The guitars were on board, Reno's sax and Buckaroo's Fender safely stowed, Pecos' drums carefully encased. Slow Freddie the driver had been wakened from his snooze and Perfect Tommy had been confined to his usual quota of two female guests on the ride home. Rawhide took a quick look around the dressing room. Something was tugging at his memory-- onstage? in a closet? What was getting left behind?

"C'mon, bus is pulling out," yelled Reno. "Whose truck?"

Rawhide sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. The truck. Clyde Von Drake, who'd brought it down, was in no fit state to drive it home.

"I got it," he yelled back. He had the only complete set of keys on the place. He could order some hapless Blaze to leave the onboard party, but the youngsters were having so much fun... it was their first night out after some very stiff training. Let 'em go.

"Y'all go on home," he yelled down the hall. "I'll bring the truck."

"OK, see ya," Reno yelled back.

Rawhide compressed his lips. He disliked being separated from Buckaroo Banzai, but with the whole rest of the band on the bus and his Go-Phone in good working order, Buckaroo was as safe as he could be outside the Institute's walls.

Outdoors, the bus's engine roared and Rawhide heard the crash of gears (synchromesh on that thing doesn't have long to go, he made a mental note). He dug a hand into his jacket and pulled out the keys to the Institute's twenty cars and trucks. Let's see, Clyde was driving Hollywood's greenhouse van...

But somehow, he didn't feel like driving the van home just yet. There in the middle of the detritus in the dressing room was a can of Bud he knew he hadn't finished. He looked at it pensively for several seconds, then crossed to the couch, picked up the Bud, and drained it. It tasted OK. His eye travelled further, and found another Bud. He swallowed what was left. And then there was Reno's half-finished Old Fashioned, a little runny with the ice all melted, but what the hell. He took a deep breath and spotted Pinky's Southern Comfort, also with an inch or two to go. He took care of that. And over there by the mirror, somebody had left a whole lot of J&B. Somebody, hell. If it was by the mirror, it was Tommy's. Just like that kid to take the bloom off a bottle and abandon it. Damn crime, was all it was.

Rawhide rectified the bassist's wrong, rising (just a trifle awkwardly, he was interested to note) and retrieving the Scotch. He plopped back down on the sofa and began to give it serious attention. It was so quiet here... back at the house, Buckaroo and the guys and that huge pack of interns and Blazes would party all night. All he had to do was drive the truck back... why didn't he feel like it? He took a meditative pull on the Scotch, and laughed at himself. He was getting pie-eye high-schooled here backstage at Artie's, suffering premature melancholia for no reason he could figure. Piss on it. Shoot the piano player...

He swallowed another inch or two of Scotch. Used to be, late nights at the Institute were a regular drinkin' and singin' affair. They'd come to Artie's with a couple guitars and Peggy's translucent soprano and sing for ten percent of what that sharkskinned cheapskate had to pay them now... Damn, those had been nice days. And in the earliest days of all, before the Institute had been much more than a paper think tank and a lease on ten acres they didn't know how they'd make the next payment on, in the really hungry days... why think about it. He wasn't a married man anymore, and the Institute had its own cyclotron now.

Rawhide took another pull on the J&B. Hunh, the bottom was showing already. Better save a little. He sniffed, rubbed his nose. Music, that's what was wanted here. He pulled out his harmonica and started in on 'Red River Valley' and a few odd chords, a little mournful lonesome-train music.

"That's nice," said a soft voice.

Rawhide opened his eyes and looked around. "Oh go on, please," said the voice. It belonged to a small, plumpish woman with rich dark brown curls. It was a familiar face in fact, one that turned up a lot in the crowd at Artie's. Rawhide's memory, slowed but operative, added that he'd classified her in the non-menacing category long ago. He took a slow breath and smiled at her. "Okay."

He went back to the harmonica, pulling out phrases of the first songs he'd ever learned, old cowboy tunes and Hank Williams songs and bits of Louisiana blues his daddy's ranch hands had known. This time he kept his eyes open, though, watching as the woman crossed to a wooden chair and sat down to listen. Even through the haze of J&B and his other recent beverages, he realized what kind of attention was fixed on him. It was a kind that was generally devoted to Buckaroo and Perfect Tommy, which had always been fine with him, because he mostly didn't care for casual transactions of that sort. On the other hand, this woman was sitting a good ten feet away from him, so maybe he was wrong.

Either way, he was being a poor host. "Want a drink?" He offered the bottle of J&B. He'd made serious inroads, but there was definitely a drop or two left.

"Well... sure." The woman left her chair and came to the sofa. She took the bottle and looked around for a glass, realized there wasn't one, looked at him, and abruptly took a swig straight from the bottle. It was perfectly obvious she didn't have much practice drinking that way, and Rawhide laughed a little.

The woman cringed back, embarrassed. Much too embarrassed. Rawhide smiled at her again, and waved a hand sweepingly. "C'mon, sit down." He took the Scotch back from her and took a slug to show her that he could be at least as sloppy with a bottle as she was. He sure was enjoying the hot burn down his throat, not to mention a sort of comfortably padded feeling all over his body and the nice glowy warmth on the skin of his face.

The woman settled into the corner of the sofa opposite him--protecting her back, Rawhide thought with amusement. "What's your name?" he asked, adding "I'm Rawhide" as an afterthought.

The woman laughed at some private joke. "Yeah, I know," she said. "I'm Maureen."

"Mau-reen," he said emphatically. "Good Irish name. Have some more, Maureen."

She leaned forward to take the bottle from him, ducking her head shyly. She was somewhere in the area of the end of youth and young middle age, and she had terrible skin, he noticed. And a bit of a doublechin. He never could understand how people could let themselves go like that...

The lights went out. There was a splashing sound as Maureen bobbled the bottle at the other end of the couch and a scrape as his own bootheels hit the floor as he reflexively stood up. A split second later, reason, as much of it as was left to him at the moment, set in.

"Hey! Lights!" he shouted.

The lights came on again. Maureen, still gripping the bottle, was standing up, too.

They heard footsteps and the scrawny form of Artie Kosinski came into view, wearing a banana-colored coat with a purple tie. He missed a step as he caught sight of Rawhide's drawn revolver, which reminded Rawhide that he ought to re-holster it. "What're you doing here?" Artie asked unpleasantly.

Rawhide grinned slowly. He didn't like unpleasant people even cold sober, and Artie had been unpleasant to Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers for an even dozen years now. True, a lot of it was for show these days, and Artie probably had a grudging fondness for the band that had made him so much money-- but if so, he had never expressed it to Rawhide and it didn't have to be taken into account at this moment. And what made the moment truly sweet was that Artie had been afraid of Rawhide for no reason whatsoever since all the way back in 1974.

Rawhide took a heavy-footed step forward. Artie took a step back. "We'd like another bottle," Rawhide said, still wearing his wide grin. There was absolutely no reason for Artie to find that grin menacing, but Rawhide knew that Artie would anyway. Tonight, Rawhide was feeling just irresponsible enough to fail to relieve Artie of his fears. He looked over at Maureen, who had no way to understand what was going on, and winked at her. Intelligence flashed in her eyes, and she responded with a smile of wicked enjoyment.

Sure enough, Artie came up with another bottle of J&B. Rawhide broke the seal and took a long swallow as Artie stood and watched. He handed the bottle to Maureen, who took a small swallow of her own. He was glad she was bright enough to tumble to the joke, and she did have a nice, funny smile. He grinned at her again. Artie glowered.

"You can go ahead and kill the lights," Rawhide told Artie with a smile of serene dismissal. The cabaret owner huffed but didn't dare put his suspicion that he was being bluffed to the test. He left.

Rawhide reached over to put a hand on Maureen's shoulder. It tensed, but she let him steer her back to the couch. He took the J&B bottle back, swallowed another golden inch of Scotch, and sat down. He smiled at her. "Now where were we?" Out came the harmonica, and he picked up a sweet, slow tune. That kind of shyness mixed with desire... it was almost touching. She was sitting in the middle of the sofa, gradually relaxing, as the lights went off, and Rawhide kept playing low, coaxing melodies for a good while afterward.

~~~

The alarm on his watch went off punctually at five-thirty. Rawhide came to full wakefulness for a split second, just long enough to notice that he was lying on his back stretched out on a very scratchy old sofa, and that a woman was stretched out more or less on top of him. He managed to bring his hands together over the woman's back and shut down the alarm. It was time to get up and feed the stock... he was already sinking into drowsiness again. Maureen. Okay, Maureen, and she'd been hesitant and shy and underneath that, unbelievably open. Rawhide yawned and forced himself up toward wakefulness, even though he realized that a significant hangover was waiting there for him. Maureen, and she'd said...

Maureen stirred, woke, and lifted her head. The ends of her glossy brown curls tangled with the mat of fine blondish-red hairs on his chest. She smiled at him blearily. "Is it morning?"

"Mmm-hmm." It seemed the best answer. He shifted experimentally. She took the hint, sliding off, finding her balance and standing up next to the sofa. Rawhide stood up, and the woman called Maureen immediately sat down in the space he'd vacated. She leaned into a corner of the sofa and was asleep again by the time Rawhide turned back around, tucking his shirt in and pulling his belt through the loops of his jeans.

Rawhide leaned over and touched her shoulder. "Maureen." No response. "Maureen." He shook the shoulder lightly, but the woman was deep in sleep.

The piano player made a small grunting sound and gave up. Reaching behind him, he picked up the sleeper's coat and draped it over her, then scratched his head, puzzled about the best way to handle this. He had to go, but it wasn't right to just leave her to wake up alone. He rummaged around the still untidy dressing room until he found an unused paper towel, and scribbled "Maureen-- I have to go feed the horses." Well, that was truthful. What else? Certainly not "thank you"; that would be excessively cold. Not "see you soon"; that was an invitation he truthfully had no desire to extend. The more he thought about it, the more the etiquette of the situation eluded him. He finally just wrote, "Rawhide," but it didn't seem like enough. Underneath the flinching, shy demeanor, this lady had turned out to be very warm-- how could he avoid insulting her? "I couldn't get you to wake up," he wrote finally, unable to come up with anything more tactful than the truth. It still seemed insufficient. After looking at the note for a long minute, Rawhide pulled out his wallet and opened it to a credit card window that housed a pressed violet. He shook the flower onto the paper towel and folded the towel carefully around it.

He wrote "Maureen" on the outside surface of the towel and left it balanced on her purse on the way out. Clyde Von Drake's truck fired after a little coaxing (better get the battery charged on this one), and he was soon on the road to New Brunswick.

~~~

Rawhide spent the entire morning in the barn. Slinging around bales of hay was a fairly decent hangover remedy, and the quiet and dimness and pleasant smell of horses were just about perfect for the way he felt. He checked in with the desk to see if there was any urgent business and then devoted the morning to mucking stalls, oiling and polishing tack, and mending the odd latch or hinge that had come loose.

The barn's phone extension buzzed slightly after eleven a.m. It was the front gate. "There's a visitor called Maureen Buchanan who'd like to see you personally. Sorry, she says no one else can help her."

Rawhide sighed, but he was never a man to shirk consequences. "Send her up."

"Is she cleared?"

Whoa, he should've thought of that himself. This hangover must be worse than he'd thought. "No, use an escort." Because of the Institute's many top-secret projects, not to mention its unique need for security from attack from Hanoi Xan, it had its own security-clearance system. Only people who were cleared by Reno and Billy's teams were allowed to roam the grounds without at least one Blue Blaze or apprentice in attendance. As in so many of its endeavors, the Institute's concept of what made a person a worthwhile risk differed from the outside world's, and Buckaroo had personally cleared several former felons. Still, Rawhide had never heard of Maureen Buchanan, and he would have known the name if she held Institute clearance.

The lady herself and her accompanying apprentice arrived within ten minutes. Mentally renewing his longstanding appraisal of his night's companion as non-menacing, Rawhide dismissed the apprentice. It was a real safe bet he wouldn't want any other ears around when this lady said whatever was on her mind.

And she did bear the appearance of a woman with something on her mind. The nervous agitation of the night before was back full force in Maureen's demeanor, and she was once again looking at Rawhide with an expression of mixed anxiety and desire.

"Uh, hi," she said in a strangled voice. Her eyes jumped up to his face, then down to the barn floor, and then up again, but only momentarily. Rawhide began to wonder if she had come to press for a lasting relationship. Or maybe money, though his impression of her was that she wasn't the sort to come up with a hard luck story after the fact.

"Good morning," he returned easily.

She nodded, but didn't seem to have any words handy.

"Looks like you could use some coffee," Rawhide said. The tack room had a Mr. Coffee in it that Rawhide had already availed himself of this morning. He got generous cupfuls for both of them, went back out, gave a cup to Maureen Buchanan, and settled onto a bale of hay. She picked out a bale some fifteen feet away and also sat down.

The woman sipped at the scalding brew with lowered eyes; a silence stretched out. Rawhide decided to break it.

"How ya feelin'?"

Maureen smiled tensely. "It's lucky for me today's not a work day. I'm sorry, I guess I'm not very good at drinking."

Rawhide smiled. "That's nothing to be sorry for." Another silence fell. Rawhide finished his coffee and scratched the back of his neck, waiting.

Maureen Buchanan finished her coffee with a gulp. Her eyes met his for a second, then dropped to his boots.

"Um... why I came..." She dug into her purse, spilling a driver's license, lipstick case, and several pens into the straw before finding what she wanted. Rawhide recognized the brown square of paper towel; she took it out and unfolded it. The dried violet slid into her hand. She held it out on her palm.

"I thought I should give this back to you."

Rawhide's eyebrows flickered together in a moment of perplexity. "You don't have to do that."

"Oh, but I want to." There was a curious eagerness in her tone. "You should have it." She pressed her lips together, then pushed the next sentence out. "You see, I know where you got it originally."

Rawhide's eyes snapped onto her face. He swallowed hard. He was angry enough to explode and it showed.

The outstretched hand was shaking now, and Maureen let it fall back onto her lap. Her voice quavered, but she forced herself to continue, even to meet the weight of his stare. "You remember that I said I love you... last night?"

"Mmm-hmm." There was a little bit of relenting in his tone, but he still held her pinned with his eyes. She drew a deep breath.

"It's true," she said desperately. "It's been true forever. I've read everything ever written about you; I've got all the records; I've got so many photos of you..." Her face puckered, but she didn't cry. "And I know you got divorced a long time ago, and I know that Big Norse is teaching at MIT this semester..." She closed her eyes; her voice dropped until it was nearly inaudible. "Don't you remember, ages ago-- you told Marnie McBride of Rolling Stone about this flower..."

Her sentence trailed off despairingly. How could she tell this man about all the conflicting emotions she'd felt that morning, waking up hungover, realizing that she'd lived out a version of her dreams, realizing that he was gone, and finding the note with that blossom carefully folded inside? Ten years ago, before Rawhide had quit giving interviews, a friendly girl had noticed the flower stored in a window of his wallet, cooing, "oh, isn't that pretty!" Lulled and sweetly reminiscing, Rawhide had smiled and said truthfully that his former wife had picked it for him at a particularly lovely moment. It hadn't occurred to him that since the friendly girl was a reporter, she wouldn't hesitate to publish his most intimate memories.

Maureen Buchanan had always loved the idea of Rawhide carrying the pressed flower around with him in his wallet, cherished that one tiny verbal assurance of the emotional inner life of the laconic piano player. You could hear it in his music, but that story really confirmed it, made her certain of the depths behind the firm, impersonal look he always gave to cameras.

The anger was dying out of Rawhide's eyes, but Maureen couldn't see that. Her eyes were fixed miserably on the stable floor at her feet, and her head was down.

Rawhide exhaled heavily and moved to sit next to the distressed woman. "Maureen," he said quietly. She refused to look up. He stretched out his right hand to touch hers. She was still holding the flower, fingers curled protectively over her palm.

"Here, let me have it." Soundlessly, the woman turned her hand over and dropped the flower onto his palm. Rawhide stood up and used his left hand to pull out his wallet. Sitting down, he opened the wallet and put the flower back where it had been for so many years.

"It'll mean even more to me now," he said gently. "Because now it also comes from you."

That did it. Maureen's head came up and tears started in her eyes. "I couldn't believe that you really gave it to me," she said. "No, no, I don't mean that," she added hastily, as Rawhide reopened the wallet. "I mean this morning, when I found it, it was so amazing... but I really thought you should have it."

There was a good deal of warmth in Rawhide's voice.

"I'm glad it was you I gave it to."

Maureen shook her head, making an inarticulate sound of disbelief or pleasure or wonder. "I always watch at the stage door... you know, until you go? And last night I thought maybe I'd missed you, and then I heard the harmonica... I can't believe I finally met you."

Rawhide couldn't help it; he laughed out loud. "We did a little bit more than meet."

Maureen ducked her head and blushed, but also managed to smile back.

Rawhide's expression grew more serious and his drawled words came quietly. "I was very happy to have your company last night. I kinda had the blues before you came along."

Maureen frowned in confusion. "How come?"

It was Rawhide's turn to shake his head. "I dunno. I still don't know. I quit thinkin' about it 'cause I had you to play for."

A silence fell once again, but it was a comfortable, friendly silence that neither of them needed to break. Rawhide, who scarcely ever gave confidences to his friends, didn't mind the extent to which he'd shared his feelings with this woman who was still almost a stranger; and Maureen, who'd dreamed for years of becoming an intimate part of this man's life, didn't mind her sure sense that she'd just been given as much as she would ever have of Rawhide's heart.

In the end, it was Maureen who shook off their shared mood. "I better go," she said, rising. "You've got work, and I've got errands and stuff to do."

Rawhide nodded. "I'll walk you down."

They ambled down the hill companionably, lost in their separate thoughts. Rawhide was turning over what she'd told him-- all those years of devotion, and she'd never once approached him.

He was acquainted with this psychopathology from textbooks; it was close kin to the Valentino and James Dean fans who never married, or the thousands who converged on Memphis every year on the anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, but this was his own first experience of such a thing. The depth of her feelings had overwhelmed him; even through the alcoholic blur he'd been immersed in a perception of being loved that from her very first touch had dissolved the odd isolation he'd been feeling. This woman's emotions were a far cry from the adolescent outbursts that came in fan mail or the predatory sexuality of the young women who found their way backstage. But in the end... it was time for her to go home. What could he do for her?

The gate had come into view when it occurred to him what he might say. "Maureen, you ever thought of becomin' a Blue Blaze?"

Maureen emitted a small, painful laugh. "I'm not a scientist or a musician or a doctor or anything. I'm a sales clerk, and I've been a waitress. I mean, I just don't have anything much to offer."

Rawhide's sudden grip on her shoulder stopped her cold and spun her half around.

"Never say that! Everyone has something to offer. And it's your responsibility to find out what. If you don't want to be a Blaze, that's one thing. But if you're tellin' yourself that you're not good enough..." The intensity of his eyes held her transfixed. "Listen. I want you to spend some of that love you offered me on yourself."

Maureen gulped and nodded mutely. His eyes seemed to be running into her nervous system like a jolt of blue lightning.

Rawhide let go of her shoulder, feeling uncharacteristically self-conscious. That kind of speech was more in Buckaroo's line... Well, okay. It was what Buckaroo would have said, and he would have thought Buckaroo was right to say it.

They reached the gate without any further talk. Maureen held out her hand. "I hope we meet again someday," she said. The shyness was back in her voice, but without the self-deprecating anxiety.

Rawhide regarded the outstretched hand impassively for a long second, then pulled out his wallet and shook the pressed violet onto Maureen's palm. She stared at it uncomprehendingly.

Rawhide nodded at the flower. "You give that back to me at the Mountaineering Camp next summer."

"I will," Maureen breathed. Her face had a wide-eyed expression that was strangely girlish for a woman who might be pushing forty. Maybe it was the look of a discovery she'd made this morning, a little belatedly, but better late than never. And maybe a little Blue Blaze discipline would help her get her life in gear.

"'N, uh, drop by backstage at Artie's sometime. I'll introduce you to Buckaroo." As far as Rawhide was concerned, that was the very best gift he had to offer.

"I will," Maureen Buchanan repeated emphatically.

Rawhide nodded with casual friendliness. "See ya then."

"Goodbye," Maureen said. As Rawhide turned and headed back up the hill, she turned her attention to tucking the pressed violet away somewhere safe.

Rawhide was thinking that he'd said an awful lot of things that were absolutely none of his business. All things considered, he was going to be pretty happy when Big Norse got home next month. Still, he was real fond of that flower, and he thought he stood a decent chance of getting it back.

~~~

...a phalanx of gifted and altruistic graduate students who were more interested in wisdom than in sheepskins. Many of these young new arrivals, putting up in inexpensive hostelries throughout northern New Jersey, were caught in the cross-fire of the misconceptions fomented by the working press. These neophyte biochemists, molecular geneticists, particle physicists and abstract mathematicians found themselves, to their deep bewilderment, being interviewed as arriving foreign musicians, and daily attempted to explain, in the dozens of their native languages, that their expertise was in splitting atoms, not spinning platters; gluons, not guitars.

And then of course there was the young radioastronomer from Kenya, whose avowed expertise in solar harmonics was misconstrued by a well-intentioned member of the Fourth Estate as signifying that he blew a mean harp. The subsequent success of Nairobi Slim with blues organizations around the United States and in Paris is well-documented, providing one of the best as well as earliest examples of B. Banzai's observation that the Banzai Institute is a place where, more commonly than not, Fate takes a hand.

excerpt from Fate Took A Hand, Reno Nevada, Granite Press (1976)

reprinted by permission

~ 30 ~