Free Cowpokes and Desperadoes by Gary Paulsen Page B

Hmm.”
    Amos closed his eyes. “Oh, no. Don’t. Please don’t start with that.”
    “What?”
    “That sound. Every time you make that sound, I wind up in trouble. This is supposed to be a nice, quiet, fun vacation. No mysteries. Why can’t we do it that way just once?”
    “Amos, my uncle could be in some kind of trouble. We can’t just pretend we didn’t hear anything.”
    “I could try. My uncle Alfred—the one who picks his feet?—anyway, he’s always saying things my mom tells me to pretend I didn’t hear. Like the time he dropped his cigar in his lap and burned a hole through his pant leg, and—”
    Dunc interrupted. “This is different. These guys sound serious.”
    Amos sighed. “I suppose you have a plan?”
    “The first thing we need to do is ID those two guys behind us.”
    “Are you going to talk like a secret agent for the whole vacation?”
    Dunc opened the bathroom door a crack and peeked out. “Wait a few minutes, then follow me back to our seats. We don’t want to be noticed, so try to act nonchalant.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Natural. Try to act natural.”
    He shouldn’t have said it. They argued about it later.
Natural
for some people means one thing, but for Amos, it takes on a whole new definition.
    Dunc was halfway to his seat when he heard the crash. Amos tripped coming-out of the rest room. He did a nose dive into the flight attendant’s serving cart. Several people who were unlucky enough to have aisle seats were drenched with ice water. One man was screaming. He thought he had been shot until he discovered it was only tomato juice on his shirt.
    When Dunc finally found him, Amos was stuck under the seat of an irate lady passenger. She had a grapefruit on her head and was grinding her high heel into the middle of his back.
    It took some doing, but Dunc finally managed to convince the woman that Amos was harmless. She let him up but made him promise not to get out of his seat again until the plane landed.
    “So much for not drawing attention to ourselves,” Dunc said.
    He led Amos back down the aisle to their seats. Before they sat down, Dunc casuallyleaned around the back of his seat to get a look at the men in the row behind them.
    Empty.
    Not one person was sitting in the whole row.
    Now, why would they have moved? Dunc thought. They couldn’t have known … or could they? He looked down at the name tag on his shirt. His last name was in bold print.
    Culpepper
.

• 3
    Uncle Woody met them at the airport. He was a tall, lean man with a twinkle in his brown eyes. He gave Dunc a bear hug and shook Amos’s hand as if he were pumping water. They loaded their bags into the back of his ancient pickup truck and headed for the ranch.
    Dunc answered all the usual questions about his family. Then came the question he was waiting for.
    “Did you boys have a good flight out?”
    “It was a pretty smooth flight, but we did have something strange happen. Two men sitting behind us were talking about taking careof someone named Culpepper who owned a ranch.” Dunc looked over at his uncle.
    The tall man rubbed his temple. When he spoke, he chose his words carefully. “It couldn’t have been anything important,” he said. “You probably had the misfortune of sitting in front of our distinguished bank president, J. B. Grimes. He and I have had some unpleasant dealings lately. He makes a lot of threats, but he’s mostly full of hot air. Don’t let it bother you.”
    “Oh, we won’t.” Amos glared at Dunc. “Will we?”
    Dunc ignored him. “You mentioned in your letter that a lot of your hands had quit. Did they tell you why?”
    “They all had their reasons, I guess.” Uncle Woody shifted in his seat. “It’s really lucky for me that you boys came out when you did. I can sure use your help until the new hands get here.”
    “We’re the lucky ones,” Amos said. “Riding, roping, herding them little dogies …”
    “Now, hold on, pardner.” Uncle Woody