* * * * *
FROM THE MEMOIRS OF "MALARKEY" JOHNSON
"I was readin' from the Twenty-third Psalm when the knock came at my front door."
"Of course, back then, I still felt funny callin' it _my_ front door. After all; up until two weeks ago, the whole blamed parsonage had belonged to Rev. Shepherd! But, anyhow, I answered that knock. And, there, she was. The girl that Becky and Dooley's telegram had asked me to contact."
" 'Rachel?' I asked: "Rachel Cousins?' "
" 'It's Rachel McGee, now, Rev. Johnson,' she replied."
"She stepped through the door, so's I could get a better look at her weddin' ring in the lamp light. But, before I feasted my eyes on that little gold band, I took another gander of her face. And, I'll be danged if she wasn't the spittin' image of her younger sister! Ten years older, naturally. But, still just as much like Becky as their triplet brothers looked like each other."
" 'You bring your hubby with you?' "
" 'Ken's lookin' after our horses. We rode durin' the daylight hours, so as not to attract undue attention. I made up the time, growin' to giant-size at night.' "
" 'A right sensible precaution,' I agreed."
"You see, I'd sent a telegram to Rachel (in Peru, Indiana, where the circus she worked for had just a-finished winterin'), tellin' her Becky was in trouble, and to come a-runnin' home, pronto. As only a _big_ sister could!"
{You might've read, in them dime novels, that she and Becky can talk to each other, psychically. But, that there's just hogwash, stemmin' from the bluff she'd run on Chief Red Bear, further down in Mexico.}
"I then showed her the telegram that had been sent to me, from south of the border. Along with a second one that'd arrived, earlier that afternoon. That one said Becky and Dooley wanted Jeb Daniels' help in negotiatin' with the cavalry from Fort Pecos!"
"But, the same way Becky had negotiated for Prairie Wolf's whereabouts."
"Rachel was confused by that part, of course. But, I told her I'd explain on the way to the Daniels residence. And, as I kept that promise (drivin' my buggy at the fastest gait Old Absalom could manage), Rachel got the same kind of mischievous grin on her face that I'd last seen on Becky's, two weeks earlier."
"I pulled that buggy to a halt about a hundred yards behind the Daniels house. Whereupon, Rachel disembarked...and disrobed."
"A minute after that, she was a hundred feet tall!"
"Well, sir? You should've heard the ruckus that rose up within the house when Rachel tore the roof off it, and grabbed up young Jeb as if he were no heavier than an apple-core doll! She then used her free hand to wave to me to get goin' back to my place. Which I did! Though, I succumbed to the same temptation as Lot's wife, and looked back. To watch Rachel high-tailin' it south, towards Val Verde County."
"Luckily, for me, I didn't suffer the same fate as Lot's wife."
"Anyway, when I saw Rachel, three days later, she explained what had happened."
"By sun-up, the next day, she had reached the confluence of the Rio Diablo and the Rio Grande. And, sure enough; the cavalry was lined up right along the bank of the American side. If Becky so much as set one giant toe down on that side, the troops had orders to open fire, at will!"
"At least, that's what Dooley heard Lancer tell his troop commanders, when he snuck into the camp to eavesdrop on the officers' pow-wow, the night before."
"Anyway, all those soldier-boys were concentratin' their attention on Becky. And, frankly, in hindsight, I can't blame 'em. One hundred feet tall, in all her birthday-suited glory? You'd have to be one of them Arabian eunuchs not to be captivated by such a sight!"
" 'Hello, the camp!' she finally called out: 'Who's the Yankee in charge?' "
"Lancer yelled up to her (through one of them college boat-rowin' megaphones) that he was. Givin' his full name and rank, in the process. Then, he asked her what she wanted."
" 'Simply this,' she replied: 'You can all go back to Fort Pecos. Startin' now! Because, myy husband, his ma, and me won't be comin' back to Tonkawa Springs. We don't stay where we're not wanted! And, to prove we're not gonna turn around and change our minds?' "
"She paused just long enough to look over at Rachel, and nod. Whereupon, Rachel wound herself up like one of them baseball pitchers...and threw Jeb Daniels all the way into Mexico!"
tbc
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
PUEBLO DEL VADO, MEXICO
(LATE SPRING, 1875)
(LATE SPRING, 1875)