Cowpokes and Desperadoes

•
1

Duncan—Dunc—Culpepper sat on the corner of the window watching his lifetime best friend, Amos Binder, pack his suitcase. Amos had a system. If it was semiclean and fell into the category of clothing—throw it in.

Dunc glanced around Amos’s room. It looked as if it had been through a recent nuclear blast. Junk was thrown (Amos said it was strategically placed) everywhere. Dunc picked up a torn poster of a race car. Underneath was a rotten banana peel, a moldy sock, and a pair of jeans.

Amos grabbed the jeans and threw them into his suitcase. “That ought to be enough stuff for two weeks. This is so great! I’ve always
wondered what it would be like to be a real cowboy. Can’t you just see me riding the range, roping cows, and singing songs on the lone prairie? I’m lucky your uncle invited me to come with you.”

“Uncle Woody said he was glad to have you. He’s a little shorthanded at the ranch right now. Some of his hands just recently quit.”

Amos sighed. “Melissa is going to be so impressed.”

Melissa Hansen was the girl Amos dreamed about—the only girl in the world, as far as Amos was concerned. He spent most of his life working on schemes to get her to notice him. Like the time he joined the circus as a trapeze artist and ended up landing on her and breaking her arm. But not even that did it. So far nothing had worked. But Amos never gave up hope.

“This cowboy thing could turn out to be a lot more work than you think,” Dunc said.

Amos’s eyebrows went up. “Work? I thought all cowboys did was ride around and look at cows.”

“I don’t want to discourage you, but there’s
a lot more to it than that. The horses have to be fed, and the barn has to be—”

Amos put his hand up. “Don’t be so negative. This trip is going to be fantastic. Besides, I think it’ll be good for me to get away for a while. Kind of let things settle. Due to the fire and all.”

“Fire?”

“Yeah. Our kitchen caught fire last night. It really wasn’t that big a deal—mostly smoke. The fire department put it out in no time.”

“How did it happen?”

“I was watching my cousin, little Brucie, in the back yard. You remember little Brucie?”

Dunc nodded. “Cute kid. Last time he was at your house, he ate your goldfish.”

“That’s him. I had baby-sitting duty while my dad was cooking hamburgers on the grill. That’s when the phone rang. I was pretty sure it was Melissa calling to talk about my trip to the ranch and how impressed she was about my being a cowboy.”

Dunc nodded again. He knew it couldn’t have been Melissa. It was never Melissa. Had never been Melissa. Would never be Melissa.

“She likes for me to get it on that all-important first ring, so naturally I took the shortest route possible to the phone. There was just one problem—the barbecue grill was in the way.”

“You knocked over your dad’s barbecue grill?”

“No. You would have been proud of me, Dunc. I was in classic form, with just the right amount of momentum. My stride was great—I hurdled it. I wish someone could have taken my picture. I was incredible.”

Dunc frowned. “If you didn’t knock over the grill, then how did you start a fire?”

“I had almost cleared the grill when things sort of went downhill. A flame shot up and my pant leg caught on fire. I think I could have handled it and still made it to the phone if it hadn’t been for the marbles.”

Dunc shook his head. “You lost me.”

“Little Brucie. He left his marbles on the kitchen floor. I’m pretty sure he did it on purpose. He’s only three, but he can be vicious. Anyway, I hit them at a dead run, lost my balance, and slid under the table right into the trash can. It was full of paper. My pant
leg ignited the paper, and that’s how the fire started.”

“Did you get to the phone?”

“No. Amy answered it. She claimed it was someone selling tickets to the firemen’s ball. My dad bought quite a few.”

Dunc tried to keep from smiling. “I can see why it might be better for you to go out of town for a while.”

“Yeah, I hope it’ll give my parents time to calm down. I think they will, unless they listen to my sister. Amy says this is her big chance. She’s going to try to talk them into moving to another part of the country while I’m gone.”

“Don’t worry, Amos. She’s probably kidding.”

“I don’t know. You should have seen the gleam in my dad’s eye when she first suggested it.”

•
2

Amos arrived at Dunc’s house the next morning right on schedule. He was wearing a black cowboy hat that kept slipping down over his ears, boots that would have fit Ronald McDonald, and a belt buckle the size of Montana.

Dunc scratched his head. “That’s quite an outfit.”

“Thanks. I borrowed it from Ernie Weller. His older brother used to work for Cowboy Bob’s Pizza Palace. I didn’t want to show up at your uncle Woody’s ranch looking like a dude.”

Dunc picked up Amos’s suitcase and headed for the car. “You look like a real
cowboy, all right. I think it’s the gold pepperoni pizza on the front of the buckle that does it.”

At the airport, Mrs. Culpepper insisted on pinning name tags on them and kissing Dunc good-bye right out in public where everyone could see. She started for Amos, but he ducked under her arm and headed for the plane.

A flight attendant named Cindy showed them to their seats. Amos took the one by the window.

“Parents are so weird,” Dunc said. “They let us go all over town by ourselves doing whatever we want. But when we are confined in an airplane, thousands of miles in the air, with no possible means of escape—suddenly they get all mushy and worried and pin a name tag on a guy, like he was some kind of a baby.”

Amos leaned back in his chair. “Who can figure parents?”

Cindy came by to make sure they were comfortable and find out if they wanted anything.

Amos ordered a soda, peanuts, and a pillow. “That Cindy sure is nice. I bet Melissa
will be a lot like her when she grows up.”

Dunc yawned and closed his eyes. “My mom probably bribed her to keep an eye on us. I’m going to take a nap. Wake me when we get to New Mexico.”

Amos looked around the plane. No cowboys. Real cowboys probably don’t ride in airplanes, he thought. He would have asked to be sure, but Dunc was already snoring.

Amos took his hat off and loosened his buckle. Another thing he needed to find out was how cowboys sit down wearing these big buckles and breathe at the same time.

He picked up a magazine and thumbed through it. Directly behind him he could hear two male voices talking in low tones.

“… it shouldn’t be hard. We’ve got him right where we want him. Everything’s all arranged. That Culpepper character will soon be history.”

Amos sat up. Culpepper? History? He grabbed Dunc’s arm and started shaking.

Dunc’s eyes flew open. “What?”

Amos put his finger to his lips. “Shh! Listen.”

The voices continued. “Culpepper’s an old
man. He hardly has any real hands left who’ll work.” The speaker laughed sharply. “We’ve managed to convince them all to leave.”

“Amos,” Dunc whispered urgently, “we have to go to the bathroom.”

“We do? I don’t think so. I mean, maybe you do, but I don’t—”

“Come on.” Dunc pulled him down the aisle.

There was barely enough room for both of them to stand inside the tiny rest room. Dunc locked the door. “Amos, what did you hear before you woke me up?”