In Which The Adventure Winds Down as Our Hero, El Ducko, Travels Homeward with CW and Gang
I stepped up to the little improvised table and looked ol` Chuckwagon in the eye. "Okay, gimme my pay and we`ll call it even."
"...no salute? ...no `Please give me my pay, Kind Sir` ? Where`d ya grow up, Duck? Ain`tcha got no manners?"
I started to say, "Left `em where your grammar packed in, back down the trail," but I thought better of it. After all, I was there to collect my pay at the end of long, arduous ( which I think means dusty) trail.
"Never mind, Duck. We don`t stand much on formality, `round here."
I bit my tongue. "Ow!", I said instead.
"How...? Whale, lack Ah done tolled ya..."
I held up a wing, to stop him. "Thas okay, Chuck... uh... Mister Wagon."
"Tha`s better," he said. "Okay, now, Duck, sez here..." and held up a dusty sheet of paper," that you done completed the cattle drive in good standing and that we gotta settle up. Tell me- - you gonna ride back with us? It`s a long walk if`n ya don`t."
It made sense. "Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Pardner."
He frowned, then looked back down at the paper and wrote something. "Gonna need a horse, then, huh?"
"Yup. Guess so."
He wrote something else. "...you like that nag what you rode in on, or do ya want a nice, friendly one?"
To be honest, I never had bonded very well with any of the horses that I rode. We had to switch `em off as they got tired, so at one time or other I had ridden most of them. "...friendly one would be nice," I replied.
He wrote something else. "...meals, of course?" I nodded. He wrote, then asked, "...breakfast sausage with `em?"
"...throw in some grains and yer on." ...nod. ...scribble.
"...bedding?" ...another nod, another scribble. "...bonus, if ya sign up again next year, seein` as how ya finished this year`s drive without killin` yerself or any of the cattle. ...mostly."
I remembered the sausages. They were good. "Yup." ...scribble.
He wrote some more, drew a line underneath it all, and totaled it up. "Sign here, Duck."
I made my "X," thought a moment, then circled it with an "O." He took the paper back, looked it over, and nodded.
"Good enough," he said. "You owe me twelve dollars and eighty seven cents."
"Now hold on, you dirty..." I started, but he was looking at me hard, and that look on his face wasn`t the benevolent face that usually... Well, come to think of it, `benevolent` wasn`t the right word. In fact, we don`t use words like what it looked like on a family website like this `un.
"You signed, rat cheer," he said, and pointed to my mark."
"...cain`t prove it, Bubbie. See that "O"?"
"Yeah," he said. "So...?"
"I never sign my real name when I`m out of town," I said. "That`s why I circled it.
A hush fell over the crowd- - us ducks, make that we ducks, stick together in a crisis.
"You better be packin` iron," CW said, and reached for his sidearm.
Well, I dunno about you, but if you have ever tried to fly with what seems like a fifteen pound piece of iron tied to your hip, you`ll crash and burn faster than the TSA can yell "Drop it." I reached for the sky. Besides, I couldn`t have hit the broad side of a barn from inside the barn.
"Pay up, Duck," CW ordered.
"YOU`re supposed to pay ME," I corrected him. "It`s payday."
He shoved the piece of paper toward me. "Read, Duck."
The line items included charges for meals on the way home, horse rental, an add-on for "friendly" horse, triple charge for gourmet breakfast grains and for sausages, a surcharge for trail guidance, and a 30% deduction for next year`s sign-up bonus.
He saw me eyeing that last part. "Ya sign up, ya get the bonus."
"But you deducted it. That was money I earned THIS year."
"...ain`t how it works, ya green-headed greenhorn. Ya sign up again, ya gitcha money again."
The logic on that one baffled me, but I was fighting a losing battle. "Okay, okay," I said, and forked over the cash. "...but I want a receipt."
"...give it to ya when ya sign on again, Duck, jes` lack Ah said." He spread his hands in a benevolent shrug.
"If`n Ah sign on again, does Ah hafta tawk lack thet?" I asked him, in probably the worst voice mimic attempt I`d ever done. The crowd howled with laughter. Ol` CW reddened. I beat a hasty retreat. "Next...?" he hollered. ...uh, yelled. Everyone moved up one in line, crowding me out.
"So much for spending a little time on the Kansas Rivera," Nortie said. He was at the end of the line, along with his brothers, Shorty and Bob. (Bob was a late hatchling, I guess.) "I figured we`d soak up some rays and some grain on the way back. Now, I`m not so sure."
"Yeah," said Shorty. "Look at all this wheat. As far as the eye can see, it`s wheat, wheat, wheat. I`m sure glad I haven`t signed that paper yet. The breakfasts alone aren`t worth... uh... how much, Ducko?"
"Don`t ask," I grumbled, and stalked off to try and find a friendly horse.
Well, kids, as it turned out, most of the flock didn`t sign up for the trip back. In fact, they formed up overhead, flew over to the Dairy Queen, next county over, and settled into the wheat fields behind it for a night of debauchery amidst grain a-plenty. At first light, they were gone. As for me, I was obligated to ride back south with CW and his group.
Actually, it wasn`t too bad. The cooking improved, several of the old hands shared sausage recipes from Poland and Hungary and Italy and Spain, and my horsie realized that we were headed back to the barn and behaved itself. We were proud members of a successful expedition, buoyed by the knowledge that we had accomplished our assigned task.
...and every danged one of us swore we`d never do it again.
