The Brilliantly Rainbowed Adventure

- Chapter 34 -
The Cascading Ascension of the Nearest Star

        It was dawn.
        Rays of sunlight cascaded from the clouds and splayed out across the grassy plain. The long shadows of the early morning clung damply to the dewy earth as a sharp, relentless cold burrowed its icy fingers through the bags and blankets of the snoring cowpokes.
        It was as if Zeb Hendrix had waited all of his life for this one, special moment.
        He stood upon the roof of the wooden chuck wagon with the rising sun behind him, his shadow coursing across the breadth of the camp: across the sleeping forms, the smoking coals, and the ponies tethered beyond the outskirts. This bright, fictive moment was as one of those times that feed the fires of the yearning dreams of humanity; one of those special pauses that carries within it a still, breathless glimpse of the intimation of immortality, of perfection, of the possibility of paradise, and of the deft touch of its unseen Author.
        A white headband held Zeb's wiry Anglo close to his head. His eyes were blue, as blue as the sea, as the sky; there was fire in them, and there was steel: there, dancing in his eyes, the wild supernatural spark of his humanity showed itself like a radiant splinter of lightning, a lively bolt of genius, a hint of the greater Fire. He was a man on a mission, his face a set-work of determination: as hard as iron, harder than adamant. A Fender Stratocaster was in his hands, and his amp was turned up to 10.
        As Zeb silently stood and watched, a pause fell across the misty plain. The hundreds of cattle that had already been rounded up by the drovers slept in the lush stillness of the silent dawn. Long stems of grass, heavy with dew, bowed down toward the rich green earth. The sky was orange and pink and purple and blue, streaked with violet trails and glints of lighter shades that tinged the scattered, high-flying cirrus formations with yellow and gold. The steers and heifers lowed softly to one another and began to stir.
        Now, a brilliant beam of sunlight hit Zeb's guitar neck and ricocheted into his eyes.
        It was time.
        At first I thought that an earthquake had hit. An incredible tsunami of sound, a wave of surging noise, stormed my ears like an axe-wielding wielding barbarian, pounding furiously upon the closed door of my comprehension. The ground quivered, the air shook, and the cattle panicked and began to run. Shouting and confused, the men in the camp leaped to their feet.
        The cattle were stampeding in our direction.
        We looked up and saw Zeb Hendrix framed dramatically against a glorious sunrise. His guitar was on fire, and he sang into a microphone that was attached to a stand sprouting from his guitar-neck. He was wearing his powered amplifier-back-pack with the speaker mounted up on top of his head. Behind Zeb a string of firecrackers went off as the cattle humped it our way across the plain, while the horses screamed in fear and walled their eyes, rearing up against their tethers and kicking blindly at one another. Zeb's guitar flung searing arrows of sound through the cold, clear air as he played his critically acclaimed free-form heavy-country-metal version of Dixie.
        The galloping ocean of cattle drew closer. They were scared witless.
        Their heads were down and they shook the earth. Then, as they got about 300 yards from camp, Zeb leaped from the roof and landed in the grass in front of them. Bright beams of fiery light reflected off of the front of his Strat and cascaded across the face of the herd as Zeb began to sing to the charging brutes.

Get along, heavy hoofsters,
        Don't pound us to dust,

His guitar screamed in answer to his vocal line.

Your hoofs will be hurt
        And my braces will rust.

A ripple ran through the herd. Zeb began to run toward them as the cowboys in camp snapped out of their trance and ran for their horses and us Hootenannies just ran, period.

Get along, hippy mooers,
        Our heavy horned friends,
And split without hassle
        Around the next bend.

        When he finished this stanza the stampede was upon him.
        We watched in horror, expecting to see him crushed and trampled to death, But marvelously, as we gaped in wonder at the sight, the cattle herd split neatly into two sections. One section went to his right, the other one went to his left. It was simply amazing.
        The rising sun now entered a cloud that lit up in gorgeous shades of gold and orange. Lustrous columns of light shot out of the cloud in every direction, infusing the plain with a delicate golden glow. The cowboys fought their frightened horses one-handed, trying to throw blankets and saddles over their backs as the ponies wheeled in panic and chomped at their bits.
        We Hootenannies just stopped and watched all of these goings-on. It was better than that cinemascopic version of "How the West was Won." It was a really thrilling scene, and we were there! Zeb began playing a loosely-structured progressive metallic-jazz version of "Cattle Call" as the herd rattled and roared by on either side of our camp. then, one by one, the cowboys leaped astride their ponies and spurred them into the chase after the rampaging bovines. The steers were almost all past the camp by the time that most of the cowboys had left. Sneb galloped his powerful chestnut mare up to us.
        "I'll see you boys later," he hollered, doffing his hat as his horse wheeled excitedly under a tight rein. "Take it easy, Zeb," he called out to our fuzzy-headed pal. Then, spurring his mount, he leaped away in hot pursuit of his recalcitrant mob of tick-laden beef-bearers.
        Zeb was about 100 feet away from us. We were standing on the southwest side of the smoldering fire and Zeb was across from us about fifty feet north of it. He turned and grinned at us, as innocent and about as essentially witless as any one of the researchers who had developed the atomic bomb.
        "Mooo!" lowed the last straggler from the herd, a scruffy little rascal that seemed to have the mange. A warped horn grew from its forehead, the forehead that it lowered close to the ground as it steamed up behind our pal Zeb like a runaway locomootive with a front-mounted fool-catcher. The engineer sounded a blast on his horn to warn the man on the tracks.
        "MOOOOOO!" he bawled, picking up speed as he closed in on his target.
        "ZEB," we cried, "LOOK OUT!" He smiled stupidly at us while we watched it all happen. He didn't even see it coming.
        The little steer came in fast and low and mean and flint-rock-hard and hit him right between the knees. It was a strong blow. The Mooster plowed old Zeb like a furrow; it booted him like a tin can; it headed him like a soccer ball into the net of the sky; this beast was the Pele of skinny steerdom, the Grand Exalted Poobah of the Plain of Dreams. It caught Zeb low and used plenty of leverage, causing him to turn a compete flip in the air.
        "Oh-wo-wo-wo!" Zeb blated, soaring skyward like a Taiwanese acrobat, displaying marvelous hang-time as he slo-moed it up there in the air for all of us sports fans. Then he landed on the skinny steer's back with his guitar in his hands. "Far out!" he cried, his eyes lighting up like a Las Vegas billboard. He dug his heels into the critter's scrawny ribs and they jerkily accelerated like a real pair of spectacles. Oh, it was gaudy, all right; it was quite the sight for sorely vexed eyes. Egghead whipped out his calculator and began to figure out something or the other, and Billy struck a pose that was really dramatic-like and grand: Stink odiferously sniffed at the sight, and Slug schlepped.
        Zeb's trust mount bravely charged past our hapless band of gaping galoots with our pal Zeb happily waving as they boldly bumped through the scattered oaks and rolled on towards the next level of plain awareness.
        "Far out steakly steed is heading vivaciously for brightly rendered pastel or oil futures," Zeb cried out as they fled into the distance, "check you later!"
        "Go to Florida World," rejoined a crackling, reedy voice, "Frogstick needs help."
        "Okay," answered the disappearing Zebbish.
        We turned in surprise to appraise the owner of this currently untitled voice. He was an old-timer dressed in black. He was covered in it: he wore a black coat, pants, vest and hat, with only a stiff, fully-buttoned and over-starched white cotton shirt breaking the monotony of the quiet but impressive ensemble. A Rolex peeked from the edge of his well-cut cuff, and the swashbuckling sweep of his rakishly-tilted hat emphatically led the wandering gaze to the stylish Armani patch covering his right eye. A Tiffany egg peeked from his coat pocket, and his Gucci nose ring was the final word that tired the crown of this bold fashion statement.
        He stood before us with his hand atop the head of his cane, his mouth hidden in the broad gray bib of his wild, hoary beard. Except for the Model T parked behind him he looked like a figure from an extremely stylish nineteenth century tintype.
        "I'm Frogstick's father. My boy needs help," he told us. His cracked brown hands, atop the knobby cane, trembled slightly. "Don't worry Mr. Gutchins," volunteered Egghead, quickly sizing up this new development, "my calculations indicate that our dire straits will inevitably lead to a most agreeable resolution. You may read J.R.R. Tokien's seminal essay upon the fairy tale to gain further insight into this matter."
        "Who is this guy?" asked the old man, skeptically eyeing the Fried Eggman with his brightly peeping beads.
        "A sage, almost," answered Billy,

And one held by some to be
The foremost of our gangly mob.
Who was Ptolemy? Who Galileo?
Who Newton? Who first cast
The flowers of knowledge to wither upon
The flinty hearts of the criminally inane?
Who is the noble Egghead?
A mere figment, not worthy
To be compared to the Author
Who gives both the reader and the writer
Such gifts as they possess:
That cause us now to seem to come
Alive, before your gaze.
The best that they can offer us
Is the shadow of true nobility:
The rudest sketch of the palest shape
Of the reflection of the image
Of such goodness that can be
When author yields to Author,
Who has penned reality.
        (The Best One Out of None, III, 55-79)

        "Good enough," said the old man. He looked at us all. "Frogstick's been kidnapped by some hoods from Florida World," He told us, "and I'm goin' to get him back. Who's with me in this?"
        As a man we all stepped backwards. "Well, then, let's get out of here," he said.
        It was a tight squeeze there in the Model T, but Frogstick had told the Old Coot plenty about our band, and he came well prepared. We drove off for Florida World jammed together like a bunch of sardines with their innards still in place, glad that we still had our marbles. They were in Slug's pocket, and we planned to have a good, long game with them when we all got out of this fix.
        We thumped and bumped along in that rickety old automobile having a wonderful time, humming highway songs and playing "count the Volkswagens." Behind the vehicle, at the end of a very long rope, a child's red wagon bounced along with specious cargo. It was none other than Sir Stinky of Guthchinville, the Mugwump of Sump, the inventor of the mash-mouth in-your-face sock hop, our good pal, Mortimer Mugtussle III. He rolled along forlornly, casting occasional abjectly pitiful glances our way, scrunched up in the tiny wagon, trying hard not to fall out.
        If you knew Stinky like we knew Stinky, you wouldn't have blamed us one bit.