CHAPTER 10

...And into the fire!

"Another fine mess!" said Elliot. "That's getting to be the story of my life!"

Elliot Methadrine was tied to a round stake stuck into the ground. Bill, much to his dismay, was tied to the other side of that same stake. His feet were slowly being covered by mesquite logs carried up to the imminent bonfire by a brace of squaws.

"Sir Dudley will come back for us!" gulped Bill, trying to con himself into some hope. "And what's the chance of your Time Central boys homing in on our whereabouts!"

"We're a needle in a Timestack, Bill. They'll never find us!" moaned Elliot. "And I'm afraid I haven't got much faith in Sir Dudley!"

"So what do we do, then?" Bill asked.

"Attempt to reason with these savages, I suppose," sighed Elliot. "Although I must say they seem terribly intent upon this little heathen fricassee! Though it's nice to have company, I'm sorry to see you here. When they took you first, they howled something about using you as a token sacrifice to some minor deity or something."

Bill briefly outlined the events as they had occurred.

"Hmm. Most curious," said Elliot. "A secret tunnel, you say, guarded by some sort of reptilian-oriented creature of the Aztec persuasion. You know, Bill, there's definitely something about this environment that bothers me. I mean, something about the place that just doesn't quite spell 'Arizona, late nineteenth century' to me."

Bill, who knew little about history — and cared even less — nervously eyed the squaw carrying a fresh batch of firewood toward him. Sure enough, she dumped a hefty chunk of mesquite directly on his big toe. Bill suppressed a scream, asking his question through gritted teeth: "Isn't there something pretty strange too with that giant doorstop over there?"

The structure Bill referred to was a stone pyramid perhaps forty feet high, runneled with drying blood and decorated with human hearts, grinning skulls and funeral wreaths with faded ribbons.

"No, no, Bill. All the Indians had those."

"You mean, the medicine man with the strange accent drinking Foster's lager?"

"No, no, Bill. Medicine men were important fixtures of Western Indian culture."

Bill tried to scratch his head, but couldn't. "Look, could you hold the historical lecture for a bit and think of a way out of this?"

"I find it most fascinating. In many ways this seems to be a perfect representation in all respects of the American West. But there are anomalies."

"Like the horses?"

"Your education was severely limited and your vocabulary borders on the nonexistent. Not animals, pinhead. Anomalies are things that do not adhere to a coherent pattern. Such as, I've got problems with that sky. It's not quite right."

"The sky? You mean, like how it's green."

"No, Bill. It's only green because you appear to be colorblind as well. No, it's that blasted sun."

"Whew. It is hot. But even a moron like me, Elliot," Bill sneered, trying to get some points back, "even without a vocabulary, knows that most suns are hot. I didn't have to go to no college, like some people, to know that!"

"Now look at whose little ego got rubbed the wrong way! Yes, of course most suns are hot, Bill. But have you noticed the way that one wobbles?"

"Don't all suns wobble?"

"Only when you drink all the time."

Bill ignored the insult and peeked at the sun through slitted eyes. "Maybe — yes. And it stops and it starts again. And sometimes it goes back and forth, like it can't make up its mind whether it wants to keep on going west or it wants to back up and set back in the east."

"I'm not entirely sure if what we're talking about is astronomically possible, Bill."

Before Bill could waste much time brooding over this, the Chief arrived, along with his medicine man and a number of sinister-looking redskins carrying torches.

"Right," said Buffalo Billabong, spewing another keg-sized can of Foster's all over the place as he opened it. A few tantalizing drops fell upon Bill's pants leg, but alas, none in his mouth. "G'day, maytes. Today we play Morton Bay bugs on the barbie, right?"

"Is that entirely necessary?" whined Elliot. "Surely you'd prefer it if we bribed you with some wampum, right?"

"You wouldn't have any firewater, would you?" asked Bill, making feeble connections at last with his memories of his copies of ROARING KINKY WESTERN COWBOYS AND TRANSVESTITE INJUNS THREE DEE COMIX.

"Just what are you idiots talking about?" demanded Chief Thunder Bluster. "Would you speak English for heaven's sake and not that pagan nonsense?"

"But that's what you're doing now — a pagan ceremony, correct?" responded Elliot.

"Well of course," snarled Thunder Bluster. "How do you expect us to appease the heathen gods with anything less than a pagan ceremony? You don't think that they would be very impressed if we attempted to baptize you, do you?"

"Why don't you give it a try?" suggested Bill.

"Well, actually, this is going to be a very sweet and pleasant ceremony and not at all within our realm of bloodthirsty tradition," said Buffalo Billabong. "No, I think a cookout is of an entirely more appropriate nature, don't you? The gods will not only be appeased, they can have spareribs for dinner!" He pulled out a book from his hip pocket even as he sipped at his huge can of Foster's. His lips moved as he read the greasy-paged book, the corks on his hat bobbling in the midst of a cloud of flies.

"And I suppose that's a collection of implorations to the gods!" said Elliot. "Don't you see the entire thing is ridiculous? There are no gods! It looks as though your superstitious tribe are the victims of —"

"Stuff it, buster!" said Chief Thunder Bluster, "or I'll stuff a live prairie dog down your gob!"

The threat was enough to keep Elliot silenced effectively, and Bill as well. Particularly since the chief waved over his prairie dog handler with a couple of fat specimens and shook them in their direction with sinister intent.

"Bravo!" commented the medicine man, observing all this. He held up the book. Upon the leather jacket was inscribed, SERVING BLOODTHIRSTY PAGAN GODS GOOD. "Actually, it's a recipe book! Let's see ... Upchuckandpeck, the big god around here —"

"I thought it was Coaxialcoitus!" said Bill. "That's what you told us earlier."

"Oh yes ... so it is. There you go, mate. You see, you'll get a bit of education before you snuff it. Wrong recipe." He paged around until he found the appropriate one. "Well, well, well. Looks as though the dread and holy Coaxial is a man after my own heart — as well as after all the hearts of the sacrifices we rip out around this place. He prefers his meals marinated in Foster's lager!"

Bill's ears perked up. "Beer?"

"That's right, mayte!" Buffalo Billabong put his fingers into his mouth and whistled. Immediately a whole cartload of Foster's Lager cans were trundled in with great ceremony, dispatch and racket.

Bill's mouth started watering. He watched with unmoving attention as a pair of Indian braves opened a pair of beer cans and then stepped forward, faces intent with seriousness, muttering strange ceremonial words like "Schlitz", "Budweiser" and "Ole Frothingslosh, the Pale Stale Ale" under their breaths. Perhaps these Indians, Bill thought, were not as savage as Elliot had originally thought.

He closed his eyes and opened his mouth expectantly.

Instead of pouring the beer into his mouth, however, the Indians poured it over his head. It ran down his hair and ears, soaked into his shirt. At first he spluttered, then began to suck desperately at the runnels of brew coming down his face, only managing to extract the odd tantalizing sip.

When the can was empty, Bill opened his eyes. "Say, you know, Buff, I think some inside marinating would help!"

"Stop this nonsense! Get on with the lighting of the pyre," roared the chief. "Burn these idiots! The great god grows impatient."

"No, no, wait..." said the medicine man. "Perhaps he's right, Chief. That's not a bad idea."

"Oh, if you must. After all, you are the medicine man around here and there is such a thing as protocol. But be quick about it! You can't expect the gods to hang around all day waiting for a sacrifice."

Bill sighed happily. At least he'd get a drink or two before he had to face the flames. Still and all, it wasn't exactly something he was looking forward to. He watched as the Indian braves pried open Elliot's mouth and poured in a can of Foster's.

When the beer can came to Bill's mouth, he glugged it down in a single giant insufflation. This impressed the Indians so greatly that they decided they needed to pour another can down his gullet. Bill had no complaint of course, accepting it gladly, guzzling it quickly. However, after the third and the fourth cans he found it was getting a bit harder to take the beer, and on the sixth, with his belly painfully extended, he discovered that he was not only getting drunk, which was an okay thing, but he was also getting positively uncomfortable.

Bill then managed to burble the words that he never imagined he would say in his entire alcoholic life. "I think — blub! — that's enough beer..."

"I couldn't agree more!" said the chief. "Let's move this thing on! I want to see these paleskins well roasted. The gods must be propitiated! Let the barbecue begin!"

Bill belched contentedly. He was so marinated by now that he didn't really care. Elliot, however, who'd only been able to take a single can of Foster's, began to plead for his life, giving sound arguments for his release, appealing to their sense of honor and asking them what their mothers would think about a sacrifice like this. None of this impressed the Indians in any way.

"Now then, that's done," said Buffalo Billabong, nodding his head at the preparations and feeling through his pockets. "Hmm. Who's got the matches and the lighter fluid?"

"Here. Use mine!" said Chief Thunder Bluster obligingly, pulling out a can labeled Zippo Bar-B-Que fluid, as well as a disposable lighter.

"Right!" The medicine man grabbed the lighter fluid and squirted it on the mesquite wood around Bill's and Elliot's feet. "You know, maytes, this won't be so bad. You'll be crisped in just a flash. Then we'll salt and spice you up proper like, plenty of garlic, put some parsley around you and serve you up to the gods."

Bill, thoroughly squiffed on Foster's lager, considered death. He wondered, how can I die if I haven't been born yet? It didn't seem possible. Besides, Bill had never died before, so he didn't really know what to expect. There were times before that he'd almost died, but he'd been only half-crocked then as opposed to now when he was fully crocked.

Staring at the flaming lighter, Bill considered life and death. All in all, he was just as happy to go out now, if not in a blaze of glory, then at least a blaze. Tanked up on brew, brain flying high, visions of Avalon, Valhalla, Olympus, the Holy Bar and Grill dancing willy-nilly in his noodle Joan of Arc, watch out. Here comes Bill of Spark! he thought.

However, even as the trembling flame neared the kindling, Bill noticed from the corner of his eye that a curious cloud was putt-putting toward them from the horizon, a little bilious, blimp scooting along in the sky. Clouds, of course, were normally nothing to get excited about, but thus far Bill had seen absolutely none here in the southwestern past of North America. Also, (he blinked to make sure) it seemed to be scudding along at a goodly clip, directly toward them as though a cloud on a mission.

Bill's interest in the cloud vanished instantly, however, when, with a wicked crackling and whoosh of flame, things started to get a little hot.

He looked down in horror to see that the lighter had successfully touched the tinder, and flames were not only licking the wood, but were singeing and crisping his boots in a decidedly unpleasant manner.

"Oh ... Oh ... No, please, I beg of you noble aborigines!" cried Elliot. "I'm too young to die! There are missions yet to be fulfilled, women to be loved —"

"— beer to be drunk," agreed Bill. "Don't burn me either." He pleaded, searching for something appropriate to say, but found himself vacant of any inspiration other than losing his temper. "You bowbs will live to regret this!" Which wasn't very impressive and only drew sneers from the redskins.

The flames roared higher.

The smiles on the Red Indians' faces grew wider, and they started to do a wild dance to celebrate the delicious conflagration.

But something remarkable was about to happen. Something as inappropriate and impossible as a lawyer going to heaven.

The Indians beat tom-toms and worked themselves up into a hysterical lather, too high to notice the cloud stealing over them until it was too late.

With a crack of ear-destroying thunder, a mini-storm broke. Water rained down upon the mesquite fire, drowning it out with much smoky hissing and gurgling. A bolt of lightning frizzled down, striking one of the redskins and blasting him right out of his moccasins.

"Hark! It comes upon me that, perhaps, there is a message of some kind here!" intoned Chief Thunder Bluster. "I do think that this seems to be some sort of sign from the gods."

Bill was happy it was a sign from somebody. This little fire had almost put paid to any ambitions he might have had regarding progeny.

"Bollocks!" cried the frustrated medicine man. "Talk about raining on the parade! What did we do wrong, oh gods, that you should rain out our holy barbie in this manner?"

"Bill!" shouted Elliot. "Look!"

Bill looked.

Sure enough, there was something remarkable to look at.

"You're right! There are still full cans of Foster's lager on that cart!"

"No, you quasi-alcoholic military moron, no!" screamed Elliot. "Not the beer. The cloud! Look at the cloud."

Bill blinked his eyes and tried to focus his attention on the cloud. He saw that the vapors of which it was composed were moving — moving and moiling so as to form a face!

The face had a big clown nose, protruding clown eyes and frizzy red hair, with a painted-on frown. "Hark and honk!" said the clown god, honking a horn from within its little cumuloid assemblage of water vapor. "I am Quetzelbozo, the clown of ridiculous blood-thirsty pagan Aztec ceremony. I've been sent by Coaxialcoitus to tell you that you're doing this all wrong."

"Wrong!" said Buffalo Billabong. "Why, we've got them marinated to high heaven!"

The clown-god sniffed. "Yeah. I can smell them from here. But you didn't do the rituals right. Recipe seems right on, but the rituals we gods like have to be included to make it a proper sacrifice."

"Oh, damn! Of course! I forgot the pies!" said the medicine man.

"That's right!" said the clown-god. "Prerequisite to the proper ritual burning of sacrificial victims is a proper mashing of cream pies in the face!"

"That's about as bad as a poke in the eye with a burnt stick!" moaned the medicine man, slapping his forehead in self-abasement and derision. "I forgot the cream pies." He fell down to his knees before the clown-cloud. "What else has your humble, penitent servant forgotten, your Big-noseship?"

"The rubber chicken with its head bitten off!"

Buffalo Billabong's eyes went wide. "The rubber chook — of course! How could I have possibly forgotten the bloody chook! This is just not my flipping day.

"You got it that time, buster. Be prepared to take your punishment for absentmindedness, worthless servant."

The medicine man braced himself and closed his eyes. A spray of carbonated water squirted from the cloud, smacking him on the kisser, followed by a dead mackerel which slapped him wetly in the forehead.

Holy blood-thirsty laughter echoed through the canyons. Even Bill and Elliot had to laugh. This was better than dying, thought Bill. Now if they could escape — along with some more drink — everything would be pretty all right.

Buffalo Billabong sighed and gestured to the nearest Indian brave to go and procure the important items he had forgotten.

Meanwhile, Bill felt something around the vicinity of his wrists. There was a momentary constriction, and then he found his bonds falling at his feet.

"Huh?" said Bill.

"Shh!" said Elliot. "The fire and the soaking loosened the bonds. Don't move — and don't run until I do."

"You're on!"

"Pardon me, Mr. Quetzelbozo," Elliot said, "but I have an important philosophical question to ask you."

"Let me guess," said the cloud. "You want to know whether the universe is really perched on the back of a turtle held up by giant elephants?"

"Close but not quite on."

"Knock it off, buster — I'm not playing twenty questions with some prospective roast. What is it?"

"The answer to a very simple question. If you gods are so great how come you let the entire U.S. cavalry over there come and break up this rotten ritual?"

In unison every head — Including the god's — turned towards the dusty plains.

Elliot and Bill threw off their bonds and ran as though their lives depended on it. Which, of course, they did.