Lone Biker of the Apocalypse, The

The Lone Biker of the Apocalypse is the cigar-smoking, ammo-clad, Harley-riding bounty hunter out to find Nathan Arizona, Jr. in the Coen Brothers’ second film, Raising Arizona. Played by Randall "Tex" Cobb, the Lone Biker is a manhunter, a tracker by trade, but on this occasion hunts a baby. He brags that some have said that he must be part hound dog. As the film’s primary antagonist the biker sports two shotguns on his back, a belt full of ammunition and grenades, and on his left arm a skull tattoo that reads, “Mama didn’t love me.”

The biker reveals his name to be Leonard Smalls in a conversation with Nathan Arizona, Sr. – “Name’s Smalls. Leonard Smalls. My friends call me Lenny … only I ain’t got no friends.” The self-proclaimed outlaw goes on to offer his bounty hunting services to retrieve Arizona Jr. for a fair price, finding the $25,000 reward to be less than satisfactory. Smalls informs Arizona, Sr. that he himself was sold on the black market for $30,000 in 1954 and that he personally knows people who would pay much more than $25,000 for a healthy baby. Convinced the police will be little help in finding his son, Nathan Arizona Sr. reaches an agreement and the Lone Biker sets out to find the missing infant.

Seemingly straight from H.I. McDonnough’s nightmares the Lone Biker leaves a trail of ashes and smoldering rodents in his search for the missing baby. It doesn’t take long for Smalls to catch on to H.I.’s scent. H.I. tells of the dream in which he envisions the coming doom that is the biker Leonard Smalls: “He was horrible. The lone biker of the apocalypse. A man with all the powers of Hell at his command. He could turn the day into night and lay to waste everything in his path. He was especially hard on little things-the helpless and the gentle creatures. He left a scorched earth in his wake befouling even the sweet desert breeze that whipped across his brow. I didn't know where he came from or why. I didn't know if he was dream or vision. But I feared that I myself had unleashed him. For he was the fury that would be as soon as Florence Arizona found her little Nathan gone.”

In the epic final showdown between H.I. and the Lone Biker of the Apocalypse he seems nearly impervious to pain. During the fight the biker administers a thorough beating of H.I., knocking out one of his teeth. During the course of the struggle, H.I. manages to pull the pin on a grenade still strapped to Smalls and causes him to explode into pieces in a great fireball leaving nothing but the biker’s leather boot and a pair of baby shoes.

Played by the real-life boxer, Randall “Tex” Cobb, H.I. McDonnough wasn’t the only one in trouble with the Lone Biker of the Apocalypse on the set of Raising Arizona. The Coen brothers also experienced trouble with him. Director Joel Coen stated, "he's less an actor than a force of nature...I don't know if I'd rush headlong into employing him for a future film."