Day 7

“That seat is going to telescope your spine,” Drive warned as Alfie poured gasoline from a can into Mercy’s tank.


Alfie set the can on the garage floor and pulled a small inner tube from the shelf over the work bench.

“That’s a spare for my lawn mower,” Drive objected.

“I’ll bring it back,” he said. “Please?”

“Why can’t you just put Mercy on a trailer and haul it back to Charlie?”

“And miss all the fun?”

“And miss the perforated eardrums,” said Drive.

Alfie pulled ear plugs from his pocket and held them up.

“Sure,” said Drive. “Help yourself to my ear plugs, too.”

“Well, if you didn’t live out in Bumfuk, Egypt, I’d have gone to Wal~Mart and purchased my own.”

Rick stood back listening to the banter as he tightened the cinch on the big sorrel gelding.

Alfie snapped his fingers. “Gonna need beer.”

“By all means, help yourself to the beer,” Drive called after him as Alfie disappeared inside the house.

“Why are you up his ass so much about this?” Rick asked.

“Oh, I’m not, really,” she said. “He loves it when I fuss at him.” They heard him plunging about in the icemaker filling a cooler with beer and ice. “He’s gonna have the time of his life,” she said. “We may not even see him tonight.”

“It’s only ten miles to Charlie’s place.”

“That thing will take an hour and a half to get there, if it gets there,” she said. “And there’s town in between. He’ll have to stop and shoot the shit for at least an hour there and God knows where else along the way.” She examined the hooves on the palomino mare. “Can you tie him off and hold her head good? She’s got a loose shoe I wanna tighten.”

Rick tied the sorrel to a nearby oak and held the mare’s bridle, scratching her between the ears to distract her while Drive repaired the loose nail in the hoof. Alfie emerged from the house and banged about on the death trap of an old tractor strapping the vital cargo in the open space above the drive shaft. He bustled into the shop and retrieved the lawn mower inner tube slapping it smartly on the smooth steel seat. The solid steel valve stem pointed upwards corresponding directly with the location of his anus. Alfie detected his error in time and turned the tube over and adjusted it precisely for comfort. He stepped around to the front of the machine and reached for the starter rope.

“Hey, wait,” Drive called. “Let us get these horses out of here. That thing will spook ‘em.”

“Sounds like gunfire,” Rick added, laughing.

“Oh, yeah.” Alfie looked up. “You know, I just thought of something.” He went around to the side of the shop and rummaged around in a scrap pile. He returned carrying a small rusted lawnmower muffler and jammed it into the steel exhaust pipe that protruded from the exhaust port of the engine. “Perfect fit.”

Drive looked doubtfully at the muffler wedged crookedly into the pipe. “I threw that in the scrap pile for a reason.”

“It might help a little,” Alfie retorted.

“It’ll probably jiggle out in the first mile. Probably on Dead Man’s Hill,” she said nodding south where the creek cut along a rocky bluff as the road disappeared abruptly. “You might not even make it up the hill.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Alfie looked southward down the road. “Well, only one way to find out.”

Drive looked wordlessly at Rick and rolled her eyes. Rick smiled and handed her the mare’s reins. She stuck a foot in the stirrup and swung up. “Do you have your damn phone?” she scolded as she settled into the saddle.

Alfie glanced up at her and recognized the smile she was trying to hide. “Sure do, Tex.” Rick swung himself onto the back of the big sorrel and the two pairs headed out the driveway and across the road to the clover patch that stretched down the slope toward the creek.

“And bring back ice!” Drive bitched to him one last time as Alfie reached for the starter rope.

“And beer,” said Rick whose words were drowned out by the rapid-fire banging of the small engine coming to life.

Alfie stuffed the orange ear plugs deep into his ear canals and mounted the seat. He adjusted the lawn mower inner tube under his ass for comfort. Then he depressed the clutch and ground the freely spinning transmission into gear. Drive watched apprehensively from her saddle as he wheeled the contraption onto the road and ground it into top gear. The little engine spat noise and fire as he jazzed the throttle all the way forward. “That thing could upset, so easily,” Rick mused aloud. “He could get hurt.”

“He’s got medical training,” Drive said shrugging.

“No good if he’s unconscious,” Rick retorted.

“I’m trying to be positive here,” she said reining Lita around and heading down the slope. Nevertheless, she kept an eye on the county road to make sure that Alfie slowed and negotiated the first turn at the four-way intersection a hundred yards west of her driveway. Mercy’s only brake was an ancient parking brake which clamped around the flywheel behind the transmission. It hadn’t worked terribly well even in the 1940s when it was new, but Mercy was much lighter than the truck she had been made from. Alfie approached the corner and throttled back, but he misjudged the extra time needed to finesse the stick brake. Not yet impaired by alcohol, he wisely avoided making the sharp turn at his excessive speed. He barreled through the intersection and applied the brake full strength. Because the friction stopped the entire drive trained, the engine loaded up and began smoking the drive belt, but the more spectacular effect involved the shiny Krager mags and racing tires. The left tire skidded slightly while still rolling forward, but the right tire was forced backward due to the power distributing mechanism in the differential.

Alfie dumped the clutch and snapped the transmission into neutral. He sat for a moment looking at the right wheel which had revolved backward during the skid. He was actually vacillating between wondering why such a thing had happened and considering an attempt to make it do that again because it had looked so cool. However, a quick glance in the direction of the clover patch told him that Drive was now watching with intense interest. Lita had been wheeled to face him, and he knew that his trip was about to be vetoed if he did not act decisively. He checked the crossroad behind him and threw the transmission into reverse. He backed Mercy into the crossroad and headed south toward the creek and Dead Man’s Hill. At least his attempt at the hill would be hidden in the cover of trees.

He dropped Mercy’s transmission into fourth gear and slid the throttle cable all the way forward. He turned and waved at his friends watching intently from their mounts. “ALL SYSTEMS GO. FRIEND OR FOE! RUNNIN’ WITH THE DEVIL, IT’S TOUCH AND GO!” he informed them at the top of his voice.

“What the hell was that all about?” Drive said.

Rick cracked up laughing. “It’s a song from the eighties. Called “Touch and Go.” It was by Tears for Fears or something like that.”

“Oh,” said Drive. Her lips ran over the line she had just heard. “No,” she said. “Not Tears for Fears. That was Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.”

“Oh, yep. You’re right. Anyway, he’s running with the Devil today. That’s for sure.”

“Well, that’s good,” said Drive. “He needs all the help he can get.”

“Now that’s the most positive attitude I’ve ever heard,” said Rick.

“I can’t watch any more,” said Drive. “I still love him too much.”

“Me too,” said Rick.

They reined their horses toward the creek and let them trot together through the clover. Regardless their intention to avoid watching, they stole glances at the rusty contraption heading down the road at an alarming rate of eleven miles an hour. Not a dangerous speed on foot. However, on a top heavy, narrow-centered hunk of steel weighing nearly half a ton, the chaos factor multiplied exponentially with the speed. They could hear the transmission gears whining as if the lubricant had not been checked since the original vehicle had been scrapped during the Nixon administration.

They saw Alfie open the cooler and retrieve a beer. A burst of white foam shot over his shoulder as he opened it. He took a drink, spilling much of the contents over his face and down into his crotch as the gravel road jostled the vehicle up and down.

“I’m not lookiiiinnggg!” Drive said, forcing her eyes away from the road. “We should have stopped him,” she said squeezing Lita’s flanks, urging her into a trot.

“How?”

“I don’t know. We could have made Mercy not run somehow.”

“Well, I haven’t done too many exorcisms, but I’ve never done an exorcism on a piece of homemade farm equipment, motorized or not.” Rick squeezed Charlie with his legs and galloped him up alongside Drive and Lita who were eating up the ground toward the creek. “You need to put some goats out in this clover or something. These horses could trip.”

“Uncle Gus is coming tomorrow to mow it and bale it and haul it off,” she said. “He even pays me for it, but I don’t cash the checks.”

“Why not?”

“Because. Remember when my dad died? He didn’t have a plot or a funeral plan or anything. Gus paid for the whole damned thing. Gus was Dad’s commanding officer in Korea. Must’ve laid out six or seven grand for that funeral and shit. He can have all the clover he wants.”

“Dear old Gus,” Rick said. “Storing up treasures in heaven.”

“Naw. The old fucker goes down to the bank and puts it in my checking account anyway. I get a deposit slip for the same amount after he hands me the check and I throw it away.”

Rick laughed loud and high. “I wonder how that old man keeps going.”

“Same as you,” said Drive, laughing. “Whiskey and pussy.”

They both reined their horses as they came to the trees at the edge of the clover patch. Drive led the way through the highest trees. The horses, smelling the sweet water, fought for the reins. Charlie dropped his head and tugged at a mouthful of long tender grass growing from the rich soil of the timberland. Rick let him graze since it calmed him down. He was just a pet anyway. Lita must have been thirsty because she waded into the water and drank deeply from the clear pool. Charlie saw her and followed her in. Rick and Drive sat with their feet out of the stirrups, ready to jump off if their mounts dropped in the creek to roll. Without saying a word, they each had an ear cocked downstream toward the bridge where Mercy was about to carry their friend across the creek and up the god-awful hill that had not been modified since the 1940s when it was first covered in gravel.

At its steepest point the grade was far greater than eight percent. A trifle, perhaps, for anyone on foot, for any mule-drawn wagon. For any modern vehicle, for that matter. Drive and Rick thought the same thing. Mercy was far from any modern design. Anything and everything she accomplished was a surprise and a joy. Both humans on horseback grew tense at the sound of the small engine loading up.

“Relax,” said Rick. “Dead Man’s Hill might hold him back. “Let’s listen.”