“Bachin’” (as in bachelor) on a cow camp requires the occasional trip to town to do chores, i.e., buyin’ groceries, tobacco, and parts, gettin’ the mail, and doin’ the laundry. It should be routine.

DOIN’ THE LAUNDRY

Some days it doesn’t pay to do the laundry. C.D. and Howard were stayin’ out at the ranch and had built up a pretty good pile of dirty clothes. C.D. loaded it all in the pickup, weighed it down with the toolbox, and took off for town.

A month of start-and-stop drivin’ around the ranch had resulted in carbon buildup in his diesel, so he took the opportunity on a long stretch of gravel to blow it out. He had it up to seventy and was watchin’ blue smoke and gravel spread out behind him like the rooster tail on a speedboat.

Just then a gust of wind blew his hat off. He reached over to retrieve it off the right-hand floorboard. When he looked up, the road was swervin’ out from under him as it curved to meet the highway blacktop. He bounced over the bar ditch out into the sagebrush, still in control. It was then that Lady Luck pulled the tablecloth out from under his dirty dish. He hit a concrete culvert . . . head on. It stopped him like a tree trunk stops an arrow!

The steering wheel broke off in his hand, and the pickup stood on its nose. Wrenches, sockets, hammers, socks, pliers, shirts, underwear, screwdrivers, Levi’s, and a Handyman jack catapulted over his head, ricocheting off rocks and cactus for two hundred yards down range. The pickup teetered upright, then plopped back down on its belly. C.D. staggered out and started pickin’ hankies and T-shirts off the brush and diggin’ tools outta the dirt.

Suddenly, a shot whizzed by his ear, tearing a hole in the only overshoe he’d found. He looked over his shoulder to see his vehicle . . . burning! Another shot came from the flaming unit. It was then C.D. remembered the full box of .243 cartridges under the seat. He ran for the cover of a little arroyo. As the shooting continued like the Fourth of July, he poked his head up to survey the scene. Between himself and the melting truck, which was now sending billows of black smoke as far as Wagon Mound, were tattered pieces of dirty clothes draped on the native flora, like toilet paper in the neighbor’s tree.

An out-of-state car came down the highway and slowed. They peered out the window. C.D. stood up from behind his camouflage and waved a pair of jockey shorts. He shouted, “Help!” Unfortunately it was drowned out by the last .243 shell that exploded simultaneously.

The tourists calmly turned their heads, rolled up the windows, and drove on, no doubt unimpressed by their first alien cowboy sighting.