Elephant Bangs Train Read Free Page B

in the corner by the door. 'Why you doin' this, man?' asked the Mexican, not looking at Eagle.
    Eagle's hat was over his eyes. He slept a little, nodding with the bounces in and out of a dream. His head dropped against the cold window. The truck was stopped.
    Eagle stepped down on to the silent mesa. My legs shakin', he thought and went round to the back of the truck, where Domingo was letting down the ramp. Eagle touched the cold handlebars of the bike and stopped shaking. They wheeled the cycle to the ground.
    'I know a chick,' said Domingo. They pushed the ramp to the edge of the canyon. '—with a fantastic ass—' They faced the ramp to the misty hole, bracing it with cinder blocks. 'She live down in Ensenada, man, whattya say we go down there?'
    Eagle climbed on to the bike, turned over the motor, breaking the morning stillness. He circled slowly, making bigger circles until the motor was running strong, then drove over to Domingo at the edge of the ramp.
    ' Buena suerte, amigo !' shouted the Mexican over the roaring engine.
    'On the other side!' called Eagle, and drove away from the ramp, fifty, a hundred, two, three, four hundred yards. He turned, lined the bike up with the ramp. A white chicken fluttered in his stomach. Domingo waved his black hat.
    In neutral, Eagle gunned the big Arupa engine, once, twice, and engaging first gear spun out towards the ramp.
    The sun was rising, the speedometer climbing as he shifted into second gear, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty miles an hour. Eagle burned across the table land towards Navaho Canyon, into third gear, ninety, a hundred, had jumped twelve cars on this bike, had no job, saw Domingo from the corner of his eye, was going one twenty-five and that was it as he hit the ramp and sailed his ass off into space.
    The cycle whined above the mist, floating like a thunder clap, and Johnny Eagle in his slouch hat rode lightly as an arrow, airborne in the glory of the moment as a sunbeam struck him in his arc of triumph, then his sunset came upon him and he saw the flaw in his life story, one fifty, man, not one twenty-five , as the far cliff for which he hungered came no closer, seemed to mock him through the mist, was impossible, always had been, and his slouch hat blew away.
    Don't go, Johnny.
    He strained to lift his falling horse, to carry her above the morning, to fly with her between his legs, rupturing several muscles in his passion and then as he fell for certain just clung sadly with the morning rising up his asshole, poor balls groaning Johnny Eagle, falling down Navaho Canyon, the geological formations quite apparent as the mist was clearing from the rock.
    'SO LONG, MAN!' he shouted, with quite a way to go, falling like a regular comet, smoke and fire out the tailpipe as the bike turned slowly over, plunging through the hollow entry. Jesus Christ my blood is boiling there goes the engine.
    He fell quietly, hissing through the mist, dreaming it was still dawn on Red Wing's red-brown thighs.
    Johnny, don't go . O.K. babe I'll stay here.
    But he saw the real rocks rushing past him.
    I uster dance. Neck down in the fender. She held me in my screwloose, Johnny Eagle, be my old man, babe I'm crazy and mus' go to Gitchegumee.
    Down in Ensenada man
    Domingo falling to the barroom laughing with his knife blade bloody, my look at that terracotta there like faces in the Canyon, Sheriff you kin let us out now, won't do no harm. There goes my shoes man where am I.
    A fantastic
    Water like rock. Thousand fist pound my brain out. Crack me, shell me, awful snot death crap death hunnert bucks that bike death cost me black death o no Colorado do not take me.
    Yes I took you Johnny Eagle
    Wham the arrow crossed the morning. I am shot from out my body whoooooooooooooo the endless sunrise.
    Some time later a fledgling eagle was hatched by an old white-headed fierce-beaked queen of the Canyon. She pushed the little eagle into space where he learned to soar, crying kyreeeee , high above the