From pyramid!voder!apple!rutgers!att!ihlpa!fish Fri Feb 17 09:35:02 PST 1989 Lord of the Rednecks [In the year 1998, one man fights the tyrrany of the automobile] --- I heard it before I saw it. An ancient Cadillac convertible was closing very quickly from the rear. There was nothing ancient about its electronics; at least 1000 watts of amplifier power screamed raunchy C&W from god knows how many speakers. It sounded even worse for the doppler shift; he was doing at least 100. That was stupid. He would try to clip me in the side, because people in snazzy cars always try to clip me in the side, and at that speed, he wouldn't be able to maneuver. I feinted to the left when he closed to within a few hundred feet, then cut right abruptly when he'd committed himself. He missed me by a good four feet. As he roared past, I opened up on the tires with my MAC-10, shredding them. The Caddy swerved crazily, rolled over twice, and slid off the road upside down. Crazy as it seemed, that godawful music was still blaring out from the wreckage. I fired another burst into the gas tank, and the racket stopped as the wreck went up in a huge ball of orange flame. The driver's Stetson hat lay in the road perhaps 50 feet away, virtually undamaged -- unlike the driver, who had no further use for it. I emptied the rest of the mag into the hat, chasing it down the asphalt, cutting it to scraps. Sure as shootin', I was in Texas. I'm Spike Bike. I hate cars. I don't care much for C&W, either. I'd been to Texas before. The rednecks in these parts are as stubborn as they are mean, and that's meaner than most. This time, though, I had come for one man, and it wasn't that bozo in the Caddy. I'd never met Earl Josiah "E.J." Ross, but I'd heard plenty about him. He was a millionaire oilman who spent much of his time hunting since Standard Oil bought him out. It was said he hunted rattlesnakes, coyotes, and wild horses. These days, he also hunted bicyclists. My Anticorporatist contacts in Lubbock said he'd run down at least 20 of them, and those were only the confirmed kills, the ones there were accident reports on. I'd come to see that there would be no more. I arrived at the Yellow Rose Cantina at about 11:30 in the morning. I counted three cars and two pickups in the dusty gravel parking lot, plus a couple of cars out back. It was more than I'd expected, but not too much of a problem. I leaned the bike up against a crumbling adobe wall and went inside, bracing myself against the assault of darkness, smoke, and Tex-Mex blaring from the jukebox. I paused near the door, letting my eyes adjust to the dim light, and checked the place out. Three men sat at the bar, and two more played pool in the adjoining room. A tired-looking waitress set out ketchup bottles on the empty tables. There was a big, middle-aged redneck behind the bar. I guessed that there was some one in the kitchen, but I couldn't see much through the tiny round windows set in the door. That would complicate things. As my vision cleared, I noted that all eyes present were on me. I wore black lycra shorts with a red stripe, and a red three-pocket. I surmised that this was not suitable attire for this place, but then, I wouldn't be staying long. I crossed to the bar. "A glass of beer" I ordered. "Ain't got no beer, boy." This brought chuckles from the men seated at the bar. "How about a sandwich, then?" "Ain't got no food." Chuckles. "What time does E.J. show up?" "You a friend of E.~J.'s?" The chuckles gave way to raucous laughter. "Didn't know the son of a bitch had any." I casually strolled over to the jukebox, studied it for a moment, and viciously yanked the plug out of the wall (Who the hell was in the kitchen?). The twangy music abruptly stopped. "Awright, get the fu** out of here, sissy-pants!" The bartender had lost his grin. "I said, what the fu** time does E.J. show up?" "'bout half past noon, but y'all ain't gonna be here that long." He was out from behind the bar, lumbering towards me with an unopened bottle of Lone Star beer in his hand. When he closed to within a couple of feet, he brought it up in a wide arc. "I thought you didn't have any beer" I commented, as I threw a block to his wrist and brought my knee up into his groin. As he flinched from the pain, I snap-kicked him in the face and he fell back. He and the beer bottle he'd wielded hit the floor about the same time, and ended up in approximately the same condition. The sleepy-eyed waitress screamed, dropped her tray and retreated into a corner. The three men from the bar advanced on me, one of them hurling a bar stool in my direction. I ducked aside and blocked it away with my wrist. Coming up from the floor, I fan-kicked the nearest of the three in the jaw, spun around and threw a fist into the adams-apple of the next man. Both collapsed. The third held back, circling, looking for an opening (who was in the goddam kitchen?). The pool players had entered the room by this time, brandishing their cue sticks menacingly. I thrust a side kick at the third man from the bar and caught him off balance. He hit his head on the corner of a table as he fell. A pool cue came around at my head, and I ducked, grabbed the man's arm, and felt his elbow crack as I twisted. The pool stick flew out of his hand to crash into the row of bottles behind the bar. The other pool player realized his situation and wisely dropped his stick, retreating with his hands out to the sides. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flood of light from the kitchen door, saw a blur, and heard the sound of a shell being chambered into a pump gun. I instinctively reached for the 9mm Walther I had concealed under my jersey. In one motion, I chambered a round, took aim, and fired. The mercury-filled slug tore through the cook's skull and he fell back. The scattergun discharged as it hit the floor, and a lighting fixture shattered overhead. I quickly swung around to cover the people who were still standing, and backed towards the door. "Tell E.J. Ross I'm looking for him. I'll be up the road a ways." * TO BE CONTINUED * -- __ / \ Bob Fishell \__/ att!ihlpa!fish