COME SUPPERTIME, it was my turn to do the surprising. Almost from the start of the trip, Herman kept pestering me to know, “When are we in the West?” That evening, when we had reached Miles City, far enough into Montana that the neon signs on bars showed bucking broncs kicking up their heels, I finally could give the answer he wanted to hear. “Guess what.” I pointed out the window of the cafe section of the Greyhound depot to that evidence. “We’re there now.”
“Hah!” said Herman, his eyes lighting up and following mine to the flashing sign on The Buckaroo bar across the street, with a rider waving his cowboy hat back and forth with the bronc’s every blinking jump. “Feels different already! Map of Montana at breakfast, I make.”
I’ll say for myself that I knew inspiration when I saw it. “Guess what again.” I caught Herman’s attention by gobbling the last of my piece of pie and shoving the plate away. “Now that we’re here, we need hats like that guy’s. C’mon, the bus isn’t leaving for a while yet.”
Herman was like a kid on Christmas morn as we rushed across to the WRANGLERS WESTERN WEAR, conveniently right next to the bar with the flashing bronc and rider. As we went in the store, he was gamely peeking into his wallet until I told him, “Put that away, this is on me.” It was rambunctious of me, because I had handed over my thirty dollars to him for safekeeping since I had no safety pins and a history of money somehow getting away from me. But the smaller sign I had spotted on the storefront was irresistible: S&H GREEN STAMPS ACCEPTED. Tough luck about that lawn chair, Herta, but fate made our deal kaput.
In the merchandise-packed place of business, one of those rambling old enterprises that smelled like leather and saddle grease and spittoons, every manner of western regalia from ordinary cowboy boots to fancy belts slathered with turquoise was on display and I had to herd Herman closely to keep him from stopping and exclaiming at each bit of outfit. But I managed to navigate us to the redemption desk at the back of the store, where the clerk, a bald man with a sprig of mustache who looked more like he belonged in Manitowoc than Montana, pooched his lip as my pages of stamps counted up and up. Finally he pushed a catalog across the counter, fussily instructing us that we needed to shop through it for what we wanted—I saw with dismay it was page after page of lawn chairs and the like—and as soon as the item was shipped in we could return and pick it up.
“No no no,” for once I simulated Aunt Kate, waving off the catalog as if batting a fly. “We’re not interested in mail-order stuff, we want hats.”
“Cowboys ones,” Herman contributed.
“In-store merchandise is outside the redemption program,” the clerk stated.
“That’s not fair,” I said.
“It’s policy,” said the clerk.
“Proves it is not fair,” said Herman, the veteran of Der Kaiser’s army.
“Folks, I just work here,” the clerk recited.
To my surprise, Herman leaned halfway across the counter, the clerk gravitating backward as he did so. “You maybe know who Karl May is,” Herman leveled at him curtly. “Writes famous books about the Wild West?”
“I’ve heard of the person, of course,” the clerk tried to fend, his mustache twitching in a rabbity way. “The Zane Grey of Germany or something like that.”
“Austria, but does not matter. You are looking at him in the face.” Now the clerk appeared really worried, running a hand over his bald head. “Sane Grey, pah,” Herman puffed up in righteous Karl May indignation. “I can write whole story about Old Shatterhand while Grey fellow is taking a leak in the morning.”
The clerk was speechless, kept that way by Herman’s spiel about how I, favorite nephew accompanying him on one of his countless trips from Vienna to the land of Old Shatterhand and the like, had collected Green Stamps all the way across America with my heart set on obtaining cowboy hats for the two of us when we reached the real West, which was to say Miles City, and now here we were and being offered rubbish like lawn chairs instead. “I hope I don’t got to tell my million readers Green Stamps are not worth spitting on.”
I held my breath, watching the clerk shift nervously. “Mr.—uh, Herr May, let’s be reasonable,” he pleaded. “The problem is, it takes a special transaction form to substitute anything for catalog merchandise. It’s only done when the item you want is out of stock, but that doesn’t quite fit this—”
“Close enough, I betcha,” Herman closed him off. “Let’s have action form, my nephew will fill it out in big jiffy.”