Read Online Hazards by Mike Resnick - Free Book Online Page A

MacNamarra asked me if I’d made my choice yet, and I told him I was still considering which of these lovely damsels I was going to grace with my hand in marriage, and I realized that I was going to have to come up with some kind of answer pretty soon, because while he smiled and allowed that it was a pretty tough decision, I noticed that his shotgun wasn’t never out of his reach.
    I began reviewing my options. There were probably worse fates than marrying Bella and having an occasional friendly rendezvous with Rama, or vice versa. Hell, MacNamarra was so desperate to marry ’em off I don’t think he’d have raised any serious objections to me marrying both of ’em in the same modest little ceremony on his front porch — but I knew that sooner or later I’d get a little tired of bird talk. Probably in something under three minutes.
    I could high-tail it for civilization, but I didn’t know where civilization was , and besides I wasn’t quite as young as I’d once been and I figgered it was mighty unlikely that I could outrun MacNamarra’s buckshot.
    And then it occurred to me that there might very well be an alternative that didn’t involve getting hitched or getting shot. It wasn’t no sure thing, but it made a lot more sense than a long lifetime of chirping or a very short lifetime of no chirping.
    “Hey, Brother Corny,” I said, “as long as I’m gonna spend the rest of my natural life here, how’s about me going out hunting with Rama and Bella and kind of getting the lay of the land?”
    “Sure,” he said. “Whoever you marry, you figger to get her pregnant right away and keep her pregnant for years and years, so you might as well start acquainting yourself with the landscape.”
    “Fine,” I said, standing up. “Ain’t no time like the present.”
    “Girls,” said MacNamarra, “go with him so he don’t get hisself so lost that he can’t find his way back here. And if he tries to run off, fire two or three warning shots into his bow.”
    “You mean across my bow,” I corrected him.
    “I know what I mean,” he said. “Okay, girls, get a move on.”
    Rama and Bella headed off toward the jungle, and I didn’t seem to have no choice but fall into step behind them. We wandered far and wide, to say nothing of high and low. Every now and then Bella would start gobbling and pointing, and sure enough there’s be a jaguar watching us from an overhanging branch, or Rama would begin clucking a blue streak and I’d see an anteater staring at us from behind some bushes.
    But I wasn’t after jaguars or anteaters, nor any other fish or fowl. I never did find what I was looking for, and at day’s end we went back to the chartreuse mansions, and I reacquainted myself with Sadie, but we were off again the next morning, and the morning after that, going farther afield each time — and on the fifth day we finally ran into a couple of well-muscled good-looking young men, each wearing a little dinky loincloth and carrying a bow and arrows, and it was clear that they were just about the right age for getting hitched.
    Thank you, Lord , I said silently. Now I owe You one.
    “Howdy,” I said to them when they became aware of our presence, and I could tell right off that they were smitten by Rama’s and Bella’s beauty. “I hope we ain’t intruding on your hunting grounds, and by the way where’s the nearest city?”
    “Quack quack quack,” said the one on the left.
    By God, Lord, I thunk, You outdone Yourself this time!
    “Does your friend always talk like that?” I asked the one on the right.
    “Squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk,” he said.
    I took a quick look at the girls, and I could tell they’d already lost their hearts and were preparing to lose a couple of other things as well, and there wasn’t no doubt that the young men were hopelessly in love too.
    The five of us went back to the chartreuse mansions, and when MacNamarra saw what I had in tow, and especially when he heard what I