Rumble Tumble

After a moment the front door of the church moved, then caught, then burst open. A stout Mexican woman of about thirty came out and stood on the porch in a position that made me think of a wrestler about to get down and to it.

Red said, “Herman Ames. He here?”

She just stared at us.

“I don’t think she speaks English,” I said. “You got any Spanish, Brett?”

“Just rice, but it’s back in the cabinet at home,” she said.

“Herman,” Red said again. “Herman.”

The woman shook her head and moved into the yard, such as it was, ambled to the side of the church and pointed to the field out back.

“ ’erman,” she said, “ ’erman.”

“Gracias,” I said.

The woman tugged on the swollen door again, pulled it free, disappeared inside the church. We walked around the side of the building and started into the field.

“Remember,” Leonard said to Red, “I’d rather not poke a gun in your neck all the time, but you do anything fancy, or Herman thinks he’s going to do anything fancy, I might have to shoot somebody and tell God he died.”

Red grunted and we kept walking.

The field sloped gently downward, and on the other side, in the middle of it, we saw an elderly black pickup and next to it an apparatus perched on big wheels with thick transparent hoses attached to the main body. The thing, whatever it was, looked like a visiting Martian. The hoses were stuck in the ground, and a huge bearded man who had gone to fat was standing next to the odd device, watching us come.

“Is that him?” Brett asked.

“That’s him,” Red said. “Porked up a lot, but that’s him,” and before we knew it, he took off running.

The man by the apparatus recognized him, of course—aren’t that many redheaded midgets around. Red ran right up to Herman and leaped. Herman caught him, lifted him above his head.

As we neared we could hear laughter, and Herman said, “Red, you old sonofagun.”

“And you’re an old sonofabitch,” Red said. “Oh, forgot, Herman, you’re a man of God now.”

“The word couldn’t be any worse than the sonofabitches themselves,” Herman said, lowering Red to the ground.

Herman looked up as we came. He spent a little extra time looking at Brett. I didn’t blame him. She was worth it. She wore a loose blue shirt and jeans tight enough you would have thought she had Levi legs. The wind had taken hold of her thick red hair, and the way it whipped around her head she looked like a goddess. Herman may have been a man of the cloth, but right then I don’t think he was thinking about Bible verses, unless they were designed to give him strength.

Red said, “These are, I suppose you might say, associates of mine. It’s a little complicated, actually.”

“You in trouble, Red?” Herman asked.

“Kinda sorta,” Red said.

Herman shook his head. “Well, let me finish up here, then we’ll go up to the church and talk about it.”

“What is this?” Brett asked, nodding at the apparatus.

“Well, lady,” Herman said, “it sucks prairie dogs out of the ground.”

“Any reason you’re doing that?” Brett asked. “You don’t stuff them, do you?”

“No. Ranchers around here hate ’em. Always digging holes for stock to get their legs into, and to keep them from shooting and poisoning the little boogers, someone came up with this device. I bought one, modified it to suit me. Church offerings weren’t that good, so I needed a bit of a profession.”

“Sucking prairie dogs out of the dirt is a profession?” Brett asked.

Herman grinned. “As a matter of fact, it is.”

“Seems to me a device like that would cost more than it was worth,” I said. “You aren’t a rancher, are you?”

“No, but I got the dogs on my land.”

“What you going to do with all them dogs when you get ’em?” Leonard asked.

“Sell ’em,” Herman said.

“Who buys them?” Red said.

“Japanese are a big market. They pay up to five hundred dollars for the little suckers.”

“Do they eat ’em?” Leonard asked.

“Oh, no,” Herman said. “They make pets out of them.”

“Hell,” Leonard said, “for five hundred dollars them little suckers ought to clean your house and turn down the sheets.”

“Just pets,” Herman said. “There’s Yankees do the same, only they pay about half that price.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Leonard said. “Now I’ve heard of everything.”

“Watch this,” Herman said, and flipped a switch on the device. The motor whined, there was a sound like someone clearing their nose, and suddenly, riding up the transparent hoses, speeding along like bullets, came dark shapes.

“Wow!” Red said.

“Yeah,” Herman said. “I think we got three of them that time.”

“Christ,” Brett said. “Don’t that hurt them little dudes?”

“Just ruffles their hair, lady,” Herman said. “And I doubt Our Savior enjoys his name being exploded like that for the sake of prairie dogs.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Brett said, “I was him I’d want to take a look at something like this.”