Sprague clucked away at Brian's elbow, trotting a little to stay close as if his visitor would bolt for freedom any second. He called through the door of the little Sani-Port as Brian went in to pee and change to fresh clothes.
"You got any idee what it costs to keep a full-grown Amer ican bison in top running condition? Not just a matter of set im loose to graze, oh no, not when you've got a herd of one. Got to protect your investment, the same with any small businessman. Dropping like flies they are. That's an endangered species, the small businessman. Anyhow, you don't let him out there to graze. Don't know what he might pick up. You got five hundred head, you can afford to lose a few to poisnin, a few to varmint holes, a few to snakes and whatnot. Don't make a dent. But me, I got everything I own riding on Ishmael. He don't dine on nothin but the highest-protein feed. He's eaten up all my savings and most of the last bank loan I'm likely to get. You ever ridden a buffalo?"
"No," said Brian over the flushing inside, "I've never even been on a horse."
"Then you got a treat coming, free a charge. You'll be my icebreaker for the weekend, bring me luck. I'd offer you breakfast, but confidentially speakin, the grill over here is out of commission. They turned off my lectricity. You might of noticed the lamp in there don't work. How they expect a buffalo to keep up its health without lectricity I'll never understand. It's that kind of thinking put the species on the brink of extinction."
Brian came out with fresh clothes and his teeth fingerbrushed, and Cody Sprague hustled him back into the corral with Ishmael.
"Is there a saddle or anything? Or do I just get on?"
"Well, I got a blanket I use for the little girls with bare legs if it makes them nervous, but no, you don't need a thing. Like sitting on a rug. Just don't climb up too high on the hump is all, kind of unsteady there. Attaboy, hop aboard."
The buffalo didn't seem to mind, didn't seem to notice Brian crawling up on its back. Instead it lifted its head toward a bucket nailed to a post on the far side of the corral.
"How do I make him go?" asked Brian. There was no natural seat on a buffalo's back, he dug his fingers deep in the wool and pressed his knees to its flanks.
"That's my job, making him go, you just sit tight." Sprague scooted out of the corral, then returned with a halfempty sack of meal. He poured some in the far bucket, then clanged it with a stone. Ishmael began to move. He was in no hurry.
"Ridem cowboyl" yelled Sprague.
Brian felt some movement under him, distantly, a vague roll of muscle and bone. He tried to imagine himself as an eight-year-old kid instead of seventeen, and that helped a little. He tried to look pleased as the animal reached the bucket and buried its nose in the feed.
"This part of the ride," said Cody apologetically, "is where I usually give them my little educational spiel about the history of the buffalo and how the Indians depended on it and all. Got it from the library up to Rapid. Got to have something to keep them entertained at the halfway point while he's cleaning out that bucket. You know the Indian used every part of the beast. Meat for food, hide for clothes and blankets, bone for tools, even the waste product, dried into buffalo chips, they used that for fuel. There was a real — real affinity between the buffalo and the Plains Indian. Their souls were tied together." He looked to Brian and waited.
"He sure is big." Brian threw a little extra enthusiasm into it. "I didn't realize they were this big."
Sprague spat on the ground, sighing, then looked up to see what was left in the bucket. "Pretty sorry attraction, that's what you mean, isn't it?"
"Well, I wouldn't say — "
"I mean isn't it? If he don't eat he don't move." Cody shook his head. "The kids, well, they pick up on it right away. Least they used to before that Interstate swept them all off. What kind of ride is it where the animal stops and chows down for five minutes at a time? Got so bad he'd commence to drool every time he seen a human under twelve years of age. Feed, that's all they understand. Won't mind kindness and he won't mind cruelty but you talk straight to his belly and oh Lord will he listen. That's how they got extincted in the first place, they seen their colleagues droppin all around them but they were too involved with feeding their faces to put two and two together. They'd rather be shot and scalped than miss the next mouthful. Plain stupid is all." He gave Ishmael a thump in the side. "You'd just as soon name a rock or a lump of clay as give a title to this old pile of gristle." He squatted slightly to look the buffalo in the face. "A damn sorry attraction, aren't you? A damn sorry fleabag of an attraction."
He straightened and hefted the meal. "Might as well be stuffed, I figure. Put him on wheels. The few people I get anymore all want to snip a tuft of wool offen him for a souvenir. I had to put a stop to it, wouldn't of been a thing left. Cody Sprague's Bald Buckin' Bison."
Ishmael lifted his head and flapped his tongue in the air a couple of times.
"Got to fill the other bucket now. He expects it. Took me the longest time to figure the right distance, long enough so it's two bits' worth of ride but not so long that the thoroughbred here thinks it's not worth the hike. The kids can tell though. I never been able to fool them. They feel left out of it, feel gypped. Um, if you don't mind, would you stay on him for the rest of the ride?" Cody was hustling across the corral toward another hanging bucket, with Ishmael swinging a liquid eye after him. "He needs the exercise."
Brian sat out the slow plod across the corral and slid off when it reached the bucket. He brushed his pants and got a stick to scrape his sneakers clean of the buffalo stool he'd stepped in. The rich brown smell was losing its charm.
"You'll be going now, I suppose," said Sprague coming up behind him.
"Uh, yeah. Guess so." It was a little creepy, the multicolored corral in the middle of all that open range. "Thanks for the ride, though."
"Nothing to keep you here, Lord knows." He was forcing a smile. "S'almost nine now, business should pick up. Ought to build a fire, case anybody stops for a hot dog." He gave a weak cackle. "I could use it for part of my pitch — frankfurters cowboy style. Call em prairie dogs."
"Yuh."
"You'll be wantin that Interstate I suppose, get you out of here. Five miles or so north on the road and you'll smack right into it."
"Thanks." Brian shouldered his duffel bag. "Hope the trade improves for you."
"Oh, no worry, no worry. I'll make out. Oh, and here, take one of these." He fished an aluminum star from his pocket and presented it to Brian. "Souvenir for you and good advertising for me."
Deputy Sheriff, said the badge, Issued at Cody Sprague's Wild West Buckin' Bison Ride. There was a picture of a cowboy tossed high off the back of an angrily kicking buffalo. Brian pinned it on his shirt and Cody brightened a bit.
"Who knows," he said, "maybe today's the day. Maybe we'll get discovered by the tourist office today and be written up. You get your attraction in one of those guidebooks and you got a gold mine. Wall-to-wall customers, turn em away at the gate. I could save up an maybe afford an opposite number for Ishmael. Don't know if or what buffalo feel but I suppose everything gets lonely for its own kind, don't you?"
"I suppose."
"Say, I wasn't kidding about that fire. If you're hungry I could whip us up a late breakfast in no time. There's stock I got to use before it goes bad so it'd be on the house."
"I really got to get going. Sorry."
"Well, maybe you brought me luck. Yessir, maybe today will be the day."
Brian left him waving from the middle of the corral, buckskin fringes blowing in the quickening breeze. When he was out of sight around the bend he unpinned the aluminum star and tossed it away, it dug into his chest too much. Then the signs appeared, the backs of them first, then the messages as he passed by and looked behind. Every thousand yards there was another, starting with WHOA! HERE IT Isl and progressing to more distant warnings. When Brian got to FOR THE RIDE OF YOUR LIFE, STOP AT CODY SPRAGUE'S he couldn't hold out anymore, he dropped his bag and trotted back to where he'd chucked the star. He found it without too much trouble and put it in his back pocket.