Snake Dreams (30 page)

As Daisy got into the cab with the aid of her trusty walking stick, she wondered where the girl had gone to.
Probably off looking for me. Well, I’ll just sit here till she comes back.
Had she been the observant type, Daisy might have noticed a few things that were different in this pickup, such as the copy of Kenoyer’s
Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization
on the dashboard, Butch’s sunglasses hanging from the sun visor,
and the fact that the key in the ignition was mounted on a sterling silver ring from which dangled an eighteenth-dynasty Egyptian glazed steatite scarab.

It was not as if Daisy were sleepwalking. She did notice that the engine was throbbing.
Isn’t that just like a teenager, going off leaving the motor running?
Precious fuel was being wasted.
I’d better shut it off.
She could have reached over from the passenger side and twisted the ignition key, but Daisy decided to perform the operation from behind the wheel. Scooting across the bench seat, she got her hands on the steering wheel and was thrilled by a sudden joy of recollection as her feet touched the pedals.

What did she remember? A prior escapade.

About three or four years ago—but it seemed like only last month—Daisy had piloted Louise-Marie LaForte’s 1950s-era Oldsmobile along this same road from the Columbine to Granite Creek, and quite a distance beyond. That had been quite a fine adventure, despite the fact that she had come
this close
to getting into really serious trouble.
If I could, I’d do it all over again.
As the sweet memories flooded over her, the tribal elder tapped the accelerator, was delighted to hear the engine pick up rpm’s. She also jigged the steering wheel back and forth, all the while smiling like a happy child. Tiring of accelerator tapping and steering-wheel jiggling, she put her right hand on the gear shift and gazed at the letters and numbers: P R N D 2 1 She tried to remember what these indicators meant. Fragments of what she had learned from driving Louise-Marie’s venerable Oldsmobile began to come back to her.
P is for park. D is for drive.
R and N remained unfathomable mysteries, and the numbers made no sense at all. But after all, how to park and drive was all a person really needed to know.
Making a car go isn’t hard, not unless it has a clutch.
Her confidence surged.
If I was of a mind to, I bet I could drive this old truck all the way from here to
. . . She tried to think of a suitable destination. And did.

No. We must not leap to conclusions.

Daisy had no intention of driving the pickup anywhere.
Why should she, when Sarah Frank would do the driving for her? What happened next, as Daisy would tell you herself, was not her fault. It was that “loudmouthed yahoo” who was to blame.

At about this time, the designated scapegoat was approaching the pickup. From behind. Which was why Daisy, lost in her pleasant remembrance of past acts of madcap violence and general mayhem, did not see Charlie Moon’s employee coming.

Which was also why Butch Cassidy saw only the indistinct outline of someone’s head through the dirty rear window of the cab.
Who the hell is in my pickup?
This was a reasonable question to pose, and he might have marched up to the driver’s door and made a polite inquiry, but this namesake of that famous member of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang was all hot under the collar and wanted to know
right now,
which was why, when he was within about a yard of the tailgate, Butch yelled, “Hey, you—what d’you think you’re doing!”

For a man of his modest proportions, he had a loud voice. A more apt nickname for the cowboy might have been Foghorn Cassidy.

Which was why Daisy was severely startled. Startled folks do unpredictable things, like gasp and grasp on tightly to whatever they happen to have in their hand, such as an F-150 gear shift—and in this instance
tug on it
. As it happened, she only pulled the shift one notch down from P. Ask any guru you happen to run into and that authority will tell you that
illumination
can come oh so slowly, or it can be an incandescent experience conferred in an instant, which is precisely how long it took our elderly student driver to learn what R meant.

How long did it take for Butch to become aware of his precarious predicament? Less than a heartbeat. As the instrument of his destruction lurched toward him, the cowboy made a grab for the ground and yelled loudly enough to attract the attention of several bystanders.

Realizing her error, Daisy pulled the gearshift all the way down. She did this while putting her foot on the accelerator instead of the brake, which caused the rear wheels to spin and
toss an impressive arc of gravel. The pickup lurched away in the forward direction, at which point (we know not why—angry men do inexplicable things) Butch reached up and grabbed hold of the bumper. This was an ill-advised decision.

Daisy had temporarily forgotten the concept of what brakes are for or where to find the right pedal to push, which was the one just to the left of the accelerator. Off she went like a shot, not realizing that the “loudmouthed yahoo” was attached to the pickup by eight fingers and an iron will that boggles the mind and excites considerable admiration.

As she swerved to avoid a large woman carrying away eight of today’s lunch specials, Daisy barely missed clipping the fender of a shiny Mercedes, ditto of a brand-new Toyota pickup. She did demolish the last working telephone booth in the county (empty because the tourist who was talking to his stockbroker had seen the truck coming and made a mad dash for safety). The pickup romped its merry way across the prairie, making hash of sage and mesquite alike, and leaped over a shallow ditch and onto the paved road, at which point Daisy—steering along the center line—was a woman with but a single thought:
I’m not stoppin’ for nothing.

And she didn’t. Not even the big Mac truck hauling a load of feathery livestock. Daisy was not fazed by the truck’s lights flashing, its horn blaring, the wild-eyed driver cursing up a storm and shaking his fist. A heartbeat before a head-on collision, the professional truck driver went for the ditch, spilling several crates of excited turkeys. Those fowls who were able to escape went dashing helter-skelter over the landscape.

About a mile down the road, very near the spot where Butch had made his U-turn, Daisy let out the breath she had been holding. By the time another half mile had passed, her abdominal organs had stopped churning out pints of bile and acid, and the aged heart had slowed to a mere ninety-eight beats per minute. She consulted the rearview mirror.
Nobody’s chasing after me.
She inhaled deeply.
That didn’t turn out so bad.

Butch? Despite his best intentions, the gutsy fellow was no
longer attached to the rear bumper by his digits. Our cowboy hero had been tossed aside when Daisy took out the antique telephone booth. And speaking of Daisy . . .

It occurred to her that Sarah was still at the truck stop.
Tough cookies. I ain’t going back there.
The Ute-Papago orphan was sixteen years old now and could take care of herself. When Daisy was younger than that she had gotten married to a fellow twice her age, and just four months later she’d ridden a big bay mare to Cortez and back, killed a man, and—No. Don’t ask. Daisy hardly ever talks about that. But when she does, she insists that the Apache rascal
had it coming
.

In all the excitement, Daisy had forgotten about her important mission. But, like P and D, it began to come back to her.

Let me see. Beechwood Road is the third stoplight, which is by the Walgreens. And I’ll have to make a right turn.

Which she did, but by then the road was four lanes and Daisy turned right from the left lane, directly in front of a FedEx van. Yes, driven by the very man whose windshield had been pitted by shotgun pellets fired by Nancy Yazzi as he’d passed by Hamlet’s Cowboy Saloon.

As the stalwart fellow jammed on the brakes, his heart did not miss a beat. Neither did he bat an eye. All in a day’s work.

How cool is
that
?

Stupefied

That is what Sarah Frank was. Also speechless. But let us back up a minute.

The girl, who had put a gallon and a half of gas into the borrowed pickup, went looking for Aunt Daisy in the ladies’ room and emerged from that facility to hear a big commotion out front. She got to the door just in time to see the tribal elder back the pickup over the cowboy who was bellowing like an angry bull, and watched in stunned disbelief as the crusty old woman—apparently believing she’d done him in—roared away with her victim clinging to the rear bumper. Sarah watched in gaped-mouth horror as Butch was tossed aside like a used-up rag doll, screamed and wrung her hands when Daisy totaled the telephone booth and went bumpity-bumping across the prairie in a cloud of yellow dust. Sarah watched in awe as Butch got to his feet. “Oh-oh!” she yelped, and clapped her hands.

Having no idea that the Indian girl he’d been tailing had witnessed his humiliating ordeal (or that Daisy Perika was responsible for it!), the tough little fellow ignored the inquiries of sympathetic onlookers. In the best tradition of tough-as-boot-leather rodeo cowboys, he brushed himself off and walked away. All without uttering a word. Despite the fact that his body was screaming with pain. What a man.

WHAT ABOUT
Sarah? Realizing that someone was going to have a heap of explaining to do, and having no plausible explanation for this bizarre event—even for Aunt Daisy, attempted vehicular homicide was somewhat over the top—the sensible girl opted for a tactical withdrawal, which took her through a throng of spectators to Hoke’s rear exit, outside, and into the borrowed pickup. With a cunning stealth that her Ute and Papago ancestors would have been proud of, the girl wove a circuitous route among the multitude of vehicles. As soon as she managed to get onto the highway without being seen by the ill-treated cowboy, Sarah’s single-minded objective was to catch up with Daisy Perika. She was, in a word, focused. What could have distracted the young lady from her duty—a sudden deluge of rain, wind-driven sleet? No. A blinding blizzard of snow, a low-flying UFO? Certainly not. How about the marvelous spectacle of a bewildered flock of escaped turkeys rushing about in search of who knows what? Not a chance. Our hardy pursuer of the runaway auntie glanced neither left nor right; neither did she slow. The silly birds strutting around on the highway were forced to flee and fly for their lives. What a girl.

BUTCH SUMMED
up the day’s misfortunes:
First, I lose Daisy Perika and that little Indian girl. Then, some thieving bastard steals my pickup in broad daylight. But not before he tries to run me down! Well, it wasn’t exactly
my
pickup. It belongs to Charlie Moon.
Recalling how the Yazzi girl had absconded with Sarah’s shiny red birthday pickup, it occurred to him that truck stealing was getting to be a regular epidemic on the Columbine.
This keeps up for another couple of weeks, we’ll be all out of motorized transportation
. Which raised a prickly issue:
How am I going to break the news to the boss?
The brow furrowed. Behind the formidable forehead, billions and billions of neurons and synapses generated astonishingly complex patterns of electrochemical impulses. Quite a lot of activity for
the meager result:
I guess I could call Charlie up and say guess what, boss—while I was at Hoke’s keeping an eye on your aunt and the girl, well—you won’t believe this—but damned if some jackass didn’t steal my Columbine pickup and try to run over me with it.
No, that wouldn’t quite do it. Charlie Moon was known for his sense of humor, but the loss of prime stock or motor vehicles was not likely to get a chuckle. Butch’s neurons and synapses had another go at it:
Somehow, I’ve got to get that truck back without the boss ever knowing it was gone.
Considering the fact that he was without transport and the murderous car thief had a good head start, this was a pretty tall assignment. But when there’s a job that needs doing your sure-enough American cowboy
gets right at it.
Butch pulled his hat brim down, hitched up his britches, limped over to the highway, and stuck his thumb out.