Hazards by Mike Resnick Read Free Book Online Page B

hope maybe it’d lead me to this Amazon Basin I’d heard about, when the decision was tooken out of my hands, because suddenly, standing not two hundred feet ahead of me, was the most beautiful golden-haired lady I ever did see. Her hair hung down almost to her waist, and I could see even from this distance that her eyes were the deepest, prettiest shade of blue. As for the rest of her, there wasn’t nobody ever going to mistake her for a boy, even at five hundred yards. She wore a tattered dress what had seen better days, and certainly longer ones.
    “Howdy, ma’am!” I yelled, waving my hand at her.
    She turned, saw me, gave me the kind of smile that made me wish it was night out so I could bay at the moon, and waved back.
    “I don’t want to intrude on your privacy, ma’am,” I said, “but for the past week I mostly been concentrating on being lost, and I was wondering if you could lead me to civilization, or at least point me in the right direction.”
    She smiled again, showing off the whitest teeth you can imagine, and began walking toward me. I didn’t hear no music, but she moved her hips exactly like she was dancing to a slow rhumba, and I knew that I had fallen hopelessly and eternally in love again.
    “Ma’am,” I said when she reached me, “I got to tell you that in all my experience I ain’t never seen a looker like you, and I’m ready here and now to plight my trough.” I didn’t actually know what plighting a trough meant — on the face of it, it seems kind of like digging a trench in an open field — but it sounded like the kind of thing beautiful young damsels what were seriously underdressed would want to hear from a suitor.
    She smiled at me again.
    “Can I take this here radiant smile as a sign that you return my affection, ma’am?” I said.
    She nodded her head.
    “Good!” I said. “For a minute there I was scared that you didn’t speak my lingo. A couple of days back I ran into some guys in the forest that didn’t speak American or Indian, and I know that back in San Palmero, where I served as President for close to a full day before we had a little misunderstanding, everyone was called José and Juanita and didn’t speak no known language.”
    I laughed to show her how relieved I was, and she laughed too.
    “And here I am forgetting my manners, ma’am,” I continued. “I’m the Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones at your service, but since we seem to be planning to spend the rest of our lives together, you can call me Lucifer. And who do I have the honor of falling in love with?”
    “Cluck,” she said.
    “I didn’t quite catch that,” I said.
    “Cluck,” she repeated.
    “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” I said, “but it sounds like you said ‘cluck’ like unto a chicken.”
    “Cluck cluck cluck,” she said.
    “So are them other two clucks your middle and last names?” I asked.
    “Cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck,” she said, and suddenly she didn’t look quite as beautiful as she had about forty seconds ago.
    “You got something caught in your throat, ma’am?” I asked.
    She laughed and slapped me on the shoulder, like I’d just made some kind of joke. “Cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck,” she said.
    “You live around here, ma’am?” I asked, because I figgered I’d better see if anyone in her family spoke any better before I got too all-fired committed to this here relationship.
    She nodded her head, reached out and took me by the hand, and began leading me down a winding jungle path.
    I asked her about her family, and what country we were in, and how long she’d been here, and maybe a couple of dozen other things, and all she said was “Cluck cluck cluck”, and while I enjoyed holding such a beautiful and dainty hand, I got to say that man and boy that was the dullest conversation I ever did have.
    Finally we came to a clearing by still another river, and right in the middle of it were two huge chartreuse houses, each with a