A Pair of Second Chances (Ben Jensen Series Book 1) (19 page)

Something in his voice, and the cold black gleam in his eyes, made Amanda shudder. There was so much about this man she didn't know. So much she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"So girl, here's how we'll do this..." Ben spoke as he tore the second note he'd written out of the notebook, and along with the two other pages he'd crumpled up, tossed them all into the fire in the stove.

"We'll move all your gear into the bed of my truck. I'll gas it and your car up from the ranch tank here, before we leave. That way we won't need to stop anywhere and increase our risks. I'll follow along with you till we get to Three Forks. That puts us well out of this area, and anywhere they'll be looking. Then you'll turn north for the cabin, and I'll split off for a while to dump that car. Oh, and I'm going to send A.H. with you... Ok?"

"Ok Ben. You're the boss." Amanda agreed, though she didn't look at all sure. And, the thought of that monster brute alone with her and Timmy in that beat up old truck was not an especially comforting thought.

"Yes ma'am. When the bad guys show up, the bastards always shoot the good guys dog! A.H. might not be much, but I'll not consign his sorry ass to that fate!" Ben exclaimed.

Amanda covered her mouth in an attempt to stop her laugh. "Ben Jensen, you are awful" she retorted in reply. Ben just grinned at her.

As they walked out of the cabin to move the few bags and possessions of Amanda and Timmy into the truck, she asked; "By the way, what does A.H. stand for?"

Ben looked at her, and then up on the porch to see where Timmy was... looked back at Amanda, and grinning said; "Ass Hole." Amanda just shook her head.

With all the camp gear moved from the car to the truck, and the coolers loaded, Ben pulled each vehicle over to the ranch fuel tank, sitting on a stand beside the tack shed, and filled both with fuel.

Once everything was ready to go he told her. "Let's just have us a quiet lunch sitting here on the porch... and enjoy a few quiet minutes, before..." he said with a shake of his head; "before we go on the run."

Standing at the tail gate of the truck with the food coolers open, Amanda built them each a sandwich. She put them on paper plates and along with a few chips and a can of soda for each, she carried their lunches over to the two "Men" sitting on the porch.

She wondered at the gentleness of the man as she watched him talking with her son. How could someone as explosive and violent, still be so gentle? It amazed her and confounded her. In her experience, a violent man was only someone to be feared. Yet, with this man, whose violence she'd witnessed first hand, she only felt safe.

They sat in the shade of the porch, enjoying their simple meal, sharing a short, quiet, time. Ben laughed at stories she told him about Timmy and his antics, and tickled the boy as they laughed together. Amanda and Timmy marveled at stories he shared with them about horses, bears, cows and the High Rockies.

For someone who was living through the twilight, right before what they knew would be the coming of a great storm, it was a wondrous, joyous time.

After the conversation slowed down, and they'd spent a short time just watching the horses in the corral, Ben looked at his watch and exclaimed as he jumped up; "Damn! It's after two O'clock! We got to get gone Amanda! and we got to get gone now!"

She got Timmy strapped into his car seat that they'd moved to the truck, while Ben coaxed A.H. into the back. With the boy and the dog loaded, she climbed in herself, turned the key and fired up the battered old rig, with its' usual cloud of blue smoke. "Nice" she commented with a smile.

"Just go woman!" Ben told her urgently, slapping the door with his hand; "I'll be right behind you."

Ben ran back into the cabin and pulled his Marlin 30-30 off the deer leg rifle rack above the door as Amanda started rolling out of the yard.

He jumped into the Saturn and in a cloud of dust, bumped and fishtailed down the ranch road as well, following Amanda and his truck. They were now, officially, on the run. When they hit Hwy 78 the smoking old truck and the little red Saturn turned north toward Columbus and had just dropped over the crest of the hill, a couple of hundred yards up the road, when a black Yukon came around the bend just south of the intersection and turned west, onto the county road.

Chapter
19

The Yukon crested the last rise approaching the ranch and accelerated into the yard, sliding up in a cloud of dust. All four doors flew open as Jamal and his crew clambered out, ready for anything.

But, the yard was silent. The horses over in the corral did no more then raise their heads in curiosity. Men fanned out across the ranch looking in the few sheds and then collected on the porch of the cabin.

Jamal said; "They were here. There's fresh tracks in the dust." He stood in the door of the cabin that he'd kicked open and just looked around. "This Mahn, he live like a dog!"

As he stood there looking, a notepad and pencil, lying on the table caught his attention. He walked over and when he picked it up to look closer at it, he noticed something. Sitting quickly in one of the rickety chairs he took the pencil, and holding it laying sideways against the pad, quickly, lightly, shaded the top sheet with the pencil.

As if by magic words began to appear on the paper; "Pinewood Estates - Ennis hwy 287."

Jamal looked up, grinning at the others, who had all come into the small room, curious at Jamal's sudden intensity. "Ha!" He exclaimed, holding up the notebook. "The damn fool mahn left us directions! Let's go where they ran to, and thank him for the help!"

The Yukon turned north on Hwy 78 not much more then a half hour behind the fleeing pair. They refueled in Columbus, got some coffee and more road food, climbed back in the Yukon and rolled up onto I-90, headed west. Shortly over two hours after rolling out of Columbus they drove into the center of Ennis, Montana, having not seen any signs or gates proclaiming "Pinewood Estates" on their drive in along the highway.

Hunting directions, they pulled into a convenience store on the edge of town so Jamal could inquire inside. In less than a minute he came back out, climbed in the back and told Terrance who was now driving; "West on 287, about 7 or 8 miles... there's a road off the right. It's a summer cabin area... she said there's a sign, she said you can't miss it."

Just as the store clerk described, a large green and white sign proclaimed "Summer Resort Homes from the low $200's" with a big red arrow at the bottom pointing up the road.

"Pull over here Terrance."

Jamal went through their plan of attack again. "We'll drive 'roun' till we see the car. We'll drive in fast, close as we can get... then ever'body out and ready. If they're outside just kill that son-of-a-bitch! but don' hurt that girl mahn! Her we got to take back to Tyrone. The mahn? Don' fuck wit' him. Just kill the dog, you got it?"

As Terrance drove, Jamal took out his pistol and checked it and its magazine. Devon, Musa and even Terrance, checking as he drove, did the same.

They were about a mile off the main highway when they came to a monument sign in a landscaped island identifying the entry into Pinewood estates.

The name was a little more generous with the tone of the area than the reality. It was, rather than a residential subdivision, an area of summer, and weekend cabins, that had seen more prosperous times.

Most of the cabins in the subdivision didn't see more use than three or four weekends a year, with none of them being inhabited full time.

This being the middle of the week, in September, with kids in school, and hunting season not yet started, the area was deserted. Most of the cabins were shuttered tight and closed up.

Jamal and his crew drove slowly up one narrow twisting road and down another until Devon called from his position on the drivers side of the back seat; "Terrance, stop!"

"There! See it? Off there through the trees, a red car beside that cabin."

Four sets of eyes peered through the timber in the early evening dusk. The little red Saturn could be seen partially concealed beside a small cabin that sat at the end of a driveway that turned in a hundred feet or so farther up the road they were now on.

"Go!" Jamal shouted; "Go now!" he raised his weapon as he put his hand on the door handle.

The Yukon careened off the road and turned up the driveway sliding to a stop as all four doors opened and disgorged the four Jamaicans.

They spread out in a four man line across the drive, four or five yards apart, as they approached the cabin, which was, curiously, shuttered.

Devon walked on the left, Jamal next in line, with Terrance on his right and Musa on the right flank. With no windows to watch four sets of eyes scanned all over the small cabin and the surrounding area. Nothing stirred. Rare for Montana, there wasn't even a breeze.

They stopped twenty feet short of the cabin porch while Jamal tried to figure out what to do. The cabin seemed uninhabited, windows and front door tightly shuttered. But, that was damn sure the car. Where were they?

"I see ya'll didn't take my suggestion to leave Montana!" a voice called out; "and, Ya'll walk like you're a lil' sore too! You boys fall down or somethin'?"

Jamal snapped his weapon up into a weaver like stance, in spite of his stiffness and aimed toward the tree line that had been cleared back a hundred feet from the west side of the cabin. The man who called out to them was hidden in the shadow of those trees, like in a western movie, the sun at his back. Following Jamal's lead, his crew followed suit.

"No Surprise this time cowboy!" He hollered back; "Where's the Bitch? Give her up now, and I might let your white ass live!"

"Damn, boy... You've not learned any manners since we had our difficulty the other day have you?"

Jamal moved a couple of steps toward the voice in the trees, eyes futilely searching the dark timber for his target. He strained, trying to see into the gloom, past the glare of the early evening sun.

"Far enough big fella" Ben cautioned; "Me bein' a polite cowboy, you get one... last... warning... Leave now... or ... Never!"

"It's You that get one warning you honky ass hole!... Where's the fucking bitch?!"

"Such language, and from such a large man... must mean you got a lilllll' bitty pecker!" Ben taunted.

In frustration, Jamal moved his weapon a few degrees toward where he thought the voice was coming from and fired... three rounds, spaced across the tree line, as fast as he could pull the trigger.

The return fire, from a lever action 30-30, followed hard on the echo of Jamal's pistol. That one, single, round, struck Jamal on the bridge of his nose, snapped his head back, and slammed him hard to the ground. He was dead before he hit.

In an immediate, instant, reaction, Devon and Terrance both fired blindly at the trees. The muzzle flash from Ben's rifle was shrouded by the glare of the sun. It offered no identifiable target.

Two more shots cracked out of the thick timber. Both men went down and didn't move. Musa turned to run back to shelter behind the Yukon. His arm extended behind him, he fired blindly at the trees as he ran.

He almost made it.

Just as he reached the right front fender of the Chevy, a fourth shot cracked, and deeply creased his left buttock. It knocked him off balance so that he tripped and rolled as he ducked behind the car. In full panic, he crawled across the ground to the open passenger door and hauled himself inside.

Musa reached for the keys as he lay across the floor of the Yukon, twisted them, starting the engine, reached up and threw the gear shift into reverse and then slammed his hand down on the accelerator.

The tires spun and threw up gravel from the driveway as two more shots punched holes in the windshield. The car hurtled blindly down the drive, across the road and slammed to a stop in the bar ditch.

With the Yukon rolling down the driveway, Ben ran out of the trees jerking more rounds out of the leather ammo carrier laced onto the rifles butt stock. He hastily shoved rounds into the weapons magazine.

When the car bounced, as it slammed into the ditch, Musa, wide eyed and panicked, scrambled up onto the seat, jerked the gearshift into drive and tore off up the road, fishtailing wildly.

As the Black Chevy roared off down the road, Ben fired two last shots, shattering the rear window of the departing SUV before it crested a low rise and vanished.

He stood for a few moments and then, shaking his head, cursed himself; "Damn, I am getting old. Never would have left one loose in the old days..."

He scanned the surrounding area quickly, as he walked toward the Saturn. "Still no one around... good." he thought. He set the rifle butt down on the floor of the passenger side and flipped the muzzle over against the passenger door, before turning to run back to the positions he'd fired from. Carefully he scanned the ground and policed up the brass of the seven rounds he'd ejected. Tossing the empty casings in his hand and thinking of the eighth still in the rifle, he smiled to himself; "Almost forgot... Damn, I'm getting sloppy." He left nothing, other than his tracks for the police to wonder about.