The Brilliantly Rainbowed Adventure

- Chapter 27 -
Night on the Whopping Big C

        Night had silently descended upon the broad expanse of the untracked wilderness. Wrapped in its sable cape, the distant depths of the forests and swamps came alive with the vital ebb and flow, the Sturm und Drang, the dramatic sweep and swish of untamed life that sang and hummed and cried aloud in the autumn night, composing and comprising the lilting music of the wilds.
        Whirring crickets, coordinating their strange and mysterious vibrations, sent out a bizarre blizzard of melodious riffs that seemed to blend into a homogenous swirling whole that threatened to levitate us out of our saddles and to plunge us abruptly into another level of reality. A tree full of Florida Sandhill cranes was awakened by our passage along a trail bordering a small lake where they nested. They talked to each other wonderingly in their strangely stupid inquisitive whoops, sounding for all the world like a convention of incredulous Do Do birds. Occasional lowings erupted from the darkness as cattle shied away from our little troupe, which was led by Sneb atop his clip-clopping slip-shod clod-hopper of a horse.
        After a while we saw a light glimmering a-way off through the trees, and it grew larger and more clearly defined as we approached. Soon we could descry the familiar glimmers of a campfire. As we quietly drew near this cheerful blaze I tugged on Sneb's shirt and signalled for him to stop. We paused in a small clump of live oaks about two-hundred feet from the fire.
        This was the season for the annual cattle drive, when the cattle in the different sections of this spread were rounded up and vacinnated or were shipped away to be sold at the auction in Okeechobee or perhaps were even trucked to a studio to be spritzed and groomed for the westerns that they shoot in Hollywood, Florida. The drovers were all gathered around the campfire having themselves a sing.
        One old boy was pickin' a box guitar and another real clean-cut sort of fellow was singing the lead part in some sort of cowboy song; on the chorus three scruffy-looking cowpokes craned their scrawny necks and chipped in with some dynamite three-part harmony. All in all I'd have to say that they were a seriously good-sounding little group. The most amazing part of the whole display, however, was the howling coyote that punctuated the homey refrain at the proper time, wailing away with perfect pitch as well as superbly rythymic vibrato and intonation. How on earth, I wondered, did they manage to locate the Caruso of the Coyote Clan a-way out here in the barren out-back of the great state of Florida? Coyotes are not exactly a native species, if you glom onto my glitch.
        Well, sir, the song that was sung by the singing cowpokes was pretty catchy, and it went something like this:

(Strum.....Strum.....Strum)
Coyote: Awoooooo!
First Cowboy: Oh, a cowboy's as glad
As a cowboy can be,
Out in the heart of the lonesome prairie.
Oh, the dogies will low and the coyotes cry,
Under the lights of the dark prairie sky.
Three dudes: With a hi-yi-ti-yay,
Coyote: Awoooooo!
Three Dudes: We'll choke on the dust of the trail all the day.
With a yip-yip-ti-yee,
Coyote: Awoooooo!
Three Dudes: We'll work like a horse for a pittance in pay.
With a ti-yi-yi-yippee--ti-yay!
Coyote: Awoooooo!
(etc., etc., etc.,)

        By and by the song was over, at which point Sneb's nag let fly with a whining welcoming whinny that perfectly punctuated the happy ending of the song. An elderly cowboy stood up and shaded his eyes with his hand.
        "Who goes there?" he called out.
        "It's old Sneb," said one of the 'pokes, "I'd know the sound of that blown-out, tick-laden mare most anywheres." We sauntered on up into the circle of light cast by the flickering flames of the fire.
        "Lookee here, gentlemen," announced Sneb, "its Hootenanny and the boys." They all stood up and doffed their hats. "And Zeb Hendrix," he appended to his prior thesis. At his last statement the cowboys just about dropped their jaws into the dirt. Their eyes bugged out and they looked around and nudged each other as if to reassure themselves that they weren't dreaming.
        "Pleased to meet you," said the tall, clean-cut fellow who had sung lead on the song.
        "Me, too," said cowpoke number one.
        "Me, too," said cowpoke number two.
        "Me, too," said cowpoke number three.
        "Us, too," said the other cow-drivers in perfect unison. Then the cowboys broke rank and shook hands all around. They even shook hands with one another. They were grinning and nodding like those fuzzy critters that sit in the back windows of cars; they must have hit a speed bump, the way their heads were wagging.
        "And by the way, boys," drawled old Snebly, "I think that I should add that our last guest is universally recognized as the greatest playwright in the history of western civilization (whatever that is).
        "He is known as the Spark of the Swamps, the Giant of Gutchinville. He's the Earwig, the Line Coach: the Pen-Driven Wind Machine. Gentlemen and ruffians, I present unto you the Bull-Moose of Playful Schmooze, the Beard himself, Mr. William Trembling-Lance!"
        Well, sir, a hush fell over the crowd of cowpokes. Then, from the midst of the silent throng, a quavering cry rose up in an eerily weirdening whine that covered me with goose-pimples and lanced my ears like a surgeon's sharpened spatula.
        "The Beard," a cowpoke cried, "long live the Beard!"
        "The Beard!" they all hollered, and wearing dazed expressions and bugged-out eyes they lurched forward towards Billy with outstretched arms, knocking us Hootenannies on the ground and proceeding to churn us under their scuffed-up old boots like so many pieces of cow-pasteurized natural fertilizer. Then, suddenly, loud gunshots rang out, shattering the quiet night into flinders.
        "All right now, stop it!" hollered a crusty Redneck voice. It was Sneb. The cowpokes all shook their heads as if they had just been awakened from a deep sleep. "You should be ashamed of yourselves," he cried, "enough of this disgusting idolatry!" He pointed at Zeb.
        "This fellow twangs steel strings for a living," he splatted, "and he can't even remember his own address." Now Sneb pointed at Billy. "And this thing," he declared, "used to be the captain of the Grammar Club at Gutchinville High. Shoot," he added, "I've heard that he can't even beat Bosco Bilgewater at chess."
        At this conjuncted kerplunk, the Spell of the Cowboy Zombies was broken like a dry twig under a horse's heel, and the boys all had them a good laugh at their own expense. We appreciated Sneb's bona-fide frankness, and his lack of affectation. It can be a burden to be seen as more than you are, especially when you aren't what you should be, and know that you couldn't be anything more than what you might have been, even if you tried.
        At this moment, the clear, tinkling ding-a-ling of the cook's iron triangle told us that dinner was ready. The trail cook on this roundup was Stumpy Wedgewater, an hombre who was tooted about as an accomplished master-chef. You might could say that he lived up to all of the publicity.
        We ate a hefty pile of bar-be-qued beans, ribs, corn on the cob, and goober fricasee, not to mention gizzards and gravy with fritters and jitters baked in the coals and a passle of his fabulous cat-head biscuits. It was a sumptillious feast, if ever one was.
        It turned out that Stumpy had contributed to the music we had heard when we first arrived in camp. Slug opined that Stumpy's cooking was better that his singing, but Stink disagreed.
        They began to argue about it and proceeded to make a big mistake. Displaying their shrivelled minds for all to see, they asked for my opinion on the subject.
        "Well," I said, thumbing my suspenders, "Stumpy's so good at singin' and cookin', it's tough to figure out which he does best. I reckon that you could go either way on it, depending upon your priorities. The question is, what's more important, music or food?" These wise observations sparked a lively debate among the drovers and our own group of famous hick musicians.
        Sneb averred that the enjoyment of music was impossible without the nourishment of the flesh, while Stumpy stoutly affirmed that music was sufficient food for the soul without the necessity of culinary embellishment, finally asserting that food was nothing more than parsley garnishing the plate of life. Stinky, proving himself to be smarter than his intelligence indicated, allowed that anyone who liked music more than food was not very hungry.
        To end the debate, Stinky challenged them to a test. All parties would endure ten days without food. At the end of this period, they would be offered a choice between ten more foodless days - featuring world-class musical presentations - or all of the chow they could eat. Those still choosing music would be shot.
        Stinky's idea was popular, but I convinced them not to act on it.
        "Boys," I said, "now don't go a'shootin' each other, even if it's just for fun." To distract them, I hammed up the hick accent, using the mouth that was conveniently located in the middle of my face. "I've got an idea," I smorfed smilingly, "let's see if ol' Egghead can shed some light on thisy-here debate." When I said this, all eyes rolled over to Egghead and sat like little boiled eggs at his feet, anxiously waiting to hear what he had to say.
        "Gentlemen," Egghead began soberly, "the debate between you Musicists and Foodists is as old as rock and roll. And so, I might add, is the give and take of argument and persuasion: the point and counterpoint of human debate itself. Your free-wheeling argy bargy is a classic example. By competitive assertions, you seek to be adjudged as bearers of truth, in this manners capturing the prize of credibility in the sight of your peers."
        At this conjuncted joint, Billy's loud snoring rudely interrupted the speech. He had fallen sound asleep, numbed by the dull monotone of Eggy's boring lecture. Zeb politely kicked him, and he fell face first into his beans.
        None of this troubled the imperturbable Sir Eggy. Staring at the eyes gathered around his feet, he continued to air out his musty ideas like a pit bull shaking a dusty old bone.
        "I was indeed, at one time, actively engaged in the pursuit of relative verity through the elucidation and attempted affirmation of conceptual models that were devised to express - in relative terms at least - a piece of universal truth. The acquisition and assertion of relative truths (or of artfully constructed assertions) was a necessity if I were to rise to prominence in the scholarly community.
        "But if I hoped to maintain my integrity, how could I set forth an argument built upon principles that I was not certain of? And how could I be certain, given the limited scope of my knowledge?
        "The search for the affirmation or negation of my conceptual propositions led to a realization that, compared to the complexity of the universe, I was less than an intellectual ant. As a perishable life form with limited time in which to acquire and analyze knowledge, I lacked the depth of wisdom that was required to understand even a miniscule fragment of the universe.
        "I am not equipped to authoritatively address weighty matters. Neither am I equipped to pass judgement upon quality-of-life issues raised by the current debate.
        "I am suggesting that mortal creatures are necessarily limited in their abilities and their knowledge. Limits upon life span in our universe inherently hinder the capabilities of the perishable creatures operating within its parameters. But there are other factors to be considered as well.
        "When we state that temporality exists, we imply the possibility of eternal life. The concept of mortality leads naturally to the idea of immortality.
        "Does immortality exist? If so, how can I, the perishable and limited, glimpse even a portion of the uncorrupted and illimitable? How can I even imagine such things, except by an insight that is inexplicable?
        "To assure my scholarly standing, I would like to make authoritative assertions about the world around me. But I cannot do this honestly in the absence of the facts, and it is obvious that I do not have all of the facts. If I had all of the facts, I would know all things. If I knew all things, I would quickly make myself immortal and rule the universe at my own pleasure. Obviously, this is not an option… because I do not know all things.
        "Can it be that I am just a small, limited player in a greater game? Can it be that I am a created entity, stumbling in the dark, so to speak, unless I am endowed with a knowledge that I cannot earn or grasp by my own power? And without absolute knowledge, how can I honestly be certain of the verity of my position in any debate? For the unknown data, once known, may annul or discredit my conclusions to a greater extent than the discoveries of modern science debunked the Flat Earth Theory."
        None of knew what to say. We had barely understood a word that he said, but it seemed as though he must have made a good point. Whatever it was, he made it, and we heard it, even if we didn't get it. That much was true, anyway!
        "Somebody send out a possee to round up a Martian!" blurted Slug.
        "A Martian?" drawled Sneb skeptically, "Why?"
        "To translate what Egghead just said!"
        Well, sirree, I never seen the like of it. The whole woods exploded in laughter. Cowboys, cooks, musicians, horses, cattle, owls, armadillos, weasels, scrub jays, gopher tortoises, panthers, you name it. We all laughed until we cried. The laughter broke down all of the normal self-policing barriers of the wilderness: predators and herbivores yokked it up side-by-side, slapping each other on the back with hoof, horn, and claw.
        As we finished and were drying our eyes, I heard a voice shout suddenly, "Hey, boys, lookee there!"
        I looked up just in time to see Egghead go off like a Roman candle.
        The top of his head popped open, and fireworks cascaded out. Rockets zoomed in every direction: chasing the cowboys, nailing the owls to the trees, scorching past the pileated woodpeckers to explode in the dark sky over the clearing, spelling out the words, "DON'T MAKE FUN OF EGGHEAD!"
        It was suddenly as quiet as death. The rockets fizzled out, and Egghead shook his head groggily, looking around to see what had happened. I cleared my throat smack dab in the middle of the silence.
        "Well, boys," I offered weakly, "it just may be that old Egghead's got a point."