MASH 13 MASH goes to Montreal Read online

  From the moment Scarlett Rose-Marie was born, nine months and three weeks later, Ida-Sue had yearned eagerly for the day when little Scarlett herself would be a UTMBPG and Ida-Sue would become eligible for membership in Texas’ most exclusive social organization for women, the University of Texas Marching Band Pompon Girls’ Mommies. Such membership was limited to former UTMBPG’s whose daughters were also UTMBPG’s.

  When Vibrato Val and Tiny Tony had called to announce they were Texas bound to see their oil wells, Ida-Sue had been in Houston, at the Shamrock Hotel, for the annual Bar-B-Que Banquet and the danse of the Association of Former UTMBPG’s.*

  (* The UTMBPG Mommies was an elite organization within the larger organization, similar to the Shrine within the Masonic order, and the Order of the Cootie within the VFW.)

  Ida-Sue had, over the twenty years since Scarlett Rose-Marie had first seen the light of day, given much thought to the happy days when she would become a UTMBPG’s Mommy, and she had gone to the Shamrock Hotel with what she considered a splendid plan:

  Instead of just standing up when her name, and Scarlett’s, were called by Madame Chairperson at the UTMBPG Bar-B-Que Banquet, she would do a cheer just to show the others that the trials and tribulations of marriage, motherhood, and striving for the highest wifely office in the land had not prematurely aged her.

  She had the routine all worked out. Scarlett would do the pompon waving for the “Texas, Texas” and Ida-Sue would come in on the “rah-rah-rah,” ending her bit with the split that had so often caused the stands to explode with applause in her day.

  Scarlett, however, when Ida-Sue got to the Shamrock Hotel, was difficult about the whole thing.

  “Mother,” she said, “there has to be more to life than bouncing up and down in front of a horde of leering men!”

  “Bite your tongue!” Ida-Sue snapped.

  “Well, you can make a fool of yourself if you want,” the ungrateful child had said. “But count me out.”

  “What do you mean, ‘count me out’?” Ida-Sue demanded.

  “You’d find out soon enough anyway, Mother,” Scarlett said. “You might as well hear it from me. I’ve turned in my pompons. Never again!”

  “You can’t mean it?”

  “I mean it,” Scarlett had gone on. “And I’m leaving school. I don’t know where or what I’ll be doing, but with a little bit of luck, maybe I’ll find something important to do with my life.”

  “You’ve just stuck a dagger into your mother’s heart,” Ida-Sue replied.

  At that very moment, the call had come from Congressmen Vishnefsky and Bambino. When Ida-Sue had finally hung up, Scarlett Rose-Marie had vanished.

  Vowing that she would never forgive her daughter for humiliating her in this fashion, Ida-Sue turned her attention to the problem of producing an oil well, a flowing oil well, from, so to speak, thin air.

  It was at that point that she remembered crazy old Uncle Hiram.

  Crazy old Uncle Hiram was really Hiram Jones, Jr., eldest son of his father. As such he had inherited fifty-one percent of the old T Bar X Ranch, forty-nine percent having gone to Alamo’s father, the late Bosworth T. Jones. Even when oil had been discovered under the forty-nine percent of the old T Bar X, which had come into Alamo’s possession, Uncle Hiram had refused to drill for it on his own fifty-one percent.

  “I don’t want those noisy, dirty derricks scaring my buffalo,” he had announced. “And I have all the money I need. I’m not trying to buy my wife the White House.”

  Alamo had then suggested that they have The Old Bum locked up in a padded cell, but Ida-Sue had counseled patience.

  “Look at it this way, Stupid,” she had said to her husband. “The Old Bum won’t live forever. You’re his only living blood relative. ..

  “Scarlett is a living blood relative,” Alamo Jones had corrected her.

  “I’ve told you and told you, Dummy,” Ida-Sue had replied. “Don’t correct me.”

  “Sorry, Ida-Sue,” he had said.

  “As I was saying, Stupid,” Ida-Sue went on, “The Old Bum is going to kick off soon enough, leaving you as his only blood relative. That means you get the ranch anyway. We can wait. It’s better than having the news that you’ve got an uncle in the funny farm come out in the middle of an election campaign.”

  “This is an observation, Ida-Sue,” Alamo said, carefully. “Not a correction.”

  “What is?”

  “What if Uncle Hiram should get married? Or leave a will bequeathing his estate to Sitting Buffalo, his faithful Indian companion?”’

  “Who would marry that dirty old man?” Ida-Sue responded. “And this is Texas, not Massachusetts. Texans don’t leave things to Indians, faithful companions or not.”

  “Whatever you say, Ida-Sue,” Alamo had replied.

  “That’s what I keep telling you, Stupid,” Ida-Sue said.

  Ida-Sue recalled this incident at the Shamrock Hotel, when faced with the prospect of producing a flowing oil well for Congressmen Vishnefsky and Bambino. There was oil under Uncle Hiram’s fifty-one percent of the old T Bar X Ranch. They knew that, for other people’s oil-drilling rigs were built right up to the barbed fence.

  Far better, Ida-Sue had reasoned, to have it come out that one had a relative who required treatment for a nervous condition than to have Vibrato Val and Tiny Tony piqued for having been hoodwinked. It was as simple as that: the time had come for The Old Bum to be carried off to the funny farm.

  Enlisting the services of Andrew Jackson “Fat Jack” Stewing, M.D., fellow, American Society of Practicing Psychiatrists, and Richard “Dirty Dick” Crochet, LL.D., attorney and counselor-at-law, Ida-Sue had gone out to the old T Bar X bent on bundling poor Uncle Hiram up in a straitjacket only to learn that The Old Bum had taken off in his pickup accompanied by his faithful Indian companion, a large-bosomed blonde, and Teddy Roosevelt.*

  (* She acquired this information from the proprietor of the Lone Star Saloon & Gas Station near the old T Bar X. This luminary simply presumed that Hiram’s niece-by-marriage would know Hiram’s pet buffalo by name. He erred.)

  Cleverly appealing to head Texas Ranger Wallington T. Dowd’s dedication to sweeping the streets of Texas clean of loonies,* Ida-Sue arranged for an all-points bulletin to be issued by the Texas Rangers calling for the arrest and detention of Uncle Hiram, the Indian (whose name was Sitting Buffalo), the blonde hussy last seen with Uncle Hiram, and Teddy Roosevelt.

  (* She announced the endowment of the Wallington T. Dowd Memorial Scholarship for Law Enforcement Studies at Ranger Dowd’s alma mater, the Southwest Texas Cattle & Law Man College at Snake Rock.)

  In a gross miscarriage of justice, two Rangers arrested Ida-Sue in the belief that she was the blonde hussy, and four more arrested Congressmen Vishnefsky and Bambino in the belief that they were Uncle Hiram and Teddy Roosevelt.

  It took a little time to have everyone concerned released from their unjust confinement. Normally, all it would have taken would have been for Alamo Jones to call the governor and secure from him, as a professional courtesy between politicians, gubernatorial pardons, at the request of His Excellency, the governor of Louisiana, to his wife, to the two senators, to Col. Jean-Pierre de la Chevaux (Louisiana National Guard, retired), who had also been arrested by mistake, and, at the request of the secretary of state, to his Royal Highness Sheikh Abdullah ben Abzug, who had been arrested with Colonel de la Chevaux.

  By the time the governor got around to ordering Ida-Sue’s release, her natural pique at being unjustly detained had resulted in a battery of other charges, ranging from “the use of foul and abusive language to a Texas Ranger in the execution of his official duties” through “drunk and disorderly conduct” (in this case, requiring Ida-Sue to take the prescribed shower), and it was twenty-four hours before the cell door finally swung open for her.

  By hiring the entire Texas force of Super Sleuth Private Detective & Anti-Cattle Rustling Security Services, Inc., Ida-Sue was able to piece together s
ome very disturbing facts, about both Uncle Hiram and about her daughter.

  Uncle Hiram had apparently really gone off the deep end. It was known that he had left Texas, taking his pet buffalo and Sitting Buffalo, his faithful Indian companion with him, in the company of a person identified as the Reverend Mother Emeritus Margaret, of the God Is Love in All Forms Christian Church, Inc. It was believed, but not confirmed, that Uncle Hiram was in love with this person and had proposed marriage. *

  (* This report was in error. Uncle Hiram had fallen in love at first sight with Esther Flanagan, R.N., of Spruce Harbor, Maine. Rev. Mother Emeritus had only, as she put it, “agreed to act as Cupid’s helper’* in the romance.)

  Super Sleuth Private Detective & Anti-Cattle Rustling Security Services, Inc. reported they had nothing to report vis-á-vis Teddy Roosevelt, but they were working on the matter, diligently pursuing several hot clues, and hoped to have information for Ida-Sue shortly.

  Super sleuth reported that a female subject answering the description of Scarlett Rose-Marie Jones (that is to say, a big-breasted blonde) had been seen at the Greater Dallas Sky Diving Association, taking basic parachuting instruction from an individual she was heard referring to as “Bubba Darling,” and who was believed to be a Green Beret HALO technician in civilian clothing. Both were believed to have left Texas, having hitchhiked aboard a Learjet belonging to Burton Babcock & Company, which had landed at the Greater Dallas Sky Diving Association Airfield for fuel. Their destination was unknown.

  “My God, Stupid,” Ida-Sue Jones had cried out to her husband in their suite at the Dallas Holiday Inn, “do you realize what this means?”

  “Of course, I do, darling,” Alamo Jones had replied. “Our little Scarlett has finally found a fella.”

  “What it means, Lamebrain,” Ida-Sue said, “is that our carefully laid plans to lead this country out of the shadows of night and into the bright sunshine of the future under your presidential administration have been derailed.”

  “I don’t quite follow you, Ida-Sue,” Alamo Jones confessed.

  “How many votes do you think you’re going to get in the Northeast if they find out your only daughter is married to a warmonger? Why couldn’t she have fallen for a deserter or hippie? That would have put Massachusetts in your pocket.”

  “I see your point,” Alamo Jones said. “I’ll have a little talk with the secretary of the army and get him to tell this fella to leave our little Scarlett alone.”

  “And Uncle Hiram!” Ida-Sue went on. “If we’re to believe Super Sleuth, this horrible woman, this gold digger, is going to go back on her vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and leave the Church and marry Uncle Hiram.”

  ‘That’s really shocking!” Alamo Jones said.

  “Don’t be too hard on her, Stupid,” Ida-Sue said. “I’d do the same thing myself, under the circumstances. It isn’t every day a girl gets a chance to marry a hundred-million-barrel proven oil reserve. Ordinarily, I’d be cheering her on, but this is my hundred-million-barrel proven oil reserve she’s marrying, and that’s going too far.”

  “I see your point,” Alamo said. “What are we going to do, darling?”

  “Shut up and let me think,” Ida-Sue snapped.

  As this conversation was taking place, one of the ladies in question, Rev. Mother Emeritus Margaret, with Uncle Hiram, Sitting Buffalo, Teddy Roosevelt and Col. Jean-Pierre de la Chevaux in tow arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana.

  A glistening black Cadillac limousine and a swamp buggy were waiting at the Chevaux Petroleum hangar, the former belonging to Col. Beauregard Beaucoupmots, publisher of the New Orleans Picaroon-Statesman and the Reverend Mother Emeritus’ most ardent admirer, the latter belonging to Colonel de la Chevaux.

  Neither vehicle, unfortunately, was appropriate transportation for Teddy Roosevelt. There was no way, obviously, that Teddy Roosevelt could be included to climb the steel ladder to mount the swamp buggy, and although everybody pushed and shoved to the best of their ability, Teddy Roosevelt’s broad shoulders just wouldn’t squeeze through the doors of Colonel Beaucoupmot’s limousine.

  It was necessary to summon another vehicle, and while the party awaited its arrival, they stood in the shade beneath the wing of the airplane, a Chevaux Petroleum Boeing 747, sipping Sazerac cocktails and being serenaded by the Bayou Perdu Council, Knights of Columbus Marching Band.

  There had been, truth to tell, several little misunderstandings both en route to New Orleans and once they arrived. The bandmaster of the Bayou Perdu Council, Knights of Columbus Marching Band had only to set eyes on Teddy Roosevelt to realize the animal was just what the band needed, far better than the two wildcats and three goats with gilded horns they were presently utilizing as marching mascots.

  “Hey, pop,” he said, “what’ll you take for that ugly hairy cow of yours?”

  “Who you calling ‘pop’?” Uncle Hiram had responded.

  “I’ll give you a hundred bucks, old timer,” the bandmaster replied.

  “Scalp him, Sitting Buffalo,” Uncle Hiram had replied. “I don’t want to get my new duds dirty.”

  As the New Orleans contingent had gone from the Dallas Airport to Texas Stadium, there to watch the Saints-Cowboys game, there had been an automobile accident involving their lead vehicle and the 1957 Cadillac hearse in which Sitting Buffalo, Teddy Roosevelt and Uncle Hiram had been running away from the Texas Rangers.

  It was there that Uncle Hiram had first spotted Esther Flanagan, R.N., and fallen helplessly, hopelessly in love with her.* The Bayou Perdu Council, Knights of Columbus had of course seen it as their clear duty to hide Uncle Hiram, Sitting Buffalo and Teddy Roosevelt from the minions of the law and had done so.

  (* This love at first sight was not reciprocal, probably because, truth to tell, Uncle Hiram had acquired sort of an aura de bison during the long ride from the old T Bar X to Dallas, and also because Nurse Flanagan was not at all pleased to be addressed by Sitting Buffalo as Fat Redheaded Squaw.)

  During this period, Uncle Hiram had confided in the Reverend Mother his affection for Nurse Flanagan. The idea had a certain appeal to the Reverend Mother. Here she was, only a few months older than her old friend Esther, and with two husbands behind her. Poor old Esther was yet to make that first march to the altar. It wasn’t fair.

  “Clothes make the man, Hiram,” the Reverend Mother had said, and then had taken him to an establishment known as Neiman-Marcus in Dallas, where she had outfitted him in, as he said, “new duds,” and run him through the Neiman-Marcus Gentleman’s Tonsorial Salon. Although she had not been presented with a bill for Neiman-Marcus’ services, the Reverend Mother intended to pay for what services had been rendered from the Reverend Mother Emeritus’ Discretionary Fund. “You’re a worthy cause, Hiram,” she said to him, “if I’ve ever seen one.”

  Sitting Buffalo had been dissuaded, not without difficulty, from scalping the bandmaster on the plane by Rev. Mother Emeritus, who had given him a half gallon of Old White Stagg Blended Kentucky Bourbon as a consolation prize.

  And when they arrived at New Orleans Moissant Airport, Col. Beauregard Beaucoupmots had, perhaps naturally, come to the erroneous conclusion that the large English gentleman in the regimental mustache was hotly in pursuit of the lady he called Miss Margaret. (Rev. Mother Emeritus had outfitted Uncle Hiram from the racks of the Olde London Town Shoppe. After the Tonsorial Salon had reduced his Wild Bill Hickock coiffure and beard to no more than a closely cropped mustache, Uncle Hiram looked, in his suit, bowler hat and umbrella, as if he were a member of the House of Lords about to pay his respects to Her Majesty the Queen.)

  But that, too, was straightened out, and eventually a flatbed truck arrived, Teddy Roosevelt was loaded aboard, and the party proceeded to the suite Colonel de la Chevaux maintained in the Royal Orleans Hotel for just such unexpected contingencies.

  Chapter Seven

  “You and your big mouth,” Trapper John said to Hawkeye when they had concluded their conversation with Mr.
Matthew Q. Framingham VI of the Framingham Theosophical Foundation. “You and your ‘It’s better to marry than to burn’!”

  “The way they were hanging on to each other,” Hawkeye replied, “I was afraid they were going to spontaneously ignite. And who are you to talk? You and your ‘Love is what makes the world go ’round.’ ”

  “Well, it does,” Trapper John said, somewhat lamely. “Tell him, Esther.”

  “Leave me out of this,” Esther said. “After what happened to me in Texas, I don’t have any compassion left over for you.”

  “You mean what Sitting Buffalo called you?” Trapper John asked. “I realize that some people might think Fat Redheaded Squaw is insulting, Esther, but I’m sure Sitting Buffalo intended it as a compliment. He did give you his bow and arrow. That certainly indicates he likes you.”

  “I mean that rum-soaked buddy of his,” Esther said. “That smelly old cowboy telling me he loved me.”

  “I don’t think Uncle Hiram is as old as you think, Esther,” Hawkeye said.

  “With his hair and beard down to his waist, it’s hard to tell,” Trapper John said.

  “He’s a dirty old man, that’s what he is,” Esther said, with finality. “If you shaved his beard off and gave him a haircut, you’d have a dirty old man with a haircut and a shave.”

  “Hot Lips likes him,” Hawkeye said.

  “He was wearing pants, wasn’t he? That’s good enough for Hot Lips. Let her have him.”

  “None of this is solving our problem with the widow Babcock,” Trapper John said. “What we need, Esther, is some of your profound feminine insight.”