Turn Bows and Barrel Rolls (Wilderness Express Series)
“Alright, folks” belted Mrs. Boar as she moved to the center of the early morning gathering in the park. “Time to limber up.”
The group spread out around her, each taking the space required to thoroughly prepare for the impending battle.
“Knees up!” she called out and began jogging in place, the frills of her white petticoat heaving and ebbing like a surging riptide beneath her maroon Leg O’ Mutton dress as she whipped her legs into a frenzy.
A cacophony of grunts popped all around Mrs. Boar.
“Lunge and twist!”
Beads of sweat were already forming on Clarence’s brow whose short badger legs, though powerful, tired quickly. Beside him, Jep, bounced lightly from paw to paw between each lunge. “Foxes” mumbled Clarence.
“Toes and sky!”
Rita and Auggie, the two heavies present today, huffed and puffed a bit harder than their more narrow waisted brethren as they strained to touch foot and sky, both seemingly equidistant.
A small tear announced a new hole in the back of Rita’s grey Stampede Delivery issued shorts. He short, meaty tail popped out, tuft of fur at the end rejoicing in the unexpected fresh air.
“Check me out. Creatin’ new fashion workin’ these glutes. Trend setter, y’all.”
The crisp morning air filled Mrs. Boar’s lungs. “Jumping jacks” she cried out. ‘A perfect setting for archery’ she thought. The blue of the sky crackled with life, though she couldn’t help but notice that the clouds around Looking Glass, Wilderness’s highest peak, hung thick and low today. ‘Brooding, once again, over whatever it is that brings a titan consternation.’
“Now it’s time for the real fun” smiled Mrs. Boar a bit more fiendishly than necessary. “Fleet feet, you’re up first.”
“Praise be the Acorn” huffed Clarence, hands on his knees digging into his overalls as if he could squeeze oxygen out of them and directly into his lungs.
Pip and Maria bumped elbows, hips, then foreheads.
“Heavies, you’re on the Turn Bows” directed Mrs. Boar towards the buffalo and moose. “Load the Piercing Petites.” The last order particularly aimed at Rita.
“It’s all over but the cryin’” taunted Rita as she sashayed her bulk over to one of the Turn Bows, her tail flicking back and forth with each syllable.
She climbed onto the circular platform which was raised six inches atop a pillar and allowed for a three hundred and sixty degree turning radius. At one end, a large crossbow was mounted on a lever which allowed for height adjustments. At the other a target was attached ten feet up a pole.
Rita fixed the loader to the Piercing Petite setting and grabbed a cloth tipped arrow which, to her buffalo eyes, appeared to be little more than a cotton swab mounted to a toothpick.
“Take your places” chirped Mrs. Boar excitedly as she skipped the twenty yards to Auggie’s side to act as his loader.
“Looks like it’s gathering for us” said Jep with his thumbs jammed behind the straps of his overalls.
Clarence rolled his eyes at the thought of the mad dash to retrieve the shot arrows throughout the park and bring them back to the archers as quickly as possible. He rolled up the sleeves of his white henley, the collar and wrists of which browned with overuse. “I should’ve stayed on the farm and plowed” he grumbled.
Pip and Maria sought cover behind bush and tree at the center of the park. Through breaks in the foliage they eyed the day’s course between them and the freezone while hashing out a plan for victory.
“Are you sure?” squeaked Pip apprehensively. His eyes flittered to the course before them. ‘A ziggurat and a pond’ he thought. Surely, this was no ordinary day.
“Come on, when’s the last time you saw me take a hit?” Maria assured Pip with her hands resolutely on her hips. “If anything is a trap, it’s the ziggaurat. That’s why you wait. If my trigger box works, then we know yours is a dud, or worse.”
“Alright” peeped Pip with increasing determination. “Just don’t take that hit. I can’t stand to see Rita’s tail bopping about so mockingly when she wins.”
“Done.”
The Fleet Feet bumped fists, hips, and foreheads.
“Unleash hell!” screeched Mrs. Boar towards the sky who held aloft two hooffuls of Piercing Petites. A bit of frothing spittle landed on her pristinely ironed dress.
Maria darted from the patch of ferns and zig-zagged her way through the open grass. Pip followed hot on her heels. At this distance, both could easily determine the trajectory of each arrow and avoid them. The true purpose was to entice the heavies enough to waste ammo while, on the other side, the heavies wanted to fatigue the nimble runners as much as possible to make them slower targets later in the gauntlet.
The first prodding maneuvers of either side continued as Maria eyed a grouping of three barrels ahead, head whirling with every conceivable possibility of a trap. Archery with Mrs. Boar was anything but predictable.
The barrels, however, turned out to be just that. Maria, heart pumping but with steady breath, peered through gaps between the barrels to plot her next move while arrows zipped overhead. Pip must still be dancing in the open.
‘She’s really out done herself this time’ thought Maria as she took in the pond and ziggurat from a closer vantage point.
Thirty yards from the barrels and in plain view of both Turn Bows sat a trigger box. To complicate matters, it was located at the end of a thin peninsula stretching fifteen yards into a boar-made pond. The approach and retreat would be seen by all.
It was risky. Going for the Goo Dump was always risky. But, the possibility of gunking up one of the Turn Bows remained tantalizing.
Then there was the matter of the trigger box itself. Even if it proved true and one of the Turn Bows was gunked up with the stickiest molasses known to this valley, one bow would still have multiple clear shots, considering how easy it was for the heavies to load and set the bow.
Whomp. Whomp. Whomp. Cloth tipped arrows plugged the crack through which Maria surveyed the course. ‘If they’re focused on me, then Pip must be in position.’ And again, three more whomps. Another gap was filled with perfectly wedged arrows. The heavies were about their business today.
Off to Maria’s left, the bottom of a fern wiggled. It was time.
Maria sprang from behind the barrels and raced towards the barrel slalom to the right of the pond. Rita spun her Turn Bow wildly. If the rabbit made it to the row of barrels, she could easily dart between and around them while the heavies wasted all their arrows on a game of chance.
Twang. Rita let fly an ill aimed arrow, exactly as Maria had hoped. The rabbit slammed on the breaks, feet churning furiously in pursuit of traction while loosed soil clouded around her. The arrow whizzed by the first barrel but Maria was already charging towards the peninsula. Auggie swung round his Turn Bow, leaving Pip unattended, and loosed an arrow.
As soon as the Turn Bow had spun towards Maria, Pip broke for the ziggurat. His movement caught the eye of Auggie, who in a panic knocked and fired a prayer of an arrow that never came close to the speedy Pip. At the foot of the ziggurat opposite the Turn Bows, Pip skidded to a halt.
Rita had already knocked and loosed two more arrows, only one of which gave Maria any trouble, though not much. A flawless execution of her patented barrel roll at full tilt saw her pass safely beneath the screaming arrow. Maria grinned as she saw the buffalo twirl a finger above her head.
‘That’s a bit early’ thought Auggie who caught Rita’s round up signal as he returned his attention to the trigger box at the end of the peninsula. The heavies had used only half of their ammunition, so only half could be collected to shoot a second time. Though, from the looks of it, one of the bows could soon be a sticky mess, so why not risk it? Auggie fired.
With all the attention directed towards the pond, Pip confidently scaled the the ziggurat, stopping at the foot of the top platform. To his right, he watched Maria adroitly out-maneuver arrow and archer with flair and grace as only she could. He clinched his paws in celebration of the beauty of a barrel roll.
Rita was a flurry of activity, knocking arrows with one hoof and almost simultaneously pulling the trigger with the other. The buffalo would, Pip knew, never present a true threat. The moose, however, seemed to assume a particularly calculating demeanor.
With only half the peninsula remaining between Maria and the trigger box, Auggie waited patiently for his shot, confiding in Rita’s surprisingly cunning plan.
Clarence arrived gasping at Auggie’s Turn Bow, who waved him towards Rita. She would need the majority of the arrows. Auggie would only need the perfect moment.
On her paws, Maria’s change of direction was enough to safely navigate any combination of arrow and archer at four paces, let alone the fifty yards to the trigger box, and she knew it. What the heavies knew was that behind the pale yellow church dress lurked a piece of Maria that yearned for danger, at times exposing herself to risk merely for the thrill.
Twang. Twang. Twang.
Another quick succession of arrows zipped from Rita’s Turn Bow.
Pip’s fingers twiddled with worry. These looked to be well aimed enough to be bothersome and Pip had become certain that it was this particular bother for which Auggie waited.
The arrows flew in perfect formation to intersect Maria.
Pip knew he needed to do something. He dared a peek over the top of the platform.
Auggie hadn’t moved a muscle beyond the narrowing of a concentrated brow. His moment had arrived.
A zig-zag trail like the spasms of a galvanized seismograph extended behind Maria who eyed the three arrows soaring towards her. ‘Not bad’ she thought as she hopped slightly to the right in preparation for another glorious barrel roll.
Her paws caught the ground as her left side hovered mere millimeters above the grass roots. She kicked all four legs with a grunt to launch and spin her leftwards.
Two feet distant and at an angle from the launch spot, Maria’s shoulder and hip nicked the ground just enough to provide the needed friction to complete her roll before reaching the water’s edge. It was then that she heard something unexpected.
Another twang. Unlike the quick trigger pulses pouring from Rita’s Turn Bow, this possessed the smooth hiss of a stoically released, long-awaited shot.
The problem with the barrel roll was that the move hinged upon pure faith. It’s also why Maria loved it so. Churning within a cloud of debris, Maria was effectively blind until a few paces removed from the roll as the world righted itself before her eyes, blinking away soil and dizziness. This time, the only thing her faith assured her of was that Auggie’s shot was dead on.
Atop the ziggurat, Pip crept towards the trigger box. He moved cautiously, though by the spellbound expression upon the faces of the heavies, he could have done so in a peacock outfit while banging a drum and they would have been none the wiser.
Only a quarter rotation remained till Maria’s paws would once again feel soil beneath them. It wasn’t enough time to think, only react.
Pip watched the arrow slice through the air with the confidence of a hooded executioner approaching his kneeling victim tied to the block. The heavies had played their cards well. He had to do something. He scurried to the trigger box, lifted the lid, and pulled the rope within. Gears sprang to life within the ziggurat beneath him.
Ground. Then, a gentle breeze between the toes. The sensation surprised every bit of Maria, mind and paw alike. It often happens that when life comes at you too quickly to think ‘well, isn’t that something’ you find yourself in rather interesting places.
So it was for Maria as the delight of wind whipping at the fur beneath her belly was then replaced by the jolt of an arrow zipping through that same patch of fur, only to be followed by a sinking feeling, not in the pit of her stomach, rather all over. She was in the air, was being the most important term as she crashed into the ground before the thought could complete its ticker tape like passing before her frontal cortex.
The crashing sound proved stranger still as it seemed to possess an echo, the peculiarity of it all propounded by the befuddling silence in which she moved.
Beyond the trigger box, the heavies sat unmoving, dumbfounded. They had just witnessed Maria spring six feet into the air at the immediate end of a barrel roll to dodge a shot so pristinely executed that Chuck had dropped an acorn in remembrance of this historic moment in park archery history.
As weird as it all was, Maria still had to accomplish her portion of the plan. She flung open the lid and yanked on the rope. Beneath her and in a direct line heading towards Rita’s Turn Bow the ground creaked and moaned.
It was another sort of moaning that caught the attention of the heavies who spun their Turn Bows with the greedy look of an easy victory at hand creasing their faces. Maria’s jaw dropped as she turned to discover a box standing amidst the splayed wooden boards of the collapsed ziggurat, regretful moans of Pip seeping from the cracks.
For a few brief moments Pip would be safe, but not for long. The sides of the box were slowly leaning outwards as the molasses used to glue them together melted in the increasing morning heat. Locked and loaded, the heavies waited to rain hell down upon the soon to be unveiled Pip.
Maria’s mind raced. Retracing the peninsula and making a break for it wasn’t an option. The box would collapse before she reached the freezone and Pip would be a sitting duck. One hit and one free meant a tie. Maria’s face pinched at the thought.
With the same absence of thought as her last daredevil move, Maria dove into the pond. The splash caused both heavies to momentarily forget their impending prize as they exchanged a look of confusion. This was a strange day indeed. Rabbits hate water.
The pond proved shallower than expected as Maria’s paws grazed more than just a muddy bottom. Something hard thumped against one paw while a string caught another. ‘This can’t be’ thought Maria with a grinding of teeth.
Never in the history of Mrs. Boar’s Park Archery had both trigger boxes turned out to be duds. But, knowing the stitches that mayhem gave the suid, Maria could easily imagine Mrs. Boar patiently waiting years to spring this very trap. She cringed at the thought of defeat. Worse still, from within a trap.
A collective burp of disbelief emitted from the direction of the heavies.
From the close bank of the boar-made pond surged an armed Maria, crossbow in one paw and a bucket in the other. The rabbit’s eyes burned with conviction, though the rest of her moved calmly as she set down the bucket, knocked an arrow, and took aim.
It was a risky shot, much too far for the crossbow, but her usual agility would be compromised by the sloshing water. So, risk she did. The string twanged, sending an arrow in a high arc contradictory to the straight line nature of the weapon.
The eyes of Rita and Auggie followed the arrow. Their hearts sank at the report received. It looked like a damn good shot. Neither Mrs. Boar, Clarence, nor Jep dared to move, stupefied by the divine arc of the arrow’s trajectory.
The only one who wasn’t watching the arrow, beyond those located within the darkness of a box, was Maria who waddled towards Pip as quickly as the bucket allowed.
“Sit tight and warm up that singin’ voice” said Maria just before drenching the box top in ice cold water. Pip squeaked, surprised by the voice of his partner and a dousing of frigid mountain water on his back. He wonder what she meant but a deep buffalo grumble told him that whatever Maria’s plan, it was working.
The arrow had struck dead center bull’s eye of the target behind Auggie. The string of his Turn Bow disengaged and Auggie nodded approval of the immaculate shot.
Rita was of another disposition, namely pissed off.
“You’ll regret that, you long-legged weasel” she called out as she wheeled her Turn Bow to locate the dashing rabbit. “Think ol’ Rita can’t put an arrow in that pint sized rear end of yours? Check me out!”
Twang. Twang. Twang.
Rita released her full fury upon the scrambling rabbit below as Clarence, Jep, and Mrs. Boar all worked feverishly to transport arrows from Auggie’s quiver to the enraged buffalo and fill her waiting hoof the moment it was empty.
With the freezone a mere hop and a skip away, Maria loosed a no-look shot, just for the heck of it. Today, it seemed, was made for her. Another bull’s eye and a second decommissioned Turn Bow.
Maria waltzed across the freezone threshold to the eruption of applause from all not of bovid descent, crossbow resting atop her shoulder. Echoed cheers bounced off the walls and out the cracks of Pip’s box.
