COWBOY IN THE SKY
The stranger stood at the end of the aisle, between coach and first class on the first New York to Los Angeles flight of the day. He was a tall man whose wide-brimmed Stetson hat nearly brushed the ceiling. A gold star gleamed on his chest and his chaps were dusty.
"I say, old bean," one of the chaps said to him. "We’ll just be nipping off to the loo to wash the dust off, eh what?"
The stranger only nodded. He knew that wretched puns were the least of the troubles he could expect in this column.
"Excuse me sir," said a flight attendant, "but can I help you?"
He turned his steely gaze upon her and touched his finger to the brim of his hat. "It’s what I can do to help you, ma’am," he said.
"Oh," she said. "You must be the new marshal."
"Yup," he said. "Buck Skyler, Air Marshal."
"Hey," someone yelled from the jetway, "there’s a HORSE out here!"
The stranger nodded. "Yup. That there’s Bubbles. See that she’s fed and watered, will ya, ma’am?"
"Ummm..sir..." the flight attendant said, I’m afraid you can’t bring a horse on the airplane. Unless you can get her in the overhead compartment, which I ..." but Skyler’s keen eyes had already sensed trouble. He saw a swarthy man with piercing dark eyes making his way up the first-class aisle towards the cockpit. The marshal’s lightning-fast reflexes took over. He quickly unfurled the lasso hanging over his shoulder. With a flick of his wrist, he dropped the loop of rope over the dark man’s head and yanked him off his feet.
Skyler nodded with satisfaction. "Got ‘im," he said laconically. He knelt on the man’s back and quickly hogtied him like a steer ready for branding.
"Oh, my God!" The flight attendant cried. "You just lassoed Antonio Banderas!"
"Whoops," Skyler said. "Sorry, sir, I thought you looked like an Arab."
"I only played one in the movies," Banderas croaked.
"And ya did a heck of a job, too, amigo," the marshal said.
"Gracias," the actor replied. "Por favor, would you mind getting your knee off my spine?"
As the marshal stood up, the cabin crew rushed to aid the stricken actor. Skyler’s ears picked up the sound of muttering. He looked to the rear of the cabin and saw two bearded men dressed in prayer shawls, their eyes closed, rocking back and forth and whispering something in a foreign language. Almost faster than the eye could see, Skyler’s guns cleared the holsters. "Freeze, varmints!" he barked.
The older of the two men looked up. "What are you, meshugga or something?" he said in a quavery voice. "We’re praying, you schmuck!" As the two men faced each other down, a flight attendant pushed her way past the crouching marshal. "Your Diet Coke, Rabbi Feldman," she said with a glare at Skyler.
"Sorry, Rabbi," Skyler said. "Thought you might be some sort of Muslim fundamentalist. Not-that-there’s-anything-wrong-with-Muslims-many-of-whom-are-good-Americans-and-not-terrorists," he added quickly. Skyler turned to the passengers who were beginning to stir restlessly. He raised his hands in a calming gesture.
"Now, folks," he said, "Everybody needs to jest simmer down. We don’t want Americans to be afraid. We want y’all to go back to living your lives and going about your business in the normal way."
"You’re joking, right?" a passenger said.
Skyler fixed them with his steely gaze. "Nope," he said. ‘Don’t reckon I am, pilgrim."
"Look," the passenger said. "I know we’re all a little jittery right now. Heck, I’m afraid to open my mail. And we’re all looking for heroes. But this isn’t going to be solved by cowboys with six-guns and lassoes. The bad guys don’t all wear black hats. If the terrorists get us running off in all directions, so suspicious of everything that we’re afraid to move, they’ve won, don’t you see?"
Skyler pondered this for a long moment. "Yup" he said finally, "reckon I see your point there, pilgrim. I reckon that….ANTHRAX!" he yelled suddenly and dived towards a seat.
"Sweet N’ Low!" shrieked the woman in the seat, who was holding a small packet of white powder. There was a brief tussle. Artificial sweetener and coffee flew everywhere.
The flight attendant sighed. "It’s going to be a long war."
Dusty Rhoades lives in Carthage, practices law in Aberdeen, and in no way means to ridicule the many brave Federal employees who serve as real Air Marshals and who probably don’t wear cowboy hats, even though that would be pretty cool.
OUR GRACIOUS HOST (BOOKS-N-BYTES)
COPYRIGHT 2001 BY JERRY D. RHOADES, JR.