STRANDED at Romson’s Lodge
STRANDED
at Romson’s Lodge
J. L. Callison
New York
STRANDED at Romson’s Lodge
© 2016 J. L. Callison.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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ISBN 978-1-63047-736-3 paperback
ISBN 978-1-63047-737-0 eBook
Library of Congress Control Number:
2015913378
Cover Design by:
Kurt Schoenfielder
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DEDICATION
To the memory of my father, Robert William Callison,
who did not live to see this book completed,
but encouraged me to write it.
September 1931 to December 2013
To my mother, Bertie Lou Perry Callison,
the best mother I ever had, and she is a good one.
And
To my wife, Linda, who has stuck with me for thirty-eight years.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
CHAPTER 82
CHAPTER 83
CHAPTER 84
CHAPTER 85
CHAPTER 86
CHAPTER 87
CHAPTER 88
CHAPTER 89
CHAPTER 90
CHAPTER 91
CHAPTER 92
CHAPTER 93
PREFACE
When reading this story and the actions described, please understand the author does not condone all activities as written. The author attempted to write based on life as commonly lived rather than how it ought to be lived. It is incumbent on readers to determine proper action or lifestyle based on their own beliefs and convictions. Each of us must “write” our own life story so that when we stand before God, we do so without shame, resting in the forgiveness we receive through Jesus Christ, in order to hear “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” Therefore, some of the actions or activities portrayed may not agree with your beliefs or standards. It is hoped this story will help you determine what your convictions are and ought to be, not based on what you read here, but based on what you read in the only authority that really counts, the Bible.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With Gratitude
Sgt. Joe Sprecco (Retired); San Diego County Sheriff Department, CA
Sgt. Bill Rygh, Jr.; Oak Park Police Department, IL
These men advised me on the police procedures described in this book. Without their guidance, I would have made obvious my lack of knowledge. Thank you, gentlemen!
Mr. Russ Martin; Wipaire, Inc.
Mr. Martin was gracious enough to spend time with me on the telephone, helping me understand some of the modifications to the De Havilland Beaver described in this story. He knew he had nothing financial to gain from giving me his time but was gracious and helpful. I am in his debt.
Dr. Mike Enderby
Mike Enderby was kind enough to proofread my tale when first written, and he provided valuable insights into the story. I am most appreciative of his help and friendship.
Mrs. Teresa Carrillo
Teresa Carillo edited my story concept and gave more than a little guidance to this fledgling author, who didn’t know what he was doing but had a story he wanted to tell. Teresa is the one who made it readable.
J.P. Summers; Author
Without her help, encouragement, and advice, this book would still be in the dream stage. J.P.—a chronic migraine and cluster headache sufferer—encouraged me to continue even through my cluster headache attacks. I appreciate her advocacy for more research into our little understood, and often overlooked, maladies. Thank you!
Mr. Kurt Shoenfielder
Kurt, owner of Throttle5 Creative Solutions, designed my book cover. I appreciate his excellent taste and ability to take my story concept and make it visual on the first try. Thank you, Kurt!
Robin LaLena; RN
Robin gave medical insight into the story and guided my descriptions of Charles Sitton’s care. Thank you!
Linda C. Callison
I am grateful for Linda’s knowledge of grammar and willingness to copyedit this book. It was an unsung task but most necessary.
Michelle Harper
Last, but certainly not least, Michelle did a final edit and gave guidance to improve the way I told the story. I’m grateful for her assistance.
CHAPTER 1
Elizabeth Sitton
wept silently with her eyes closed. She didn’t know where they were going, and she didn’t care. She wanted to go home. Jed Romson knew where they were going. Knowing, though, made things no better. His back was stiff from sitting hunched over with his hand cuffed to Elizabeth’s through the seat supports.
Jed looked at the back of Pete Richardson’s head. Pete, Romson Industries’ company pilot, flew the company aircraft, a De Havilland Beaver, a superb plane for getting in and out of remote areas. Jed knew the Beaver’s capabilities would be needed to land on the lake by the company’s hunting and research lodge.
Great, Jed thought. Fifty miles of wilderness to any town, I’m stuck with a girl who knows nothing useful, and I have no idea where to find a hunting camp. Thirty-five miles? I don’t know. I just don’t know.
CHAPTER 2
April 28, 1985, had started off well enough. Jed and Elizabeth, both seniors, returned from their senior trip after an all-night flight. It had been a great ten days in Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Italy. Both were glad, though, to be home.
While the guys were unloading the luggage, Mrs. Dewitt, the school secretary, called out to Jed. “Mr. Sitton called. Could you drop Elizabeth off on your way home? He’s sorry, but he got called in to the plant because of a breakdown.”
“Sure, no problem.” Jed grabbed Elizabeth’s bags, threw them into the back of his Bronco, and opened the passenger door. He passed her house on the way to his own anyway, and he knew his folks weren’t home. He helped her into the passenger seat of his Bronco, closed the door, then went around and got into the driver’s side and started the engine.
Elizabeth pouted. Her dad always got called in. He didn’t think the factory could run without him! To a measure, it couldn’t, but that didn’t make Elizabeth like it any better. Since her mother died of cancer three years ago, it was just the two of them, and Elizabeth had missed her dad terribly while she was in Europe.
Meanwhile, Pete Richardson timed his abduction just right. He parked in the driveway of an empty house a block from the school and waited for the bus to arrive from the airport. When he saw the bus was unloaded, he drove his car to a spot just short of the school drive and turned the engine off. He released the hood latch and got out of the car, but he didn’t bother pulling the key; he wouldn’t need this car any longer.
Opening the hood, Pete bent over the engine as if looking for a problem while he kept one eye on the school parking lot, watching for Jed’s Bronco to pull out. He rubbed his hands on the top of the engine just enough to get some dirt and oil on them and smudged more dirt on his forehead, as if he had brushed the back of his hand across it. When he saw Jed’s Ford Bronco move, he stood with hands on his hips looking disgustedly at the car. Pete knew Jed would stop, and Pete could take over from there.
Seeing Pete standing by his car, Jed stopped his truck and rolled down his window. “Hey Pete, what’s wrong?”
“Oh! Hi, Jed, glad to see you! My engine isn’t running, and I have to get to the hangar right away for your dad.”
Jed turned to Elizabeth and asked, “Are you in a big hurry? Would you mind if I dropped Pete off at the plane on the way home?”
Elizabeth looked at him with a frown and said, “It really doesn’t matter. I’ve no reason to hurry home. There’s no telling when Daddy will get there.”
Jed turned back to Pete and said, “Jump in the back seat if you want. I’ll be happy to run you out to the plane.”
Pete grabbed a bag from the back seat of his car and walked over to the Bronco and crawled into the back seat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had your girlfriend with you.” This extra girl would change his plans quite a bit, but it actually might work better.
“Oh, Elizabeth isn’t my girlfriend. She’s Mr. Sitton’s daughter. I’m just giving her a lift home because her dad is stuck working on a breakdown out at the plant.”
Jed drove to the company hangar, which was between Hoppleberg’s small airport and the lake. . “Here you go, Pete,” he said as he turned around to look at Pete, but his eyes bugged when he saw the .38 caliber revolver Pete held in his hand.
“I’m sorry, Jed, but I have to do this. I have no other choice. You won’t be hurt—I promise you, but I have to be sure of things. Now, I need you to drive the Bronco into the hangar.”
Jed parked the Bronco inside the hangar next to the airplane. At Pete’s order, he unloaded and secured their luggage in the back of the airplane and then climbed into the back left seat. Elizabeth sat down in the seat next to him. Pete handed her a handcuff and told her to put one end of the cuffs around Jed’s right wrist, then pull it through the seat support and fasten the other end around her own left wrist. He watched carefully as she did so, slipped the gun into his pocket, pre-flighted the airplane, pushed it out of the hangar, and closed and locked the doors. Pete confirmed the door was latched and from his pocket pulled a small tube and removed the cap. He inserted the tip of the tube into the keyhole, squirted a small amount of liquid into the lock, capped the tube, and tossed it into the lake. He climbed into the pilot’s seat, started the engine, and took flight.
CHAPTER 3
Hours later, Jed looked out his window when the plane banked to the left and started to descend. Sure enough, there was the company’s testing lodge and the lake below. Shortly after James Romson, Jed’s father, started Romson Industries, he recognized the need for a remote location with severe weather conditions to test cold weather gear and equipment. This lodge, an old lumber camp, fit the bill perfectly. Romson Industries owned over one hundred thousand acres in the most remote area of the continental United States, with less than one person per hundred square miles. Jed knew his chances of walking out to safety were nil, especially since he had to babysit a tenderfoot girl.
Pete turned his head and reached behind the seat with a set of headphones and shoved them at Jed. Jed struggled to put them on with his left hand and managed to do so on the third try. He pulled the microphone down in front of his lips.
“Can you hear me, Jed?”
“I hear you.”
“Look, I’m really sorry I had to do this to you. I’m in a tight spot, and I don’t have many options. Listen carefully to what I have to say, and you will be okay.”
“I’m listening,” Jed said, but the sarcasm was lost on Pete.
“Here’s the deal. I stocked the lodge for the company’s plant managers’ fishing trip. You will have plenty of food, and it is not all that cold, except at night. Plenty of firewood is cut and ready. I hadn’t planned on you being with a girl, but that can’t be helped. I can’t really take her back now, can I?” He chuckled, then continued. “I think she will actually make it easier for me to get your dad to come up with the money. In fact, I might just up the price.
“I wanted to leave you where I knew you would be safe. The last thing I want is for you to be hurt. I‘ll be down in the Cayman Islands about this time tomorrow evening, and I’ll message him from there and give him the idea you are down there with me. Besides, without the plane, he won’t be coming up here to look now, will he? I disabled the shortwave radio, so you won’t be able to call anyone. As soon as your dad wires the money to me in the Caymans, I’ll tell him where to find you. I promise I will.”
“You’ll never get away with this, you know.”
Pete laughed mockingly and said, “I’m smarter than that. I have it all planned out. The money will go to a numbered account in the Caymans. The Cayman banks make the Swiss bankers look talkative. But I have it set for an automatic transfer to the Bahamas, and they don’t have an extradition treaty with the US. I won’t ever come back to the States, but I know a guy who can alter the registration on this plane, and I can make a very good living in the Islands. I’ll do okay. By the way, don’t bother trying to switch to transmit rather than intercom. I turned off the radio, so you won’t be able to reach anyone.” Pete laughed again and in falsetto mocked, “Please fasten your seatbelts and return your seats to the upright and locked
position. Thank you for flying Romson Air.”
Jed felt the plane flare, and the floats splashed in the lake and bounced before splashing once again as Pete chopped the throttle and turned the plane toward the dock. Elizabeth raised her head finally and looked fearfully out the window to see the lodge just beyond the dock. Pete carefully eased the plane alongside the dock, quickly jumped from the plane, and secured it in place.
Pete opened the passenger door and then handed Elizabeth the handcuff key. He pulled his pistol from his pocket and told her to unlock her handcuff. It had been an uncomfortable trip sitting hunched over as they were. Pete forced Jed to unload the luggage and then handcuffed his hands behind him. “You know where the rifles are in the lodge, and I’m not about to let you try to stop me.” Pete looked down at the dock and shuffled his feet before continuing. “I told you I don’t want you hurt, and that is the truth. Your family has always been good to me, and I feel terrible about what I’m doing. But it is my life if I don’t. I ask you to understand.”
He turned to Elizabeth. “Missy, you walk off of the dock and sit down. I’ll leave this key inside your purse here on the dock. After I take off, you may come back down here, get the key, and release Jed. I’m sorry you got involved in this, but I had no choice. It’s just your bad luck, I guess. You will be okay. Your parents will know where you two are just as soon as Jed’s dad wires the money to me. I told Jed about the supplies in the cabin, so you won’t go hungry or be cold. Goodbye.”
Pete waited for Elizabeth to walk the length of the dock and sit before he quickly loosed the moorings on the plane, jumped in, started the engine, and slowly eased out onto the lake. He gave them a wave as he left, but neither Jed nor Elizabeth responded from where they were seated at the end of the dock.
CHAPTER 4
Officer Sorrells flipped on his lights behind the illegally parked car. There was still no sign of life or activity. Too bad the owner would have to pay the towing fees, but he had to do his job. He had already waited a lot longer than he should have. Officer Sorrells called it in and started the paperwork while he waited for Crook Autobody to bring their flatbed truck and tow the car. He always tried to use as much leniency as he could on these deals. Having a broken-down car was bad enough, but getting a ticket for illegal parking when it couldn’t be helped just added insult to injury.
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