The Brilliantly Rainbowed Adventure

- Chapter 29 -
Florida Incorporated

        "You boys don't know the whole story about this-here ranch," began Sneb, "and I think you ought to know it." He stretched out beside the campfire and squirted a musteline ribbon of tobacco juice into the burning coals of the fire.
        The campfire flared, sibilantly unleashing a burst of blue flames as the tobacco ignited. We sat and listened in the silence of the wilderness as a loon lifted its haunting cry, a cry that echoed unto us from the distant reaches of a trackless marsh. The loon was a winter visitor rarely seen in our state, a stranger far away from its home upon the great northern lakes. We were gathered together around the fire, and I could hear my companions breathing softly as the campfire snapped and popped in the night.
        A burning fire is a strangely beautiful thing to behold, and this one was no exception. Ruby rivers of flame, tinged with yellow and blue, skipped across the glowing coals, appearing and vanishing like wraiths that whispered across the fire's luminous face. The sudden flare-ups came and went, muttering mysteriously as they passed, dancing across the bed of glowing coals, the fervently burning coals; coals that creaked and groaned with the burden of their mortality as they shed their forms and were mysteriously consumed. It was almost as if the coals had a life in them, a life that dreaded the powerful metamorphosis from complex matter into heat and light and smoke that was now taking place in the heart of the blaze. As we sat quietly listening, Sneb continued his story.
        "You see," he said, "there was a time when this ranch belonged to the Wheeler clan." Ah, the old Wheeler clan, I thought. I had heard the name of this old Florida family bantered around here and there ever since I was a pup. "They owned all of the Whopping Big C and most of the rest of Nowhere County," he continued, "in fact, the cowboy who was a-singing the lead vocals when were approachin' camp tonight was supposed to inherit this whole spread." Sneb dolefully shook his head.
        "I reckon that sadder tales have been told, but if they was, I don't want to hear them. You see, this singing cowboy, (who is Jimmy Wheeler, by the way), he happened to have this whole spread stolen right out from under him by a bunch of low-down crooks. A few of these dishonest, double-dealin', chiselin', murderin' rascals got together about thirty years ago and laid out a plan to buy up, rip off, bamboozle, and other-wise get their their greedy hands on as much of this state as possible in order to sell it off for exhorbitant prices to other, more decent and less wealthy Americans. To really make a pile of loot, they also planned to coordinate their efforts to coincide with a massive tourist attraction that was due to open. It would be the perfect front to lure the pigeons here. I'll tell you more about that tourist trap later." Sneb stretched and yawned.
        "Anyway," he continued, "these folks bought a whole raft of ranches and undeveloped properties, and eventually they owned a good piece of Florida, which they are now hiding under concrete and steel and selling off to the highest bidder." Old Sneb pulled out a long grass stem from a clump beside him and began to carefully chew the clean white heart. "What makes it bad, Hoot, is that we are now a-settin' on one of their primest pieces of real estate." He pointed to the north. "A-way up that-a-way, hard aginst the northern border of this spread, is the attraction that this conglomerate planned to use as the anchor in their money making enterprise. I'm a'talkin' about Florida World itself, in all of its loathesome, spotless, synthetic glory."
        Florida World, of course, is the premier tourist attraction in our state. Built by folks from other parts of the Newnited States, it is an antiseptic artificial re-creation of the Florida that is now being endangered by reckless developement conducted at the behest of the rich and shameless. Florida World had several different attractions within its spacious confines, including Cracker City, Seminole World, The Old South State Section, and the Great White or Black Southern Male Stereotype-o-rama.
        "Who is this group of investors, and why haven't I heard of them?" I asked Sneb.
        "They ain't well-known," sniffed Sneb, "and they don't seek fame, because it might hurt their fortune. I wasn't supposed to be alive today to tell you this, either, but I fooled 'em all. Yes sir, me and Jimmy walked right into their executive offices after his parents died and they stole his land with the help of Jimmy's Uncle (Frank Weaslekopf) and that crooked Judge Flintner. We confronted them, and the chairman hisself called us on up to his office and explained it all to us, It wasn't nothin' personal, he said." Sneb's eyes narrowed and his voice got a cutting edge to it. "Nothing personal," Sneb said, "just taking a man and wrenching his heart out of his chest, that's all." He spit into the fire again.
        "Jimmy cried like a baby up there in that office. Shine fire, man, he wasn't but seventeen years old. Here his ma and his pa were dead, and now that crooked Judge somehow finagled it so that he could go against their will (which had dissappeared) and award the ranch to Jimmy's uncle Frank, who owed enough gamblin' money to sign the land over and still be in debt. And so this big old chairman of the board, who had arranged the whole deal, told us that it weren't nothin' personal, that it was just business.
        Well, Hooter, I told the chairman that I had written a letter to the papers and left it with my lawyer, so he needn't plan on killin' us, or everyone would be privy to their crooked briberies and dirty dealin'. Their conglomerate owns most of the state's papers, but there are still enough independent news organizations that would love to get the low-down on such shenanigans, I reckon, and that's what kept them from plantin' us somewhere in a concrete foundation. I had to come up with somethin' to save our hides. There wouldn't have been no possible problems for them, you see, if the true heir to all of this stolen land was asleep in the ground, instead of walkin' around alive on top of it." Sneb sighed heavily.
        "So now you know why me and Jimmy are just vagabond cowpokes a-workin' on the range that he ought to have inherited." He grimaced ruefully as he contemplated the situation.
        "But who are they?" I persisted. "What's the name of the company that ripped Jimmy off?"
        When he heard my question, Sneb's entire countenance changed, asssuming a veiled and hardened aspect suggestive of dimwitted treachery and the nether name of hidden infamy. A breeze sprang up suddenly, and the hobbled horses began to neigh nervously.
        The whining wind moaned morbidly as it passed through the creaking trees, and the rustling leaves were visible above his head, darting in and out of the dim circle of firelight like fingers beckoning from an open grave. Sneb's eyes flashed as his mouth fell open and the answer to my query rolled out.
        "The masterminds behind the theft of the Whopping Big C are the same pin-striped jackals of urban progress who brought us the Gold Coast megalopolis. They are a bitter group of greedy ingrates who relentlessly scour the earth for profits."
        The wind picked up its pitch, tossing and rocking the heavy oak branches in torrid gusts that fanned the fire and sent sparks scurrying up into the sky. "In communist countries," he continued, "in capitalist societies, they are the organized embodiment of the insatiable, unconscionable lust for financial gain. They would feast on the blood of babes if it were to become lucrative and socially acceptable. They are known by many names in many nations, but here in the sunshine state they are currently known as Florida, Incorporated!
        Suddenly a great gust of wind knocked us both over onto our sides, scattering ashes, sending shimmering sparks upward into the pit of the coal-black night. Horses whinnied wildly as dust swirled into our midst, whirling swiftly along in tiny tornadic funnels that spun off into the darkened forest. Then, for one brief, terrifying instant, the earth itself began to quake, turning into jelly beneath our feet and unleashing a tremor that sent the trees to swaying crazily in the red glow of the flaring flames.
        The earthquake temporarily roused the cowpokes from their dreams of prairie roundups and lonely nights under the starry sky. They sat up drowsily, rubbing their eyes and looking around at each other with expressions of wonder.