Stu kindled a little at that. "Yeah, pretty good. Those cows... they let em walk the streets and cause traffic jams, right? They can go in and out of the stores, or decide to leave town altogether."
"Yes," Harold agreed. "But most of those cows are sick, Stu. They're always near the point of starvation. Some are tubercular. And all because they're an aggregate symbol. The people are convinced God will take care of them, just as our people are convinced God will take care of Mother Abagail. But I have my own doubts about a God that says it's right to let a poor dumb cow wander around in pain."
Ralph looked momentarily uncomfortable, and Stu knew what he was feeling. He felt it himself, and it gave him a way to measure how he felt about Mother Abagail himself. He felt that Harold was edging into blasphemy.
"Anyway," Harold said briskly, dismissing the Sacred Cows of India, "we can't change the way people feel about her - "
"And wouldn't want to," Ralph added quickly.
"Right!" Harold exclaimed. "After all, she brought us together, and not exactly by shortwave, either. My idea was that we mount our trusty cycles and spend the afternoon reconnoitering the west side of Boulder. If we stay fairly close, we can keep in touch with each other by walkie-talkie."
Stu was nodding. This was the sort of thing he had wanted to do all along. Sacred Cows or not, God or not, it just wasn't right to leave her to wander around on her own. That didn't have anything to do with religion; something like that was just callous disregard.
"And if we find her," Harold said, "we can ask her if she wants anything."
"Like a ride back to town," Ralph chipped in.
"At least we can keep tabs on her," Harold said.
"Okay," Stu said. "I think it's a helluva good idea, Harold. Just let me leave a note for Fran."
But as he scribbled the note, he kept feeling an urge to look back over his shoulder at Harold - to see what Harold was doing while Stu wasn't looking, and what expression might be in Harold's eyes.
Harold had asked for and gotten the twisting stretch of road between Boulder and Nederland, because he considered it to be the least likely area. He didn't think he could walk from Boulder to Nederland in one day, let alone that crazy old cunt. But it made a pleasant ride and gave him a chance to think.
Now, at a quarter to seven, he was on his way back. His Honda was parked in a rest area and he was sitting at a picnic table, having a Coke and a few Slim Jims. The walkie-talkie that hung over the Honda's handlebars with its antenna at full extension crackled faintly with Ralph Brentner's voice. They were short-range radios only, and Ralph was somewhere up on Flagstaff Mountain.
"... Sunrise Amphitheater... no sign of her... storm's over up here."
Then Stu's voice, stronger and closer. He was in Chautauqua Park, only four miles from Harold's location. "Say again, Ralph."
Ralph's voice came back, really bellowing. Maybe he would give himself a stroke. That would be a lovely way to end the day. "No sign of her up here! I'm going down before it gets dark! Over!"
"Ten-four," Stu said, sounding discouraged. "Harold, you there?" Harold got up, wiping Slim Jim grease on his jeans. "Harold? Calling Harold Lauder! You copy, Harold?"
Harold pointed his middle finger - yer f**kfinger, as the high school Neanderthals back in Ogunquit had called it - at the walkie-talkie; then he depressed the talk button and said pleasantly, but with just the right note of discouragement: "I'm here. I was off to one side... thought I saw something down in the ditch. It was just an old jacket. Over."
"Yeah, okay. Why don't you come down to Chautauqua, Harold? We'll wait there for Ralph."
Love to give orders, don't you, suckhole? I might have something for you. Yes, I just might.
"Harold, you copy?"
"Yes. Sorry, Stu, I was woolgathering. I can be there in fifteen minutes."
"You copying this, Ralph? " Stu bellowed, making Harold wince. He gave Stu's voice the finger again, grinning furtively as he did so. Copy this, you Wild West motherfucker.
"Roger, you'll be at Chautauqua Park," Ralph's voice came faintly through the roar of static. "I'm on my way. Over and out."
"I'm on my way, too," Harold said. "Over and out."
He turned off the walkie-talkie, collapsed the antenna, and hung the radio on the handlebars again, but he sat astride the Honda for a moment without operating the kickstarter. He was wearing an army surplus flak jacket; the heavy padding was good when you were riding a cycle above six thousand feet, even in August. But the jacket served another purpose. It had a great many zippered pockets and in one of these was a Smith & Wesson .38. Harold took the pistol out and turned it over and over in his hands. It was fully loaded and it was heavy in his hands, as if it realized its purposes were grave ones: death, destruction, assassination.
Tonight?
Why not?