A SALTY PIECE OF LAND

A Wyoming cowboy on the lam drifts into the good life of the Gulf Stream in the latest stream-of-semi-conscious opus from the Pied Piper of Parrotheads (A Pirate Looks at Fifty, 1998, etc.).

Having incurred the wrath of his boss—wealthy but evil poodle-farmer Thelma Barton—when he justifiably threw a coffee table through her picture window, Rocky Mountain range rider Tully Mars harkens to the sound of the surf in his lucky conch shell and heads for the Gulf Coast to hide out from the law. Bringing only his quarter-horse Mr. Twain, a few amulets, a couple of his favorite artworks, short-sleeve shirts and flip-flops, Tully zig- zags through Arkansas and Alabama, barely evading Thelma’s sadistic (but not too sadistic, since nothing really truly bad happens in Buffettworld) bounty hunters headed ever southerly. There’s time for a pleasant fling with beautiful Arkansan waitress Donna Kay Dunbar, but Tully can’t commit. Not with a bounty on his head. And besides, sunny tempered fate has him headed for the Caribbean and an expatriate life working on a fishing camp in a one-time pirate village near the Yucatan. Life on the lam is pretty good: all the fresh fish you can eat, cheeseburgers whenever you’re in the mood, and, every now and then but not so it’s a problem, really good Jamaican weed. Into this perfect world sails the Lucretia, an antique schooner under the command of Tully's future employer and tutor Cleopatra Highbourne. Ms Highbourne, a well-preserved centenarian, has a thing for lighthouses. She's on a mission to find a 19th-century fresnel lens, the critical feature of the lighthouse she intends to restore on Cayo Loco in the Bahamas. Will Tully join her and find serenity in the process? Sure thing. But there will be a side trip to Belize for some world-class sex first. Oh, and those bounty hunters are still on his trail.

As usual, a pleasant and legal buzz all the way through.