prairie dogs

        By noon they were blushingly drunk, glowing with friendship. Tannhauser boasted of his beer. "It's a real elk-stopper. Can't control the alcohol. But what the hell? Eh, Leah?"
        "Um. What?"
        Artie stood up, scooting his chair, and began massaging her shoulders. Warm butter.
         "Hey, Dutch, you gotta bed for my gal? She's done in."
         "Sure thing."
         Tannhauser freshened his own bed and Artie carried Leah to it. She was out before her head hit the pillow.
          "What say we head on down to my brudder's gas station and get what you need while she sleeps it off? Today I ship my gute bier to him."
          "Sounds good. You're a real sport, Dutch."
          "Jah. Jah. Hah hah hah!"
          They shambled outside. The sunshine was fierce.
          Tannhauser inserted the key and worried the ignition, giving good choke. The truck roared to life.
          Artie noticed a rifle in the gun rack. "Whatchacallit this thing?"
           "Ach! That's my prairie dog fire stick. Hah hah hah!"
           Artie admired the Cooper varmint killer. Without handling it.
           "Jah," Tannhauser said, squinting. "I gots the Ruger .204 round in it. Plugs them gute."
           He opened a gunnysack and offered Artie a warm Beck's
           "Jesus Christ, Dutch. I'm glad we're in open country."
           "Hah hah hah!"


                                                                                   *

           Dry as a cinder, the prairie protested the truck's passage. A rooster tail of volcanic ash plumed behind Tannhauser's bomb.
            "How far?" Artie asked after thirty miles.
            "About one more round of beer."
            "You are one helluva trip, Dutch."
            Finally, up ahead, a speck beneath an enormous sky. Cobalt blue thunderheads. No guarantee of rain.
            "Dat's it, Artie. My brudder's gas station."
            They rolled up to a fieldstone house a tin-roofed portico. The antique gas pump had glass walls. Artie felt so relieved he felt like pissing.
            "Heinrich's Last Chance!" Tannhauser announced. "Sells my gute bier COLD! Best cheap gas anywhere!"
            It was a tavern in the wilderness.
            Artie wondered where it got electricity.
            "How does he keep anything cold? I don't see any power lines."
            "Jah, hah hah hah. He's got der Tesla."



                                                                                *


         The oaken bar was dark with oil, a monument to stand-up drinking. A brass foot-rail was all a man needed. Artie marvelled at the room. Oak panelling, old as the hills. Bullet holes in a poster of Teddy Roosevelt.
         One poster, pristine behind glass. Thule~Gesellschaft 1*9*1*9.
         Artie heard bootheels behind him. He turned to find he was standing to face to face with a Teutonic Knight named Heinrich Geist.  Tannhauser's elder brother and complete opposite. At least seventy.
         "And who is your friend, Little Brother?"  Like Tannhauser, his accent resembled Lawrence Welk. Crystal blue eyes. Wire-rim glasses. Skull-face carved from hickory. A Westerner, tall and lean, denim and leather.
         "My name is Artie Hoffman. I would like to buy gasoline."
         "Ah. New York!"


                                                                        *

          Artie paid in wrinkled money. Then he looked around the bar room. Many things were tacked to and hung on the walls. There was a photograph of a group of  intellectuals in suits. One astoundingly beautiful woman sat among them, wearing a cloche hat. There was something familiar about her face.
          "My mother," Heinrich chimed proudly. "And those are members of the Vril Society."