The lanky southern skeleton fired a spear of tobacco juice through one of his many, many missing teeth and pulled the brim of his ten gallon hat lower, shading steely eyes.

“I said, you ever wrangle before?”

“How does… how do you go about wrangling?” The boy asked. He was sixteen and as thin and lanky as the man, but lacked the critically important Yosemite Sam mustache and cowboy hat, instead opting for a child molester Juggalo crustache and a handful of gooey hair gel, which smelled, beneath all the astringent artificial chemical sharpness, of old mushrooms and semen.   

“Well SHIT boy, what they teaching you out in that high-falootin’ big city school?” The emaciated cowboy launched another burst of spit, this time winging a brass spittoon maybe ten feet away with a carrying, confident CLANG.

“Call me J-Dinn,” Jaden said, trying to emphasize the alternative spelling of his name through phonetic pronunciation while wracking his brain for the last time, if any, he’d seen someone faloot.

“Boy, that’s the queerest thing I ever did hear,” he said, untangling rope and adjusting it into a lasso. “Sounds like onn’a them Hollywood cocksuckers. You sure you’re Tommy’s kid?”

“He’s my STEP dad.”

“Well goddamn, that explains it. Tommy’s tough as a desert crocodile, and twice as ornery.”

“Crocodiles live in the water, dude.”

“Now FIRST of all, my name ain’t dude. It’s Richard P. PRO-Metheus, but you’ll call me Dick. Second, how in tarnation would you know where crocodiles live? You ever seen a crocodile?”

“What? No, of course not-”

“That’s because you ain’t seen SHEIT beyond the walls a’them fancy-ass city folk book-learnin’ schools. And lemme tell you somethin’, boy, out here, all them geographies and fractions ain’t gonna help you for a good god-damn when you’re starin’ down the nose of a 10-foot desert crocodile in heat. You ever been fucked by a crocodile?”

“I-”

“Scariest thing that’ll ever happen to you, I do swear it. They love pasty little cityboys, too. More squeeze in the rectum, y’know.”

Jayden opened his mouth to say something, slowly realized he could not think of a single response to that, and closed it again.

“GOD DAMNIT boy! You hard’a hearin’, or just ugly?”

“What did you even just ask me!” He looked around, bewildered.

“Have you ever wrangled a fucking leopard, con-flab it!”

“When, in my life, would I ever have an opportunity to wrangle a leopard?”

“You ever been in a fight?”

“Of course!”

“Don’t lie to me, boy. I done seen you look to the right. You ain’t never thrown you a punch in your life, did you. How ‘bout pussy? You ever seen pussy?”

“Yeah, I-”

“Well whoop-di-doo! Porno don’t count, boy. I’m not talking about pictures of pussy you pull up on your fancy-ass newfangled computer box iFruit Blackberry cell-you-lar phone to show to all your faggot friends while you’re eatin’ quiche and Long Island Ice teas or whatever the hell they’re feeding you in that school to make you so god damn queer, I’m talking the REAL deal, kind that quivers like Jell-O when you blow on it. You ever seen it?”

“I’ve had a few girlfriends,” He said quickly, before he could be cut off again.

“Women is trouble,” Dick said, nodding sagely. “’swhy I suck cock.”

“What?”

“I’m just yanking your chain, cityboy!” he laughed, clapping the boy on the left shoulder hard enough to knock him off his balance. “Now come on, I’m ‘bout to teach you something important.”

Dick led Jayden into a wide, sandy field, speckled with the occasional cactus. Cupping both hands around his mouth, spraying tobacco juice and miasmic spit in all directions, he bellowed toward the ranch house.

“GOD FUCKING DAMNIT, LORENA, GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE AND LET THE CATS OUT! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN GOOD FOR!”

“Comin’ Daddy!” high, sweet tones came floating across the wasteland, tubular glass bells curved with the bitter twinge of south Texas, like a lemon squeezed into a cup of milk. The girl who emerged from the doorway was a head taller than Jayden and almost entirely composed of the most graceful, exquisitely shaped legs he had ever seen, be it on the iFruit computer box or otherwise. He stared, slack-jawed, tongue almost lolling in cartoon caricature of arousal, as she sailed over the ground like a gazelle and yanked on a rope, releasing six snarling, ravenous jungle cats, which broke into a suicide sprint straight toward him.

“Oh holy Jesus,” Jayden whimpered.

“He ain’t gonna do SHIT for you now, boy!” Dick crowed, a backwoods maniac cackle creeping up after this religious epiphany. He fished in the pocket of his Levi’s and pulled out a heavy steel gauntlet, which he slid over his right hand. He tossed the rope to Hayden, who had been unprepared for its weight.

“Aight nah, get ready,” Dick said, crouching slightly. Jayden said nothing, transfixed in silent horror.

The first leopard sprung through the air, claws outstretched for Dick’s throat. He batted it across the face hard with an open steel palm, sending it tumbling to the ground. The speed of the blow rendered it unconscious; it lay prostrated in the sand.

“DON’T JUST STAND THERE WITH YOUR DICK UP YOUR ASS, BOY, TIE IT UP!”

Hayden scrambled to the fallen cat and started looping rope around anywhere he could.

“USE THE FISHERMAN’S PRETZELMAKER,” Dick hollered, delivering an uppercut to another airborne leopard, knocking it in an arc onto its back.

“WHAT?”

The cowboy sprinted across the plain, dropping to his knees and powersliding in next to the boy.

“You so much as look at my daughter like that again,” he said through clenched teeth, hogtying the cat’s limbs together with fanatical speed, “And I will fucking kill you.”

He completed the knot just in time to knock another cat unconscious. Hayden ducked, narrowly avoiding a pounce from the fourth, a yelp escaping his throat. Dick choke-slammed it into the dust and tied them together.

“WHOO-WEE!” he called, rising. “LORENA, MAKE SOME FUCKING DINNER! Come on, faggot, you hungry? Done worked yourself up an appetite shitting your pants?”

Obligingly, Jayden followed the cowboy in, wondering how difficult it would be to stab him to death in his sleep.