Hayduke Lives! Read online

  Barely allowing her a final look at the purple panorama below, he drew her down and back to the Ford. Thirsty, he opened the icebox in the back, popped a pair of fizzing Pepsi-Colas, and gallantly offered one to his lady love. She opened a tin of smoked almonds. Drinking, eating, they drove on through the soft sand and up the meandering gully, which was now becoming a small canyon where the “wheels of man,” as caption writers for Arizona Highways magazine were fond of pointing out, “had never trod.” Or alternately, as they also said, “Where the hand of man has never set foot.”

  Deep among the hoodoo towers and voodoo monuments of stone, they reached an absolute deadend. Drifted dunes, unmarked sand, a young cottonwood tree in leafy April green, a plunge pool of clear water and spongy quicksand, a sheer wall of stone fifty vertical feet high blocked their advance. They got out of the machine, strapped guns to their hips, hung binoculars to their necks, slung the straps of full canteens to their shoulders. Ranger Dick pulled on and laced her hiking boots; she also slipped a slim packet of condoms (you can’t depend on men) into the leather case which held two spare clips of ammunition for her U.S. Army Colt .45 automatic. (A handgun that would blow away a bull moose if you could manage to hit anything at more than fifty feet. Every girl should have one.)

  The Bishop too snuck a pack of condoms (don’t give her no excuses) into a pocket, picked up the plastic icebox containing their picnic supplies, and led the way up an ancient path chipped by hand in the cross-bedded sandstone. The path provided the only access for cattle to a series of natural water tanks in the domes above. The Bishop knew this trail because his own Grandaddy, nearly a century before, had made it, using no tools but a hammer, an iron bullprick and here and there a shot of blasting powder. Pausing often on the way up to blow, to wipe the sweat from his eyes and to regain his wind, the Bishop told the story to his companion.

  Virginia found this bit of local history faintly interesting, in its trifling fashion, but had other things on her mind. As they neared the summit of the first great dome, a monolithic mass of stone shaped like the back of an elephant or the belly of a whale, she looked down at their vehicle two hundred feet below.

  “Maybe we should’ve brought the Motorola, Dudley.”

  He stopped again and set down the icebox, welcoming any excuse to rest. Surveying the strange horizon of naked rock, he said, “Naw, we don’t need it. Ain’t going far. Just get up here, look around, see the ol’ waterholes again. Oughta be full now, with all that rain in March.” Get her in for a skinnydip, he was thinking, peel her underwear off, show her what a real man’s whanger really looks like. Bet my shirt she ain’t never seen one. Leastways not like mine she ain’t.

  “Suppose we see some sign of that Lone Ranger man or that Rudolf?’ ‘

  Bishop Love smiled, caressing his weapon. “We take ‘em. We take ‘em.”

  “Without any help?”

  “Why hell, honey, you’re a bona fide BLM ranger with bona fide police training, I’m a deputized Search and Rescue patrolman with thirty-five years field experience, how much help you think we need?”

  “They got away from us last time.”

  “Because I was playing games. Playing Caterpillar tag. This time we don’t play no games. This time it’s all business.”

  “I hope you’re right, Dudley.”

  “Doggone right I’m right, Ginny honey.”

  They labored on under the naked sun over the nude rock, the man in his huge comical Stetson cattleman’s hat, polyester non-breathing cattleman’s suit, and slick-soled two-tone high-heeled lizardskin cattleman’s business-display shoes. Awkward.

  “Where’s this pool?”

  “Not far, honey, honest, just around that red knob yonder.” Red knob, he was thinking, wait’ll she sees my red knob, the poor gal will shit a brick. But that’s love, can’t be helped, she has gotta learn to take it like a man. I mean, like a man would if he was a woman which thank the Lord she ain’t. Or is she? Could all that meat be fake? Perish the thought, Dudley, and remember to act like a gentleman. Talk like a gentleman. Think like a gentleman. Get them evil lustful thoughts of lust out of your mind. I will, I will, soon as I can, Lord, but oh my God, Lord, look at them tits on her. If she was a cow I’d go into the dairy business.

  Poor old Dudley, she was thinking, such a sentimentalist. Actually got tears in his eyes talking about that hotel he wants to build. And he’s so shy — hand on my hip, arm around my waist, jabbering away about hotels and golf courses and jet strips when what he’s thinking about is love. I mean love with a little l — romance, real love, the passions of the heart. Who you trying to fool, girl? He wants to get into your pants and you know it and that’s why you’re here, haven’t been laid for six months two weeks and four days now and I’m tired of it. Absolutely sick and tired of it. What about his wife? That old cow? Fatter’n I am; must weigh two hundred pounds. Fuck his wife. Poor old Dudley; no wonder he looks so sad all the time. Wonder when’s the last time he had any real good honest-to-God loving? Hope he knows what he’s in for. When I wrap my legs around him I’ll break his back, I will, I’ll bite off his tongue and swallow it, I’ll rip the hide from his shoulder blades, I’ll suck and fuck and fuck and suck him so dry his old turkeyballs’ll turn inside out, I will I will. …

  The first tank was not exactly where Love remembered it to be. They had to walk a quarter mile farther, around the towering phallic knob, along a purple slope strewn with dangerous little geodes the size of ball bearings, down a narrow crevasse between two vast, plump, smooth, symmetrical globes of stone (one with pimple), into a natural window eroded through a sphinx-like fin, and across a canted bench that led — voilà! — to a basin full of rainwater, an elegant oval pool ten feet wide, twenty long, clear and clean with a sandy bottom at least twelve inches deep.

  “Oh Dudley … it’s beautiful. Beautiful, Dudley.”

  He smiled bashfully but with pride, kicked some old dried last year’s cow dung out of the way, and put the cooler down in the shade of a spreading juniper tree at poolside. “Kind of purty, ain’t it. Ain’t as deep as I remember but what the hell, Ginny, water is water. I do remember for sure there’s bigger ones a little further but …” He looked at her, his little red, white and blue eyeballs moist with feeling, his voice thick, his fingers twitching. “… but I’m kinda hungry, ain’t you? Ginny?”

  She smiled. “Bishop Love, I could eat a Brangus bull right now, the way I feel.”

  They sat down in the sweet shade of the tree, removed their boots and dangled their feet in the water. Gazing into each other’s eyes they opened the cooler, fetched out her tuna fish salad sandwiches thick with drooling mayonnaise, drew forth a bunch of fat and succulent grapes, unwrapped from tinfoil the breasts and thighs of roasted chicken …

  “Sure love them breasts and thighs.”

  “I like necks. Sounds peculiar but you know I really … really do. …”

  “Yeah, hell, honey, my cousin Homer he likes the pope’s nose, talk about peculiar. …”

  “You think they really might be out here?”

  “Who?”

  “Them. Those terrorists.”

  He patted his holstered cattleman’s revolver, a pearl-handled (not ivory) double-action Ruger .44. “If they are we’ll take ‘em on. And you know somethin’ else, you doggone beautiful lady?”

  “What?” Now — the flower?

  “Right now I don’t give a damn.”

  “Oh, Dudley.”

  “That’s right. Just don’t give a hoot in hell.” He grinned at her, a mangled chicken’s leg forgotten in his hand. “Wanta go for a swim?”

  She lowered her eyes. “I didn’t bring my swimsuit.”

  “Me neither.”

  Significant pause. They gazed at each other, mouths open, half full, shreds of food dangling in their greasy fingers. …

  * * *

  My love, she whispered softly. Then she was in his arms, his hungry mouth claiming hers in a hot and passionate kiss that forg
ed them together as if they had been melded into one.

  His arm about her waist held her so tightly against him that she could hardly breathe, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want to breathe; she wanted to devour him; and her open, seeking mouth inflamed his desire to white-hot pitch.

  His other hand caught her head and held it so that they were fused in mutual conquest. A soft, muffled groan escaped him as his senses soared. His hand slipped down to capture a soft breast. Their mouths hungered to prolong this sweet, heady assault. They tasted, sapping the strength from each other’s limbs, and they clung to each other as a wild, tempestuous river of passion swept them away.

  He bent to capture one hardened nipple, sending a storm of tortuous longing through her body. She closed her eyes as the sheer pleasure of his touch filled her with trembling joy. His hands gently cupped her jutting breasts and stroked her smooth skin, savoring the warmth of her flesh. He gathered her body close in his arms. She was a dream, a release of longing that swept every nerve with intense excitement.

  She felt the bold urgency of him searing her flesh and heard his heart beating wildly against her naked breast. Beneath her hands his hard muscles felt tense with broiling vigor. Clinging together, caught in surging rapture, they sank to the tender slickrock. (Ignoring the ants now convening from the neighborhood.)

  Her thighs were like satin against his heated skin as they parted to accept him. His kiss touched her, fierce with love and passion, and missed no inch of her quivering flesh. Then he was a hard flame within her. She moaned with the almost unbearable pleasure and they were both caught up in a swelling, surging tide of ecstasy….

  “Goldang dadgum ants.” He smeared a couple of them across the stone with his heel. “Never let a fella alone.”

  “Dud — I hear a motor.”

  “Naw.”

  “I do.”

  “Ain’t nobody here but us chickens, boss.”

  “Listen.”

  He listened. He sat upright, listened again. “Ford,” he muttered, “V-eight …” He jerked on his boots, slapped on his hat, buckled on his revolver, grabbed binoculars and jogged heavily, like a gutshot bear and naked as a jaybird, up the swell of bare stone to the summit. Except for face, neck and hands he was pale as a fish, like any countryman. She stayed where she was, in the shade, legs in the cool water, and watched him standing up there with binocs to his eyes, entire body — excepting one spare part — rigid with attention. Bad news, she thought. She saw him pull the revolver, cock the hammer, aim, hesitate, think better of it. Reholstering his weapon, he lumbered down the slope toward her. She read his face and saw there a mixture of confusion, embarrassment, exasperated rage.

  “No,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  They dressed, hurried back to the little box canyon. Indeed, the Bronco was gone. In its place was a pile of their gear — sleeping bags, waterjug, the Motorola two-way radio — and a note, scrawled with the Bishop’s pencil on a page torn from the Bishop’s S&R logbook:

  Howdy podners motorized veehickles not allowed in this genril area within ten miles yer veehickle wuz impoundered as per rooles & recklations this here genril area and you kin recover remanes of same if yew wish two miles east and 1000 feet belowe here direckt dissent not advized heliklopiters shot on sight cows likewise have a nice day yer friend

  THE LONE RANGER.

  Snarling, the Bishop prepared to rip the paper in two.

  “No,” said Virginia, “save that. Evidence. Might even be fingerprints on it.”

  “Not goldamn likely.”

  “I know. Save it anyhow.”

  They stared down the sandy canyon floor, noting the turnaround arcs near the first bend, the doubled tracks winding around the rock. They looked up at the silent, massive, impassive walls, the humps and spires and arches and hard-ons and gargoyle horns of stone surrounding them. Quintessence of stillness; not even a bird, no canyon wren nor brown towhee nor raucous raven nor haughty soaring turkey vulture disturbed by merest sibilance of feather the glassy stasis of the silence.

  “Scary,” she said. “You think he’s watching us?”

  The Bishop touched his gun butt. “Him? I wish he was. I wish just once he’d show his ugly face, whoever the bastard sumbitch is.”

  “Dudley — I never heard you talk like that.”

  “I’m a-gettin’ mad. He went too far this time. Him, them, whatever it is out here.”

  “Listen —!”

  “What?”

  “Listen!”

  He listened. They listened. They listened, listened, ears straining, and heard the distant echoes, softened and mellowed by space and time, of a solid body impacting upon rock, the explosion of metallic parts, the clatter of many smaller solid bodies likewise impacting upon more distant rock, succeeded by — diminuendo à ritardando — overlapping echoes of fainter sounds diminishing forever, ever smaller ever fainter but as Zeno (the Eleatic) said never attaining the final ultimate absolute neo-platonic perfection of nothingness.

  He looked at her. She looked at him.

  “What was that?”

  “Well …” She knew she shouldn’t say it but she couldn’t help it. “I think they just impounded your Bronco.”

  “That’s not funny, Virginia.”

  “Sorry, Dudley.” Pause. She kissed him. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He checked the radio. It seemed to be in working order. “Wanta call the BLM? Get their whirlybird out here?”

  “Let’s walk a few miles first.” She kissed him again. “Then rest awhile.” Significant pause. “Then call for help.”

  He stared at her, confused for a moment; he broke into a slow, begrudging but improving smile. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Right. What the hell, we still got half the day. Let’s go admire the view — want to show you where we’ll build the condos. Then long about sundown …”

  “That’s the idea.”

  They shouldered as much of their belongings as they could carry, linking straps and belts and hooks and buckles, and trudged together, side by side, holding hands, through the sand toward the westering sun, toward the promise of sunset and evening star, love and beauty, rescue and Pepsi-Cola.

  Their walk followed in reverse the prospective route of the G.E.M. of Arizona, the 4250-W Walking Dragline, world’s biggest moving land machine, GOLIATH on his march.

  18

  Hoyle and Boyle

  “Well, Mr. Hatch?”

  “Yes sir?”

  “Mr. Hatch?”

  “Sir?”

  “You don’t mind if we ask a few questions?”

  “No sir.”

  “Why are you so incompetent, Mr. Hatch?”

  Pause. Silence. Introspective searching of the motel-room carpet, the blank video screen, the heavy black-out drapes shutting off the outside light at the single window, the glare of the floorlamp blazing on his flushed, youthful, handsome face. “Well, sir, I don’t think I’m incompetent.” Clenching fingers, rubbing knuckles, a chewing of the lower lip. “I think I had some bad luck but I’m not incompetent.”

  The harsh and whisky-scored voice broke in. “He ain’t incompetent, Colonel. Just stupid.”

  “Now now, I won’t have that kind of talk. We must treat young Hatch with respect, whether deserved or not. Don’t you agree, Mr. Hatch?”

  “I didn’t come here to be insulted, sir.”

  With mincing affectation the rough voice mimicked his words: “I didn’t come here to be insulted, sir.”

  “Now now.” Pause. “I admire your spunk, Mr. Hatch. Stand up for yourself, I like that. It gives me hope for you. But—” The ominous “but” was allowed to hover on the air, in solitude, for a prolonged moment. “— we are finding difficulties with your performance. May I call you Oral, by the way?”

  “Ah … yes. Yes sir.”

  “Since our last conference, Oral, only a month or two ago, we’ve had the shooting of the dirt scooper, the mysterious explosion at the ore reduction mill �
�� “

  “Sir,” said Oral, “last time you called me Lieutenant.”

  “Yes I did, Oral, and this time I’m calling you Oral.”

  Awkward silence. The Colonel continued. “The mysterious and still unsolved explosion — a high felony by the way, that use of explosives — and then the theft of Love’s D-7 crawler tractor followed by, what’s this?” Rustle of papers.

  “Aggravated assault by masked man in bulldozer upon Bishop J. Dudley Love’s bulldozer followed by malicious destruction of both bulldozers. What do you have to say about it, Oral?”

  “Sir, I was in Green River that day, keeping Dr. and Mrs. Sarvis and that fellow Smith under close surveillance.” Oral gulped. “As instructed, sir.”

  “Close surveillance?” grumbled Hoyle. “How close?”

  “We were playing poker.”

  “For you that’s too close. How much you lose this time?”

  “I did good at the No Peekie.”

  “How much you lose?”

  “It’s itemized on the expense account.”

  “How much?”

  “Thirty-eight dollars and fifty cents.”

  “Holy Mary. In a penny ante game?”

  “Nickel ante. It was a regular nickel ante game.”

  “That ain’t mathematically possible.” Pause. “Jim, is that mathematically possible?”

  “It’s possible but it’s not human.”

  “Quiet!” the Colonel snapped. He continued: “Rumors of further tree-spiking in the Kaibab National Forest.”

  “Sir, that’s not in my jurisdiction.”

  “It’s not a matter of jurisdiction, Oral. You’re not merely a cop on a beat, responsible for a certain district, you’re an investigative agent assigned to monitor the illegal activities of person or persons engaging in sabotage against an industry of vital concern to the interests of the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense, is that not clear?”

  “Including pine trees?”

  “Don’t be impertinent, Oral. We have reason to believe, as you know, that this Earth First or Earth Birth group may be involved in a diversity of illegal activities including, but not limited to, what they call ‘direct action’ or — what’s this? — ‘Eine kleine Nachtwerke.’ “