AN: I wrote the caveman version of this when I was very young and just started on reading my mom's romance novels. There is fluff, a mary sue who hopefully isn't too bad, and horribly written battle scenes. I revamped this for fun and the fact that before ninja turtles and Biker Mice, this was my get up early cartoon.
Cowtown on the Mesa. Late summer in the year eighteen seventy three.
"So, like I was sayin' before the mayor interrupted, over in Cowhio, there's a competition for singers. The winner gets a record made. I could be famous." Cowlarado was saying as Moo wrote out some reports.
"You know, Kid, you gotta get there and you gotta win first. Don't go banking on something you haven't got in the first place. Code of the West says; don't put all your eggs in one basket and don't count 'em before they hatch." Moo said sagely, as Cowlarado arched an eye ridge at him sceptically. "I do not make these up, Kid." Moo said with a long suffering sigh.
"Yeah, sure Moo. So, can we go?" Cowlarado asked excitedly.
"Wait, we? I have to stay and take care of Cowtown, and I need Dakota here as my deputy. You didn't sign us all up, did you?" Moo asked, instantly suspicious.
"I want a competition, not an easy win. You and Dakota can't sing or play an instrument to save your lives." Cowlarado said, and shuddered. The memory of the last time Dakota had tried singing made him mock sob. "An' there's no way I'm letting you up on stage. Mr. Deer in the head lamps." Cowlarado chuckled, Moo had a tendency to freeze when put on stage, especially in front of people he didn't know for more than five years.
"So you want us to go, just to cheer you on, and cheer you up if you lose?" Moo asked with a slight grin.
"Well, yeah. That's pretty much it, having my friends there to cheer me on would be great." Cowlarado said hopefully.
"It's a two day trip riding." Moo pointed out.
"That's why we'll take the train." Cowlarado said with a grin.
"We'll be gone a few days." Moo added.
"Two weeks, tops." Cowlarado guessed.
"I'll need to put someone trustworthy in charge." said Moo, leaning back in his chair.
"J.R. and Buffalo Bull already said they'd help out." said Cowlarado, holding out some papers for Moo to read.
"Miss Lily and Miss Kate will need to be told." Moo said, Cowlarado nodded,
"Miss Lily already said we could use her train luggage if we needed it." he said.
"Someone'll have to tell Dakota." Moo said as he put the papers in his filing cabinet.
"He's looking forward to it." said Cowlarados'' he chuckled, he could feel Moos' resolve thinning.
"You think of everything?" Moo asked wryly.
"Pretty much." Cowlarado said after a moment of thought.
"One last thing." Moo began with a grin at how Cowlarado practically vibrated with excitement.
"What's that?" Cowlarado asked blankly, for someone well into his twenties, he could still pull off the adorably dumb calf look quite well.
"You packed?" Moo asked after letting Cowlarado squirm a little. He only regretted it a little bit. Aside from Cody, Cowlarado was everyone's calf brother.
Cowlarado's whoop of joy could be heard over the player piano in the Tumbleweed.
A week and one competition later.
"I still think the contest was fixed." Cowlarado muttered over his drink in the hotels' dining room. "Whoever heard of Hound Dog George anyway? This was supposed to be an amateur contest." He kept muttering as Moo and Dakota shook their heads and finished their drinks. Cowtown was a dry town, Cowhio was full of bootlegger's and moonshine mixers. Usually they kept away from anything suspicious, but they were on a holiday, and it seemed like Cowlarado needed something to take his mind off coming in third place to a rabbit and a hound dog. A hangover was just the thing.
As Moo and Dakota watched him carefully, they noticed that he perked up, the moment a handful of ladies walked into the hotel to have dinner in the dining room.
"Looks like things are looking up after all." Cowlarado said, straightening up and trying to groom himself into looking respectable. He then noticed the young heifer in mourning weeds. "Wonder who she buried? She's not done up enough to be a widow." he added thoughtfully, and then stopped paying any attention to the group of young ladies.
"Conscience acting up?" Moo asked with a grin.
"It ain't proper to attempt to court a lady in mourning." Cowlarado said curtly. "Or her party taking her out for dinner, in order to get her to cheer up a little."
Moo and Dakota looked at each other in surprise, Cowlarado used to have moments when he was a very proper gentle-bull, but he had pretty much grown out of the behaviour since he tried to take on Five Card Cud by himself. This was a rare occurrence nowadays.
Not since he first showed up in Cowtown, had anyone asked Cowlarado where he was from originally. His markings were close to a jersey cow and an Angus beef cow mixed together. He could have been from Bullston out east, or even as far south west as Cowlifornia. But with his manners, Moo and half the ladies in Cowtown, thought he was from somewhere around Bullston. Moo ordered another round of the on tap beer for him and the others. They mulled over things past and present, things from their own calf hoods, and growing years. Cowlarado was, as usual, evasive with his past. The afternoon melted away into evening, the diners left and were replaced with the bar flies, by the time the law bulls called it a night.
On the train ride back to Cowtown.
Moo was slumped in his seat, hat over his eyes, and half asleep, until he heard a ruckus coming from the car behind him. Dakota and Cowlarado had gone forward to the dining car, as it was past breakfast and they wouldn't be getting to Cowtown 'til late that afternoon. Moo headed back warily. Since he was off duty he couldn't just go in, guns blazing. As he watched, two old enemies of his surfaced, Boot hill Buzzard and Saddle Sore Scorpion. They were trying to haul a large burlap sack from the sleeper car to the baggage car. Moo almost blew his cover when a small bovine hoof shot out of the bag and clanged Saddle Sore's bells something painful. Moo couldn't help but wince with sympathy pains for the scorpion. Boot hill however laughed, until the hoof caught him in the chin and flipped him on his back. The girl, young lady, Moo had to amend in his thoughts, had struggled out of the burlap sack and was heading for the door he was waiting behind. She was about to make the crossing, and had locked eyes with Moo, as he opened the door to help her through, when a large arm grabbed her from behind and hauled her back to the baggage car. Moo wasted no time shouting for the others as he charged to the back of the train. By the time he got through the locked doors, the caboose was unhooked and pulling away in the opposite direction. Cowlarado and Dakota caught up to him.
"Change of plans. We're going back to Death stone Valley. Get what you need from your things for a week on the trail. We got us a kidnapper to catch and a lady to save." Moo ordered, and headed into the baggage car to get his things. They got off the next stop and after wiring a letter to J.R. and Buffalo Bull, they were on the trail, stocked up and heading to Death stone Valley. A den of law breakers, and cut throats, so nasty and low down, if you threw a stone it would be stolen out of the air before you could throw it six feet. They were on the road until near midnight, when they finally came up on Death stone, the small rundown town in the valley. The place boasted three saloons, a crooked bank, two crooked stores, and no less than three obvious brothels.
"Now where would Boot hill and Saddle Sore go to meet with the Masked Bull and probably sell the girl?" Moo muttered more to himself, than to the others.
"They're going to sell her?" Dakota growled darkly.
"Either that or use her for something else. The brothels pay top dollar for pretty girls. And she was pretty." Moo pointed out, it made him ill, what some people would do for a few dollars.
"How pretty was she?" Cowlarado asked brightly. Trust him to miss the nasty business and go in for the particulars.
"She was blonde, and has blue eyes. A pretty jersey pattern too." Moo explained as he rolled his eyes, only Cowlarado could find the silver lining of a kidnapping. Adding in that the girl was pretty, guaranteed that he would help as best he could, if only to impress the girl.
"So where do we start looking?' Dakota asked quietly.
"The brothels first, just to make sure he hasn't sold her. Then we go on to the saloons. Keep your eyes peeled for that buzzard and the scorpion. You see them; you follow them back to Terrorbull. Got it?" Moo instructed just as they were entering the town. He got two silent nods as Dakota and Cowlarado went on high alert. They went through all three brothels, but no one would be more helpful than the madams saying they hadn't acquired any new girls in the past few days. They checked the saloons, still, no one would help them. Everyone was suspicious of the law bulls. Terrorbull had done a very good job of tarnishing their reputation in Death stone Valley. Moo and the others were beginning to lose hope at finding the young heifer before she disappeared completely.
"We'll just have to start looking for good spots to build a hide out. There's the old mine shafts up on the hillside. It turned out copper, but was played out a while ago. Then there's.." Moo began, unrolling a map of the local country side.
"You'll want to be looking in the south side mine shafts for the Masked Bull. He was seen going up there with some suspicious looking parcels. Some of 'em looked big enough to hold a young heifer." said an old sun bleached bull, he had come up behind the three law bulls so quietly, that his voice had startled them into jumping near out of their hides.
"And who saw them?" Dakota rumbled in a menacing tone.
"Old Sundering Thunder bull. He knows the girl that got took." said the bull. "She's going to be used to get him to use his old gang for the Masked Bull. Ya'll make sure that girl never gets brought back here." he added quietly.
"Now hang on old bull, who's Sundering…" Cowlarado began, but the old bull was gone.
"Sundering Thunder bull. Wasn't that what the Sundance Steer was called after he dropped a bridge on a wagon train of rustlers to keep his town from being wiped out?" Moo asked Dakota.
"You just met both of them. He went out of the vigilante business when his lady died last year. Left him and his lil girl a fortune in gold and land. Last I heard, he was looking to find his girl and take her to claim what was left to her." Dakota explained. "Now that don't stand as to why Terrorbull wants the girl."
"We'll figure it out when we catch Terrorbull." Moo vowed as he checked his star shooters. Cowlarado checked his ropes and new shotgun. Dakota had only a pair of six shooters, but he normally didn't use them. "Let's rodeo." Moo said quietly.