MASH 12 MASH goes to Texas Read online

  “How interesting!” Ida-Sue said. “As I heard my husband, the Congressman, say just the other day, ‘If it weren’t for lawyers and psychiatrists, where would we all be?’ ”

  “He certainly has a point, ma’am,” Dr. Stewing replied. “Now, how may we be of service?”

  “Well, I suppose you have met Uncle Hiram,” Ida- Sue said as she took a hanky from her purse and dabbed at her eyes. “Poor, poor Uncle Hiram.”

  “No, ma’am,” Attorney Crochet said. “We have not had that privilege.”

  “We’ve just been standing around here with Mr. MacNamara and admiring your uncle’s shaggy cows,” Dr. Stewing said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen this breed before.”

  “They’re not exactly cows, Doctor,” Ida-Sue said. “They’re buffaloes, actually.”

  “I knew that all the time,” Attorney Crochet said.

  “Buffaloes?” Dr. Stewing asked incredulously. “Buffaloes? Like they used to have on the nickel?”

  “Isn’t that crazy?” Ida-Sue replied with a little laugh. “I mean, isn’t that insane?”

  “I would say it’s carrying nostalgia a bit far,” Dr. Stewing said. “Probably the owner had too strict toilet training as a child.”

  “I’m sure he did,” Ida-Sue said. “I’m sure you could tell that just by looking at him, being an F.A.S.P.P., I mean.” She turned to Eagle Eye MacNamara. “Where is poor, poor Uncle Hiram, Eagle Eye?”

  “I’m afraid he’s not here, Mrs. Jones,” Eagle Eye MacNamara replied. “That’s what I was trying to tell you before.”

  “What do you mean, he’s not here?” she snapped. “Uncle Hiram never leaves the ranch. He sits here in this lousy log cabin, sitting on top of the largest proven oil reserves in west Texas, and he does nothing but drink rot-gut whiskey with his Indian pal and raise buffaloes.”

  “Did I understand you to say, ma’am,” Attorney Crochet said, “that there is oil under this prairie?”

  “Yes, there is,” Ida-Sue said. “And I live in fear that unscrupulous persons may cheat Uncle Hiram out of it, him being a little crazy and all, you understand.”

  “Pardon me, ma’am,” Fat Jack Stewing said, “but we psychiatrists frown upon simple lay persons such as yourself, ma’am, making judgments about other people being crazy. That’s our business.”

  “What I was hoping,” Ida-Sue said, “when I asked you gentlemen to meet me here to discuss this problem was that you might be able to help poor, crazy Uncle Hiram.”

  “What exactly did you have in mind, ma’am?” Attorney Crochet said.

  “Well, since money is no object, Uncle Hiram having six million dollars that I know about in a bank, not even to think what all the oil under here is worth, I was hoping that you might be able to recommend to me some dedicated practitioner of the law who would, say for ten percent off the top, manage Uncle Hiram’s affairs for him—with my advice, of course—while he is off getting the best psychiatric care money can buy, even if his case is hopeless and he has to spend the rest of his days in some comfortable institution.”

  “There’s only one problem, ma’am,” Fat Jack Stewing, M.D., F.A.S.P.P., said.

  “And what is that, Doctor?”

  “In order to get your lunatic uncle locked up in my private psychiatric hospital, we have to find him.”

  “Which brings us back to you, Eagle Eye,” Ida-Sue said. “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know,” Eagle Eye confessed. “I stopped for gas and to ask directions, and the guy at the gas station told me there was no point in coming out to the Old Bar X, because Hiram wasn’t here.”

  “Did he say where he was?”

  “He said he saw him driving down the highway in his pickup, with Teddy Roosevelt in the back and some sexy blonde up in front with him and Sitting Buffalo.”

  “Who was in the back?” Ida-Sue asked.

  “I’m just telling you what the guy said, Ida-Sue, and what he said was ‘Teddy Roosevelt was in the back,’ and Sitting Buffalo and some sexy blonde was up front with Uncle Hiram. As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, he said the sexy blonde was driving.”

  “My God!” Ida-Sue said, her face ashen, her voice' shaking. “All I need now is for some peroxide-blonde hussy to snatch the old codger away, just when I finally figured out how to handle him.”

  “I wonder who she is,” Eagle Eye MacNamara said. “Why would a sexy peroxide-blonde want to marry crazy Uncle Hiram?”

  “Because under Texas law, you jackass,” Ida-Sue said, “the wife gets control of the financial affairs of a crazy husband. In other words, the moment this gold digger marries Uncle Hiram, she gets not only fifty percent of all of this as community property, but also control of what he has left.”

  “I see what you mean,” Eagle Eye said. “But what about Teddy Roosevelt? What’s he got to do with all this? I thought he was dead.”

  “Under Texas law,” Attorney Crochet said before Mrs. Ida-Sue Jones had the opportunity to reply to Mr. MacNamara, “marriages are invalid if either of the parties is non compos mentis.”

  “There you go again, using one of my profession’s private little phrases,” Fat Jack Stewing snapped. “Stay in your own backyard, Counselor. From what the little lady tells us, there’s enough of Hiram’s money to go around for everybody.”

  “What I was saying was that if either of the parties is either crazy or drunk,” Attorney Crochet said, “the marriage is invalid.”

  Ida-Sue looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. “That’s a very interesting legal point, Counselor,” she said. “But it won’t hold water.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If the marriages of all the people I know who got married plastered were invalid, there would be more ... I believe the Latin phrase is illegitimit ... illegitimate children in Texas than anywhere else.” The meaning of what she had just said sunk in. She quickly changed the subject.

  “Did this gas station where you asked directions have a telephone, Eagle Eye?”

  He nodded.

  “Get in the car, everybody!” Ida-Sue ordered. She pushed the chauffeur out of the way and got behind the wheel herself. Bouncing wildly on the unpaved dirt road, the limousine headed back for the highway.

  Thirty minutes later Teletypes in police stations all over Texas began to clatter:

  FROM HEADQUARTERS, TEXAS RANGERS

  TO ALL LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES IN TEXAS

  BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR AND DETAIN THE FOLLOWING GROUP OF PERSONS:

  (1) HIRAM DALRYMPLE, WHITE MALE, APPROXIMATELY SIXTY YEARS OF AGE, GRAY HAIR, GRAY BEARD, 180 POUNDS, LAST REPORTED WEARING STETSON HAT, DENIM SHIRT, DENIM TROUSERS AND BOOTS. IS PROBABLY ARMED WITH COLT-.45 SINGLE-ACTION REVOLVER.

  (2) SITTING BUFFALO, INDIAN MALE, APPROXIMATELY SIXTY YEARS OF AGE, BLACK HAIR, RED COMPLEXION, LAST REPORTED WEARING FEATHER, DENIM SHIRT, DENIM TROUSERS AND BOOTS. IS ALSO PROBABLY ARMED, EITHER WITH WINCHESTER MODEL-1894- .30-.30 OR BOW AND ARROW, OR BOTH.

  (3) TEDDY ROOSEVELT, DESCRIPTION UNCERTAIN, BUT PROBABLY EITHER WHITE OR INDIAN OR BLACK MALE OF SAME AGE, PROBABLY DRESSED IN APPROXIMATELY THE SAME WAY AND PROBABLY ARMED. SLNCE HE WAS LAST REPORTED RIDING IN BACK OF TRUCK (DESCRIPTION FOLLOWS), HE IS PROBABLY EITHER INDIAN OR BLACK.

  (4) WHITE FEMALE, NAME UNKNOWN, DESCRIBED AS THE SORT OF CHEAP PEROXIDE-BLONDE HUSSY WHO WOULD TRIFLE WITH A POOR OLD MAN’S AFFECTIONS. SUBJECT IS DESCRIBED AS YOUNG, WELL-TANNED, LONGHAIRED, AMPLY BOSOMED AND' DRESSED IN STETSON HAT, DENIM SHIRT, DENIM TROUSERS AND BOOTS.

  THE PARTY WAS LAST SEEN TRAVELING IN THE GENERAL DIRECTION OF DALLAS IN A 1948 FORD PICKUP TRUCK, RUSTY IN COLOR AND MISSING FRONT AND REAR FENDERS. SUBJECT DALRYMPLE IS UNDER THE PSYCHIATRIC CARE OF ANDREW JACKSON STEWING, M.D., F.A.S.P.P., BUT WILL PROBABLY DENY THIS. ON DETENTION, SUBJECT DALRYMPLE IS TO BE SEPARATED FROM OTHER MEMBERS OF THE PARTY UNTIL ARRANGEMENTS CAN BE MADE FOR HIS TRANSFER TO THE STEWING TRANQUIL GLADES REST HOME & DRYING-OUT SPA IN MIDLAND. OTHER SUBJECTS ARE TO BE RELEASED, PRESUMING NO WANTS OR WARRANTS ARE O
UT FOR THEM, AFTER BEING WARNED THAT IT IS AGAINST THE LAWS OF THE GREAT STATE OF TEXAS TO AID, ABET OR HARBOR A LOONY.

  THE HEAD TEXAS RANGER HIMSELF HAS TAKEN A PERSONAL INTEREST IN THIS CASE, AND ALL REPORTS ARE TO BE SENT TO HIM IN CARE OF THE TEXAS RANGER MOBILE DISASTER COMMAND POST, PARKING LOT B, TEXAS STADIUM, DALLAS, WHERE HE WILL BE UNTIL AFTER THE DALLAS COWBOYS-NEW ORLEANS SAINTS FOOTBALL GAME. FOR GENERAL INFORMATION, THE LOONY IS THE UNCLE OF MRS. IDA-SUE DALRYMPLE JONES, WIFE OF CONGRESSMAN ALAMO JONES, WHO HAS JUST ESTABLISHED THE WALLINGTON T. DOWD LAW ENFORCEMENT SCHOLARSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS IN HONOR OF THE FINEST TEXAS RANGER OF ALL TIME, OUR OWN BELOVED “WALLY” DOWD.

  BY ORDER OF WALLINGTON T. DOWD HEAD TEXAS RANGER

  As the sleek, black (if somewhat dusty and with two hubcaps missing after the bumpy trip to the paved road) limousine carrying Mrs. Alamo Jones, Eagle Eye MacNamara, Andrew Jackson Stewing, M.D., and Richard Crochet, L.L.D., raced to the telephone at the Longhorn Cafe, Bar-B-Que & Texaco, it passed a Winnebago going in the other direction.

  “Will you look at that!” Dr. Crochet said to Dr. Stewing.

  “I’ll be damned! Excuse me, ma’am,” Fat Jack Stewing said.

  “I never thought I’d see a house on wheels going that fast,” Dr. Crochet said.

  “I never thought I’d see a house on wheels painted lavender,” Dr. Stewing said. “The owners obviously have problems.”

  “Probably a bunch of damned Yankees,” Ida-Sue said, “down here causing trouble.”

  Not far from where it had encountered the Cadillac limousine, the Winnebago suddenly slowed down, leaving black streaks down the highway, and turned off at a sign reading OLD BAR X. NO TRESPASSING. SURVIVORS WILL BE HANGED.

  “You’re sure this is the place?” Bubba Burton Jones asked.

  “I’m sure it is,” Lance Fairbanks said. “I remember all those piles of buffalo do-do.”

  “They call them ‘chips’ out here, fella,” Bubba said. “You can cook your supper on them. I mean, I could cook my supper on them. You probably would make a mess of it.”

  “Oh, Bubba,” Fern said, “you know everything!”

  “I’m going to throw up again,” Brucie said.

  “There it is,” Lance said as the Winnebago skidded around the last turn and the log cabin came into sight. “It’s so unspeakably quaint and picturesque.”

  “Pretty nice,” Bubba said. “I could hardly have done it better myself.” Then he reminded, “Don’t forget the six feet, pal.”

  “Sorry!” Lance said quickly and retreated to the back of the Winnebago.

  Bubba stopped the Winnebago in front of the log cabin and nimbly jumped out.

  “Howdy!” he called out. There was no reply.

  “Maybe there’s nobody here,” Fern said, joining him.

  “I think I’ll have a little look around,” Bubba said. “You wait here.”

  In five minutes he was back. He climbed behind the wheel of the Winnebago, started it up and headed back in the direction they had come from.

  “Where are we going, if I might be so bold as to inquire?” Lance called from the back of the Winnebago.

  “To the Dallas Cowboys-New Orleans Saints football game,” Bubba replied.

  “But I thought you wanted to see those two wonderful, smelly old men,” Lance replied.

  “I do,” Bubba answered. “That’s why I’m going to the football game. That’s where they are.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” Brucie asked.

  “I’m a former Green Beret, you know,”* Bubba replied. “We have our little techniques.”

  (* What had happened, actually, was that Bubba had come upon a discarded envelope, which Ida-Sue and the others had ignored, and upon which was written: "S., Here are the tickets you wanted to the Cowboys-Saints game. You and your uncle have a good time. B.” As a faithful fan of the Saints, Bubba had, of course, the schedule committed to memory, and was thus able to cleverly hypothesize the probable whereabouts of this missing buffalo rancher.)

  “Oh, I’ll bet you do!” Brucie said.

  “A word to the wise, Brucie,” Lance said. “I personally don’t think he’s fooling one little bit about what happens if you break the six-feet rule.”

  “Make that eight feet, you nauseating fruitcake, you!” Fern called back.

  And as darkness fell slowly over the lavender Winnebago, making its way down a straight and narrow Texas highway toward Dallas, a sad little scene was taking place by the side of the road on the outskirts of Dallas.

  “Him gone,” Sitting Buffalo said. “The Great Spirit has left.”

  Tears ran down the cheeks of Hiram Dalrymple, and he swallowed hard.

  “You take Princess Long Hair,” Sitting Buffalo said. “I do it for you.”

  “No,” said Hiram Dalrymple, his voice now firm. “I’ll do it. I’d rather have it that way.”

  He pulled the well-oiled Colt-.45 single-action revolver from his belt, thumbed back the hammer, took careful aim and murmured, very faintly, barely audibly, “So long, old horse!” And then he pulled the trigger.

  The bullet tore through the radiator, richocheted off the generator and then smashed into the block. Steam erupted from the radiator, and the Sears, Roebuck 10W-30 lifeblood of the faithful old Ford seeped out onto the pavement.

  All of this had been visible to the sales counselor staff of the Dallas Aristocratic Motorcar Emporium, Limited, before whose Grecian temple of automotive commerce the pickup truck had gasped its last breath. It had given them all a merry chuckle, as the peasants at play so often did. The presence of the blonde, in this case, had added even zest to the event, as they searched their imaginations to explain who she was and what she was doing with the broken-down old cowboy, his Indian sidekick and that incredible old relic of a pickup truck.

  “Wasn’t that priceless?” one of the sales counselors said to another.

  “I only wish I had my camera!” his confrere replied.

  “What do you suppose they’ll do now?” the first sales counselor asked.

  “I have no idea,” the second replied.

  “Hitchhike, possibly,” the first said. “Or go looking for a handout.”

  “My God, Wesley, you’re positively telepathic!” the second replied. “Here they come!”

  There were, indeed, at least two of them. The blonde was holding the arm of the broken-down old cowboy as they marched right across the wide expanse of putting-green-grass up to the showroom.

  “He’s simply ruining our lawn!” the senior sales counselor said. “I was going to slip him a couple of bucks out of the goodness of my heart, but not now!”

  “I think I might be prevailed upon to assist the young lady,” a third sales counselor said. The first two gave him filthy looks.

  “Quick, Quincy, lock the door!” the senior sales counselor ordered. But it was too late. The broken-down old cowboy had been moving more quickly than his sort of loping had suggested. He pushed open the swinging door and held it for the blonde to step in ahead of him.

  “Howdy,” he said.

  “Unless you’ve been cleared by the chamber of commerce as a worthy charitable cause,” the senior sales counselor said firmly, “I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do for you.”

  “Whuddid he say, Scarlett, honey?” the broken-down old cowboy inquired of the blonde.

  “He thinks you want a handout, Uncle Hiram,” Scarlett replied.

  “I want to buy some wheels, neighbor,” Uncle Hiram said. “My ’48 Ford just gave up the ghost.”

  “Might I suggest that you are in the wrong place?” the senior sales counselor said. “This is the Dallas Aristocratic Motorcar Emporium, Limited, and I don’t think we have what you’re looking for.”

  “How do you know what I’m looking for?” Hiram Dalrymple asked reasonably.

  “What we need is a pickup truck,” Scarlett said.

  “The Dallas Aristocratic Motorcar Emporium, Limited,” the senior sales counselor said archly,
“does not deal in pickup trucks.”

  “Say, J.B.,” the sales counselor named Quincy said, “perhaps there is something.”

  “What do you have in mind, Quincy?” the senior sales counselor replied.

  “Have you good folks ever considered going first class?” Quincy said. “What I mean to say is how do you feel about Cadillac motorcars?”

  “A Cadillac pickup truck?” Scarlett asked.

  “Not exactly a pickup truck,” Quincy said. “More on the order of a panel truck. We just happen to have one in stock, a trade-in. It’s been very well cared for and used mainly for slow trips back and forth to the country.”

  “You mean a hearse?” Scarlett said.

  “You could put it that way, yes,” the sales counselor said.

  “I don’t think I like you,” Uncle Hiram said, expectorating to express his disapproval. A stream of brown tobacco juice flew ten feet through the air into a potted palm.

  “He may have something, Uncle Hiram,” Scarlett said. “Teddy Roosevelt would probably like it.”

  “I was so upset about losing the ’48 Ford, I plumb forgot about him,” Uncle Hiram said. “Okay, let’s see it.”

  They were led to the Mechanical Maintenance Salon, or garage, of the establishment, where the senior sales counselor pulled a dusty tarpaulin off a 1951 Cadillac hearse with all the aplomb and dignity of Hubert Humphrey unveiling a statue of Lyndon B. Johnson.

  “Hardly used,” he said. “A classic. They don’t make them like that anymore.”

  “How much?” Uncle Hiram asked.

  “Out of the goodness of my heart, because of the trials and tribulations I know you good people have gone through, I can make you a very attractive offer,” the senior sales counselor said. “How does three hundred ninety-five dollars sound to you?”

  “Not as good as two hundred ninety-five dollars,” Scarlett replied.

  “Sold!” the sales counselor said. “Of course, that’s if you folks have a good name at the Friendly Finance Company.”