Road Test

by David Wickenhauser

  “What happened?” she asked. She instinctively knew to depress the clutch and push on the brake pedal to bring the truck to a safe stop.

  “You took too long moving into sixth, honey. You lost your engine revolutions. You need to make all those extra movements in the same amount of time as you did with the other gears.”

  “OK,” Jenny said.

  “But you did great in stopping the truck before stalling it,” Hugh said. “Try again.”

  Jenny started out again, running up through fifth gear. This time, she had the movements timed perfectly and slid the truck into sixth gear.

  They were running out of road, with a dead end turnaround ahead, so Hugh told her to slow down to just above stall speed, depress the clutch, and use the brakes to bring the truck to a stop. She wasn’t ready for a downshifting lesson just yet.

  He told her to put the gear shift lever in neutral, pull the yellow tractor air brake knob, release the clutch and take her foot off of the brake pedal.

  “Wow! I’m sweating like I just ran a marathon,” Jenny said. “How did I do?”

  “I’ve got to tell you, you’re a natural. You did better than I did the first time James sat me in the driver’s seat the second day I was on his truck.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I did the train wreck thing several times, and James was afraid I was going to break his truck.”

  “Now what?” Jenny asked. Hugh thought she looked adorable sitting in the driver’s seat of his truck with a big, satisfied grin on her pretty face.

  “You need many, many more miles behind the wheel before you’re ready for your CDL road test. But that’s enough for now.”

  Hugh told Jenny to trade places with him.

  “I’ll take over and drive us to the ranch. From now on, pay extra close attention to everything I do, and try to figure out why I do it that way. We still need to cover downshifting, which is not exactly like the opposite of upshifting. You’ll see why.”

  Hugh drove them the rest of the way to the ranch, but stopped the truck just past the front gate.

  “You want to do something fun?” he asked.

  “Sure, what do you have in mind?”

  “How about if you finish driving the rest of the way up to the house?”

  “That would be a hoot. Let’s do it.”

  They switched seats again. This time Jenny was able to make her seat adjustments quicker because she knew where she wanted them to be.

  “You shouldn’t need more than fourth. When you get to the house, coast it to a stop.” He laughed. “Try not to run over anything.”

  As they got close to the house Hugh reached over Jenny and gave a quick tug on the air horn cable to the left above her head. He had phoned ahead to let everyone know they were on their way, and he wanted to bring everyone out to see Jenny driving.

  Jenny made a perfect stop in front of the house just as the whole family came out and down the front steps.

  Hugh climbed down from the passenger seat to greet everybody, but they were already flocking at Jenny’s driver’s side door to give her hugs and kisses as she stepped down from the cab.

  “Look!” Jenny said. She showed them the printout of her permit.

  “Congratulation, honey,” Martha said. “How about if you all come on up. I’m betting you haven’t had lunch yet.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  During their late lunch, Hugh and Jenny briefly filled the family in on the events that had happened since Jenny had rejoined him on the truck.

  “I don’t know what it is about you, Hugh,” Hugh senior said, only half joking. “You can’t seem to get fifty miles down the road without trouble finding you in a big way.”

  “And you, sweetie. How are you feeling about what you went through?” Martha asked Jenny.

  “It is what it is,” Jenny replied, and left it at that.

  The family sensed Hugh and Jenny weren’t eager to further discuss Jenny’s kidnapping and the aftermath. Martha, always sensitive to others’ feelings, changed the subject.

  “So what’s next? What do you guys have planned for the near future?” Martha asked, with a wink at Hugh.

  Jenny shrugged her shoulders, but Hugh spoke up. “Do you suppose it’s a good time to tell Jenny?” he asked his mom.

  Martha nodded.

  “Jenny, Mom has been getting some things ready, and she’d like you to go into town with her.”

  Jenny looked at Hugh, then at Martha. Her expression searching for clues to what Hugh was talking about.

  “You need to pick out a wedding gown and flowers, and all the stuff that goes with a wedding,” Hugh said. “Mom has scouted around and lined up all the places to go, but we wanted you to be able to make all the decisions and choices about our wedding.”

  Jenny brightened at hearing that. “What about the date? And the marriage license. All that?”

  “My pastor has given me a list of dates available for him to officiate, some in the fairly near future,” Martha said. “Hugh was thinking he’d like to have the wedding here at the ranch. Is that OK with you?”

  “Definitely,” Jenny replied.

  “As to the marriage license, I’ll need to go to the county recorder’s office with you to get that,” Hugh told Jenny. “But all the rest is between you and Mom. Please leave me out of it.”

  “What are you going to do in the meantime?” Jenny asked.

  “First, I’m going to take a ride out. Buck and I need to have some quiet time together.”

  Mary glanced at Martha with a, “No surprise there,” kind of look.

  On his occasional visits to the family ranch Hugh often took to the forest on his horse to unwind from his long stints on the road.

  Buck was a special horse to Hugh, one he favored over all the others in the family’s stable. He was a buttermilk buckskin gelding – the color of light café mocha, but with a beautiful, black mane and tail.

  Buck had been Hugh’s horse ever since he had first seen him as a colt on one of his infrequent home-time visits at the ranch. He’d had a hand in gentling him to the saddle, and had spent a lot of time with him every time he’d come home.

  One attribute of Buck’s that Hugh particularly liked was his sturdy comportment and large size for a quarter horse – standing a little over sixteen hands.

  The two rode as one, seeming to read each other’s thoughts, and Hugh would never consider riding out with any other.

  “When I get back I need to drive over to Spokane to take care of some business,” Hugh said.

  The next morning, as Martha and Jenny got ready to go into town to make wedding preparations, Hugh went out to the stable to feed and brush his favorite horse.

  “Hey, Buck, old man. How are you doing?”

  Hugh slipped easily into the mode of talking to his horse, and Buck pricked up his ears at hearing Hugh’s voice. The feeling between man and horse was mutual.

  “I’ll come back in a little bit, and we’ll go for a ride.”

  Hugh returned to the house in time to say goodbye to Jenny and his Mom. He handed Jenny his credit card and a list of friends he suggested they could invite to the wedding.

  “If you approve, of course. And add anybody else you’d like. Can you send out invitations as soon as you get a date?”

  Jenny took the list from him, and skimmed the names.

  “This is going to be sudden notice for those folks who are far away, which is just about everybody,” she said. “We’ll just have to hope for the best.”

  Hugh gathered up items he would need for his ride out – his rifle, his Bible, trail food, a sleeping bag, and minimal camp cooking gear and utensils.

  What he usually carried with him on these outings was his trusty Ruger Mini-30, a semi-auto carbine in the popular, cheap, and highly-available 7.62x39 NATO caliber.

  His Mini-30 was a sweet little carbine, and he liked it a lot. But, even it was barely adequate for what he might encounter in the forest here. Grizzly bears and moose
in a bad mood often crossed Hugh’s path. It was a decent compromise, however, between what was good for hunting light game for meat, and what was adequate for self-protection.

  He would stay out three days and two nights, hunting small game for his dinner.

  Saddled up and mounted, with Buck’s nose pointing toward the forest that encircled the homeplace, Hugh once again felt the indescribable joy at being in the saddle and looking forward to three days of quiet, solitude, relaxation, and sleeping under the stars.

  The huge Mann Ranch was oval-shaped, oriented north-south, with the large, log cabin home and barns and outbuildings nestled into a large clearing encompassing several hundred acres of meadows. The property also held a five-acre bass pond, pastures, and hay fields.

  Hugh’s destination on this ride out were the hills fringing the ranch home that extended the Mann Ranch property for several miles in the north-south and east-west directions. All totaled, the Mann Ranch comprised about eleven thousand acres.

  Hugh senior had picked up that much land cheaply shortly after a forest fire had raged through that area of the Idaho panhandle. That was more than thirty years earlier, and the forest had reseeded itself, leaving scant evidence of the earlier devastation.

  Hugh combined pleasure with work on these rides out. Hugh senior and Roly rarely had the time to cover the extent of the property, so when Hugh went out he liked to give everything a good look.

  Of concern were squatters who were known to find isolated, forested lands to set up a sort of permanent camp. Those were a problem, but not usually somebody difficult to deal with.

  While Hugh had no argument with these people’s desires, he nevertheless did insist they not squat on his family’s land. Unlike the huge tracts of public land throughout the Western states, much of the land in this area was held privately by families like the Manns. Or large tracts of land were owned by the logging companies. In other words, it was all private land.

  Of greater concern, especially lately, was the Mexican drug cartels that had been working their way farther north, escaping the successful efforts other states like Oregon and California have had in eradicating the cartel’s large marijuana grows.

  They would seek out open patches within heavy forest to plant their marijuana crops far from the spying eyes of the drug enforcement officers. Forest exactly like what Hugh was riding through.

  One of the major problems with these cartel operations was they protected their grows with deadly booby traps and armed guards. Hugh had always been concerned Mary might ride out someday and stumble upon one of these operations. So far, there had never been one on his family’s land that he had discovered. But, there had been a couple found in nearby counties. So, he was diligent to make it a priority on these rides out to keep an eye open for such things.

  On Hugh’s previous ride out, right after bringing Jenny to the ranch the first time, he had seen no recent evidence of squatters or of cartel involvement on his parents’ land.

  That time, he’d stayed on the side of the ridge line facing the ranch far below that had kept him in sight of the ranch house … and Jenny. This time, he planned to cross over the top of the ridge and ride on the side of the hills facing away from the ranch house. If any squatters or marijuana grows were on Mann land they’d be on that side, their lights at night going unseen from the ranch house below.

  He began to circumnavigate the ranch perimeter, lost in reflection about recent past events. He was content to give Buck his lead, confident the sure-footed, mountain-reared buckskin would keep them both out of trouble.

  Buck knew what to do, and what he was there for. His ears were constantly in motion as he scouted the area for strange sounds.

  Hugh was startled out of his half-doze by a rustling in a bush. “Hold, boy,” he told Buck, and then he quickly snapped off a shot at dinner, a nice plump rabbit.

  Toward dusk, Hugh located a small open spot flat enough for his bedroll, and room enough for a fire. It had a small stream running nearby for water for him and Buck.

  He built a small fire and cut two forked sticks. He cut another longer one to skewer the rabbit with that he placed across the forks over the fire. He sat down to cook dinner, occasionally turning the rabbit by hand so it would be evenly cooked.

  While the rabbit roasted above the coals, and while some daylight remained, Hugh took out his Bible to take in some of God’s word. These times in the quiet, darkening forest, lying on the ground with Bible in hand, away from the hustle, bustle and noise of truck parks, were always special times for Hugh to visit with his Lord.

  Hugh began pulling at pieces of rabbit meat as they became done, until he had eaten the whole thing.

  At full dark, he led Buck to the stream, where Hugh washed up and drank as Buck also drank his fill.

  Hugh slipped into his sleeping bag confident his watch-horse would alert him to trouble in the night. Then he quickly fell asleep.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  In contrast to the usual noise of truck stops and the smell of diesel fumes from trucks starting up, Hugh awoke to the sound of birds singing and tree leaves rustling in the gentle morning breeze.

  “Beautiful day,” Hugh said to Buck.

  The buckskin grazed nearby. Hugh hadn’t bothered to tie or hobble him. For two reasons. One reason was he was confident Buck wouldn’t wander, and the other was that in the event of danger, from a bear, for example, he didn’t want Buck to get tangled in his restraints and get injured. It was a system that had worked perfectly in the past.

  Hugh made cowboy coffee in his fire-darkened metal coffee pot. His recipe was simple. Throw a handful of grounds into water just off the boil. Wait a minute. Swirl. Wait another minute. Pour. Drink.

  “Nothing better,” he told Buck, and lifted his cup to toast the horse.

  As Hugh picked coffee grounds from his teeth, he wondered how things were going at the ranch. By now, he assumed, Jenny had chosen a wedding gown, and had met with the pastor to set a date. Hugh was more than happy to leave to Jenny the details of decorations for the wedding. Choosing color schemes and such was not his thing.

  Breakfast completed, and with both man and horse watered, Hugh and Buck turned their attention to scouting the remote areas of the Mann Ranch forested property.

  Around mid morning, as they worked their way along a seldom-used trail deep into some of the remaining old-growth forest, Hugh heard a “twang” sound and caught a flash of something shooting underneath his horse. When it thunked into a tree on the other side of the trail he saw it was a crossbow bolt.

  “Whoa, boy,” Hugh told Buck. He jumped out of the saddle, and laid Buck down in a deep depression left by a large tree that had fallen down, and that had pulled a root ball up like a wall on one side. Hugh and Buck had practiced the laying-down maneuver many times. Just in case. Always a Marine.

  He grabbed his rifle from the saddle scabbard, and peered over the rim of the depression. He didn’t immediately see anyone. Looking back down the trail he spotted the thin wire laid across the path as a trip wire to trigger the crossbow.

  Luckily for man and horse, but especially horse, the crossbow had been aimed to catch a walker at a low stomach level, which meant the bolt had narrowly passed underneath the tall buckskin horse’s belly.

  A person on foot would have been seriously, or fatally, injured.

  Hugh had obviously stumbled upon a perimeter booby trap security arrangement for a nearby marijuana grow. Hugh guessed that the firing crossbow had also triggered a remote sensor to alert the men attending the grow. These cartel guys were all about technology these days.

  Within a few moments, Hugh saw Buck’s ears twitch, and then Hugh himself heard the voices of several men speaking excitedly in Spanish. Hugh stood up, and peered over the top of the root ball. He could see several men working their way toward him and Buck.

  One of the men spotted Hugh’s head poking just above the root ball cover, and he snapped off a quick shot. Hugh ducked, and recognized the dist
inctive sound of an AK47 rifle. Same NATO round his Mini-30 used, so they were evenly matched in that regard. It didn’t occur to Hugh to be worried about three or four-to-one odds against him.

  “Back off fellas! I’m just passing through. I don’t want any trouble,” Hugh shouted to the men with a menacing tone. He intended plenty of trouble for these guys because he wanted them off his land. But he needed to get out of this predicament first.

  No response from the men. Chances were good they didn’t speak English. Hugh was sure, however, they had caught the gist of his warning.

  Another shot bit off a chunk of root ball just over Hugh’s head.

  “OK. That’s it,” Hugh told Buck. “We’re in it now.”

  Keeping low and edging to the low side of the root ball, Hugh peered through a tangle of roots and spotted a red bandana partially concealed behind some leaves about thirty yards away. He put his crosshairs on the red target and pulled the trigger. He didn’t miss.

  “One down.”

  A fusillade of bullets then began to tear at Hugh’s root ball cover. Hugh heard Buck scream, and he saw the horse had taken a shot across his shoulder. It was only a skin deep gash, parting Buck’s hide with a furrow.

  “Easy, boy,” Hugh said to reassure Buck.

  Buck was protected by the root ball wall, so that shot meant at least one of the men had worked his way around to flank Hugh on the side where he was unprotected by the root ball. Someone had tried taking him out from that flanking position.

  Keeping below the rim of the depression, Hugh tried to spot the flanker, but the thickness of the forest prevented him from seeing anyone. He’d have to hug the floor of the depression and wait them out. Wait for them to make a mistake.

  That mistake wasn’t long in coming.

  Hugh heard what sounded like two guys rushing to close the distance to where Hugh was concealed behind the fallen tree. He crouched to look around the low side of the root ball again, and saw the two men trying to pick their way over the mass of branches and other forest debris. He put his rifle to his shoulder and took them both down with two quick shots from his Mini-30.