by T. S. Hill
“You a Ford fan?”, I asked.
“Yeah.” she answered quietly, and rather meekly.
“Then why don’t you drive?”, I inquired.
She ignored my question, and once again, answered my question with a question, “So how long before this thing starts running?” I had removed the breather cap, poured a little of the leftover gasoline, from the can, into the carburetor, replaced the cap, and was now finishing tightening up the wing nut that held it in place.
“That’s the second time you have pulled that on me.”, I told her.
“Pulled what?”, she asked feigning innocence.
“Dodging my question, by answering my question with a question”, I stated, “And for the second time, I’m too focused on what is urgent, to push the point. So, I’m just going to let it go.”
“Please do.”, she said coldly, looking away from me.
“Only for now.”, I stated, as I opened the truck door and climbed in. I turned the key and the starter turned the engine, which almost immediately fired up, and then after the initial rev, just as immediately died. I turned the starter again, but the engine didn’t fire off. I climbed back out of the truck, and started re-loosening the wing nut on the breather cap.
“What are you doing now?”, she asked.
“We have to pour a little more gasoline in the carb.”, I responded.
“How many times do you have to do that?”, she questioned.
“Until it will keep running.”, I answered. Then why don’t you leave that thing off, so you can put gas in, until it keeps running?”, she continued to question.
“You know that thing about not being dangerous, as long as you know what you’re doing?”, I questioned back at her.
“Now, you’re doing it!”, she said.
“What?”, I questioned.
“Answering a question with a question!” she said, somewhat exasperated.
“It’s dangerous to leave it off! Okay?”, I answered a little snappily, “It’s just something I happen to know. You can start a real dangerous, gas fire, on the engine, if you try this and leave the breather cap off. I put the wing nut on, because without it, a backfire would blow the cap off, and from there on, it can go downhill really quickly.”
“Oh, I get it!”, she drawled, “So, it’s not really dangerous, if you know what you’re doing?”
“I pulled my head from under the hood and looked her in the eyes.
“Really?”, I responded testily. She giggled and grinned. I couldn’t be ill with that beautiful grin. This girl was so sexy that it was dangerous. I only hoped that I knew what I was doing with her, but it was already pretty obvious to me that I didn’t.
Two tries later, and the truck engine kept running. We both let out loud “wahoo” whoops when it did. Lori pulled back both of the large barn doors, and I drove the truck just through the doors and parked it over to the side. After swapping the battery back to the Mustang, I pulled it in, as far back into the barn as I could. In the light of the day I could see the damage that the shotgun had done at the fast food place last night. I was going to be totally fucked, and not in a good way, if and when, I turned this car back in at Magnum Motors.
Holly, the hot, red headed, manager would be completely, freaking, pissed off. Oh, well. Given my current company, it was beginning to look like Holly, just might end up being the one that got away. I had never given thought to settling down with one woman, but being with Lori had forced the thought to cross my mind. Yeah, the same mind, that I was thinking, that I must be losing. I didn’t even know this woman’s real name. What a mess. What a blissful mess.
After returning the battery to its oddly located compartment, under the passenger floor, the old truck’s engine fired up on the first turn. I backed the truck into the barn, so that should we suddenly need to leave in a hurry, there would be no having to back out, and turn around.
After the barn doors were closed, I picked up the flashlight from beside the food basket on the work bench, grabbed Lori’s hand, and led her off to explore the contents of the trunks. In my heart, I wanted nothing more than to lead her back to the hayloft, but at least for the moment, I was using my thinking head.
When we arrived in what at one time must have been the tack room, Lori spoke up, “There’s nothing but clothes in the first trunk,”, she informed me, while pointing to the left most trunk, “and as you saw already, clothes, dishes and silverware in the second trunk. I didn’t look in the other two yet.” She pointed towards the two rightmost trunks lined against the back wall.
I flipped on the flashlight and handed it to her, released the latch holding the third trunk lid down, then slowly raised the lid, so as to not stir up the thick layer of dust, that lay on the barrel shaped top. The old hinges squeaked, like in the spooky movies, but inside we saw nothing but neatly tied packets of postal envelopes.
Each packet was tied with a different color of ribbon, appearing to be someone’s collection of old letters. They were all lined up in the tray that sets over the main compartment in trunks like this. I grabbed the hand cutouts on either end, and lifted the tray out, setting it aside, on the flat top of the adjacent old steamer trunk. Underneath, were neatly stacked cardboard boxes. I picked up one and Lori picked up another.
“Well, I’ve got what looks like scrap spools of thread here.”, I announced.
“Military medals here.”, piped in Lori, as she gently laid the box of medals on the floor beside her. I set my box aside also, and picked up two more boxes, handing one to Lori.
“This one’s heavy.”, I commented, about the box that I kept in my right hand.
“Oh, look Stan!”, Lori almost gasped, upon opening the box. Then, she held up a Wedgwood blue, cameo, locket, on a silver chain. She picked up the flashlight, and aiming it at the locket, the cameo appeared to glow in the focused light. She whispered, “It looks just like my Mama!”
“Keep it.”, I said. “No, I can’t, that would be stealing.”
I giggled, “Really? You? Remember how I met you?”
“I don’t steal.”, she said in a cold voice, “Not when I don’t have to.”
“Okay then.”, I replied. She hung the locket by its silver chain on the trunk lid latch, and held it lovingly in her finger tips for a few seconds before releasing it.
“Everything else in this box is just junk, costume jewelry.”, she said, with what I thought was a little disappointment in her voice.
Dropping the lid off the box in my hand, I almost dropped the box with it. “Woops!”, I called out.”
Lori jumped. “You got that cowboy?”
“Yeah, I got it.”, I casually responded. Then looking into the box, I exclaimed, “Wow! I’ve really got it!”
“What is it? Money?” she asked.
“No, I responded, “Something far better than money would be right now.” I lifted from the box, a silver plated, and heavily engraved, Colt, model 1911, in forty-five caliber, with ivory grips. Real ivory grips.
“Well it is a pretty gun.”, Lori offered, “But, better than money?” There’s two of them.”, I countered.
“Still,”, she said, “better than money? How?”
“Hopefully, this solves our gun problem.”, I answered.
“What gun problem?”, she continued questioning.
“When we fired my guns into the windshield of that Toyota, back in Canadian, there’s a very good chance that we, just might, have hurt someone.”, I reminded her.
“I fucking well hope so!”, she shot back at me.
“Where do you think those empty cartridges went?”, I continued, “In the street. To be picked up by the police, for evidence. Which can be linked back to my pistols, because of the unique firing pin marks, not to mention barrel markings on the bullets themselves, if there is enough remaining of those. I use hand loads that pretty much fragment into a spray of lead upon impact. So, the bullets are definitely hard to trace, but not fool proof. But, the point is, we don’t need to get caught b
y police, with my guns in our possession. We also don’t need to be out here, out there, or out anywhere, without some kind of weapons for our own protection.”
“Oh!”, she said, “Then, these pistols, could solve our gun problem?”
“I fucking well hope so!”, I teasingly shot back at her. We both burst out laughing. Further down under several boxes of other sewing notions and junk jewelry, we uncovered a large blue speckled stew pot with its lid.
“This must have been some kind of family keep sake.”, I offered.
“Actually,”, Lori drawled out, “We can make good use of this.”
“We can?”, I questioned back.
“Sure.”, she responded, “Do you think that you might get hungry again, before breakfast time tomorrow?”
“I expect to.”, I replied.
“Well, cowboy, if we wash this old pot out, and then empty just the right jars from that cellar, into this pot, we could cook it over a fire, and have some really delicious stew to eat.”
“You know all about this cooking over a fire thing, huh?”, I teased.
“Like I said before,”, she responded in a coy and flirty voice, “As long as you know what you are doing, then it isn’t dangerous at all.”
“This time, my dear,”, I directed to her, looking straight into her eyes, “it could be dangerous.”
“What do you mean?”, she questioned with a little hint of concern in her voice.”
I began to explain to her, “To cook, we have to have heat. The only way we have of generating that much heat, as you have pointed out, is for us to build a fire. I can start fire seven different ways, but fires generate smoke. With the track record of that house out there, I think smoke going up from this place would attract attention. In our circumstances, we don’t need attention.”
“I get it cowboy!”, Lori said holding up her hand like a traffic cop signaling stop. Then she continued, “You mentioned earlier, possibly delaying a day or more before we move on. Are you still thinking that way?”
“This seems like a safe enough place for now.”, I replied, and then continued, “Generally, the longer that you stay in one place, the odds increase of someone finding you. But right now, what with the heat that we left coming out of Amarillo, and then in Canadian, I’d say the odds out on the road are worse than staying right here. In another day or maybe even two, I figure we can use some of the clothes here, and take that old truck, with a load of some kind of farm crap, out on the road, and pass on through as local ranch folks.”
“That sounds like a plan, cowboy.”, she offered, as though to endorse the ideas. “Now, how about tonight after dark, when the smoke won’t be seen; and there is no moon tonight by the way, we build a little fire in a pit around back of the barn, and I cook us up a pot of stew?”
“Hmm,”, I responded hesitantly, “I suppose we could probably do that.” Her response took me by surprise, when she began jumping up and down on her tip toes, and clapping her hands.
“Oh, goody!”, she exclaimed, and kissed me on the cheek.
“Goody?”, I questioned her.
“Well what did you want me to say, fucking goody?” I knew immediately, that I had kind of fucked up.
“Lori, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...” She cut me off. With her hands on both hips, she lifted her right hand and pointed her finger at me.
“Don’t fuck this up cowboy! I’m trying to be nice to you, and you should let me.”
“Yes, Mam!” I answered enthusiastically.
As she turned around and semi-skipped away, I saw her hug herself and heard her squeal at a whisper, “Oh goody!”
I followed Lori to the open cellar door, and extended my hand with the flashlight in it, just when she turned around, realizing herself, that she had forgotten to bring it with her. “Thanks cowboy!”, she piped up in a chipper manner and planted a kiss on my lips. Before I could respond, she had started down the cellar steps.
“You need any help down there?”, I called after her.
“Nope! I’m good!”, she called out.
“I’m going up to the front of the barn where there’s better light and check out these pistols. There’s some kind of paperwork with them.”, I called down to her, “Yell out if you need me.”
“Okay, cowboy!”, she called back.
Arriving at the front of the barn, I cracked one of the large rolling doors open, just enough to let in a beam of sunlight, and with the box containing the two pistols and paperwork, sat down on the barn’s dirt floor. First, I examined the pistols, one at a time. These were finely crafted pistols. Flawless in fact. In the box, I found a commemorative certificate of authenticity, something that I had never seen before.
There was engraving information about the two Colts, along with their manufacture date, serial numbers, and the special commission of Colt to build them. A lot of flowery language was included, and then at the end was a hand-written script that sent chills up my back.
The certificate at the end read, “Presented to Colonel Andrew W. Adamson in tribute to his brave, honorable, and distinguished service to his country, and his command, this twenty third day of September, 1945.
At the bottom of the certificate was a short note in the same handwriting, and an initial signature. It read, “Just a small token of the esteem with which I hold your most valuable friendship, and camaraderie, G. S. P.” Could that mean George S. Patton? I knew a good bit about gun history and lore, but I had never heard anything about a matched pair of Patton presentation forty-fives.
There’s a whole world of model 1911, forty-five caliber, special commissioned, pistols. But I wasn’t aware of anything in history, or in existence, like this pair. Of course, if they had been out of circulation since 1945, then there just may not be any history or record of them, except maybe buried somewhere in the old Colt archives.
The ironic thing was the forty-fives that Patton was known for carrying were forty-five revolvers, not the semiautomatics. Still I knew this could be an authentic gift from Patton. Right now, I was more interested in having guns that wouldn’t be tied to issues, like we were involved in yesterday. These forty-fives would do. They would do nicely.
I took the ammo out of the other two pistols, and retrieved the remaining spare ammo, and other belongings that I had in the Mustang, such as the GPS, cell phone, and survival bag. I had no luggage, because I had lost it in an incident in Mexico. I hated that, because I just wasn’t comfortable in anything but my own clothes.
After I stowed the Mustang’s emergency road kit behind the truck’s seat, I finished siphoning and pouring the remainder of the gasoline from the Mustang to the truck. As a final touch, I wiped down the Mustang completely, to eliminate any finger prints. I knew that, very likely, if someone was intent on it, they could find some kind of forensic evidence, like a hair or something that could connect us to the Mustang, and the car rental records would always be there. But, I didn’t intend on making it easy. I also took all of the insurance info, along with the registration card, and removed the tag. I would ditch them somewhere along the road also.
While I was at it, I wiped my two guns and placed them under the seat of the truck, in the box that the twin Colts had been in. I thought it best to ditch them someplace else besides here, where we were already ditching the Mustang.
I did strip out a few of the internal parts of my old forty-five for spares, and kept the magazine, and it’s back up. The Smith nine, I planned to ditch barrel and firing pin only. I could get new ones in the future, and the other parts weren’t traceable from a fired cartridge or bullet. About the time that I finished the last of these chores, Lori came up from the back of the barn.
“Hey, cowboy, whatcha doing?”
“Getting everything ready for our departure.” I responded and turned to face her. The look on her face was one of disappointment.
“Now?”, she asked.
“No.”, I answered, “if everything continues to stay quiet here, I was thinking maybe about dark tom
orrow evening.” Immediately, her face brightened, noticeably, even though, I think she was trying to hide it.
“Sounds like a plan cowboy.”, she spoke evenly, looking off into the distance through the crack in the door, “Sounds like a fucking nice plan.”
“Now there’s my Lori!”, I quipped.
“Hee hee.”, she giggled. Then turning her attention to me, she queried, “How did the pistols check out?”
“Good, I responded, “Really good.”, offering her one of the Colts. She looked at the silver Colt with a brow furrowing look of puzzlement. “Don’t you know how to use this?”, I asked.
She gave me a look that spoke one word; “Really?” She stepped back and lifted both of her arms out by her sides, as a ballerina preparing to dance, or modeling her red dress. “Just where the fuck am I supposed to put it?”, she asked, raising her eyebrows, then she broke her pose and started laughing.
“Then, I’ll carry it for you.”, I said sheepishly, taking a Colt in each hand tucking them into my waistband behind my back.
“Why don’t you do that cowboy.”, she said with a sensual tone in her voice, and a mischievous look in her eyes. Standing on her tiptoes, and placing both of her arms around my neck, she brought her mouth up to mine, while pressing her soft, shapely body against me with obvious purpose.
Chapter Six
The Ride
Sometimes the destination is the goal, but that’s in business. In matters of pleasure, the trip is always the goal, and the destination, often an unwanted consequence.
As her arms encircled my neck and our lips met, my hands left the Colts in my waistband and reached for her waist. It was so small, and she was so dainty, so girly. Yet, she was acrobatic, she could shoot your eyes out, cussed worse than a sailor, and was the sexiest woman I had ever experienced.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, we were wrestling for my Colt, with her threatening to kill me. Since then, we had made a truce of sorts, been in a shootout of sorts together, made love, or actually shared mad sex. Additionally, we had shared a strange meal, and somehow managed to connect with each other, in an odd, warm feeling, sort of way, that went beyond the surface. I knew we connected beyond the sex, and I thought she knew it too. I hoped that she did. And if this kiss was any indicator, she did.