Page 44 of Truly, Madly Viking

"Well, I don't need you to count them," she grumbled. "And why do you have to sit next to me? There are plenty of other seats. You're crowding me."

Not-a-lie's waspish demeanor was belied by her shivering body. This outing must be an ordeal for a person with her unique anxieties.

Hair-vee got up and stared longingly toward the empty seat next to Rosalyn, the mousy woman who worked all day long with books—a lie-bear-ian, which was amazing, really. In Jorund's world, books were a rare commodity; in this world, they were as plentiful as grass. Rosalyn gave Hair-vee a glare that was as forbidding as a berserker with a battle-ax guarding a castle wall. All of the men had been trying to get n Rosalyn's good side ever since she'd announced her extraordinary longing for sexual activity.

Rosalyn's word-shert spelled out, Read My Lips. He tried to read her lips, to no avail. Apparently he was capable only of reading whale's minds.

Jorund began to walk down the aisle when his gaze snagged on Furr-red Burns-fine. He stopped dead in his tracks. The man had gone too far this time. Much too far!

Last week, at group therapy, Furr-red had arrived in the garb of a caveman.

Cavemen were apparently the ancestors of all human beings, though Jorund could hardly credit that.

Jorund's Viking forbears had never looked like that rendition of early man—of that he was certain.

Furr-red had worn naught but a beaver skin, which turned out to be one of Norse Hender-son's winter outer garbs—a coat—wrapped around one shoulder like a Roman toga. When he bent over, everyone got a good view of his bare, flabby buttocks... not a pretty sight. And he'd carried a huge club, which Mag-he had immediately confiscated, claiming that it was the trunk of a newly planted Crab apple tree from their back courtyard.

Today Furr-red was impersonating his idea of what a Viking warrior would look like. It was insulting, to say the least. On his head was a long, blond wig that Jorund could swear he'd seen on a scullery maid's head just yestereve. On his upper arms were two makeshift bracelets formed from strips of tinfoil, a product used in modern kitchens to save food. He wore tight sweating braies on bottom and a loose black T-shert with the sleeves and neckline ripped off, the whole cinched in at the waist by a wide, brown leather belt.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" Jorund demanded.

Furr-red cowered back into his seat near the window. He was nigh whimpering when he replied, "Fred the Viking."

Jorund shook his head from side to side. The man meant no harm, he decided. Still, under his breath, he commented, "More like Furr-red the Idiot."

Just then he noticed Steve, who was motioning him toward the back of the bus. He headed in that direction, passing other Rainbow comrades along the way, including Chuck the Duck. That was who he assumed Chuck was today, since he was quack-quack-quacking to no one in particular. Just as long as he didn't drop any bodily "gifts" in the bus, Jorund could care less what animal he chose to be this day or any other. Chuck's message-shert said, Out of My Mind. Be Back in Five Minutes.

Mag-he sat down in the front seat, directly behind Dock-whore Hairy. The doors swished shut. And they were off. Well, he assumed they were off. At first the bus lurched and stopped, lurched and stopped, lurched and stopped till Dock-whore Hairy got the feel of driving a bus. Holy Thor! Not only am I riding in a most dangerous horseless cart, but I am putting my life in the hands of an incompetent driver. 'Tis comparable to going a-Viking with my sister Katla at the rudder.

But they were riding smoothly now. Jorund let out a pent-up breath, although he held on to the seat in front of him as they traveled at an excessive speed out onto the road.

"What's the problem?" Steve asked, staring at Jorund's white knuckles and his face, which was, no doubt, white as well.

"Must we travel so fast? What is the hurry?" he complained.

"Huh?" Steve responded. "We're only going twenty miles an hour on this entrance ramp. Wait till we get on the highway. The speed limit there is sixty-five."

"I cannot wait," Jorund said dryly.

Steve was frowning as he studied his rigid demeanor. "You've never ridden on a bus before?"

"I've never ridden on anything that moved without animal power... unless it was a ship on the open seas, driven by the winds and the hard rowing of well-muscled men."

Steve shrugged his shoulders sadly. "Man, you are as screwed up as the rest of us."

"Nay, I am not," Jorund declared. "What you all cannot accept is that I really am a Viking, come here from the tenth century."

Instead of arguing, as he usually did, Steve asked skeptically, "Why?"

Jorund relaxed back into the seat. As long as he didn't look out the windows and see the landscape passing in a blur, he could almost forget where he was. He pondered Steve's question. "I do not know. I am hoping some answers will come to me today."

"At Boot Scootin' Cowboy? In a music hall? Hell, I know a lot of guys who think they can find answers in a bottle of booze—I did for more years than I can count—but I guarantee that even a glass of beer will be off-limits to us today."

"I did not mean that music place. I was referring to the killer-whale place."

"Do you still think that a killer whale is the key to your being here in Galveston?" Steve and all the others in his group therapy had laughed this week when he'd told them the tale of his arrival atop Thora's back, bare-arsed and raging mad. Steve wasn't laughing now.

"I know it." Jorund snorted with disgust. "If I can find her, I'm certain that this puzzle will become clear."