by Brian Gore
The horses he unhaltered, and slapping one with the tail of a lead rope, sent them loping off after the herd. He had confidence that given time, the whole lot would find their way back to their home range. If not, he'd found 'em once, he could hunt 'em up again.
He stood for a minute looking at that pile of gear and thinking. There was little he could do but leave it... There just wasn't room in that little car. He tried to think of anything in the pile that could be used by these men to identify him, and give them a lead. Nothing had a brand or even a name. It was just worn, and nearly worn out, camp gear. All it would say was that some cowboy had used it, and used it hard. That shouldn't help them find him. Not in Montana. He'd come back for it later, if he was able.
Ben wondered what the hell had he gotten himself into. He didn't have time to come riding to the rescue of some woman and her kid, no matter how bad a situation they'd got themselves in. If he was going to save what was left of his ranch he had to concentrate on that. Not get his self mixed up in a fight with a bunch of Chicago drug dealers!
When he walked back up to the car Amanda was just finishing strapping Timmy into his seat. She stood up and turned to Ben. Her head was still spinning in a fog from the speed and violence with which her morning had changed directions, and then reversed again, in the last hour.
Ben stuck out his hand as he stepped up to her; "Howdy Ma'am... Ben Jensen"
"Huh? wha..." she started to speak in her confusion.
"Me Ma'am... my name is Ben Jensen. Thought if we're gonna be spending some time together, and I'm gonna drive you out of here, you should know my name." he said, standing there with his hand extended.
Amanda, for the first time since the start of this... wild hour... laughed.
"Oh... Yes...sure... right..." she reached out in sheepish confusion and took Ben's hand; "Amanda, Amanda Blake... and my son is Timmy... Timothy." She said looking at Timmy in his car seat. Turning back to Ben the serious, guarded look returned to her face, and she tried to speak, trying to catch her balance. "I'm sorry... everything is... I don't know... Thank You Ben Jensen. Thank You. You can't have any idea of what you have saved us from." She told him... holding his hand with both of hers.
"Oh, you might be surprised at what I can imagine!" he grinned back at her. "Now, if I can have my hand back... let's get ourselves out of here!... and I'm driving!" he said as he snatched the keys out of her hand.
Amanda laughed again, releasing his hand; "Yes! OK! That would be good! Let's go!"
They jumped in the car and slammed the doors. Ben twisted the key spinning the motor to life. He looked over at Amanda as he shifted the transmission into gear and thought to himself; "That is one beautiful woman... How in the Hell did she manage to get herself into this kind of predicament?"
Then, as he fishtailed the car around the blocking Yukon and out of the campsite, with the tires kicking up a rooster tail of gravel and dust, he called to the tied men; "Good luck girls! Hope ya'll get yourselves untied... before the Bears show up for breakfast! Haaaaa ha ha ha ha!"
If a Saturn can roar, they roared out of the camp and on down the forest road. The car wallowed back and forth, left and right on the heavily graveled surface, until he slid it to a stop where the forest service road returned to the pavement at hwy 78.
In front of them, across the road was a green road marker sign. An arrow beside RED LODGE pointed to the right and said 33 miles. Another pointed left to COLUMBUS and said 25.
Ben floored the accelerator and the car spun up another rattling tail of gravel, as the car fishtailed onto the pavement, and turned left.
Amanda looked at him with a feeling of alarm. "Back there, in the campground... you said Red Lodge. You said you were going to take us to Red Lodge!"
Ben looked at her as the car accelerated up the road. "Yup, I did."
"Well? Red Lodge is behind us. I can read. I saw the sign." she said, her fear swelling.
Ben looked at her again, grinning. "Look Amanda, relax, you're safe now, I swear. That Red Lodge crap was not for you... it was for them" He gestured behind them with a flip of his head, and a poke of his thumb over his shoulder; "You want to get clear of them? We need a bit of time, maybe that lil' lie will send 'em a few miles the wrong way and allow us a lil' time to... sort out your situation. With any luck, they'll think I'm just a dumb, bad smellin' cowboy." and he grinned again.
Amanda didn't know this strange man, this old cowboy. She had no real reason to put any faith in him. All she'd really seen of him so far had been brutal, merciless, raging, violence. Yet, something inside her, some instinct whispered to her that she could do just that. She could trust this man. Something, a voice deep within her that she didn't know, murmured to her that she, and her son; were indeed, safe. A small, almost unheard voice whispered that, for the first time in her life, she had met a man that she could trust... She had met a man who knew the meaning of the word, Honor. That small, quiet voice speaking from that hidden place, deep in the back of her mind, gave her hope.
It was the strangest and most wonderful thing she'd ever felt. It stood right up there with that sensation she'd been having, from their growing freedom, that she still couldn't put a name to; and the joy she felt any time she looked at her son.
"OK... I'm relaxed now... So... If you're not taking me to Red Lodge, where ARE we going?" She asked, sitting turned in her seat, back to the door... a small knot of fear, still hiding in her belly.
"Well first, you're gonna sit square and put on your seatbelt!" Ben grinned one more time; "Don't need his momma" nodding at Timmy in the back seat "gettin' herself killed by my bad driving, not after I've gone through all the trouble to whup half of Chicago on your account!"
Amanda couldn't help herself, she laughed. Here she was, in what was literally at this point, a life and death struggle for the survival of her and her son, and she laughed. A wild Montana cowboy had come crashing out of the trees on a horse! Whipped the whole gang like in some western movie... now he sat there grinning at her and joking about her seat belt!
She turned in her seat, still laughing and fastened the belt. "OK Mr. Safety... My belt is secure, where are we going?"
"West" Ben answered; "over to the base of that ridge". He pointed at a low range of hills a few miles away. "I have a ranch there... or at least the ruins of a ranch. We'll go there first, and figure out what to do."
"I'm sorry about all this. It's not your problem... you don't want to get mixed up in my problems... I..."
Ben cut her off; "Look Amanda, it appears I'm already mixed up in it. I doubt those boys are going to take my advice, they ain't gonna pack up and leave Montana, and to tell the truth, they didn't appear to me to be the forgiving type... They saw you leave with me, so me is who they're gonna set to lookin' for. We might do ourselves a favor and forget wasting any time beatin' our gums about me not getting involved. In their eyes, I already am."
"They'll kill you Ben. If they find us they won't just kill me, they'll kill you."
"Right to the point eh? I like that in a woman! But, truly? You're a bit young for me, don't you think?" He laughed; "and, kill me? really? hmmm... if that's so, it seems likely they're needful of doin' considerable polishing on their killing skills. 'cause darlin'? This Ol' Buster ain't an easy kill!" He looked at her for a moment, head turned away from the road in front of them, and laughed. She noticed that Ben's laugh had a hard edge to it.
"Yeah... I noticed" she told him with raised eyebrows. She'd known the man less than an hour and had already seen what lay under the smiling, laughing, facade. The laughter and jokes seemed genuine, just as the fiery rage she'd witnessed back in the campground was no less genuine. Ben Jensen was a man of curious contradictions.
It took less then 45 minutes to hook around on the pavement to the gate where the ranch road ran back to Ben's "ruins" of a ranch.
He slid the car up to the porch of the ragged little cabin in a cloud of dust.
AH came running up to the strange car, j
umping and barking; warning it that it didn't belong, until Ben threw his door open and hollered; "Shut up ya worthless mutt! Behave yourself, we got company!"
The dog went from raging guard dog to groveling, whining, moocher as if on command.
Ben pulled himself up out of the little car, grabbed the dogs great head in his hands and shook it. "What the hell dog! Ya act like you missed me. I've only been gone a couple of days!" and he laughed yet again. The thought crossed his mind, standing there rubbing the dogs head; "Strange, I haven't laughed so much in years... wonder if I'm going senile?"
He turned his head to Amanda and Timmy; "It's OK, climb out, he just didn't recognize the car. Just doin' his job. Kinda nice to know that he still does!" ... and another laugh.
"Come on in. We better get to figurin' out what you need to do."
Amanda, holding Timmy's hand climbed the step onto the rickety porch and walked through the door, following the old Cowboy. The sight that appeared to her didn't win Ben any points. Several empty whiskey bottles littered the floor. A grubby bunk stood in the corner. A rough and rickety chair stood beside an equally rickety looking table.
Beside the door as she walked in stood what appeared to be an ancient woodstove, in which Ben was already working to coax a fire to life.
"I'll make some coffee, and then we'll talk." he said, looking up at her as he kneeled in front of the stove. "Grab that other chair off the porch and you two have a seat." he told her, gesturing toward the table. "You'll likely need to get something for Timmy boy there to drink out of your cooler... uh... I've not got anything around here for a youngster to drink anyway!"
"Pardon me Ben... but, it doesn't look to me like you've got much around here for anyone! From the look of this place, I'd guess you live alone?" She spoke with wide eyes above a smiling mouth.
"Yeah, well... it ain't the Hilton for sure.... I... uh... don't get company very often."
"Yeah.... I guess not!" she laughed, starting to pick up bottles and some of the 'bachelor debris' that cluttered the floor of the drunken cowboy's rough cabin. Even Timmy grabbed a couple bottles.
Ben looked up from the stove; "You don't need to do that... just get the chair and sit!" he scolded.
"You just build your fire Mr. I'll be more comfortable sitting if I'm not surrounded by all of... this... she said." gesturing toward the clutter with a thrust of her chin, and walking toward the door with her hands full. "Where do you put your trash?"
"Uh... there's a barrel at the end of the porch, that'll do for now." He just shook his head as she and Timmy went out the door with their load.
Ben stood and closed the door of the stove as the flames of his fire started crackling from the kindling up into the bigger stove wood he'd placed. He quickly added water to his pot... threw in some fresh grounds, and placed the battered old pot back on top of the equally battered old iron stove, just as Amanda and Timmy came back through the door, bringing along the second and last chair he owned, from the porch.
She set the chair by the table and told Timmy to sit there and wait while she went to the car to get him something for a snack.
Ben sat down across the table from the small, shy, scared little boy and just grinned at him. "Been kind of a tough morning, huh kid?"
Timmy, looked at him with wide eyes. "You were mean to those men!"
Ben tipped his hat back on his head and ran his hand over the stubble on his chin. "Well son, sometimes what looks like mean is just what ya gotta do. Most times... men like that have earned whatever they get. They were mean to you and your Momma weren't they?"
"Yes... they slapped Momma."
"Well kid... where I come from, a man ain't allowed to do that. Not without gettin' slapped back. You do wrong... ya get slapped. Do you understand little guy?"
"Yes... I think so..." Timmy replied, hesitantly.
"Well... I'd not worry about it much. Some things will just make more sense to you when you get older... and... some things will never make any sense... "
Amanda walked back into the cabin carrying some crackers, a small carton of chocolate milk, and a plastic cup. "Surprise Little Man! Chocolate milk for You!"
"Hooray Momma!" Timmy squealed.
"Well... it don't take much to make him happy, does it?" Ben commented.
"No... he's a good boy" Amanda replied as she poured his milk into the cup with one hand and tousled his hair with the other.
Ben stood and walked back over to the stove to check on the coffee... "Gonna be a few minutes... Takes a mite for the stove to warm up" he told her...
He walked back over to the table, dragging his cooler for a seat, and sat down. Amanda was just sitting, watching Timmy eat his crackers and drink his milk. The way her face changed when she looked at the boy didn't escape his notice. Just the same, it occurred to Ben that they had a pretty serious situation to deal with, and the sooner the better. Leaving some things untended to didn't bode well for a long and profitable future, was what he thought to himself. Looking around the room, and what he could see of his degenerating ranch, through the open cabin door made him laugh out loud. He was one to talk!
"What? What's so funny?" Amanda broke into his thoughts.
"Ah... nothing... just... Look here" he started; "I don't mean to pry or push... and you likely don't want to talk 'bout some things... in front of... uh... ever'body" he said, looking at the boy; "and maybe not even with me, but... I am, like it or not, involved in this now... and if we're gonna work around this lil' didoe you got goin' on... we, NEED to talk... I need to know just what, exactly, the hell is goin' on, and what I've stepped in to."
Amanda looked straight in to his eyes... and then out the door for long seconds. He could see her mind working. The longer she sat, looking out the door without speaking, the stronger his premonition that this was more than just some sort of lovers spat that he'd blundered into the middle of... there was a darker story here... and a meaner one... and one that was likely to get worse, before it got better... he could feel it... he could taste it... and the taste to him, was bitter.
While he waited for her response to his statement, he wondered impatiently about those men back in the campground. They sure seemed awful quick to go to guns. A small defiance in the voice of a cowboy and they started drawing weapons? What the hell!?
And, he thought about his horses and gear. He needed to get those horses back to the ranch and his packs. He needed to get sold what he could, ASAP, and he couldn't afford to lose that gear, worn out as it was. There wasn't anything to replace it with... but where were those toughs? If they'd chased her all the way from Chicago, they'd keep looking. He couldn't go after his gear, or his horses, until he knew what the hell was going on.
If they'd found her, way out here, even with the help of her betraying telephone, they had some skills. How long would it take them to identify him? How many ranches were there in the area for them to search? Time was not on his side, and he knew it. Her staying here, at the ranch, was not a way to hide. Once they ID'd him, and he knew they would... this would be the first place they'd come. He bore no illusions that his "Take her down to Red Lodge" would buy any more than a few hours at best...
Once they knew they'd been sent off down a dead end, they'd reverse direction and come back with a vengeance.
They'd been bruised and beaten... but deep down he knew that would only provoke their egos to seek vengeance. Ben had little intention of any of them being easy to find for that quest to be easily fulfilled. He knew that though he may have whipped them once, next time it wouldn't be so easy.
They were warned now. Next time they wouldn't be so cocky and arrogant. Next time, the advantage of surprise wouldn't be on his side.... his thoughts wandered... and he waited...
Chapter 16
Ben sat, sitting sideways to the table, one hand on the table, the other in his lap... and just stared out the door along with Amanda... lost as she, in his own thoughts, until...
"Timmy... let's get your paper and crayons
out of the car, OK?" She stood and looked at Ben, then reached and took Timmy's hand, and led him out the door to the car. She put a little box of crayons and a small sketch pad together in a plastic case at the Walmart when she'd bought most of their camp goods. When she opened the door she told Timmy to; "Take your box and sit on the porch while Mr. Jensen and I talk, OK?"
Timmy grabbed his small box from the back seat and ran for the porch.
Amanda returned through the cabin door just as Ben finished pouring two cups of strong, black coffee.
She picked up her cup and took a taste, shutting her eyes and shaking her head with the first sip. "Wow!... uh... you're coffee is... uh... Not weak! is it?" She laughed.
Ben grinned at her and tested his own cup. "Gets the blood pumpin' for sure! and it'll put hair on your... uh... places you'd probably be best without it!" Grinning, he held his cup up as in a toast.
"Well... what are you willing to tell me?" he asked
Amanda took another sip of her coffee, her eyes staring across the steaming black liquid as she drank. Slowly, she set the cup on the table, holding on to it for a few seconds as if afraid if she let go, she'd lose her grip on much more.
Finally, she released the battered enamel cup and looked up at Ben.
"It's a long story. I suppose, considering what you've already done for us, and what you've had put at risk... you deserve to know it. I can't believe I'm telling you this... I don't know you... you're a complete and total stranger... and yet I have this feeling like I'm talking to an old friend... all at the same time. It's the strangest thing... considering I have so few friends... and none I'd trust with my son's life."
"Well girl... I don't mean it to sound corny... but... to whatever ability I have... I can promise you're safe with me... I might not be much... but there's no woman on earth ever had anything to fear from me..." Ben replied quietly.
Amanda took another drink from her cup... smacking her lips and shaking her head. "Damn! That... is Coffee!"