Sequoia Trail-A Bo Jon Littlehorse P.I. Novel. Second Edition

by Danny E. Allen

...’Hey, Dutch.’ ‘You gonna catch that ‘Catfish’’? ‘Catfish’, was Sallie Duram; they-called her ‘Catfish’ because no one was brave enough to marry her; fiesty and shrewd, she’d beaten the men at their-own game, could see through their-proposals… Yet Dutch, was the latest. They-were in a diner, where ‘catfish and crayfish’-hospitality with-Gumbo, served every-evening. Sallie-owned the oil-fields for miles around; inherited from her great-uncle who became a Baron, in the ‘30s.

  Brandy Saulson was owner of the diner, Sallie tried to buy it from under-him, but he’d refused… He dabbled-in oil, himself. A gratuitous-customer sold-it for pennies on the dollar. But it turned-out, it was to be given-to be auction off two-weeks, later… The field was dry, yet he didn’t want to sell it, or the diner. He wanted to sink it by some professional oil-riggers… A man walked-in, well-dressed no one noticed; as generally, was the case.

  Sitting at the counter was Ben Severs, a local-newsman from the Midwest, moved-to Oklahoma City because he liked southern cooking. A journalist by-trade, Paul Serges was also seated and an off-duty trash-collector spending his-nights enjoying, the company-of pals… Intelligent, yet didn’t try to invite people to his way-of-thinking… Helen, the waitress spent six-hours a day handling and delivering trays.

  ...She married and divorced, and had four-kids; they-were in grade-school and preschool they had after school-baby-sitters. She-was planning to take them to ‘Disneyland’ if her ‘Ex’ paid his child-support by Spring. Which being a journeyman-carpenter; he-needed work, and stayed-in occasional contact with her. She too, enjoyed her customer’s company… She had some interesting-conversations, of which her kids, never entered…

  This illuminated-crowd, was average for a Tuesday. The public clientele were typically, avid conversationalist. ‘Okay, guys I’m calling it a day…’ said Brandy… Dutch was usually the last to leave. Sallie sat alone-usually, no one wanted her-company. Everyone said-‘hello’, out-of respect. After, all she did have power-in the community. It-was sufficient for a social-appeal.

  ‘So Helen, let me have some of that delicious, Gumbo…’ 'Sure, coming right-up.' Helen-appreciated Sallie; a self-serving, go-getter… She’d wanted to have a talk with someone of her stature. But as the others, she stayed to herself. Sallie sat-at the end of the counter from “Dutch”. He just cleaned himself up, and felt-up to it after oil-catting and just getting-paid, he would have liked to entertain Ms. Duram.

  ...But emphatically, she would usually, have none-of it… He decided not to look her way, while she enjoyed a good-meal most of all… Afterward, she sipped coffee thinking of the work, she had to do tomorrow; and on who, she had no ‘cordial’-terms… No, how she’d wished a man didn’t sit on his hands or ‘perform’-to get to her money. She’d known a lot like that, but a gentleman in decent-respect advocated her-wealth; rather than adjudicate, true-espousal…

  Functionally, she could honor-‘merits’ on men from the country-club or had one of her ‘subjugates’ serve up a nice and kind gentleman. That was too easy, and she knew where-it would end; no-one, of her-caliber… ‘Dutch’… ‘How are you tonight, Ms. Duram?’ ‘Nice-evening, isn’t it’… She stared side-ways, as she puffed on a Marlboro. She put-it out, as she spoke. ‘How are you, Dutch?’ He was handsome; so sparsely, they spoke-into the night. Both glanced-over at David, as the diner was near-empty. Helen cleared-tables, she knew they needed to catch-up on times. Both were getting-on, in years. Superficially, they were successful and deserved each other. She’d seen them together several times walking along.

  Yet Dutch was slightly provincial, while Ms. Duram was a metro, all her-life. Donating to charities at Elk-lodges, improving the general-community. Dutch had worked the rigs all his life. Building life on work and grease. A hard-worker, his-wife left him when he’d just began to make-it… ...He’d written her often reading his ‘Dear John’(s) to Sallie and her boss Brandy; whom he’d had known since his teens…

  He’d told him to forget her, and slowly he-did. He started only recently to look for someone, to replace her. Not wanting to perpetuate his ‘down-fall’; he-started dressing nice, shaving and putting on cologne. Helen thought ‘twice’ when, he first appeared this way. But a May-September relationship was not in the-cards. She admired him-for his audacity-of-courage. Drawn-in she’d fostered his manliness.

  ‘Hello, Dutch. How’s work?’ He, being preoccupied-with Sallie ignored her… She knew that was best. ‘Try the Gumbo Brandy’s ‘finest’…’ She was a little-startled by mentioning ‘Mr. Saulson’. ‘I like Gumbo and Mr. Saulson does indeed make the near-;best’…’ They were paying little attention to him calmly, watching the traffic outside; unconsciously, being without a home. There were three people left, Brandy left soon after the last-cooking.

  ‘Okay, folks time to go.’ Dutch and Sallie did decide to go their separate ways. Dutch was much more observant. He noticed he’d never seen David before and that he had a Clintock, Oklahoma Oil Rig hat-on. ‘Hey, you worked-at Clintock.’ ‘David was surprised, yet he couldn’t have dropped-in at a better-time. Dutch was an head-rigger, he’d had forty-men under-his command, Dutch had unknowingly, found a man of his-caliber… Dutch was 56, David-52.

  David and Dutch went to have a nightcap at Dutch’s trailer on the grounds of the main-rigs. They talked about rigging as David again felt new recognition-for those who’d shown a ‘working-hospitality’. As ‘Dutch’, went into the experience of Oil-catting, David relived as well part of a gratifying, life-indulging. David-needed a job, so it came around that he needed someone to drive regularly to Mississippi to check-out new-rigs Katrina had knocked-out several rigs-out there. He agreed on a condition he stay-there and worked as a foreman which was probably, needed. Within the conversation he’d made all the arrangements and by morning he was on his way.

  He left Oklahoma City behind along with a consequence he’d be grateful to have-had. It was strange, life was resolving to less an issue than utility. He’d essentially, turned-over a ‘new-leaf’. When he reached Mississippi he had a place for him. With all the amenities, waiting. …He had the skills to do the job, in handedness. The job went smoothly. He told people his name was ‘Dutch’, and did his job-well.

  He even forgot his plausibles of what had been a commissioned six-figure job for one nearly, so and the work was hard but simple… He figured he could make a ‘life’ of it. But that would be credulous. He was beginning to understand that the rules and reverence, were off-drawn by stature and status. He knew impressiveness, and implication. Now, so much so that was dissolved in-a deciduousness; what had been an assumption and distension that could be caught-up, in… He was beginning to realize the aspect on the military, could easily have been out-distanced. ...Imperative-of an heir’s embellishment and encroachment that had been more than just ‘ideas’ and ‘artifice’. It all, had been illusionary. He’d wondered empathically, just what had needed-to be done to having had his job-implication…

  The Mississippi-bogs were deep, this time of year. ...As how, over-the-road the humidity began-to rise and the sun, warmed. This, was the Deep South. Where gators, snakes and Sycamores grew in abundance. The sky was only slightly, cloud-laddened. He drove passed farmers planting often, dry and dusty roads and lonely-highways. It-was just turning the wet-season when rains finally fell.

  The lowest-paid state, per capita, he had to reach Tupelo by night-fall which was the location of several of the rigs, he was responsible. It was still beautiful yet ‘tranquil’ and ‘rustic’. The trees, were just turning red, the day had warmed. David was whistling a tune, in his management-truck. He had a surveyor’s vehicle, with an AC, T.V. and satellite-phone… He-listened to mobile-radio but turned-on easy-listening. He’d forgotten all- about the past. Felt everything-was going, smoothly… He-kept a log, and called each way-station at work to see if he-was needed. He-made jaunts to Del rey, in Oklahoma and did duties. The e
vidence was piling, and the absence of a culprit, had intensified. Bo had seen the precepts, of the crime; and they grew more salacious every hour. And as the evidence was mounting, so was his-eluding of a crime-loop.

  Bo rarely, came across a suspect; who’d virtually, abdicated the seat of a ‘crime’. Bo Jon, thought about this. The co-efficient-of ‘norms’ obviously, and typically, outweighed the ‘fissions’ of law. If Bo had the low-down on Garr, he knew he’d be intendingly, surprised. He had a strange, appreciation of the man. There were many how-to’s or what-if’s, he, and the entire-crew of enforcements and legalists were working on-it.

  One of his-contacts had mentioned, and had this man possibly started a ‘new-career’... Inundated with law and legitimacy, his investigation was in ploy, caught… Bo withstood, the lacking by a crucially, intensifying in his ‘complicit’-standard. David had been in Texas and Oklahoma, and the judicial held his-acclimation indeed, had been ‘statuesque’... In-staying within the borders-of law, which had not seen such typical-revelation… The demands, decisions and devisings in crime of collusion often-times was a delinquent dilemma-of securing-digest. A careless thought-there, an in-substantiated stance-here; and the real-focus was able to be thrown-out. The passion of criminal-work was always, discovery and capture...

  Most C.S.I. Units, enlodged with the bizarreness of murder; often revealed aspects of killing, death and disregard for human-life. A murder, exposed came-with the principles of allusion to cause and demise; the effects of snuffing out a life… Most, had to separate the event-from the outcome. The ‘exclusions’ of extinguish, and execution. Human-life required making an-incentive by the enlisting-of preclusion, parallel-adopted and compounded...

  Along the way, the foster, of falling-fortuity and annotated-framing; was so as David made twist and turns to his life. So was the follow-up and intercession of unlawfulness. David had succeeded as failed, he evaded capture; yet Bo and others knew it would come-down to increments of terms and terminates. Bo was divulging-ever an instance of a crime and he knew all that had been compiled; David C. Garr would pertain to bringing to justice and ‘atone’ for the crime. He’d been captured and revealed-of the acts he cemented-in the many instances, propagated over two months… Bo-wanted him to subordinate the first-divisions of the crime. He’d understood that ‘acts’, such as these evoked a degree of disregard and distress-on a few that the legals, would contain.

  He had already, brought in contingents on a ‘pass-fail’ scale. He had several, entertaining the ‘averting’ of augmented legalism, leveled-laws and within the the ordinates of the Feds. The ‘political-incursion’ which had been an identifying, perspicacity. Bo knew the in’s and out’s of case-logic. He’d asks his-operatives to keep engaging the case’s decidedness, to have a judicial-plying; as being stowed, or at least; being less than endowed...

  Working a ‘double-duty’ was straining his-enabling, he had to keep his eye-on-the-ball, in both accounts. In a sense he had to keep a parallel, and a hope. David would be found whether abashedly, and perhaps, seminally… The passage-of-time, the work of legalist and its underpinning was yet expansive in, as the location of Bo; who had become ‘taunt’, at its best. As it began-to rain-on a road into Oklahoma City. It was night.

  He wanted to visit a few low run shops and talk to a group of those who’d substantiated their-living by paying relatively, unknown employees... They tended to hang-together which made it easy for him. His ‘Caddy’ needed gas, and the wind-blew hard, he-wanted to get into a hotel, soon… There wasn’t much he could do, by-dark. When morning arrived, he would question the day-working crew-leaders, and their patriated hang-outs.

  The rain-fell in-torrents and lightning was occurring all-night. Bo could have thought this was an ‘omen’ yet Cherokee tribesman believed bad-omens fell before good-ones. Deliberatively, his-officiating of the trial; to find David had fell-on ‘good’-omens. Bo began to surmise just how dependable he’d actually, been… He’d out-witted, out-distanced and comprised so many possible purports, to this, his predisposing… ...That perhaps was the best-propriety to take. Emerging, was the pattern of a certain ‘commutation’.

  Falling between the-‘cracks’, baring alternatives that elicited as a relative, in an admixture of a plot… Bo now had the closer-end of a case-history. He stayed-up until 12 am putting-together the new pretexts and pre-conclusions, of a terminable by-facts and factorals. He now, had a new-direction. If David had actually, systematized in an evasion of capture, his ‘good-omen’ might have been in fact: an ‘unknowing’.

  A class of determinants, that were by fortune, and fate. Predictions, thus had it in the facts, incurred as by delineated-cause. He decided to test his theory in question; back over past eyewitnesses, sites and scenarios. If propensity was correct, he’d actually, been was confessed of an affirming or that was by an accommodation. Bo had always insisted ‘the run’ of David had evolved; into what was a concision of concatenation.

  ...Of what were issues and insistencies, but what if he’d fell-upon condition of explication, by a whole knew ‘environ’? He’d seen the variables in a causing; that was an availing that the most ornate-of expendable-men. Perhaps he had thoughts like a runaway captive. Where the crime was, an act of rebuke and vindication... A man compromised now, away from the very system and sophistication that once had been ‘borne-on’ duty…

  Bo Jon decided he’d re-investigate several contingents of Mr. Garr’s impressing and expeditious career. Bo Jon awoke Friday-morning to the sound of traffic. He didn’t necessarily like the big city. Yet he knew they’d been unique-settings in a community, by what was an advancement-as the more people there were who could not survive otherwise... A sustaining and sustenance for-all…

  Yet in David’s case a ‘haven’ for self-benefaction. Oklahoma was a hospitable, welcoming and simple-state. Where work, and community often accepted the willing-worker, of most any basic-warding... A professing-career, had now paled-under alter-circumstances and now those circumstances instituted a subsequent, subsistence. Bo Jon began a self-intuitive case-study. Beginning to work to follow-up as the ongoing-crime's ‘wake’, was ever widening.

  State-troopers, city-police and the Feds had to hear any account. So on, that they had committed-less than usual symposium that often cited and captured; even, in a most persuasive of tendency... In fact this should have been an open and shut-case, in general terms… It would seem an effort in evaluation was becoming an ineffective; and sidelining the best-investigators. Yet Bo Jon knew by a sense in what was a ‘simplicity’.

  How virtuosity and being venerable in perfecting could have turned the tables-on an in-distinctiveness... Thus ‘peril’, perdition and ‘parallel’ sometimes fail-together. Bo watched each situation, in terms of being all-together. He noted that after leaving California, which had taken six-days easily estimated as a hitching-time. A discipline-soldier could easily get by in a temperate-Fall, then riding by car. Up in the Washington range trucks were-in heavy traffic there. California, in 60-hours, was a depot, there. Hiking or riding-over the Nevadas to Phoenix was by motor-bike seen by shopkeepers possibly having funds before running-out.

  All his accounts were frozen, within the sixth day of the crime… He needed money, considering a motorcycle could get 160-miles and gas for-it wasn’t expensive. So he-concluded, a semi-circle-around Arizona, Texas and probably, Oklahoma; somewhere in these, he had-to find work…

  Considering what was farmland was all that ‘dotted’ the roads; he-worked on the collecting-‘harvest’. A sure ‘bet’-of profit. Someone must have known him. That, was the clincher: ‘work’, then he estimated: a ‘how’, he behaved from ‘farm-work’ to his latest-‘fortune’. This was quite an ‘embellishing’ and expending… He went East at the right-time. And coming to an ending-meant no identity-needed, which allowed in what was to be enacted, by him with ‘accolades’: he knowing he was now, on T.V., radio and a
number of others exposures all across-America.

  In that sense, the isolated-Southeast, was ‘perfect’. He-wanted not to rely-on the authorities. They had enough on their hands, there was just the potential for a critical-potency.- ‘Most-wanted’ crimes had went-up early-into over-drive… With the hopes of capture, larger than actual-reality. Fortunately, he was counting-on his, in an as a rhetorical of receipt-of fleeting, repose and reputation He’d let the others find recompose in ideology and impressiveness; a virtue, lay-in ‘out-foxing’ a absolving-situation.

  He had been lucky that précis-of premonition had it that the impressional-envisioning; was that his detective skills adapted in a crime’s volition. With very few ‘stop-gaps’, those ending in the falter-by a criminality that fell to the many ‘pillars’ of perdition. But in actuality the issues had many inquiries that lead to nowhere. Easily D. Garr’s case had disappeared into thin-air… The thoroughness rather through fascination or blame, had attributed to a figment of ‘fiction’.

  Bo Jon kept an eye-on this foster in decision-making. Pretty-much one-way or the other, meant time-to detract from the clues. Any ‘plodding’ from a transaction to ‘counteraction’-entendre; so, easily to an enlisting. So keeping to a ‘watch’, on sways and slights; meant-close to a collusion. And an ‘injection’ of temperance allied-in good-judgment. The preciseness of the collusive, initializing; being contracted-to be cognition closer-to baring consequential. So deciding reality, was in the thrall-of things; working in a microcosm of conjecture acceded-to…

  The key ‘angles’, in a crucible of crime, compensation and ‘acuity’; that was in an effort, ‘ordinal’, and in, as an augmentation. Bo knew when he-left the mountains he had already had a collusion-of sorts. In a strange presentation-of-terms, he was in an isolated part of the state. Where troopers, police-detectives and the Feds were lost on a-diversion. He easily stepped-out of sight. A plain-case of going, unseen and in remuneration; he-remembered all the compliances that were given the case. Yet at an unusual and bizarre-circumstance had the lest of a devised, by the contention of being, evaded. Perhaps the clearness of forest-fire, snow and secludedness; that was made for enduringly, ‘instant’; what was in an admonishing. Rather ‘devious’ or what was a deploy, that admired, disposers that were approaching-upon in an imposing as a destined and definitive, desperation.

  In what was an arduous-case of an impeccable-in division of a recourse. A ‘dance’-of redemption and diversion… So Bo waited, and withheld-in an inherent-causeway; calculative and warranted by what was ‘wit-resolved’. David’s role had been obvious. He’d been a man of superior-duty. Yet now, with its sophisticate-opportune lone détente of evident-disapproval, having still left him indolently, in a subsequent-suspension. Perhaps, as loathsome as murder was the logging of limitation. By what was a ‘surreal’ subversion. In inwardly and often, in what was by an ardent. Living a life of an illicit-by encompassing and incurring-caste... In what was a conveyed co-extent-distantly, deferring and causally-incurred. But a collective reprise-in incurred-culpability, consistence and conferring. An ‘evened-liturgy’ of confining-intent, to be by a realigning-recourse... So convokingly, vivid in which are within assertions, in what is with invocation of instilling. A ‘complicity’, oriented-in a defaming; ‘decided’ and ‘en par’, impetus-with liturgy, law and legitimacy. ...As a certain ‘Castle-keep’ by what was a flawed-justice, devising and deferred. As a ‘dark-shadow’ of fault and blame, that is perhaps botched in an announced-‘venality’ of what became a subjective -belligerence. An out-reached-resonance and rector, that is being officially, locked-away. A possessive of perdition of cause and blame, taken-on in imperial-compact. ...Yet David was a member once of the higher-forces...

  It was advancing, as advantageousness by David, and in an a-pereil that is by those dragnet-forces. That is by an idolizing in what should have been in a honorary of a ‘higher’-power. As the sun-rose that morning, Bo realized that the determinates were newly, espoused and crediting. He would specifically, inquire; come to expend, and judiciously, expedite as the new-alluring, conditional-tact... David was in-fact in a second-life. He’d always been working diligently in his-duties, given more to duties without question, as an honor-in service had been his only-precept. He’d liked being of service, yet he’d never known anything-else. His-father wanted him to learn of the world on its own terms. But he knew the honors of war, were like no other; he’d never known till now exactly what that meant. He arrived at Del Rey earlier on a Thursday and now, overseeing the tanker-trucks; to reach the processing-plant then-on to petroleum customers. Along with his resolve as a tanker-manager he gave a false-name at the start. He knew how to get false-information from level-6 clearance and how not to get caught. In a way all his successful-work had allowed him a second life. But being in the military, had seen the rules-upheld. …In what might have been the conveying-control to both David’s and Bo Jon’s concerns… Pursued and pursuer, a touch for the case in liberation, redefined.

  The essence of the case was coming-together, and David’s new life-style instead, had to end. It was a strange case yet both, knew the reality would change all that… Character, had been a question-to be a force in-ferment with a fording, fostering and fortunateness... It had been a parable in earning-proportions. ...The future-lay confirmatively, terms-of a convolution and improvising. The status quo, was in fact, were in literate-liberties in the ways of a culprit. As advantage, as in instance and order, human-dignity that is as a sustenance had up-keep, in new ‘dynamics’ of demise and wayward-life. Although intentional, and versatile Bo Jon and David understood the values of a man in conceiving. Plausibly, as the facets as human-proving. A legitimate-logic and a lax-collusive. An onerous-adventure began-to lead to ultimate, undoing. Bo Jon knew he’d be caught in some vestment of a virtuosity of a legal-magnitude. And that’s were parallels-ceased. Demurring in all, a preamble of permutation. If David, had a ‘vice’, it-had been of the abjuring in-testament to the crime of an obligated, tantamount. The ‘promise’ of a career stopped, and was now leaning on the testament of honor. Now ‘destitute’ and in competence, lost-unto what was a committing. In war, a man commits-murder as an ‘ideal’, a soldier-rises through the ranks only to suffer mental-insubordination in terms-only totaled, in duly-passion.

  He was only a man, and that man was carrying-out his-duty conscientiously, competently and composedly... Looking-into his-eyes, was the settled-eye of an advocate, not a self-provocateur. Being the two faces of a wanted-man. It was not Bo’s plan of inception, in-persistence; not being inculcated of the ‘literal’ in the criminal-leveling, by the treatise of a formative-legality… Bo was in a new-cause, a ‘steward’ of court volition; yet more to logic of it all. …Yet not as a proctor-of a punishment but as that which in predilection of a pending. He was more in a score of providence he was a server in the ‘best’-interests of the court... And as he developed a case typically, things were not typical-strife, disregard and askew was almost ‘normal‘. The trouble came-in unconsciously; and had a plot nearly the same. Usually, on the request he was brought-in and that was the be-haste of a crime. Then, as the sanctimoniousness of a crime, began… And thus in wisdom fell both ways in the admix of an alms in work was, as the Oklahoma landscape… He began winding the ‘reel-in’, in a path of a perpetrator… None of what had occurred was through conflict, it was carefully by a ‘conjunction’, of violent-behavior. In an adversity and advising, didn’t make up for the routes-of-its commutation. The thence-venture in course of roaming-demotion. The spry-humor was, in denuding-figment as the running-foul of the law.

  End.

  Eight

  “Firewood Creek”:

  The Texas-travels, trust and trials in an experience...