Wes'Turned

Wes, ‘Turned’

A clockwork-smooth turn in the saddle allowed Wes to keep admiring the view...hot breeze dallying spruce pollen into golden swirling dust-devils. But where the trail wound west, low-hanging dusty bows swept pulsing bands of invisible shadow across the ponderosa-studded path…and crisp rows of jailhouse bars danced black and mischievous across the blaze white of Wes' placket-front shirt as he rode on through. Eyes drawn down with disgusted surprise, he launched into a colourful cursing of the Sun, then thought better enough to grin and apologize...

"Not your fault, old Son. ‘Long as you don’t claim to be forecasting here I shouldn’t be complaining.” His mount danced over a few fallen upstart alder as the pair dipped into low-ceiling game trails nearer the creek, seeking the cool shades of the deciduous buffer, avoiding any further penetrating exposures.

“Why, there’s not a chance in a million I was recognized!”...he finally blurted aloud, still unable to derail his train of tortured thoughts, worried now to exasperation after his fifteen minute ride from town. “If they’d of seen me I’d be done for, for sure, but I was alone. Absolutely alone...For sure.”

Listening expertly to himself now he felt confident, but after so many years of sharply conning his way out of unlucky scrapes this ‘gift’ of a poker player’s rein on his emotions was becoming...strangely disconcerting. For this was his third raid on one of their "hen houses" - and they’d surely been expecting him: an extra row of barbed wire; shiny new tin cans tied to old trip wires; that infra-red continuous-beam perimeter system?... “Seems they’re no longer so encouraging of visitors!”… he chuckled to Chester quietly.

Feeling the strain again, he stopped to slap his not-so-dusty hat against his thigh, reshaped and resettled it carefully, then swung down to ground-tie old Chester for the moment. A worried look crossed his face as he patted pockets…breathlessly…and relaxed to find he still had a little of his “Bests’” pomade remaining. Relieved, he deftly doffed his hat and, parking it top-down on a nearby boulder, shipped his pocket mirror and comb from their tortise case to re-slick and re-comb his hair to it's usual
glossy obsidian perfection. He settled his squint-white hat again and fired a trial nasty grin at the mirror, pleased that his eyes revealed no hint that such tortured emotions might run amok. Glare still triggered, he turned his withering strafe on the long, low buildings near the back of the property, plaintive voices already audible at this distance, an indistinct chorus of discontent. "Gawd, they must have captured hundreds, old Colonel", he breathed. "Those callous slaver brutes!"

Snicking long-handled insulated bolt cutters from the scabbard with a whirling flourish, he snip-diminished the final chord from the six-string perimeter fence, then with a backward glance and a calming sshhh to get Chester past the frets - finger laid to lips – walked him through before remounting.

Skirting the fence-line from inside he was now able to approach the buildings closely,
closely enough to hear the distinct cries of individual captives - complaining horribly of
some likely recent abuse. His lust for justice and vengeance was kindled: "I'll see them
freed, Chester...and those who choose to stand in my way will just receive their desserts!"

Leaving Chester in his black saddle for a dry fry under the hot sun, he dropped to a smooth belly-crawl through the stiff grasses to the clapboard end of the nearest building, stopping under the open stud-framed staircase beneath the elevated side door to catch his breath. The plan was simple - yet technically sound. Each huge building began as a concrete foundation wall and rose about six feet proud of the seared and cracked earth, then rose a further twelve feet to the top of wood-framed pony-walls, where, lifted by hundreds of identical Fink trusses, a dozen identical anodized sheet metal roofs the size of football fields cast a subtle but ubiquitous blue
aura onto everything in the immense clearing.

He was overwhelmed by the size and sophistication of the operation and fresh doubts arose. Would his explosives be enough to shear the pony-wall bolts? Would the targeted wall sections really yield outward as the engineering had calculated and predicted? Would he be able to lead those inside to safety before reinforcements arrived?

Casting doubts to the wind, he slipped up the stairs and into the dim interior. After a
pause to allow his eyes (and nose!) to adjust he began a finger-trace along the dust-covered wall joint, just over his head, feeling for the four-square bolt pattern his explosive charges would, hopefully, destroy - in precisely timed sequence. There! He rummaged his rucksack for charge number one, primed the timing circuit and placed the device. Slipping quietly along the wall (though the heart-wrenching cries of the captives would have masked any normal sounds) he found the remaining three blast locations and
set their charges.

Turning toward the area of most concentrated wailing, in his loudest half-whisper he hushed a stunned silence over the still-echoing presence, calling hoarsely..."I'm here to rescue you all. There will soon be four rapid explosions –
so fall back and cover your ears! The blasts will take out the top section of this wall –
over which you can all escape! Help each other over the low concrete wall! Fly to freedom, friends! Vive la' Liberte'! ”

Hearing the captives scrambling back from his soon-to-be exploding wall (with covered
ears, he imagined hopefully) the aggressive glow of leadership rose to his face. The noise they all made in retreat was deafening! Running and stumbling now, he happily jacked by ten-fold his estimate of their numbers! As he reached the door frame the four charges detonated… RapRapRapRap! …heralding the imminent arrival of the concussion bouncer flurrying for four unceremonious boots that sent him arcing out
over the stairs to land limp and bent in the dirt as a coffee-dregs cigar, the heavy steel fire-door booming shut behind with finality as no Wes-incensed female ever aspired, much less effected.

Recovering, stunned and crawling forward, peering back over his shoulder through the still billowing dust, he could see the upper wall had sheared and fallen correctly! He'd cleared their flight to freedom!

Then why weren't they escaping? He could hear a cacophony of shrieks from over the remaining wall, and sounds of great scramblings and rushings about - but no clawing grasps, no exultant faces appeared over the wall.

"Fools!” - he yelled. “Save yourselves!" Then, exhorting them cruelly, furiously he cried..."You selfish cowards! Help each other up over the wall or no one will escape!"

He whirled suddenly as a siren screamed from across the compound, then hustled in a
stumbling crouch 'round the building toward his fence hole (and the awaiting and faithful
Chester) as a blue-painted pickup bounced into the lot, grinding to a dusty halt before the
gaping wall wound. Two tough customers in blue overalls leapt from the truck as Wes broke from cover on Chester, weaving him with crazy accuracy and flying dirt clods through the widely staggered clump-grass like an old kinescope Cayuse pony with its’ hocks afire. Chester, Wes' ‘69 Trail 70, lovingly restored in the original Honda red with re-chromed exhaust tip-offs, putt-putted blue windies as they chewed up the rise.

The two tough's mouths gaped in unison and hung open as Wes' extra-tall white hat jigged a brief golden spot-lit dance up the ridge then offered repeated bows and sank from sight among the gathering crowd of black sage.

"What in the heck was that!"…production manager Carl wondered aloud, incredulous.

Bill, his main plucking-line foreman and general "get er done guy" at the Consolidated Integrated Poultry Rearing to Packaging Facility, answered..."Another of those vegan crazies, I expect, Boss. I'll call the insurance people and start surveying damages. ‘Least no one was hurt, Carl... and it looks like we didn't lose any birds this time."

"You’re right, Bill. This poor misguided fool mustn’t have know these chickens couldn't
fly to save their own souls. 'Least now we can shut off that danged classical music as I
believe they's all deaf now, too."

Back at Wes' bachelor studio, he sat alone, dejected and morose, convinced that, for this
community of chickens at least, enslavement behaviour had become so engrained that
they were unable or unwilling to face the challenges of real freedom.

But never one to dwell on his failures long he soon brightened, thinking of his next planned (this time nightly) errant adventure. "Bet those sheep will be more appreciative. 'Least that crowd will know how to follow a real leader. Yup, you can always count on sheep" he sighed, drifting into woolly-headed slumber.

End.

stewart