The Saint Bernard countered by jumping to all fours. He got the full muscle power of his giant body between the keg and me. When I tried to duck around him to grab the keg, he jumped as if to bite a chunk out of my throat. I scrambled backward and his full weight came down on my throbbing ankle.
That did it. I saw Swiss stars. Somebody emptied an inkwell inside my head. I dived into the blue-black pool of pain. It was a merciful immersion.
When I regained consciousness, before I opened my eyes, my ears announced that the cold cruel world was back with me. What I heard was a melodious yodel.? Well, why not? Swiss mountains, after all. Why not?
My eyelids fluttered open and I focused on the spot where the dog had been. The canine lush was no longer there. I looked around. He’d vanished. I looked again, and that’s when I saw her!
There, standing on a snowbank in the moonlight, head thrown back and yodeling, stood a young girl with long brunette hair and a figure like Venus. She was wearing snowshoes. That’s all. Just snowshoes!
Chapter Eight
Her name was Bambi. Honest! I’m not making it up. Bambi! That was her name.
I didn’t have to tell her my name. She knew it. Or, rather, she knew the alias under which I was traveling.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Mr. Powers,” she told me. “You’re a hard man to find.”
“Not really. Easy as a needle in a snowbank.”
“However did you get so far down the slope?”
“Easy as rolling off a mountain.”
“Isn’t it uncomfortable there, with your bare bottom on a patch of ice?”
“Easy as sitting on a glacier.”
Now it was my turn to make with the questions.
“How did you manage to find me?” I asked.
“Hard work.”
“Did you know that I was hurt?”
“Hard luck.”
“And that damned dog wouldn’t let me have any brandy.”
“Hard case.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The dog. The Saint Bernard. He’s a hard case. Has a drinking problem. Fairly common among Swiss dogs, you know. Maybe it’s the climate.”
“The climate certainly doesn’t seem to bother you.” I stared unabashedly at her nudity. There sure was a lot of it—that is, a lot of her. I certainly did seem to be running into a helluva lot of naked women lately-—and in the damnedest places!
“That’s because I’ve mastered the technique of controlling my body temperature,” Bambi told me. “It’s really very simple. I’ll show you how if you like.”
“Right now wouldn’t be too soon.” I didn’t think I had to tell her that the exposed portion of my anatomy was outfreezing the proverbial brass monkey. (Inadvertently perhaps, but I also seemed to be having trouble keeping my privates covered these days.)
“We don’t have time right now. They’re waiting for us.”
I was about to ask who “they” might be when I saw the Saint Bernard appear behind her. “That canine lush is back again,” I told Bambi.
“What?” She turned around and saw the dog. “Oh, you’re mistaken,” she informed me. “It’s not the same Saint Bemard at all. The other one was a male and this one’s a female. The other one’s a booze hound and this one is a teetotaler. She won’t even carry liquor.”
“No? Then what’s in that cask around her neck?”
“Hot water.”
“Huh?”
“For tea. Or instant coffee. Or cocoa. See that little package attached to the keg? It’s a selection of mixes. There’s even a bouillon cube in it.”
“What’s her name?” I asked idly.
“Bambi.”
“Not your name, her name.”
“That’s her name, too; the same as mine.”
Why not? I looked at Bambi (the Saint Bernard). I looked at Bambi (the naked brunette on snowshoes). The name seemed to suit both of them.
There was an innocence about Bambi (the girl) which seemed to match up with her namesake in the famous story. And there was a warmth about Bambi (the dog) which likewise seemed to be similar to the fictional Bambi. Bambi (the dog had an intrinsic canine innocence, too; while Bambi (the girl) sure did have her share of warmth.
Bambi (the dog) had short hair, white and red, a tight, thick nap covering her body. Bambi (the girl) had long, curly, blue-black hair which fell to the taut, red tips of her breasts. Bambi (the dog) had a deep chest marked by a red blaze framed in white. Bambi (the girl) had Alpine breasts, pink and red from being out-of-doors, high and round, large and full. The body markings of Bambi (the dog) were symmetrical. The bosom of Bambi (the girl) was likewise symmetrical, perfectly matched mounds right down to the twin nipples, each shaped like the head of an extra-large Phillips screwdriver, each standing at attention proudly-probably from the cold. Bambi (the dog) had a long tail which hung straight down, broke at the midway point and arched halfway back up again; it was a very aristocratic tail. Bambi (the girl) had a dimpled bottom, high and haughty, beautifully sculpted and smooth as mountaintop ice; it was a very aristocratic ass. Bambi (the dog) had soft brown eyes, sympatico, melting. Bambi (the girl) had deep brown eyes, gold-flecked, compassionate, and at the same time sexy. Her face (the dog’s) was the somewhat jowly but noble countenance of a dowager true to her breed. Bambi’s face (the girl’s) was Nordic, outdoorsy, healthy; it would have been peasantlike if not for the fact that its shape was basically aquiline, the cheekbones high, the mouth small and the chin determined. Bambi (the dog) was every inch a thoroughbred. Bambi (the naked girl) was every inch a woman—right down to her prominent, curly-haired pubic mound.
But who was Bambi (the girl)? Where had she come from? Why was she naked? How did she know my name? Why had she been looking for me? And who were the “they” she had said were waiting for us?
The answers came out piecemeal. It was a while before I could make them all fit together. When I did, the strange scenario read like this.
Somewhere over the rainbow, in the Jura Mountains, between two of the highest peaks, nestled a valley that was warm, lush, green, and tranquil. At some time way back in prehistory, thousands and thousands of years ago, the nomadic drift had taken a strange turn which resulted in the settling of this valley by religious refugees from—are you ready for this?—Tibet.
One High Lama, whose name has been passed down through history as Lama Tur Nah, accompanied by a small band of followers, fled an early Mongol invasion of the Plateau of Tibet, crossed the Kunlun Mountains into India, and then headed north and west through the vastnesses of pre-Soviet Russia. Before they had even entered Russia, half the group had been lost to the freezing cold and starvation. By the time they crossed the Carpathians into Romania, the group was down to six men and two women—not counting the indestructible Lama Tur Nah. After Hungary and Austria, an avalanche in the Swiss Alps claimed both women and three of the men. Thus only Lama Tur Nah and three male followers reached the edenic valley in the Jura Mountains where summer tranquility reigned year-round in a cradle formed by the bases of peaks perpetually capped with ice.
Here they found a small tribe of simple primitive Swiss natives who lived in thatched huts and subsisted on the nuts and berries that grew in abundance in the fertile valley. The Lama Tur Nah, who in addition to being a religious leader was also a shrewd psychologist, sociologist, and businessman, swapped a chest full of beggarbeads for food, shelter, and four buxom Swiss maidens as wives for himself and the faithful three. Thus began the race of Tibetan Swiss which in- habit the obscure valley in the Jura Mountains to this very day.
This race did not noticeably multiply in numbers over the years. Today the village numbers only slightly over three hundred inhabitants. They call it Läger Shang.