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"No."
"Who then?"
"You mean what."
Legs was getting a
"—No way."
"Yes, way. Willie's guide did a perfect job."
"How—?"
"Listen to me. This is serious stuff. A military experiment. We hope to turn the herd into Special Ops assassins. They'll be shipped to the Middle East to mingle with the camels and get the terrorists. They're being programmed." Legs started to laugh. He couldn't help himself. What a gig. Ava was crazier than he was. "And my job is?" he asked when he calmed down.
"Like I said. You feed them, clean up after them. You saw the syringe I had yesterday. They each get one of those every day."
"Operation Ostrich," Legs said. "When is this supposed to happen?"
"Think mille
"If I go along with it—"
"There ain't no 'if' kid. Now get moving."
After what was likely the worst day of his life, Legs returned to his mattress. For most of that night and the next, he formulated a plan. By the third day, he'd worked out the details. On New Year's Eve, he and as many of his ostrich buddies as he could muster would be off and ru
Until then, the trick was to stay alive.
It took Legs another three days to get up the nerve to speak to Ava. He waited for breakfast, the only time he could actually talk to Ava, and put the begi
"What's your take on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste debate?"
" 'Scuse me?"
"Seriously," Legs said. "Does anything about it impact our ... um ... squadron?"
"What do you think?"
Legs's answer had to come out just right. He took his time.
"I think you'd want to use the ostriches to deliver 'dirty bombs' from the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste to terrorist encampments."
Ava stared at him. "You're not as dumb as you look, Legs Cleveland," she said, and spoke of something else.
After a few more days, Legs said, more confidently, "I've been thinking about something we have to do with the soldiers. They need a trial run to see how they do as a team."
"All of them? Not possible."
"Right. But what about five or six?"
"What do you have in mind?"
Legs took a deep breath. "Ever seen the Radio City Rockettes?" he asked.
She nodded. "Of course I have. Think I've lived all of my life out here in the boondocks?"
"Good. Then think about this. On New Year's Eve day, there's going to be a major protest at Cashman Field against the Yucca Mountain project. What if we dress our soldiers as Rockettes and march them to town to pull for the project? They'll get all of the attention."
Ava laughed long and hard. Then suddenly she was quiet. After several minutes, she said, "Be a lot of major politicians there and a couple of bands and fireworks." Legs merely nodded.
The following morning, Ava reopened the subject. "Can you have them trained in time?" she asked.
"Sure. No problem."
"And you'll need what from me?"
"I'll need costumes so we can dress them like the Rockettes. One for you, too, if you want to dance with them." She smiled.
"Told you I'd make you a star," Legs said. And so the preparations began.
When the day came, everything was ready. Legs patted his pocket, making sure he hadn't forgotten Uncle Willie, whom he'd poured into a Baggie, figuring the old man wouldn't want to miss the show. With Ava's help, he piled five "Rockettes" into a large van with the backseats removed. He'd found two couples and a fifth who made everything possible: Uncle Willie's spirit guide, with whose help he taught them high kicks and tried the "Shuffle Off to Buffalo," though without much success.
Truth was, all he wanted was to cause enough of a ruckus to give him enough cover to leave town. He hadn't yet decided whether to sprinkle Willie on a poker table en route.
Legs sat in the back with the ostriches, each of which wore a ba
While Ava and the ostriches waited in what was the visiting team's dugout when the Las Vegas 51s were playing baseball, Legs bounded onto the stage in the echoing last notes of one of the interchangeable rock anthems he abhorred. Taking the microphone, he said, "Thank you. Thank you. And now, a special surprise performance."The strains of "The March of the Wooden Soldiers" started to play over the loudspeakers and Ava high-stepped out of the dugout, followed by the five costumed ostriches. As they reached the center of the field, the birds began a strange dance around the woman. Watching her gorgeous gams move in time to the music, Legs almost forgot to edge his way toward the home team's dugout, where he could make good his escape.
The crowd, at first stu
But he was rooted to the ground. With enormous effort, he moved one foot, then the other.
Legs moved faster now. He reached the steps off the field and took the Baggie out of his pocket. It stuck to his fingers. Legs peeled it off his hand, along with a layer of skin. "Thank you, Nattee-Tohaquetta," he said.
He looked at his troop. Something was amiss. Ava twirled and pointed at a set of box seats behind home plate. He recognized several prominent senators from nearby states standing there, all of whom were staunchly opposed to the use of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear storage facility.
That was when the ostriches abandoned the dance Legs had taught them and ran head-on in a vicious assault. Blood and brains flew into the crowd, raining onto the first few rows.
In his ear, he heard Uncle Willie's voice, clearer than the screams and the music. "I told you not to screw with my spirit guide, nephew."
From the middle of the carnage an ostrich, its red-and-white costume smeared with gore, came charging toward Legs. "It's still my guide," Willie's voice said. "Throw me away and it'll come to me."
An Indian war cry rose above the sounds of death and Legs was shocked to realize it came from his own throat. He flung the ashes into the path of the oncoming bird. It grabbed the Baggie from the air in its beak, stopped and whipped around, showering Willie onto the ground, on top of the peanut shells and popcorn and political flyers.
Legs turned to run and never looked back.