Cowgirl Thrillers

by Barbara Neville

“Them never even think maybe Walter rescued,” Wolf is telling us. “They figure others fuck up, lose him in paperwork. Not sure how that work, but okay by me.” He shrugs.

  Maybe Wolf thinks ‘lost in paperwork’ means they put him in a file drawer by mistake. Now, that is a funny image.

  We are once again at the table looking at the layout of Zartacla.

  “Boat, snorkel or tanks?” asks Lord Jacob.

  “No need, Soames say them move Painter later. We do swoop catch on the move,” says Wolf. He scans the papers. “Pretty drawings.”

  “Oh, okay, scratch this,” says his Lordship and starts rolling up the plans.

  “How about the masked bandit ploy?” asks Spud. “We pull them over, take their wallets, passcards. Let Paint loose as an aside.”

  “Wolf bring bow. Need practice. Human make good target for practice.”

  “Cain’t argey that,” I say.

  “No,” says Lord Jacob. “A high tech solution will appear less obviously to have been done by Rockers. We would do best to shift the blame and Soames suspicions to others.”

  “Injin not know high tech,” ponders Wolf aloud.

  I was referring to guns, rather than bows,” says Lord Jacob.

  Wolf nods.

  Lady Beverly and Buzz walk in with trays. They serve tea and sandwiches all around.

  “Buzz,” says Lord Jacob. “Allow me to introduce Spud’s brother, Wolf.”

  “A pleasure, I am sure,” says Buzz bowing.

  Wolf looks him up and down, grunts, and says, “How.”

  Neither offers a hand to shake.

  “I wonder where they are taking him?” asks Spud. He looks at Wolf. “Did Soames say anything else?”

  “Wolf only hear ‘transfer to cross town’.”

  “Across town?”

  “No, ‘to cross town’, him say.”

  “Cross Town?” echoes Lady Beverly. “Why, of course. It is a processing facility for prisoners.”

  “How in the heck does a Lady know of that?” I ask her.

  “Well,” she says, “one may have not always…”

  “Mama,” says Lord Jacob shaking his head, “another time. Where is this facility?”

  “There.” She points at the map.

  “Okay. To arms! We don’t know when, but let’s hope we get there in time. As usual, no intricate plan,” says Spud. “We can eat in the vehicle.”

  “Wing it, we will,” says Michael.

  “Masks, city clothes, fully armed,” says Spud.

  “Nice to have fearless brother back,” says Wolf, clapping Spud on the shoulder.

  “Yep, our fearless leader,” I agree.

  We head upstairs to suit up.

  Wolf slows in the hallway and looks back, “What Bãngh for?”

  “How could you tell?” I ask.

  “Wolf Injin.”

  “He is a friend of his Lordship. Lord Jacob brought him in to help us somehow,” I say.

  “Never meet Bãngh before,” says Wolf.

  “If you never met one before, how do you know what they look like? He looks like a reg’lar human to me.”

  “Look funny,” says Wolf.

  “Spud said that no one can tell them from humans. How can you?” I ask.

  “Wolf prescient, and Injin.”

  “Yore a great help.”

  “You are welcome,” Wolf says and grins.

  “Ay, caramba!” I say and roll my eyes.

  We get changed up. This time, to divert attention from the previous rescue, I am Bob. We used the girl ploy in this town already. We don’t want to look like the same crew. Once I am all suited up as a man, I head downstairs. Unusually tall woman are too memorable.

  “Michael, yore a boy, too! Is that a tough character for you to play?” I ask laughing, as we walk together to the car.

  “Smartass,” says Michael shrilly as he struts, wiggling his hips and waving a palm in the air. “I am all boy. All beautiful, beautiful boy.”

  “So true,” I agree.

  “You are a fetching gentleman yourself,” he says wiggling his eyebrows at me.

  Spud, Lord Jacob, Wolf and Buzz are at the car.

  “Buzz,” says Wolf, “What part you do?”

  “I say, um,” Buzz looks at Lord Jacob. “Sorry, I do not seem to understand his idiom, can you interpret?”

  “Me speakum English,” says Wolf, leaning hard on the Injin version of our language.

  “Ah yes, Wolf is a primitive. You have heard of Injins?” asks Lord Jacob.

  “Yes, in fact, I have,” says Buzz. “First one I have seen, however. It had never occurred to me that they wouldn’t speak the Queen’s English.”

  “Not to worry. We shall persevere,” says Lord Jacob. “Wolf is only asking what your particular talent is that will be of use in our present endeavor.”

  “Ah, Wolf is unfamiliar with the Bãngh,” says Buzz nodding to himself. And walks off, successfully evading the question.

  The car stops at the entrance to the park where we landed originally. Yesterday. Seems like longer than that.

  We walk quickly out of sight of the road to the unmarked shuttle and hop aboard.

  “Hey, Sky,” I say as we belt into our seats. “That’s Buzz.”

  “Hey,” he says.

  “My pleasure,” says Buzz.

  “Buzz will take right seat,” says Lord Jacob.

  “You’re the boss,” says Sky.

  We mount up and belt in. Sky whooshes us off with Buzz in the right seat, navigating.

  We get a first class slightly subsonic tour of Pi, kind a blurry but fast. Of course, in my book, if you’ve seen one skyscraper, you seen them all.

  “There,” says Buzz. “Straight ahead.”

  I look straight ahead, but see nothing.

  “And there you have it,” says Lord Jacob and looks at Wolf.

  “Have what?” asks Wolf.

  “Buzz’ skill.”

  Buzz looks over his shoulder and says, “Buzz, Bãngh.” He smiles.

  We swoop down along an almost empty stretch of highway. Another mile or two further on we spot it. I only see one vehicle, a nondescript van. It looks like many I have seen in our travels around Pi. Lot of vehicles in this place. Traffic jam city. The vans are bigger, so they catch my eye.

  “How do you know that Painter is inside?” I ask Buzz.

  “I can tell that he is in there,” says Buzz. “You cannot?”

  “How can you do that?”

  Just then, Sky drops us out of the sky. We fall almost to ground level.

  “Buzz. Look ahead, spot for us,” yells Spud from the cargo area.

  “Pardon me,” says Buzz, turning back to the windscreen.

  “Okay, 100 yards,” he yells to Spud. “She is coming up fast. Ready? It should be in your view now.”

  Seconds pass.

  “I see it,” says Spud. “Annie, come back and man the port gun.”

  I head back, slip in the gunners seat, double check the load and focus down the sights. I get the van in the cross hairs, then move around looking for any other bogeys. The swivel mount is awesome.

  Sky matches speeds with the van. Spud releases a cable with a large round disk dangling from it.

  Once it gets close to the van, he says, “Pull.”

  Wolf pulls a lever and…

  ‘Clap.’

  …the truck and disk become one. Electromagnets are fun.

  Spud lifts the load while Sky increases our altitude dramatically. We travel not far to a wild area, no houses or roads. Spud lowers the van neatly to the ground. Then, he releases the cable and reels in the magnet. Wolf drops a grenade of some sort on the van. Smoke billows out.

  Spud says, “Lord Jacob and Buzz, you two stay to protect the shuttle and cover our return. Sky, you keep the engine running.”

  Sky lands the shuttle in front of the van, blocking the easy escape.

  We jump out. We pull our hats down, our gas masks up, and unholster
our sidearms as we run toward the van.

  As the van doors open, Spud lobs a quick smoke grenade to obscure our shuttle from prying eyes.

  Wolf pops a stun grenade into the passenger side window as we close in.

  “Nice curve.”

  We run over to each side of the van.

  “Manos arriba!” yells Michael pointing something nasty looking at the driver.

  I run up and poke my semi-auto into the guard’s gut as he emerges on the passenger side, staggering and coughing.

  “Su dinero, you money now!” I say with a growl.

  “Quita su ropa tambien. You clothings off,” says Michael.

  I look over at him and whisper sotto voce, “You horny bastard.”

  He smiles and winks.

  The guard and driver are relieved of their weapons and clothing.

  Spud reaches down and takes the keys from the guard’s belt. He goes into the van and retrieves Painter. He carries him out and lays him on the ground. The boy is limp and semiconscious. Spud uncuffs him and we head for the shuttle.

  Wolf adds one more flash bang after we bid the guards adios.

  Spud has the stunned Painter in a fireman’s carry as he jumps aboard. He drops him into a seat. Wolf buckles him in.

  Wolf looks in his eyes and mouths, “You okay, brother?”

  He barely nods, obviously still pretty stunned, despite having been in the enclosed rear box of the van.

  “Them flashbang suckers are nasty,” says Spud.

  A sudden gust of wind blows our smoke screen away. I see an open topped vehicle heading our way.

  “Heads up!” I yell. “Shit!” I can feel the shock wave of a round whistling past my arm.

  We open fire. Wolf tosses another flashbang. They are not as effective out in the open, but they ain’t no walk in the park neither.

  Sky floors it and we jet upward. Spud grabs me as I start to roll down the ramp.

  “Whoa there, girl!”

  “Damn,” says Wolf.

  We turn to look. Wolf is looking not at me or himself but at Buzz, who is hit.

  “Cosmic, Sky,” says Spud.

  “Already goin’,” says Sky.

  We have risen above the shooters, out of range. Lord Jacob and Michael are hovering over Buzz who is, well, something is leaking out. It is bright orange.

  I pull myself over, too. Not an easy pull. Couple of G’s to fight.

  “Dead?” I ask.

  Michael looks up and says, “He is merely unconscious.”

  “You fellers know how to doctor a Bãngh?”

  They exchange a glance, both shrugging.

  “First time for everything,” says Michael.

  “Quite,” agrees Lord Jacob.

  “Let us employ the usual remedy for bleeding Annie, compression,” says Lord Jacob.

  Seeing nothing else handy, I pull off my shirt and hold it down tight on the wound. After a bit, the orange flow ebbs.

  Spud arrives with the first aid kit.

  “We will go to the ship, got medic supplies and such there,” he says.

  “Not a ground hospital?”

  “With gunshot wounds and a Bãngh? I think not,” says his Lordship.

  “But they can’t tell, right?” I ask. “Oh, wait. Orange blood. Damn, I’m slow sometimes.”

  Wolf smiles at me and says, “Mm-hm.”

  Painter groans and rolls his head. Spud goes over and lifts each eyelid. “You okay, brother?” he asks.

  “What?” asks Painter groggily. He will be deaf for a while.

  Spud squeezes his shoulder and smiles. We pull up to the Cosmic and dock on the starboard side. Spud opens the hatch. He and Wolf go in and return with a gurney. We load Buzz carefully aboard. There is a medic room of sorts where we slide him onto the table.

  “Bottle, Annie,” says his Lordship, “over there.” He points with his chin.

  I look in a glass doored medicine cabinet.

  “Shit. Lord Jacob, they’s a ton of bottles in here.”

  “The medicinal bottle, we gotta operate here,” says Michael.

  “Oh,” I say and grab the whiskey. It is for the prairie doctors. They don’t have degrees, just raw frontier experience. And balls. Big frickin’ balls.

  His Lordship takes a big swig and says, “Thank you, love, my hands are steadier already.”

  “Here, sweetie,” Michael holds out a hand. He gulps three times from the proffered bottle.

  “Okay, gloves,” says Lord Jacob.

  “Lawsy me, I are a’ alien attendin’ nurse,” I say and giggle. My swigs of whiskey might’ve brought that on.

  Lord Jacob laughs. He puts a screen over Buzz mouth adds a cloth and pours something liquid over it.

  Michael sorts through the bottles and gets out some powders and tinctures. They move the compression rags and start pouring things into the wound and cutting.

  “Is cuttin’ a good idea?” I ask.

  “Are you a doctor, young lady?” asks Michael.

  “Naw, just yore comely apprentice,” I say.

  “Okay,” he says. Then he smiles, no doubt, at my clever wit. “Let us experts work,”

  “We are trying to retrieve the bullet,” says Lord Jacob. “And yes, we are, as you would say, ‘winging it’.”

  “I hope Bãngh are tough,” says Michael, as Lord Jacob starts to stitch some innard or other.

  “Humans have those?”

  “Good question,” says Wolf. He looks more closely and declares, “Injins don’t.”

  “Sheeit,” says Spud.

  After a good bit of work, they whip out the crazy glue and close him up.

  “Hey Spud,” I ask. “Where is the Shitkicker?”

  “Lady Bev and Kit will bring ‘er up,” he says. “Then we can git home.”

  “What about Buzz?” I ask.

  “Sink or swim, he is stuck with us for a while,” says Michael.

  “Who knows,” says Spud. “He might be the first Bãngh ever on the Rock.”

  “Do tell,” says Lord Jacob, looking thoughtful.

  13 Booty