again,
neatness was highly overrated; three out of four fleeing felons preferred
clutter to organization. I crept beneath a recessed bench seat, pretzeled my
legs, and hauled a thick black cable cord over myself, feeling like one of those
circus midgets who crawl out of clown cars. Stinky,the EighthDwarf.
I
took a deep breath. Then was sorry I’d inhaled. Minutes trickled torturously by
as I crouched there, chewing my knuckles, mentally pummeling myself because I’d
trapped myself in this van. I should have taken my chances in the fields. It
might not be too late. I was just starting to extricate myself from my hiding
place when I heard rapid footsteps outside the truck.
Nearly fainting
with fear, I braced myself for the drawn guns and shouted orders. But it wasn’t
cops. It was just a couple of slobby guys in baseball caps and jeans, tossing
stuff in the van, rolling up cable, slamming doors. They climbed into the
front, started the truck, and took off. The van bumped along the dirt road,
then sped up as it turned onto the highway. Peering out between the strands of
cable, I checked out the guys. The driver, bearded and scruffy, wore a
camouflage pattern baseball cap. He sniffed. “Jeez—what’s that smell?”
“I don’t smell
anything,” said the shotgun guy, who was also scruffy: hair way past its
trim-by date, ditto for shave, Manitoba Moose Hockey cap.
“Like
cow crap. It reeks in here.”
“Probably
on our shoes. I must have walked through every cow flop on that farm.”
I
was the source of the cow crap odor, of course. I was a stowaway, an unwanted
passenger like a wood tick on a dog. At the moment I would have traded places
with a wood tick on a dog. I hurt in so many places my ailments had to take a
number for my brain to process them. But I couldn’t think about my cuts and
bruises at the moment, because it would take up valuable energy I needed to worry
that the Action 13 guys would decide to investigate the cow crap aroma. There
was no partition between the cargo hold and the front seat, so my manure odor
could circulate freely, stinking up the whole interior.
Both men rolled down their windows.
“We’re
going national,” chortled the Moose cap guy. I couldn’t see his face, just his
dark, unkempt hair. “CNN picked up.”
“Turn
it on.”
Moose
punched on a television monitor mounted in the dashboard. Peeking out between
the gaps in the cable cord, I could catch glimpses of what they were watching.
It was the Lautenbacher farm.
“Unbelievable,”
Camo Cap said. “Oh, man—check out this part. Here she comes!” There was
Norbert’s stupid, ugly barn on the small screen. Then the camera zoomed in on
the open hatch door with the grain elevator jutting out. There I was! Dangling
on the end of the elevator, legs swinging out into space, clutching the elevator
lip for dear life. Zoom again as Katz appeared in the hatch door, all G-Man
square jaw and gallantry, extending his hand and then—
“Je-sus!”
Moose said. “There she goes.”
Camo
Cap shook his head. “Could of broken her neck.”
We
all watched the crazy woman leap through the air, shrieking and flailing. We
watched her land in the giant manure mound. Then we watched as the phoenix of
cow crap rose from the heap and sprinted off.
“I
think she just did the four hundred in six seconds flat,” said Camo, who was
making me nervous. He needed to be watching the road instead of the video,
which was now showing me vanishing into the Holstein herd.
I
didn’t think either of these bozos were reporters; they were too grungy-looking
to be on-camera talent. They must be camera crew. And if I was lucky, they
neatness was highly overrated; three out of four fleeing felons preferred
clutter to organization. I crept beneath a recessed bench seat, pretzeled my
legs, and hauled a thick black cable cord over myself, feeling like one of those
circus midgets who crawl out of clown cars. Stinky,the EighthDwarf.
I
took a deep breath. Then was sorry I’d inhaled. Minutes trickled torturously by
as I crouched there, chewing my knuckles, mentally pummeling myself because I’d
trapped myself in this van. I should have taken my chances in the fields. It
might not be too late. I was just starting to extricate myself from my hiding
place when I heard rapid footsteps outside the truck.
Nearly fainting
with fear, I braced myself for the drawn guns and shouted orders. But it wasn’t
cops. It was just a couple of slobby guys in baseball caps and jeans, tossing
stuff in the van, rolling up cable, slamming doors. They climbed into the
front, started the truck, and took off. The van bumped along the dirt road,
then sped up as it turned onto the highway. Peering out between the strands of
cable, I checked out the guys. The driver, bearded and scruffy, wore a
camouflage pattern baseball cap. He sniffed. “Jeez—what’s that smell?”
“I don’t smell
anything,” said the shotgun guy, who was also scruffy: hair way past its
trim-by date, ditto for shave, Manitoba Moose Hockey cap.
“Like
cow crap. It reeks in here.”
“Probably
on our shoes. I must have walked through every cow flop on that farm.”
I
was the source of the cow crap odor, of course. I was a stowaway, an unwanted
passenger like a wood tick on a dog. At the moment I would have traded places
with a wood tick on a dog. I hurt in so many places my ailments had to take a
number for my brain to process them. But I couldn’t think about my cuts and
bruises at the moment, because it would take up valuable energy I needed to worry
that the Action 13 guys would decide to investigate the cow crap aroma. There
was no partition between the cargo hold and the front seat, so my manure odor
could circulate freely, stinking up the whole interior.
Both men rolled down their windows.
“We’re
going national,” chortled the Moose cap guy. I couldn’t see his face, just his
dark, unkempt hair. “CNN picked up.”
“Turn
it on.”
Moose
punched on a television monitor mounted in the dashboard. Peeking out between
the gaps in the cable cord, I could catch glimpses of what they were watching.
It was the Lautenbacher farm.
“Unbelievable,”
Camo Cap said. “Oh, man—check out this part. Here she comes!” There was
Norbert’s stupid, ugly barn on the small screen. Then the camera zoomed in on
the open hatch door with the grain elevator jutting out. There I was! Dangling
on the end of the elevator, legs swinging out into space, clutching the elevator
lip for dear life. Zoom again as Katz appeared in the hatch door, all G-Man
square jaw and gallantry, extending his hand and then—
“Je-sus!”
Moose said. “There she goes.”
Camo
Cap shook his head. “Could of broken her neck.”
We
all watched the crazy woman leap through the air, shrieking and flailing. We
watched her land in the giant manure mound. Then we watched as the phoenix of
cow crap rose from the heap and sprinted off.
“I
think she just did the four hundred in six seconds flat,” said Camo, who was
making me nervous. He needed to be watching the road instead of the video,
which was now showing me vanishing into the Holstein herd.
I
didn’t think either of these bozos were reporters; they were too grungy-looking
to be on-camera talent. They must be camera crew. And if I was lucky, they
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