"It has been a week since I've seen you."
"I'll never forget that horrible night."
"You don't look happy."
"You forgot all about the plan."
"Sorry about that."
"That whole family is evil."
"What makes you say that?"
"I'm engaged to be married."
"Me too."
"You don't look happy."
"Neither do you."
"Aren't we a pair?"
"Yes."
"Have you got your gun?"
"Yes, I do," Melinda answered holding up the pistol case. She fully expected him to ask her to use it on him.
"I guess that we had better head over to the Ables family picnic," Jim said.
Pointing to the rear wheel, Melinda asked, "Is that tire flat?"
"No," Jim said after looking at the tire.
"Can't you make it flat?" Melinda asked. She was not looking forward to the picnic.
"No," Jim said.
"Why not?"
Jim answered, "Tripp said that she would kill me if I showed up too late to take part in the obstacle course race."
"What kind of obstacles?" Melinda asked unsure of what an obstacle course race was.
"I'm not sure. She said that her father set it up and it took him almost a month to make it," Jim said with a worried expression on his face.
"You look worried," Melinda said.
"Deuce told me a little about their obstacle course races. They aren't like the ones the military has us run. They're worse," Jim said.
"How bad can they be?" Melinda asked.
"I don't know and that worries me," Jim said.
Melinda said, "I guess we better go."
"Maybe that tire is a little flat," Jim said.
"Tripp will kill you if you're late."
Jim said, "Alright. Get in the car."
Wondering why there was a roadblock in the middle of nowhere, Jim handed his driver's license to the state trooper. The man looked at the license and then shouted, "Hey, Pat.
Come over here and meet Jimbo!"
"Oh God."
"Is that the guy Cousin Tripp is marrying?" Pat called back.
"Yep," the trooper shouted.
"He's supposed to be protecting Cousin Mike's girl."
The trooper looked in the limousine for a second and then shouted, "Cousin Mike's girl is here too. She's a pretty one."
Pat Ables walked over to the car and stuck his head in the window. He gave Melinda a thorough visual examination and then said, "Cousin Mike said you were pretty, but calling you pretty just doesn't do you justice. If he hadn't laid claim to you, I'd be pulling you over ten times a day until you said enough and agreed to marry me."
"Thank you," Melinda said thinking there was not a proper response to that kind of statement.
Pat stood up and said, "Chuck, we better let them through. Tripp will kill us if we make Jimbo late for the great race."
"I know what you mean. She's been bragging on him all week," Chuck said.
Pat said, "I wish I was entered in the race rather than stuck out here on guard duty."
"I heard Uncle Rich got fifty snakes from the rattlesnake roundup for it this time," Chuck said.
"Oh God," Jim said with a sick feeling in his stomach.
Leaning down, Chuck pointed down the road. He said, "Drive on down this street until you reach the canon. Turn right at the canon and park anywhere. Just don't block the tank. Dad drove right over the car that blocked him in the last time."
"Got it. Park anywhere, but don't block the tank," Jim said. He wondered how many family picnics included warnings like that.
Chuck patted the top of the car and said, "Have fun at the picnic."
"Thanks."
"Good luck in the race."
"Thanks."
Jim drove down the road until he reached a civil war canon that was guarding the entrance to a large field filled with cars. Looking at the gun, he said, "This must be the place."
"The parking here is rather haphazard," Melinda commented. There were trucks and cars parked randomly around the huge field. She did notice that all of them were facing the road.
"There's the tank," Jim said pointing to a Sherman tank parked near the center of the lot.
There was a lot of empty space around the tank.
"Park over there," Melinda said pointing to the far end of the field.
"Momma didn't raise a fool."
"You're marrying Tripp."
"You're right. Maybe I should park in front of the tank and take a nap in the trunk," Jim said.
"And miss the rattlesnakes?" Melinda asked.
"I hope they were joking about the rattlesnakes," Jim said.
"Probably not," Melinda said shaking her head.
Seeing a familiar face headed in their direction, Jim said, "There's Tripp."
"I wonder why she's not guarding Mike," Melinda said.
"Are you trying to be funny? They've got a damned tank here," Jim said looking at her like she was insane. No one in their right mind would dare attempt to attack Mike here.
Melinda said, "Sorry. I forgot where we were."
"Where are we?" Jim asked.
"An alternate universe," Melinda said. For the past week she had been using one of the most complex computer systems in existence helping to design a submarine that could have passed for a space ship. Last night she had been dropped off at home in a flying saucer. Today she was driven to Testosterone City in a limousine. No normal person would believe her story. She had a feeling that everyone here considered a week like that normal.
Jim parked the car facing the road out of habit. He got out and looked around at the people walking towards the tank. It was like a scene out of western movie. Although he had expected everyone to be wearing camouflage, the typical garb was blue jeans, work shirts, and boots. Without exception, all of the men and women were wearing holsters.
Tripp ran up and threw herself at him with the result that she nearly knocked him to the ground. She hung on him with her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his neck. Kissing his face, she said, "I'm so glad you made it in time for the great race."
"I wouldn't have missed it," Jim said wondering if it was possible to get out of participating in it.
"Did you bring your camouflage?" Tripp asked.
"Yes."
Tripp said, "God, it makes me wet to think about you wearing camouflage."
"Uh oh," Jim said.
Tripp wriggled her bottom around a little and said, "Oh Goody! The trouser snake awakes."
"Not here," Jim said turning red.
Looking over at Melinda, Tripp said, "He's so bashful."
"I can see that," Melinda said looking around for Mike. She wondered why he wasn't there.
"I don't know why. There's a good nine inches stuffed in those pants of his," Tripp said.
"He might not want to advertise that," Melinda said turning her attention back to the couple.
Puzzled, Tripp asked, "Why not?"
"I have no idea," Melinda said shaking her head.
"You look good in those blue jeans," Tripp said.
"Thanks," Melinda said although she found them uncomfortable. She hadn't worn blue jeans since she was in college.
"Have you got your gun?" Tripp asked.
"Yes," Melinda answered holding up the case containing her pistol.
"You better put it on," Tripp said. She climbed off of Jim much to his relief.
"I'm not sure how to wear it," Melinda said.
After Tripp talked her through the process of getting the holster on the belt, she said, "I heard that you ruined your little black dress. Way to go."
"Where did you hear that from?" Melinda asked getting angry. If Mike was telling stories about her then she was going to skin him alive. She was pretty sure that someone had a knife that she would be able to borrow.
"Cousin Liz told me all about your little embarrassing conversation on the telephone,"
Tripp said.
"I forgot about that," Melinda said turning bright red on being reminded of the embarrassing conversation. She wondered how many people heard about that little conversation.
She said, "I see that Mike found your freckles."
"Yes," Melinda said.
Tripp winked and said, "Don't worry about your little black dress. Mine didn't make it through the night. Jimbo was an animal."
"I hope you didn't corner him," Melinda said. She noticed that Jim was beet red.
"I did. He put up a magnificent fight," Tripp said.
Melinda looked around for a second and then asked, "Where's Mike?"
"He got hung up on something technical," Tripp answered.
"Oh," Melinda said wondering what could be technical around here. She wondered if he had been put in charge of the ice cream makers or something.
"I'm supposed to take you over to him," Tripp said.
Melinda said, "Let's go."
Tripp turned to Jim and said, "Grab your camouflage. The obstacle course race is going to start in about thirty minutes."
"We've got plenty of time," Jim said moving over to the trunk of the limousine. He felt that he could walk through the course and have a bit of a chance to warm up before it started.
While he was opening it, Tripp said, "You've got to study the map of the course before the race starts."
"Map?" Jim asked wondering why he needed to study a map. Distracted, he grabbed his clothes and slammed the trunk shut.
"It's a long course this time," Tripp said. "Daddy wanted it to be challenging."
"Long?" Jim asked. He wondered if it would take more than twenty minutes to walk through the course.
"It will probably take about two hours to get through it," Tripp said.
"Two hours?" Jim asked getting worried. He had never heard of anyone taking two hours to get through an obstacle course.
Tripp said, "I wouldn't worry. Hardly anyone gets killed. Thanks to the Anders clan, we've got a lot of medics standing by."
Melinda couldn't believe her eyes when she finally located Mike. He was wearing blue jeans, a work shirt, and a cap with the logo for a tractor company on it. Like everyone else, he had a gun strapped to his hip. He could have been the twin of Clint Eastwood.
She said, "I finally made it."
"Melinda! I was hoping you'd get here. We've got to finish building this before five o'clock," Mike said looking up from the piece of paper he was holding.
"What is it?" Melinda asked staring at the stack of wood, rope, and metal.
"A bowling ball throwing device," Mike answered.
"What?"
"Cousin Ed challenged me to a contest. It is him and his wife against you and me. We have the same materials as them and have to build something to throw a ten pound bowling ball as far as possible. We've got a case of green bottle beer riding on this," Mike answered.
"A case of green bottle beer?" Melinda asked wondering what kind of beer that was.
"I wouldn't worry about it. We're going to win," Mike said confidently.
Melinda went over to the stack of wood and looked it over. Turning back to Mike, she said, "There's not enough wood for a catapult."
"I know," Mike said.
"Are there any conditions on this?" Melinda asked.
"We can make anything out of that stack of material to throw a bowling ball as far as we can and we have to operate the device," Mike answered.
Melinda said, "All of that rope makes me think someone was thinking about building a ballista."
"I agree," Mike said.
"That's not the best way to throw a bowling ball," Melinda said. A better device would be a catapult, but there just wasn't sufficient wood to build a solid base.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Considering the material for a second, Melinda knew that her idea wouldn't last more than two or three throws. She looked over at Mike and said, "Trebuchet."
"There's not really enough material for a proper trebuchet here."
"I know that. Who said anything about a proper trebuchet?" Melinda asked.
Mike grinned and said, "I like how you think."
"What about the counterweight?" Melinda asked getting to the heart of the problem with that solution.
"We have to operate it," Mike said.
"Are you up for a rough ride?" Melinda asked knowing exactly what he was suggesting.
"You read my mind," Mike said with a laugh.
Although she knew she could design the beast, Melinda wasn't sure that she was up to actually building it. She said, "You're going to have to help me. I've never worked with wood."
"Did I mention that we don't have to do all of the carpentry ourselves?" Mike asked.
"No you didn't," Melinda said.
"The Ables consider little projects like this training for the kids," Mike said. He turned around and shouted, "Wally! Billy! Danny! Lily! It is time to get to work!"
Wally and Billy must have been standing at attention two feet away. They beat Danny and Lily by five seconds. This Cousin Lily was a different girl from the one at O'Tooles.
She had short cropped hair like all of the other Ables women. Mike went over to them and said, "Wally and Billy! You are charged with finding every flaw in the wood that is part of the stack of materials over there. Is the wood soft? Are there worm holes? Is there a split? Does it suffer from wood rot? Arrange the wood by sizes and quality."
"Yes, sir."
"Danny! You are to inspect the metal. I'm sure there's something here we will want to use that will break while we're using it. Arrange the metal by kind and by sizes."
"Yes, sir."
"Lilly! I need you to check every inch of rope. Are there any rough sites? Are there any frayed areas? Sort the good stuff by size. Put the broken stuff in a separate pile. We will be using everything."
"Yes, sir."
"I can tell you without looking that we don't have a piece of wood that is long enough to serve as an arm," Melinda said.
"You know that that means," Mike said.
"We're going to have to splice some of them together to make the length," Melinda said.
There were a number of ways in which they could do that.
"We have plenty of rope," Mike said.
"Not as much as you might think," Melinda said trying to estimate the lengths of the coils.
Mike looked over the metal that was spread out over the ground. Shaking his head, he said, "No nails."
"That's going to make it a little tougher to build," Melinda said.
The next few hours flew by while the couple put together a bastardized version of an ancient weapon. Melinda couldn't believe how much fun it was working on the trebuchet and couldn't wait to see it operate.
Melinda spotted Tripp and Jim walking over towards them. Jim was wearing a mud covered camouflage outfit and walking with a limp. She called out, "What happened to you?"
"He won!" Tripp shouted.
Impressed, Mike said, "Congratulations."
"If you can call it that," Jim muttered. He had taken a facial in the mud while ducking a swinging log that had appeared out of nowhere.
Tripp asked, "What would you call it?"
"I survived," Jim answered. He had never experienced anything like that obstacle course.
"It couldn't have been that bad," Melinda said thinking that this was a family picnic.
"There were snakes," Jim said.
Melinda said, "I wondered if they were kidding about the snakes."
"There were pitfalls," Jim said.
"You didn't fall into any of them," Tripp said.
"There was even a swamp. This is Kansas for Christ's sake," Jim said.
"Daddy was quite proud of that," Tripp said.
"I had heard the course was a tough one," Mike said.
"It was a war zone," Jim said. "They were even shooting at us."
"Paint balls," Tripp said dismissing the dangers.
Thinking about the one bright spot in the whole thing, Jim said, "I did get to shoot Deuce."
"Boy was he pissed about that," Tripp said. "It has been years since he was eliminated from the race."
"Great," Jim said.
Tripp glanced down at her watch and said, "It is almost time for the knife throwing contest."
"That sounds like fun," Jim mumbled.
"I'm the defending champion," Tripp said brightly.