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  As I approached it, he yelled out, “Duck!”

  I ducked just in time because there wasn’t enough head clearance at the barn entrance for someone actually riding a horse. The horse ran into the barn, suddenly slowed down and made a right hand turn into his stall with me still bent over and holding onto the pommel of the saddle. He then proceeded to calmly eat hay from the hay rack in his stall. It was his reward for a job well done.

  As I’ve said before many times, “I’d rather be lucky than dead.”

  Well, this was one of those occasions that made me feel this way. I was lucky the stable boy was outside as I came in. If the stable boy hadn’t been out front and yelled, “Duck!” I would have smashed my head against the wall over the barn entrance and would have either been decapitated or had my head smashed like a pumpkin and been dead in either case. So once again, I had been lucky rather than dead. And I haven’t ridden a horse since or agreed to go horseback riding with any date either.

  So here I was, ready to get on a horse again and trying not to look like I was worried. Now Anya didn’t go up and kiss her horse’s nose or anything. She just hopped right on its back. I tried to do the same thing. I was told only to mount from the left side. Since there wasn’t a mounting block, I noticed that everyone walked up to the horse, held the reins in their left hand, put their left foot in the stirrup and swung their right leg over the horse’s back. No problem.

  But for me there was a problem. I picked up the reins in my left hand, but when I got ready to put my left foot in the stirrup, I couldn’t move it. It seems as soon as I picked up the reins, the horse stepped sideways and put its left front hoof on my foot. It didn’t press down hard enough to really hurt me. It just stood there with enough weight on my foot to keep me from moving it. And then the damn horse reached around and nipped me on my left buttock which was exposed to it, and which I couldn’t move away. I shooed the horse’s head away and tried to push it away so that it would get off of my foot, which I managed to do. However, when I tried to do it again, the horse stepped on my foot again, so I knew the first time was no accident.

  By this time, everyone else was mounted and looking at me just standing there trying to keep from being nipped on my butt again. Anya giggled, which didn’t make me feel so good, and the others just smiled and tried not to laugh. The horses had been supplied by a man named Billy who brought them in a big stock trailer, one horse for each of us including the guide of course, which meant six horses total. Jack and Jill only ran the lodge. They didn’t do any hunting, although Jack would help us butcher any pigs when we got back, providing we killed any.

  Billy looked at the situation and said, “Old She Devil (that was her name, She Devil, I wonder why) knows when she’s got a dude rider. She really is a good horse and has very comfortable gaits, but I guess we’d better switch.”

  Billy then came over and took old She Devil and gave me his horse instead. I mounted without a problem and tried not to put too much weight on my left buttock, while Billy just mounted easily on old She Devil who did nothing but stand there until he did. I may have been wrong, but she seemed to me to look almighty pleased with herself. We then headed out to look for wild pigs. We walked along sometimes single file and sometimes two or three abreast. Billy stayed close to me. I was the meal ticket, and he wanted to make sure I had no more trouble.

  He also decided to tell me a little about horses since it was obvious I knew nothing about them. He didn’t tell me anything about horse language, but he decided to educate me about the horse’s gaits. He said we would use one of the three basic gaits which were the walk, the jog and maybe the lope. I immediately knew something was wrong, because I had been told that the three basic gaits were the walk, the trot and the canter when I had rented that horse with my date back in Massachusetts. He then said that we would spend most of our time either walking or jogging and showed me how to sit in the saddle and try to move with the motion of the horse when it jogged. Well the jog looked suspiciously like the trot, so I wondered who was correct, or if Eastern horses, like Eastern people, just had to have a different name for things because they were snootier.

  And it made more sense to me to call that gait a jog, because it joggled you as you rode along. By that I mean you really got bounced around. I think a better name for the gait, or maybe the real name it used to be called was a joggle, and they just shortened it over time to a jog. An even better name for it might be a jiggle, because it really did jiggle you too. In fact it was more of a jiggle than a joggle. But jig is short for jiggle, and the jig is a kind of a dance, and there is no way the horse could be accused of dancing as it moved along. So that’s probably why they called it a joggle and shortened it to a jog. Anyway, the jiggle joggle is not too fast of a gait, and I did get used to it over time and became a pretty good jiggle joggler or joggle jiggler, whichever you want to call it. Thank God I never had to lope the entire trip.

  I asked Billy why we had to mount on the left side. He said it was mainly tradition, but he thought it started when people, who are mainly right-handed, wore swords. If you are right-handed then the sword would be kept in a scabbard on your left hip. To keep it out of the way while you mounted, you needed to mount from the left side. If you tried to get on the right side, that sword and scabbard would likely end up somewhere unpleasant, like between your legs, as you swung your left leg across the horse’s back. It made sense to me and may have been the reason, but then why didn’t left handed people mount on the right side, if that were the case. If they wanted to mount on the left side to be safe, left handed swordsmen had better put their right foot in the stirrup and swing their left leg over. But then they would be facing backwards when they got in the saddle. Well, maybe they were destined to be the rear guard. Maybe all the rear guard consisted of left-handers in the days when people wore swords. Probably not, huh? Someone would have noticed and written something about all the rear guards riding their horses backwards, so it probably isn’t so.

  Chapter 19

  We left early in the morning and got to an area where there were supposed to be a lot of wild pigs and there were. It was a very successful hunt and we did kill a bunch of pigs and Anya got her share and was very satisfied. I won’t tell you how many we killed altogether because I don’t want PETA to come after me. I am probably already on their naughty list from what they may have read in my first book. I’m sure they don’t care how many people I’ve killed, but I’m sure they are angry at all the cuddly wuddly buzzards I dispatched with the help of Raffy and Wyatt.

  We packed two of the smaller pigs back to the lodge where Jack and Jill had the necessary butchering tools that included skinning knives, various butcher knives including a large saw toothed one, a hack saw and even a machete. All were used. They hung both carcasses up on a rack after decapitating the pigs. Anya wanted to do one of them to see how much of her old skill she had retained and Jack did the other. I had to stand upwind in the beginning when they disemboweled them, but then I got closer and everyone was surprised and impressed with how quickly and efficiently Anya did hers.

  We really enjoyed that meal. There is something satisfying about eating what you kill on a hunt. Jack said he would package the remainder of what we didn’t cook, and Jill would take it to a place that distributed food to the poor. We went out the next day and did it all again, but we took it easier because we had all been so successful the first day. The second day was more like a party than a hunt although we did get a few and brought two more of the smaller ones back for a repeat barbecue. We left early the next day after saying goodbye to our guide, Jack, Jill and Billy as well as Raffy and Wyatt and went to meet Ben and Edy in Las Vegas. It was a straight shot down I-15 after we left Mesquite, and we managed to get there around noon. We called ahead to let Ben and Edy know we could meet them for a late lunch. They said, “No problem,” and that they would get a snack to tide them over.

  I was really impressed by the location that Ben and Edy had chosen in Las Vegas. It ha
d both a Häagen-Dazs and Baskin Robbins next to it and was not far from the airport. We checked into the same hotel. At check in, the receptionist immediately told us where the hotel casino was located and we paid close attention because we knew from our previous trip to Las Vegas that that was the one place in the hotel that we wanted to avoid. Not because we were afraid of losing money, but because we were afraid of winning money. We have plenty of money and don’t really need more, and the last time we were in Las Vegas we were unlucky enough to be lucky and win a lot of money we didn’t need or want.

  If you win a lot of money, you need to give the casino your social security number so they can report your winnings to the IRS which I couldn’t do for my own personal social security, so to speak. We tried to give the money away and that caused such a riot that we were lucky to get away from the crowd demanding free money with our lives. It is curious that when you are in the habit of giving people free money without their having to do something for it, they just keep demanding more and more and have no shame about demanding it either, even though they don’t really deserve it. The Federal Government has done a good job of doling out free money to a lot of people and conditioning the American population to think it’s all right to demand money for nothing. It has now become an American right, and some people even think it is part of our Bill of Rights. And they proved to us in Las Vegas that they would even try to kill you to get that free money. I actually sympathize a little with that attitude. After all, I did kill to get mine.

  After we checked into the hotel, we contacted Ben and Edy and arranged to meet them in the hotel cafeteria for a late lunch. They told us that they had not learned too much new from looking at Kentson’s belongings. One curious fact was that there were two Dongs listed in his cell phone. There was a Dong in Cleveland, as expected, but there was also a Dong in San Francisco. The Dong in Cleveland was a number associated with Case Western Reserve and the other was a cell phone number.

  The CIA checked out the Dong in San Francisco and the number was registered to a Dingh Dong. Dingh Dong was a spice merchant and also owned a Chinese restaurant. They didn’t know Dingh Dong’s relationship to Rhong Dong, but they suspected they were relatives. They didn’t want to alert Dingh Dong to the fact that he might now be under suspicion, so they decided to keep him under surveillance surreptitiously. They thought it would best to leave him alone, knowing that he was probably involved with Al Qaeda in the San Francisco Peninsula, and that keeping him under surveillance would give them a handle on what might be going on there. I made a note to try and inquire about Dingh Dong when I met Rhong Dong, if I had the chance to do so without arousing suspicion, and find out if the name Dingh Dong rang a bell with him.

  After we met with Ben and Edy, we went back to our room and I put in a call to Rhong Dong at the number they had given me for his office at Case Western Reserve to see if I could set up a meeting with him. The phone was picked up on the second ring and the voice that answered had a Chinese accent.

  It said, “This Long Dong.”

  I said, “Excuse me. I must have the wrong number. I’m looking for Rhong Dong.”

  The voice sounded exasperated and repeated, “This Long Dong.”

  I said, “Sorry. Wrong Dong,” and hung up. I made a note to have Ben and Edy check with their sources to make sure I had the right number.

  Anya and I both took showers and used the opportunity of having a nice hotel room with a king size bed to do what people often do when confronted with a nice hotel room, especially after spending three nights in a rustic lodge. Yes, we took the opportunity to take a nap as you might have presumed, but only after. And then after the nap there was another “after.” As I considered the “after” part, I thought that, just like in a fairy tale, Anya and I were living happily ever “after,” although I know that we both feel like the “during” is a lot more fun than the “after.” I wonder if the happily ever after in fairy tales is really the happily ever after we were engaged in.

  We joined Ben and Edy in the lobby. They suggested we go to a Chinese restaurant. I imagine all the talk about Chinese Dongs subconsciously made them think of having Chinese food and there was one nearby, a Chinese restaurant that is and not a Chinese Dong, in case that wasn’t clear. Importantly it wasn’t one that was named a Taste of China since I stay away from those that don’t specify what kind of taste you are getting, and I often leave those kinds of restaurants with a bad taste in my mouth as a result. Something with dragon in its name is usually good, and I would have preferred something like the Red Dragon, but the Dragon Lady didn’t sound too bad and only a little sinister.

  After we each had chosen an entrée, the Chinese waitress (and it was nice having a Chinese waitress for authenticity rather than a Hispanic waitress as is often the case) asked us if we would like an order of fried rice to go with the dishes we had ordered, but she actually pronounced it “flied lice.” And then it hit me. I had been talking with the right Dong after all that afternoon. It was not the wrong Long Dong, but the right Rhong Dong that had picked up the phone and said, “This Long Dong.” Like a lot of Chinese, he had trouble pronouncing his Rs and they came out sounding like Ls. So another mystery solved, and I decided I would try the number again when I got back to the room. I did, but he was gone for the day of course, and I got a recording in which a woman’s voice asked me to please leave a message for Dr. Rhong Dong. So I was right and I had talked to the right Rhong Dong and not the wrong Long Dong as I had thought. I now felt positive about the trip to Cleveland since I would finally be meeting the right Rhong Dong, and I would no longer have to deal with any more wrong Rhong Dongs.

  Chapter 20

  The next morning we drove to the airport and turned in the rentals and flew to Cleveland. We rented another SUV at the airport and checked into a motel outside of town. Ben and Edy got a room on either side of us. The reason I wanted to stay outside of town was because I had called and arranged to meet an old fraternity de-brother of mine who lived in Cleveland and who I hadn’t seen in several years. He lived not far from the motel that I had chosen for its proximity to him. The reason I call him a fraternity de-brother was because the fraternity had de-brothered him for being a slob, that is they had taken away his right to be a fraternity brother, but he was still my friend even though I had not lost my brotherhood, if that’s what you call it.

  I arranged to meet him and his fiancée for dinner that night so that he could meet Anya, and I could meet his fiancée. Neither of the women had met before since I had met and married Anya after I had last visited him, and Tommy had met Tammy in that interval as well. We did have a good time and something very important to me happened that night during dinner. I asked Tommy about his dog Muffy, who I was very fond of even though I hadn’t spent that much time with her. Muffy was an improbable looking dog. Her body looked like a half sized golden retriever, but her head looked exactly like a beagle’s head, but it was covered with the same golden fur as a golden retriever. As I said, she was an improbable looking dog, but she was very smart. Too smart for Tommy I had always thought. I had told Anya about Muffy so she was not at all surprised that I asked about Muffy first thing after the introductions and the congratulations about Tommy’s and my respective changes in relinquishing our respective singleness or singlehoods or whatever the correct term is.

  In answer to my question, Tommy said sadly,

  “I guess I’m going to have to give her away. Tammy is allergic to long-haired dogs and she erupts in a fit of sneezes whenever she visits my apartment. I am really unhappy about it because Muffy’s almost five years old and they usually put dogs that age to sleep if you turn them over to the animal rescue people and no one wants to adopt them. I haven’t been able to find anyone to take her, and I don’t think she’ll be adopted, but I can’t keep her either and I’m in a real bind.”

  I looked over inquiringly at Anya, and she just nodded back. I didn’t have to ask out loud. We are very much in tune with each other that way.
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br />   So I said to Tommy, “I’ll be happy to take her, if you’re serious about giving her up.”

  “Really. That’d be great,” he said. “It would be a real relief to me if she went to someone I know. When do you want to take her?”

  “How about right after dinner? We’re only here on business for a day or so, and then we have to get back. It would be easiest if we could get her tonight.”

  Tommy reluctantly agreed to have her leave that night. The rest of the meal was a really happy occasion. We had solved a problem for Tommy and I was really fond of Muffy. She and I had made an instant connection on my last visit to Tommy, and I knew that dog was destined to become an important part of Anya’s and my life, which turned out to be the case. We went back to Tommy’s apartment which had not changed since my last visit. It was still a real pigsty. It had dog hair ankle deep on the floor, and Tammy sneezed as soon as she got inside and had to leave and wait for us outside.