Babes in the Woods (The He-Man Women Haters Club Book 2) Page 6

  I shrugged, and sang some more. Of course we didn’t hear anything, with Wolfgang committing karaoke at sixty million decibels.

  “I am never going home, guys,” I roared. “This is where I belong, forever …”

  You know that point in the middle of a great moment, when you let down your guard and begin to enjoy everything, and then …

  “’Scuse me, boys,” the thunderous voice bellowed as the big granite head poked in through the door.

  “Aahhhh!” the three of us screamed at the shock. Then behind the head of the man poked the great long brown snout of his horse.

  “You wanna turn that thing off?” the man suggested, without removing his Smoky Bear hat.

  I was so nervous, I didn’t even notice when I had the stereo killed and I continued right on muttering to myself for everyone to hear, “Oh my god. Oh my god. We’re going to jail. To jail. To jail …”

  “Well, that sure is a possibility, son,” Smoky said. “Now, who’s going to be first to tell me what all’s goin’ on here? Who’s in charge?”

  Oh, right. Like this is fair. How come we never got busted when Johnny Chesthair was in charge?

  Both of my loyal men pointed directly at me.

  He took in the food everywhere, the TV playing, phone, tapes, stereo, and the full bar in plain sight. It sure looked like we were ransacking the place.

  “I’ll bet you think there’s some funny business going on here, don’t you, Colonel?” I said.

  “Boys,” he drawled, “my horse didn’t even want to come over here, the noise was so oppressive.”

  I looked at the poor traumatized animal, who was consoling himself with a bag of chips that was on the floor.

  “Now, are you gonna tell me what the deal is, or am I going to have to take you all back with me to the big office?”

  The big office! Oh my god, the big office. How did all this happen? How could we have let everything get so out of hand?

  “Speak!” Smoky snapped.

  Therefore, speak I did.

  11 The Posse

  “THERE’S A GUY NAMED GUNNAR and another guy named Lars and they’re tall and mean and they brought us all the way up here and across two state lines even, so they could scare us and chase us and starve us and not share their shelter or their Screaming Yellow Zonkers or satellite television and they call him Swimmer and me Underwear Boy and we didn’t steal anything I swear or break anything I swear and we were invited here I swear it wasn’t even our idea and well we weren’t invited here exactly we were invited over there where it’s wet and there is no woodburning stove and the bagels are soaked and him that guy Steven he’s related to them but guess what his mother isn’t even allowed to have the phone number up here or cable TV down there and they shot us I swear to god they hunted us down like a couple of grouse and shot us with paintballs that I later discovered I was the only person in the state who didn’t even recognize as paint guns but hey that’s okay that’s just fine I can take a joke as well as the next He-Man but if I can don’t you think it’s only fair that they should be able to likewise take a joke after all? Which is why we did it.”

  Even the horse stopped what he was doing to stare at me.

  Smoky turned to Steven. “So, if I understand correctly, you’re not up here unchaperoned, is that right?”

  “That’s correct, Officer. We are not alone.”

  “And all this stuff Scarlett O’Hara over here is talking about?”

  “Well, he’s a little dramatic. But, ya, a lot of it’s kind of accurate.”

  Smoky turned back to me. “So, what are you bellyaching about, kid? You should be having the time of your life. Sounds like they’re just trying to make men outta you guys.”

  Unbelievable. Trapped, behind enemy lines.

  I collapsed onto one of the cots. “Oh my god,” I gasped as I stared up at the ceiling. “Another one.”

  “So then,” Smoky went on, “where are these guys?”

  It was like a well-coordinated group dance. Me, Wolfgang, and Steven, staring up, staring down, staring at the TV. Checking our fingernails, our shoelaces, and the sky out the window. We all magically got tired at the same time, yawning and stretching and checking our wrists though not one of us wore a watch.

  “I’ve seen some guilty-looking mugs,” Smoky said. “But I ain’t never seen it this bad, this obvious, in this many faces at once. Come on, you boys been lyin’ to me right along. We’re going back to the big office.”

  “Not to the big office,” I wailed.

  Wolf looked disgusted with me. I think when we finally got to the big office, he was going to rubber-hose me himself. “They’re out hunting, Officer,” he said.

  “How long they been out?”

  “All day.”

  “When they coming back, then?”

  He looked at Steven, who shrugged. I wasn’t even being consulted now.

  “Any minute.”

  “Good, then you all don’t mind if I wait with you, right?”

  Do you get the feeling old Smoky knows what he’s doing?

  “Okay, maybe not any minute,” Steven said.

  “Ya, but, you know, sometime in the not too distant future,” Wolf added. “Like, long enough away so that it wouldn’t be worth your time to wait here, but not so long that you need to worry about leaving us on our own to wait it out. Ya, right in there somewhere.”

  Smoky laughed. A little. I got the impression Smoky didn’t laugh a lot.

  “So, you can just be on your way, and not have to worry at all about us. You did a commendable job, Officer,” Wolf said. “Who do we call to report the excellent job you’re doing?”

  Smoky replied, “I have a better idea.” Somehow I knew he would. “I’ll give you guys the choice between one, you take me to your leader, or two, I take you to mine. Now, how’s that sound?”

  We all know how that sounded, right?

  It must have looked like one of those old westerns where Clint Eastwood or some other sundried cowboy was bringin’ ’em back alive. You know, Clint rides up front on his steed, and pulls along the sorry pair of dusty, shackled horse thieves by a rope, walking them across the whole state of Nevada.

  “Oh, you know I’d love to go along,” Wolf tried once more, “but I’ll only hold you back.”

  But this was Smoky Eastwood here.

  “I’ll tow ya,” he said. “Who you think you’re dealing with here? I can tell right off that you are the difficult one. Soon as I take off with these two, you’d be out there stealing that Bronco out on the road, disappearing into the sunset.”

  If you tried to guess strictly from the proud look on Wolfgang’s face, you’d swear the man had just said, “Hey there, handsome.”

  So there we were, me and Smoky high in the saddle heading out into the high country, tugging Wolf behind us in his chair, and Steven … sometimes walking, sometimes riding the back of the chair.

  We took the same route as the hunting party the night before. The same route as the bogus Steven search party that morning. The same route, Steven later revealed, they always take, because Gunnar thinks it would be a waste of time to bother learning new trails when the old one is still perfectly good.

  We went where we could, safely, with a wheelchair rolling behind us. The surprise was, that was everywhere. I hadn’t noticed when I was busy running for my life, but we didn’t really encounter any ground that was so tricky Wolfgang couldn’t have handled it with a minimum of assistance. “Dad likes his rugged terrain smooth,” Steven pointed out. Even the streams were all no more than eight inches deep, and Wolfgang looked like a Busch Gardens commercial as he water-skied, waving and smiling, through each one.

  “And I thought this vacation had peaked when we found the sci-fi channel,” Wolf whooped. “This is the most fun I’ve ever had.”

  When we reached the spot where I’d left them earlier, there was no clue how long ago they’d moved on. It was clear, however, that they had passed through. Because the remains of
a snack were all over—tiny Planters salted peanut bags, Zagnut wrappers, a half-eaten Slim Jim.

  “Ah,” Steven said, sizing up the debris. “They must have the fishing vests on. The ones with all the pockets.”

  Tracking, we knew by now, was only exciting in the movies. Mostly we just spent hours slogging along from one trail to the next, finding nothing, and moving on again. It was getting late, and the fun was long gone even for Wolfgang, by the time we pulled into the new, temporary resting place of the brothers Lundquist. And there they were, the two of them, spread out like a pair of starfish stranded a long, long way from their seaside home. They looked to be unconscious.

  Then, out of the trees came Ling-Ling, a freshly hacked wild berry bush in one hand, his trusty hatchet in the other. He ignored us, as if all his friends, the ranger, and the horse had been there all along, and he went to attend to the men. First he lifted the canteen—which we can assume no longer held any variation of coffee—and poured fresh mountain water between Lars’s very dry lips. He did the same for Gunnar. Then he stooped down by a pile of rocks and sticks and leaves and started whacking his hatchet on the biggest rock, sending sparks out in every direction, so far off he could start a fire that would take a day to get back to us.

  “Ah, son?” Smoky called to him cautiously. “Do you think you could stop that sparking there? Looks a bit dangerous.”

  Ling stood, looked at Smoky, then at his hatchet. “Okay,” he said agreeably. “It was making my blade wicked dull anyway.” Then he looked up at Smoky again. “I love your hat.”

  When we were finally able to roust the men, Gunnar looked up, bleary-eyed, at his son. “I told you I was the only one who could find him,” he said proudly. Then he passed out again.

  Wolf charged Gunnar forty dollars to let him ride the wheelchair back to camp. And, he had to ride with Wolf in his lap the whole way. And the horse—just a few feet directly in front of him—developed some mysterious intestinal ailment that all but knocked Gunnar’s fishing cap off and made “Pull my finger” seem like a day at the bakery by comparison.

  “I think someone must have tampered with their coffee,” was Ling’s earnest assessment. “Because the more they drank it, the unsteadier they became. And it smelled suspicious.”

  This brought a smile to Smoky’s hard kisser.

  “Good thing you were there to care for them, son,” he said. “You were heroic.”

  “Just doing my duty,” answered Ling-Ling, but clearly, this was the high point, the Operation Desert Storm of his life. His reward? He got to carry both rifles during the hike back.

  When we got there, the whole group of us—except for the horse and Ling, who were still pretty fresh—collapsed on the grounds in front of the trailer. Smoky walked up close to Lars and Gunnar, who were slumped side by side on the chaise lounges.

  “I’m not going to report you now, because there seems to have been no harm done,” said Smoky. “But I don’t think it’s too smart to be leaving these kids alone for the entire day while you’re out playin’ around in the woods. They’re still a little young yet, y’know.”

  The men nodded, sorry-like.

  “How long you people up here till?”

  “Tomorrow,” Lars answered.

  “Well then, I’m going to be by to check up once, maybe twice again, before you leave. And if I find these youngsters fendin’ for themselves again … am I making myself clear?”

  “Very clear.”

  As Smoky swung up onto his horse and started slow-walking out of camp, he caught one last look in the window of Lundquist Lodge. He pulled the horse up short.

  “All you people sleeping in that little place together?” he asked disapprovingly.

  Gunnar gulped, slow to react. Wolf jumped into the void.

  “Oh, no, Officer,” he said. “This here is where the kids sleep. The real men are camping out over there, in tents, in that clearing just that way.”

  I froze. Steven froze. We waited. Wolf smiled at Smoky, who looked up at the sky.

  “Well, that’s good, anyway. At least you done right by them there. Go on now, boys,” Smoky said. “Get on inside now. It’s getting dark, and I can feel the rain coming on already. It’s gonna be heavy.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Hold on now.” Ling started to object to being sent to the warm, dry indoors.

  “Ling!” Steven snapped. “Give Wolfgang a piggyback up that step there, will ya, big guy? Mr. Hero.”

  Ling blushed. “Ya, sure.”

  As soon as Wolf was up there on Ling’s back, he cupped his hand over the big guy’s mouth, and Steven gave them both a big shove in through the trailer door.

  “C’mon, boys,” Smoky said to the Lundquists, “I’ll escort you back to your tents.”

  They went without a whimper. They were whipped but good, and probably would have slept under the horse if he had told them to.

  12 The Code

  IN THE MORNING WE were quick to get up and straighten out the trailer, even though we were dog tired from staying up half the night watching TV and savoring our most awesome victory.

  We had defeated nature and rain and fear and uncertainty. We had defeated adults. We were coming together as a cohesive, ingenious, stealthy, not-to-be-messed-with unit.

  I was scared witless all over again.

  “But how do you know, Steven, that he’s not going to wake up homicidal?” I asked as I ran the Dustbuster along all the baseboards. “How do you know he’s not going to eat us for breakfast for what we did?”

  Steven was making the beds up. “One reason,” he answered calmly. “The Code. We won. We beat him fair and square. And while he’s never happy to get beat, somewhere in there he gets proud when I whip him, some kind of point of honor. That’s the deal, he always tells me—The Code says real men don’t whine about it. Take your licking and move on.”

  “I like that,” Ling said.

  “Ya, Ling, I figured you would.”

  I waited for the catch. “Really? That’s really it? The Code lets us, the kids, beat them, the men?”

  “The Code,” Steven repeated serenely, like some kind of TV kung fu master.

  Wolf took the karaoke microphone. “The Code … the Code … the … Code …” he chanted, breathing heavily through the speakers. He sounded like a god.

  “The Code …”He picked up Steven. “The Code …” Ling joined. “The Code, the Code …” It was unanimous.

  Until Wolf pulled the plug, just because he felt like it. “Okay, party’s over. No more dancing in the end zone. Everybody back to work.”

  Everybody but himself, of course.

  “Good thing he conceded defeat,” Wolf said from his unhelpful station in front of the TV. “I’d hate to have to kick his butt all over again today.”

  Steven knew better. “Ya, well, it’s a new day, so the clock is reset. And if his place here isn’t in better shape than he left it, there are going to be some butts kicked today, but they’re all going to be a lot smaller than his.”

  Wolf still didn’t move, but I’ll tell you, I—having by far the smallest butt in the place—sure jumped on that Formula 409 like a monkey on a banana.

  After we finished polishing, buffing, bagging, and stacking, we were all careful not to disturb anything as we headed out.

  “Oh, just one more thing,” Wolf said. He was already riding piggyback on Ling while Steven wheeled the chair down the step. “Over there,” Wolf said, spurring Ling toward the wet bar. There he grabbed a bottle of tequila containing a dead worm. “He looks lonely, doesn’t he?” he said before unscrewing the cap, taking the aged, crusty black slug out of his pocket, and tamping it down into the bottle. Then he took the five-dollar bill he got from Gunnar for munching the slug in the first place and slid it neatly under the bottle back on the bar.

  He was, at times, awe-inspiring in a chilling way, and I told him so. “You’re like one of those evil geniuses in the comics who do nothing else with their lives excep
t think up wicked things to do to their enemies.”

  He waved me off. “Oh, stop it, stop it, Jerome, you’re making me blush now,” he said, directing Ling toward the exit.

  It was a very long ride home.

  The brothers Lundquist said not one word all the way, which certainly wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but it did give the day a grim, eerie overtone. Worse than that, they still hadn’t shaken the intestinal problems they had had during the ride up. They still refused to crack the windows—they also refused to crack any jokes, which made it feel like punishment.

  A cruel and unusual punishment.

  So we He-Men all scrunched up as far back in the Bronco as we could, putting some dead air between us and them. It felt, in space and configuration, like we were back at the garage, inside the Lincoln, holding a club meeting. The world was out there, and we were in here.

  Who’d have ever thought we’d get lonesome for the old Lincoln meetings?

  “I have a motion,” Steven said, obviously feeling the same thing I did. “I move we vote to dump Jerome out of the presidency.”

  “Jeez,” I huffed. “You know, Steven, it’s getting like the mafia in here with you. Every time the boss puts his feet up for a second, the lieutenant is trying to bump him off.”

  He proceeded without my cooperation.

  “First,” Steven began, “he squirted himself out in the woods when he thought he was shot.”

  “Lie!” I said, jumping to my feet to defend myself, smashing my head on the roof of the truck, then crumpling back into my seat. “I simply changed those underwear because … because it was time. When a guy has fifteen pairs of underwear with him for a three-day vacation, it’s just good common sense to change from time to time. … Keeps you feeling fresh.”

  “Buuuuuuzzzzzz.” Wolf made the “Time’s up, wrong answer” noise from TV game shows.

  “Rats,” I said.

  “Second,” Steven went on, gaining confidence, “when the going got tough out there and we were running for our lives, Underwear Boy—”

  “Time out,” I said. “Whatever the outcome here, could we please bury the ‘Underwear Boy’ thing before we get back to the city?”