MASH 12 MASH goes to Texas Read online

  “Squaw speak with pointed tongue,” Sitting Buffalo said, smiling in approval.

  “I’d like to pay for the damage, ma’am,” Hiram said, reaching in his pocket and taking out a thick wad of bills.*

  (* Hiram had stopped off at the Republic National Bank, in which he was a major stockholder (in the mistaken belief, to be sure, that he had put his money in a Republican, as opposed to Democratic, financial institution, but a major stockholder, nonetheless), to pick up what he thought of as “a little pocket money.” No sooner had he received ten thousand dollars in hundreds and five hundreds when a Texas Ranger, who had staked out the bank, spoke to him.

  "Hold it right there, loony!” he had said, and the chase had begun, down the broad staircase to the lower lobby, out onto the street and into the hearse and ending only when Esther Flanagan’s swamp buggy had squashed the hearse to the ground like a bug.)

  “Save it for your old age, pop,” Esther Flanagan said, “what few years you’ve got left.”

  “Haw-haw!” Sitting Buffalo said, laughing and exposing all of his gold teeth. “Fat, red-haired squaw got your number, Hiram!”

  “Shut your mouth, you lousy redskin!” Hiram said furiously.

  “You tell ’im, fat, red-haired squaw,” Sitting Buffalo said, whereupon Esther Flanagan punched Sitting Buffalo square in the nose, setting him on his tail.

  Then she marched out of the bus. Hiram looked down at Sitting Buffalo.

  “Fat, red-haired squaw got a mean punch,” Sitting Buffalo said admiringly, wiping the blood from his nose with the back of his hand.

  “I knew you’d get me in bad trouble sooner or later, Sitting Buffalo,” Hiram said. “I never did believe when I met you in jail that you were just an innocent victim of anti-Indianism. You’re a drunk and disorderly troublemaker, just like the sheriff said.”

  Then he turned and started after Esther Flanagan. He got outside the bus just in time to see Esther Flanagan roll off in the swamp buggy.

  “God damn!” Hiram said.

  “Up yours!” a male voice said, the speaker speaking in the honest belief that he was returning a friendly greeting.

  “Smile when you say that,' stranger,” Hiram said, moving the heel of his hand toward the Colt-.45 single-action revolver in his belt.

  “Abe doesn’t speak English too well,” the lady with him said. “No offense.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hiram said. “Ma’am, do you happen to know that red-haired lady who just roared away in the swamp buggy?”

  “Why, yes, I do,” the lady said. “Why do you ask?”

  “She just said something to me I don’t quite understand,” Hiram said.

  “What was that?”

  “She called me ‘pop,’ ” Hiram said. “Now, why would she call a man like me, in the prime of his life, ‘pop’?”

  “I really would have no idea,” the lady said, “except possibly that beard you’re wearing, no offense, being down to your navel, might have had something to do with it—that, and, no offense, pop, those old clothes you’re wearing.”

  “ ‘Clothes make the man,’ ma’am? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “More or less,” Hot Lips replied.

  “What about him, then? Even in them cut-off blue jeans and that sweatshirt ... what does that mean, by the way, ‘Surfers Do It Standing Up!’? Can’t they sit down on them little boards, or what?”

  “As a matter of fact, sir, I was just discussing suitable apparel with Abe,” Hot Lips said. “We have decided that as nice as the shorts and sweatshirt feel, we really should be looking for your nicer clothing. Isn’t that right, Abdullah?”

  “Your mother wears army shoes!” Abdullah replied.

  “Watch your language in front of the little lady, stranger,” Hiram said.

  “You’re a gentleman, sir,” Hot Lips said. “I can tell that.”

  ‘“That red-haired dame called me ‘pop,’ ” Hiram said. “She didn’t think I was a gentleman.”

  “And is it important to you that she think of you as a gentleman?” Hot Lips inquired.

  Hiram looked thoughtful for a long moment before finally replying: “I’ll be throwed and roped if it don’t,” he said. “I’ll be damned.”

  “Up yours!” Abdullah replied with the warm smile of one kindred soul to another.

  “Well, then,” Hot Lips said, “if I may be so bold to make a personal suggestion, why don’t you come along with Abe and me and get spruced up. Don’t worry about money. I happen to have the Reverend Mother Emeritus’ Emergency Fund checkbook with me, and you’re a worthy cause if I ever saw one.”

  “That’s very kind of you, ma’am,” Hiram said.

  “Do you know of a store nearby?”

  “They got a nice little general store right here in town, ma’am,” Hiram said. “And since you’re being so nice to me, I’ll grubstake your friend to some clothes as my little treat.”

  “But how are we going to get a taxi?” Hot Lips asked. “We’ve been standing here since the wreck, and we can’t get one to stop.”

  “Hiram Dalrymple at your service, ma’am,” Hiram said. He stepped off the curb and looked for a taxicab, and when he saw one racing toward the airport he put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. When the taxi showed no indication whatever of slowing down, Hiram pulled the Colt-.45 single-action revolver from his belt, thumbed back the hammer and shot a hole in the little flag sitting atop the taxi meter.

  The taxi slammed on its brakes and skidded to a stop. The driver jumped out.

  “Yes, sir? Where in the wild world can I take you, sir?” he inquired.

  “Downtown,” Hiram said, bowing Hot Lips and Abdullah into the taxi. “And step on it!”

  Fifteen minutes later the trio climbed out of the taxi in front of a large building in downtown Dallas. They marched across the sidewalk. Glass doors tripped by an electric eye opened in front of them. They stepped inside the building.

  A tall gentleman in a business suit, red carnation in his lapel, intercepted them.

  “Might I help you?” he sniffed. “I mean to inquire, are you in the right place?”

  “Howdy,” Hiram said. “Stanley around?”

  “Which Stanley is that?”

  “How many you got? I mean the top hand, that Stanley.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid,” the man said, “that that Stanley, sir, would be in conference and couldn’t be disturbed.”

  “Let’s find out,” Hiram said.

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” the man sniffed, and then, as Hiram reached for his Colt-.45 single-action revolver, the tall gentleman reached for the telephone. “It won’t take but a moment.”

  Hiram took the telephone.

  “That you, Stan? This here’s Hiram.”

  “How are you, Hiram? What can I do for you?”

  “You know how you been on my back all these years to come in and get outfitted?” Hiram said. “Well, I decided to take the plunge. I’m here.”

  “Where is here, exactly?”

  “Right in front of those doors that open by their-selves.”

  “And is there somebody who works in the store with you? If so, let me talk to him.”

  “For you, fella,” Hiram said, handing over the phone. There was a very brief conversation between the parties, and then the chap with the carnation in his lapel bowed deeply, snatching the carnation from his lapel and handing it to Hot Lips.

  “Welcome, welcome to Neiman-Marcus!” he said. “How may we serve you?”

  “We’ll start with the barber shop,” Hot Lips said. “And then we’ll have a look at your top-of-the-line ready-to-wear.”

  Meanwhile, back at Parking Lot B of Texas Stadium:

  Scarlett Jones stood before the door of the lavender Winnebago with the “Gay Power” bumper sticker, and she was very close to tears in her desperation., Teddy Roosevelt’s long, rather sandpapery tongue came out of his mouth and licked her hand.

  Scarlett pushed the door button. She could hear, very
faintly, the chimes ringing inside. They started to play “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” but before they finished the door was flung open and she found herself facing Bubba Jones (a.k.a. Babcock Burton IV, although not to Scarlett), who was wrapped in a towel, obviously fresh from the shower, and had a cup of coffee in each hand.

  “That’s a weird doorbell,” she said.

  “Oh, do you think so?” he said. “I rather like the sound of it. The trumpets and drums and harps sound heavenly to me, just as Little Momma said they would.”

  “God, you really are a weirdo,” Scarlett said. “But I’m desperate. Did you mean what you said about you being my slave, mine to command?”

  “Every last syllable!” Bubba replied.

  “Well, put your clothes on,” Scarlett said, “and I’ll tell you about it.”

  “As much as I admire your buffalo, that splendid specimen of Bison Americanus, I don’t think he’ll fit through the door. Do you suppose he would mind being tied to the bumper?”

  Scarlett tied Teddy Roosevelt to the bumper while Bubba got dressed and then entered the Winnebago.

  “Now, how may I be of service?” Bubba asked.

  “I want you to understand that I wouldn’t be here if there were anyone else to whom I could turn,” she said. “In other words, don’t get any funny notions that I’m in any way attracted to you because of your blond hair, blue eyes, firm white teeth and muscular chest.”

  “Perish the thought,” Bubba said. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to have you love me for my inner self.”

  “If you say ‘love’ one more time, I’ll sock you in the other eye,” Scarlett said.

  “I understand completely,” Bubba said. “Now, would it be a reasonable assumption on my part, since you say that you have no one but me to turn to, that you are alone and without family in the world?”

  “It would not,” she said. “I have an uncle, Hiram, who loves me and whom I love. He’s part of the problem ... I mean, he’s got the problem.”

  “I see,” Bubba replied.

  “The thing is ... what did you say your name was?”

  “Bubba,” he said. “Actually, it’s Babcock, but my friends, and I hope I will henceforth be able to include you in that category, call me Bubba.”

  “Okay, Bubba,” she said. “The thing is, Bubba, that my mother sometimes is not a very nice person.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “Like right now,” Scarlett said.

  “You have the advantage on me, ma’am,” Bubba said.

  “Huh?”

  “You know my name; I don’t know yours.”

  “Scarlett Jones.”

  “Then you really don’t trust me, do you?”

  “What are you raving about now?” she asked.

  “If you trusted me, you wouldn’t tell me something like that,” he said. “And if you don’t trust me, how am I going to be able to rush to your defense?”

  “Tell you something like what?” Scarlett asked.

  “That your name is ‘Jones,’ ” Bubba said. “That’s very transparent. ‘Jones’ is a name people use when they don’t want to use their own name. I do it myself.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have come here,” Scarlett said. “I knew it!” She got up and started to leave, but before she could get to the door it opened and Lance Fairbanks, Brucie and Fern came in.

  “Now, Scarlett,” Bubba said, “please don’t jump to any hasty conclusions. I hardly know these people.”

  “Bubba,” Lance said somewhat breathlessly, “you’re not going to believe this, but there’s an enormous buffalo tied to our bumper.”

  “Yes, I know,” Bubba said.

  “He went ‘baa-baa’ at me,” Brucie said. “I’m simply terrified!”

  “Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire!” Scarlett said.

  “Who are you, and what are you doing in here with my Bubba?” Fern demanded of Scarlett.

  "Your Bubba?” Scarlett said. “He’s not much, I’ll admit, but even what he is is too much for something like you.”

  “Who is this person, Bubba, and what is she doing in my Winnebago?” Lance Fairbanks asked.

  “It’s not your Winnebago, Lance,” Brucie said, hurt. “It’s our Winnebago, our little pied-à-terre on wheels.”

  “I’d hate to tell you what it smells like,” Scarlett said.

  “Sticks and stones ...” Brucie began.

  But he stopped in mid-sentence when Bubba, taking a deep breath beforehand, bellowed, “All right, knock it off/”

  There was a moment’s absolute silence, which Fern finally broke.

  “Oh, Bubba,” she said, “you’re so masterful!”

  “Shut up, Fern!” Bubba said.

  “Isn’t he?” Brucie said admiringly.

  “One more word out of you, Brucie, and I’ll feed you to the buffalo,” Bubba said.

  “You’re not going to feed my buffalo anything like that!” Scarlett protested.

  “Shut up, Scarlett!” Bubba said. Scarlett Jones hadn’t been told to shut up in ten years, and she certainly was unused to being addressed that way. She opened her mouth to reply, but before the words could come out of her mouth Bubba walked to her, picked her up by the arms and set her on top of the sink. “And don’t move until I tell you that you can!” he said.

  “Where would you like to sit me?” Fern asked. “How about on the bed?”

  “You’re really a traitor to the cause, Fred,” Lance said. “I hope you know that.”

  “Lance, I sent you out to find that wonderful old, ugly cowboy and his faithful Indian companion,” Bubba said. “And I told you not to come back until you did.”

  “I wanted to talk to you about that, as a matter of fact, Bubba.”

  “What wonderful old, ugly cowboy and his faithful Indian companion?” Scarlett asked.

  “I have the floor, if you don’t mind,” Lance twittered. “And as I was starting to say, before I was so rudely interupted, Bubba, we’re not the only ones looking for them.”

  “Who else is looking for them?” Bubba asked.

  “Every Texas Ranger in the whole state of Texas, that’s who,” Lance said somewhat breathlessly.

  “What for?”

  “It seems the old boy is a loony,” Lance said. “He’s as mad as the old March Hare ... a cuckoo flown out of the nest.”

  Scarlett took a small photograph from her wallet and, jumping off the sink, showed it to Lance.

  “Is that the man you’re talking about?”

  “That’s him, all right,” Lance said, “el crazy man and his faithful Indian companion, crazy Indian.”

  “That’s what I came to tell you, Bubba,” Scarlett said, turning to him.

  “You came to tell me my wonderful old cowboy is crazy?” Bubba asked, somewhat confused.

  “He is not,” Scarlett said. “He’s as sane ... saner than you are. My mother’s just saying that. I don’t know why, but knowing Momma as I do, she has her reasons, and you can bet your bottom they’re really and truly rotten reasons.”

  “And what, precisely, is your relationship to this chap whose compos mentis, so to speak, is apparently a matter of some disagreement?” Bubba asked.

  “He’s my Uncle Hiram,” Scarlett said, “the only one in the family who understands me, who really cares about me.”

  “Your mother doesn’t care for you?”

  “All my mother wants from me is to be able to relive again the thrills—the cheap thrills—she got as a U.T.M.B.P.P.G.”

  “A what?”

  “A University of Texas Marching Band Pom-Pom Girl,” Scarlett said.

  “But why should she want to do that?” Bubba inquired.

  “It’s got something to do with getting Daddy elected President,” Scarlett said.

  “Your father is a politician?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Scarlett said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Bubba said after considering this a moment. “I can still hear
the heavenly music. I’ll marry you, anyway.”

  “Bubba!” Fern said. “How could you, after all we’ve been to each other?”

  “What is she talking about, Bubba?” Scarlett asked.

  “I’ll tell you this, miss,” Brucie said, “Fern, or Fred, or whatever she calls herself, simply can’t be trusted.”

  “We have digressed, I fear,” Bubba said. “If you tell me, Scarlett, that your Uncle Hiram is sane, that’s good enough for me. The problem, then, as I see it, since the Texas Rangers are after him, obviously intending to truss him up and run him off to the funny farm, is to reach him first and spirit him out of here.”

  “Where will we take him?”

  “I have just the place,” Bubba said. “My farm! I came here to talk to him, and his being at the farm will provide the opportunity to which I am denied here.”

  “What do you want to talk to my Uncle Hiram about?” Scarlett asked.

  “Don’t bother your pretty little head about it, my dear,” Bubba said. “It’s man-talk.”

  “You’re a shameless, insufferable male chauvinist pig!” Scarlett said.

  “And it’s a good thing for you, dear Scarlett,” Bubba said, “that I am.”

  He reached for the C.B. microphone.

  “Breaker, breaker,” he said. “Any old Camp McCall* graduates with their ears on, come back to Pigman.”

  (* Camp McCall, North Carolina, is where the men of Special Forces, the Green Berets, receive their basic training. It is known as the “John Wayne Course.”)

  Scarlett and the others looked at him in utter confusion. But the replies came immediately.

  “Go ahead, Pigman, you got 8th Special Forces Company, Texas National Guard.”

  “Go ahead, Pigman, you got Green Beret Post 5660, V.F.W.”

  “This is Pigman,” Bubba said. “I’m having a little trouble with the Texas Rangers and need assistance. Physical violence may be required. Come back.”

  “What’s your ten-twenty, Pigman?”

  “Parking Lot B, Texas Stadium. The old ten-twenty’s a lavender Winnebago.”

  “Ten-four, Pigman. This is Green Beret Post 5660, V.F.W. We came here to the Texas Stadium, Ten-twenty, to fool around with some crazy Cajuns from Louisiana, but this sounds like more fun. Hot damn, good buddy, we’re on the way!”