the sun beating down on him again.

  “Onward!” the others cried, half closing their eyes against the glare.

  They marched on, the air so hot now it seemed to burn in their noses as they breathed. Their throats felt parched and even Links couldn’t manage to sing.

  After a while, they paused to catch their breath by a signpost stuck crookedly into the ground.

  “What does it say, dear?” panted Sal.

  “Fort Wilmot via Dead Man’s Creek…” gasped Wills. “Fort Wilmot! Red Tongue’s there!”

  “Dead Man’s Creek,” grunted Oxo. “Sounds inviting.”

  “What if it’s Dead Lamb’s Cr
eek too?” whimpered Jaycey.

  “It’s taking us toward Red Tongue,” said Sal. “That’s all that matters.”

  They marched on.

  “Anyway, what’s a creek?” Oxo asked suddenly.

  Wills had been trying to remember the same thing. He thought a creek was a sort of river but he didn’t want to raise anyone’s hopes so he didn’t answer the question. Instead he said, “Should we rest again for a moment?”

  Sal’s sides were heaving more than ever and she was beginning to stagger. She slumped to the ground but while the others gathered anxiously around her, Links stepped aside and raised his head. Listening.

  “Uh, maybe sitting’s not the best thing right now…” he said.

  The others lifted their heads and heard what Links had heard: a noise in the distance behind them. A growl that rapidly became a roar. Staring in its direction, they saw a plume of dust.

  “Ohmygrass…” squeaked Jaycey. “Is it…is it…Red Tongue?”

  “We’s in no state to find out, man,” said Links. “When in doubt…run!”

  They prodded and heaved Sal to her feet and, forgetting their thirst and fatigue, ran for their lives. They galloped away along the road, their hearts pounding with fear. But the plume of dust behind them drew closer, and the roar grew louder, accompanied now by strange braying blasts.

  Wills veered off the road and the other warriors followed, but it was no use. The roar followed, getting closer and louder. The ground was rough here and strewn with boulders and prickly cacti, which they stumbled over and into. They all began to slow, their flanks heaving, their tongues swelling in their mouths. Then, one by one, they dropped to their knees and rolled on their sides, beyond panic, utterly exhausted. Tongues lolling as they gulped down breaths of stifling desert air, they awaited their fate.

  8

  On the Road

  The braying roar was on top of them now, and Wills, who had closed his eyes, opened them again. He’d suddenly become aware of music as well as the roar. The kind of loud rock music that Ida sometimes played to the hens back in Eppingham. Wills blinked. The roar came from an engine. The braying was a vehicle horn. Looming above the warriors, momentarily shutting out the blinding sun, was not a triumphant Red Tongue, but a large white convertible car with its roof folded back. Two teenage boys were craning over the windscreen.

  “Aries, Aries…” they chanted. “Rams, Ewes, and Lambs!”

  “Hey, Cameron,” said one of the boys as he switched off the music. “That wasn’t so cool after all.” He jumped out of the car. “Look at them, they’re pooped.” He knelt beside Sal. “We shouldn’t have chased them like that.”

  “They’ll get over it,” said his brother. “Come on, Phoenix, let’s go.”

  But Phoenix glanced up, frowning. “They’re not even desert sheep. Look—they’re kind of fluffy and fat.”

  “I am sooo not fat,” croaked Jaycey, raising her head slightly before flopping down again.

  “I wonder where they came from?” continued Phoenix.

  “Does it matter? They’re a bunch of sheep. Let’s go.” Cameron revved the engine impatiently.

  “No,” said Phoenix. “We can’t just leave them in this state.”

  “So what d’you want to do, take them with us?”

  “Cool idea,” said Phoenix, straightening up. “Give me a hand.”

  “Are you crazy? What’s Mom gonna say, filling her pride and joy with livestock?”

  “Can’t do it any more damage than your driving. Come on, grab a leg.”

  Cameron reluctantly did as he was asked, and between them the brothers heaved Sal off the ground and onto the back seat. When she regained consciousness a few seconds later, she found herself forehead to curly forehead with Links, who’d been swung in beside her.

  “What’s happening, man?” he asked weakly.

  “I think we’ve had an out-of-body experience, dear…” replied Sal, before her voice and mind drifted away again.

  “Oh,” said Links. “I thought we was just thirsty.”

  Then Jaycey was being lowered in between them. “I am sooo not fat…” she continued to murmur. “Sooo not fat…”

  The car dipped and swayed as Oxo, having staggered to his feet, clambered on board with a helping shoulder from Phoenix, and wedged himself next to Links on the back seat.

  “One to go,” said Phoenix, scooping up Wills.

  “Well you’ll just have to have him on your lap, bro,” replied Cameron. “I’m still driving.” And he got in quickly behind the wheel.

  Wills didn’t mind sitting on a lap, and he was feeling better now that his heart had stopped hammering. His tongue still felt like a lump of wood in his parched mouth but he lifted his head and gazed through the windscreen. The air that ruffled his fleece as the car suddenly shot backward and swung round onto the road again was still hot but quite refreshing. He sat up straight to catch more of it. Behind him, the other warriors were also struggling upright to catch the welcome breeze.

  “Do we have any water left?” asked Phoenix.

  “Only juice,” said Cameron.

  Phoenix pulled a handful of plastic bottles from the cool box by his feet and held one in front of Wills. It had a sucker top and, after a few false starts, Wills managed to suck up some liquid. Cameron stopped the car and both boys leaned around to offer bottles to the other sheep. They sucked desperately, finally got the hang of it, and drank, relieving their parched tongues and throats.

  Jaycey dropped her empty bottle and stared, mesmerized, at Cameron’s sunglasses. How cool were they? Cooler than those silly old ear studs Oxo and Sal were wearing. She fluttered her eyelids and tossed her pretty head.

  Cameron grinned, faced the front again and aimed the car West. “Aries, Aries, Rams, Ewes, and Lambs!” he sang. “Tell you what, Phee, they make the greatest mascots.”

  In the back seat, Sal, who didn’t understand much humanspeak, stiffened.

  “Uh, Wills dear,” she asked anxiously, leaning forward, “what exactly are mascots?”

  Wills couldn’t remember. But he didn’t think they were cut up and cookable, so he relaxed, letting his ears flap in the wind, and his tongue lick the last of the juice from his no-longer-parched lips.

  Cameron thought roads were boring and constantly veered off to take the car jolting away across the stony desert, dodging boulders and cacti with last-second spins of the steering wheel. The warriors, even Sal, loved every minute of the ride, and when Cameron leaned round and stuck his shades on Jaycey’s head, she thought she’d gone to Sheep Heaven.

  “Cool wheels, man,” yelled Links.

  “Excellent,” called back Wills.

  The car sped on with the humans chanting and the sheep bleating and the sun burning in the blue sky above. They saw no other traffic until Cameron turned the car toward the road for the last time.

  “Wave, guys,” he yelled, turning the music up even louder. “Some dude’s coming our way.”

  ***

  Holly Boomberg couldn’t remember where she’d last seen hoofprints. Before the billboards, she thought, but she’d gone way past them before she’d realized and turned back. Now she was angry with herself and driving fast, peering at the dusty road.

  Suddenly, a white car bounced from the desert and came racing toward her, veering dangerously from side to side. She slowed down and the white car shot past, music blaring, the occupants singing. Singing and bleating ! Holly stamped on the brakes, pulled over, and twisted around in her seat. She hadn’t imagined it. The sheep, her sheep, were sitting on the back seat. And one of them was wearing sunglasses. She swallowed hard, took a deep breath, turned the cart around, and gave chase.

  ***

  None of the warriors recognized the driver of the golf cart, nor did they see it turn in the road and start following. Cameron saw and punched the air. />
  “Yeehaa!” he yelled. “The dude wants a race!”

  He swung the car off the road again and surged over the desert.

  “Holy sheep!” exclaimed Phoenix, hanging on to the edge of his seat. “What are you doing now?”

  “Get ready to rock and roll,” yelled Cameron. “Dead Man’s Creek coming up!”

  The creek ran parallel with the road and Wills had been right. It was a sort of river, only it was completely dried up. It hadn’t carried a drop of water for months.

  Holly drove as fast as she could along the road but her cart couldn’t keep pace. She could only watch as the white car careered up and down the steep banks of the dried-up creek. It was like looking down on a never-ending roller coaster but soon the white car was out of sight and she was following a cloud of dust.

  “Idiot!” she shouted, as if the driver could hear her. “Kill yourselves if you want, but not Stanley’s sheep!”

  Inside the white car, Phoenix grabbed Wills tight to stop the lamb being catapulted out.

  “You’re crazy,” he yelled at his brother. “You’ll turn us over!”

  Cameron just laughed, spun the wheel, and shot the car from the bottom of the creek to the top of its steep bank.

  “Yeehaa!” he cried as he turned at the top.

  “Stop!” yelled Phoenix.

  But Cameron couldn’t. His Mom’s pride and joy had had enough. The brakes and the steering gave up at the same moment. The car plunged down, out of control.

  “Ohmygrass…ohmyshades…” wailed Jaycey as the sunglasses sailed through the air in front of her.

  The car bounced down the slope, turned over and over, and landed right way up on the bottom of the creek.

  There was a long moment’s silence.

  “Mom’s gonna be so mad at me…” was all Cameron could say when he’d stopped shaking.

  “I guess she’d sooner write off a car than two stupid sons,” replied Phoenix.

  He let go of Wills and the lamb leapt out. Then Phoenix twisted around to look at the back seat.