Except it took them too damn long to find the tobacco pouch. He was figuring they'd come running after him before he'd gotten more than a mile away.
Then somehow Seth had gotten wind of it, and decided that he just had to have Tommy's tobacco pouch. Tommy was trying to figure out why the hell Seth would have even the faintest interest in stopping them. Tommy knew exactly what would happen if Seth did get his tobacco pouch before Hep returned it.
Tommy had forgotten that Seth was primarily motivated by total chaos.
Seth, or more accurately, Seth's hired help, chased him around the country. He honestly wanted to meet up with Hep and get his damn pouch back, but somehow there was always a red-shirted scooterist waiting for him, or someone fouler, whenever he stopped. He'd tried to back track once, and wound up trying to evade a gang of 40 scooterists, which is harder than it sounds (at least until he could get onto a freeway and really get moving).
At one point, he'd even had to fight a Paul Bunyan statue, which thoroughly weirded him out and left him in a rotten mood for a couple days. He might have been in trouble, seeing as he was unarmed and much smaller than the statue, but it somehow managed to trip over its own feet and fall into a ravine. Then a tree fell on it. And caught fire. The whole thing was kind of odd.
Right now, he was sitting in a bar in New Mexico. The bar was pumping it's music so loud the speakers were distorting and he was surrounded by television sets every where he looked. There were plenty of windows, so it wasn't very dark inside, but at least he was able to see who was coming and going. He sat watching the windows and the front door, slowly drinking his beer. He had half of a sandwich that he would take a bite out of now and then. Mainly, he was wondering where the hell he could go next that might shake whoever was following him off his trail for longer than a day.
He decided that he'd head for Albuquerque and pick his next destination from there.
***
Too Tall, Brian, J.J. and the rest of the UTMC crew were stuck wandering around Lafayette. The motel was unpleasant enough that they didn't want to spend any time there during the day. The few that still had bikes had gone out looking for the rest earlier that morning, with no luck. Minerva and Athena spent their time alternately out looking for their bikes, and arguing about whether or not to just take a bus home.All of them were hoping to see some of the guys who had stolen their bikes. Whether they still had them or not was only mildly relevant. Mostly they just wanted to kick their asses again, just on the principle of the thing.
The UTMC and the goddesses met up for lunch at a MacDonald's.
"I think we're going to take a bus home from here," Minvera told them.
"I think you're talking shit again," Athena said. "We never decided any such thing. We're going to find our bikes, beat the hell out of whoever has them, and catch up to Hep and the others."
The UTMCers listened, with varying degrees of patience, as the two argued again about whether or not to go home. Minerva felt that she was an artist, and should be back in the shop instead of out in the middle of nowhere looking to do battle with hicks and unfriendly deities.
Athena, on the other hand, thought that the best reason to stay was to do battle with hicks and unfriendly deities, not to mention helping out their friends. Also, Minerva was a gifted healer, and Athena thought she should stay just in case any one got hurt.
The UTMCers, meanwhile, knew exactly what they were going to do. They were going to find their bikes, and catch up to Hep, Scroat, Charlie and Jim as quickly as they could. They were a little annoyed at the goddesses' bickering.
"Ladies, you need to stay here. We'll all find our bikes and then go find Hep and the rest. Eventually the scooterists, or someone, is going to try and stop them, and at some point they are going to realize they'll have better luck with their ambushes if they start carrying weapons." Too Tall said.
Minerva and Athena stared at Too Tall. Athena looked pissed off, because this guy thought he could tell her what to do. Minerva looked embarrassed, because he'd reminded her (better than Athena could) that Hep and Scroat were in real danger, not to mention the rest of them if Seth somehow interfered with Tommy's myth.
"All right, we'll let's stop hanging around in this shitty burger joint and go find our damn bikes," Minerva said. Athena nodded, approvingly. Most of the UTMC crew were just relieved that the argument had stopped, at least temporarily. To be honest, those two argued a lot, and it was only a matter of time until something else set them off. Too Tall swore it was like watching siblings fight, just to annoy the other.
They left the restaurant, and started looking for their bikes again.
***
Hep, Scroat, Charlie, Dave and Jim were passing through San Antonio. Hep was mildly frustrated, because there's a whole lot of "biggest" things to see in Texas, as well as a huge variety of other odd roadside decoration (apart from the dead armadillos). They were on I10 and Hep was, momentarily, happy to see a muffler man statue. This one was wearing a white cowboy hat and holding what looked like... a lead pipe?The Muffler Man stepped forward and swung the pipe, narrowly missing Hep but hitting Scroat squarely in the chest. Scroat went flying off of his bike and slid along the side of the freeway until he stopped roughly 80 feet away. His bike rolled on, riderless, until it left the road and caught in the loose gravel on the side of the road. It flipped over several times, and came to rest as a mangled, unrideable hunk of still running machinery.
"What the fuck?" Scroat yelled as he got up. "Buddy, you are about to be twenty flavors of dead shit sandwich." He started running at the giant cowboy.
Hep and Dave pulled over and started running back to help Scroat. Hep grabbed his hammer, and Charlie had his shillelagh and an extra baseball bat for Scroat.
Dave started digging through his bag.
Scroat was already busy throwing rocks at the giant cowboy's head, and dodging the swings and kicks the cowboy was throwing at him.
"Too slow to get me again, motherfucker!" Scroat laughed and threw another rock. It hit the cowboy in the ear.
"Dammit," the statue grunted, and swung it's pipe again at Scroat, who dodged it easily.
"Hey, Scroat!" Charlie yelled. "Here, hit him with this." Scroat looked, and Charlie tossed him the baseball bat. Scroat caught it, ran up, and swung the bat at the cowboy's ankle. It broke through the fiberglass easily, leaving a gaping hole in the statue's leg.
"Holy crap!" Scroat exclaimed.
"Dammit!" the statue yelled, and began to limp after Scroat again. Hep and Charlie ran up to the statue. Hep hit it's other ankle with his hammer. It tripped the statue up a bit, but didn't do anywhere near the damage that Scroat had done.
Dave had found what he was looking for, and ran back to where the rest were fighting. Scroat had gotten around to the other side of the cowboy, and hit him in the shin with the bat. Another hole opened up in the statue, and the cowboy bellowed in rage.
"Damn, this is some kind of heavy duty bat," Scroat said. "Hey Charlie, what the hell is this thing?"
"A Louisville Slugger," Charlie said as he banged on the cowboy's left foot with his shillelagh. He wasn't doing anywhere near the damage Scroat did, but it was definitely irritating the giant. He kicked at Charlie and made contact. Charlie went flying into the road, narrowly missing a family of tourists from Nebraska who couldn't believe what they were seeing.
"What is this country coming to? Vile hooligans," the woman in the car said to her husband.
Outside, Dave had gotten back to where Hep and the rest were fighting the cowboy. Dave lifted and took aim with what he'd gotten out of his bag, a black Smith & Wesson .38 Special. He fired six rounds into the cowboy's chest.
The giant cowboy stopped and looked confused for a moment. Right then, Jim appeared in front of his face. "Boo, shithead!" he said.
The cowboy swatted at Jim, but didn't make contact since Jim was a ghost. It was enough to throw the statue off it's balance, and it tumbled to the ground.
Scroat ran up and caved in the back of the giant cowboy's head with the bat. "Shit, I think we might have made twenty-five flavors of dead shit sandwich out of you, buddy. Well, you gotta take pride in what you do well, that's what I always say."
He turned around and looked to where his bike had landed. "Oh fuck!" he yelled. The hot exhaust had caught the grass underneath the bike on fire. The bike was still running.
"Shouldn't that thing have died by now?" Dave asked him.
"Nah, you can't kill that bike, just piss it off now and then." Scroat replied. Of course, for the time being it was a twisted, flaming (though still running) wreck. "So, buddy, are you going to give me a lift, or what?"
"Uh, I guess so," Dave said.
About ten minutes later, a man in a fedora drove past in a Corvette and wondered what the hell had happened to the cowboy statue on the side of the road. It looked like someone drove a bulldozer into it. He also saw Scroat's bike on the side of the road, wrecked. The fire had gone out, and the bike was still running.
"That's crazy," the man muttered to himself. He dug out his cell phone.
Hep, Scroat, Charlie, Dave and Jim rode on to El Paso, and stopped there for the night. Their ride to El Paso was entirely uneventful, and deathly boring. Texas is a big state, and there are huge chunks of long, straight, boring road. They seemed to have found the straightest and least interesting road in the entire country.
As such, they were glad to get to El Paso. They checked into a cruddy little motel and Scroat, Charlie and Dave tried to go to sleep right away. Hep gave Elvis a call and tried to find out where Tommy was.
"I don't rightly know," Elvis said. "I'll let you know when I hear from him, though."
"Great." Hep said.
After he got off the phone, Hep tried to go to sleep too. Just as he was dozing off, the phone rang. He picked up the receiver.
"Hello?" he asked, somewhat annoyed.
"Hep, it's Tommy."
"Hey, where the hell are you?" Hep asked.
"Albuquerque. I'm going to keep driving North tomorrow, and head into Colorado." Tommy said.
"Aww, you gotta be kidding me." Hep said.
"Nope. See ya later," Tommy said and hung up the phone.
"Dick," Hep muttered, and tried to go to sleep again. It took a long time, and he tossed and turned for a couple of hours. Albuquerque, and headed north, was not part of Hep's plan. He knew that Tommy was trying to evade the same folks that were after him. Hep also knew that there were more UTMCers in Denver who could help him out until the crew stranded in Lafayette could catch up.
Eventually, Hep fell asleep too, and slept deeply without dreaming.
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