by Brian Gore
"Ok... I'm sorry to be so much trouble for you Ben. I'm sorry."
"Aw, don't go gettin' all soppy on me now gal. I haven't had this much excitement in years. You've been good for me! Hell, I ain't been this sober in years." he joked. "Amanda, we'll get through this. We will. I promise. I gotta go!" Ben hit the end button and stood holding the phone a few seconds.
"I sure hope I'm not lying to the girl." he thought.
Chapter 31
Ben climbed back up out of the drainage and stood on the lip, looking back toward the house to the south and thinking. There had to be a way through this. Karen was just over there, in that dark house. He wouldn't bring in the feds. He'd never seen them do anything except make a bad situation worse, and then claim credit as genuine western heroes in the face of their failure.
He'd not risk Karen's life, or that of Amanda and her son for that matter, to the bureaucratic stupidity of any employee of any government. Not while he still had the freedom to maneuver.
But that still left him with his dilemma. Nine men at least in the house, holding Karen. Two unknown men, over in those trees a few hundred yards south, watching the house; Six more of their compatriots, sitting in a camp down below the Blackfoot. Then, just to spice up the mix, the State Police looking to hang that Ennis party on him.
Yeah, he'd not had this much excitement in years!
But What? How? What was the course of action that would shuffle all these pieces around to fit together in a puzzle that left both him and Amanda, breathing, and walking away?
The answer hit him like one of those religious epiphanies. It had been there, right in front of him, since he'd skirted the ambush back at the mine that morning. It was so simple it was elegant. So simple, one mistake, one, single, sliver of a miscalculation, one fart at the wrong moment, and he was pig food with Amanda sliding back in to hell.
But, never the less he liked it. It was a 'plan' that suited his nature. But, did he like it because it truly was a good idea? Or, did he tell himself it was a good idea that he liked, because it was, in fact, the only idea he could come up with?
The biggest question was, could he pull it off? In his fantasy there was no doubt. In the reality that stood in front of him, his confidence was not quite so strong.
The watch on his wrist said it was after 1 a.m. by the time he worked his way back to the fence line, being more cautious this time, and found himself with the same problem. He hadn't any idea of where he was in the guard's rotation schedule. Had the guard been relieved while he was gone? Had anything else changed?
He couldn't see the scouts at their position behind the pines that sheltered the pullout. The two vehicles at the house still sat where they'd been, in front of the garage. The house was still dark.
Ben raised his glasses to search the barn once again, and all the dark recesses of the house and the few other small outbuildings. Again he could see no one. There was no revealing glow from a cigarette. He couldn't see him, but he knew he was there, and he'd bet money, he was sitting in a chair, in the alley of that barn.
The barn was a standard alley type configuration. It looked to have four stalls on one side, and four on the other. A wide alleyway ran down the middle with an open sliding door at either end. The west end faced the house, and it was in that dark opening, he'd spotted the flare of a match when a foolish guard lit a cigarette.
That barn was his immediate target. Ben low crawled through the grass, down the fence line until he'd reached a line roughly even with the east end of the barn, away from the expected position of the guard. He lay for some minutes listening, watching for any sign that his movement had been observed.
After five minutes without a sound or a movement, he slowly crawled under the bottom rail and out into the open of the short grass in the paddock beside the barn.
Ben felt, in the open glare of a nearly full moon, like a spotlight was trained on his back. His desire was to scramble into the protective shadow of the barn, but he willed himself to move slowly. Painfully slowly. Every inch of the way, he felt like the red dot of a rifle laser sight was focused on his head. Every inch he pulled himself along he could see the slack being taken out of the trigger. Every inch as he crossed that space he expected to hear the crack of a shot and the pain of the impact.
Silence and almost imperceptible movement was his only protection. It took him many minutes to cross that few hundred feet between the outer fence and the inner, that ran beside the barn to the west end.
If it wouldn't have allowed a sound he'd have breathed a huge sigh of relief as he again slid under the bottom rail and up against the East wall of the barn.
Slowly, imperceptibly, he raised his head, at the base of the doorway, and moved it into the opening, so that only the left side of his head, and one eye, was visible, if someone was looking. Even then, as slow as he moved, and low to the ground, it would be difficult to spot.
There, silhouetted against the lighter, graveled roadway beyond, sat his guard in a chair. Ben still didn't know when this one had come on duty. Was it the same guard? Or a fresh one? He chose, for the most part, to wait and see. But, while he waited, he might as well get closer. Peering down through the barn he could see barrels and what he took to be a large grain bin, on his side, about half way down the alley.
Slowly, on his hands and knees he silently crept through the barn. As he crawled, watching the guard at the far end, he was careful to keep his vision focused on a point to the left and beyond the guard. He'd been taught, never, ever; stare at what you're hunting. Some form of telepathy is transmitted that warns your intended target. Always, look away.
When he'd scoffed at the idea, they'd told him; "Don't believe? Next time you're sitting at a red light, turn your head and stare at the driver beside you... or at the one in front of you, stare hard. Concentrate on them. See if a hell of a lot of 'em don't start acting nervous and looking around!"
Ben had tried it, expecting to see nothing. But damn, more times than not, it was true! So, to the side and beyond was where he focused, and kept watch on the guard with only his peripheral vision.
He only had to cover the length of two stalls, maybe 24 feet to gain the cover of the grain bin. When he made that without a problem he silently slid in behind it and sat with his back to the wood and just listened.
It was nearly an hour before he heard the crunching of boots in the driveway approaching the barn.
Guards, not as careful as they should have been, exchanged a few words, louder than they should have;
"I know Stevie. How dat fool know where we are? What he gon' do if he did? There's nine of us and only his puny white ass! But Tyrone say we keep a guard, so we keep a guard! Go on now and get your own black ass back to bed. Janik is watchin' dat white girl in the front room till morning. Go now!"
"Ok Amani... I'm goin'... don' go fallin' asleep now!" Stevie laughed softly as he turned toward the house.
Ben listened as the relieved guard walked away toward the house. He waited for the guard to get settled and relaxed before he eased over to peer around the bin.
"What the...?!!" he almost said aloud before he caught himself. The man sat in the chair but his head was bouncing and his hands were tapping his legs...
Ben peered through the darkness at the Man in the chair, silhouetted against the moonlit driveway. He didn't see what he thought he saw, did he? He pulled his binos out of where he'd tucked them into his shirt and put them to his eyes. The guard was sitting less than thirty feet away and he thought he could see, but needed to make sure.
"Jesus Christ" he thought. "How have these fools stayed out of jail bein' this stupid?!" With the binoculars, and the guard silhouetted against the moonlight, Ben could clearly see the wires of an Ipod, dangling from the idiots ears!
Seeing that, and with little need left for caution, Ben just stood up and walked toward the man, drawing the K-bar from its scabbard as he neared.
He stood just behind him, his shadow from the moonlight streaming in
the door thrown back into the darkness of the barn. Ben looked at the man's back for a part of a second; a blank, emotionless mask descended over his face. He shook his head slightly, as if in disbelief. With a quickness that blurred his movement, and a silent yet savage violence, his left hand covered the seated man's mouth jerking his head to the side, as simultaneously, the K-bar in his right hand, the back of its blade reversed against his arm, slid in an arc across the dead man's jugular on the outstroke, as the hand and arm flashed forward
While no one knows how long it takes the soul to leave the body, the life departed this one in mere seconds, accompanied by the massive gush of blood from the severed vein in his throat that soaked Ben's hand and sleeve.
Ben held him from falling over and making any sound, beyond the slight rattle of death, with his left hand. Slowly, silently, he tipped him over and lowered him to the ground. The blank, emotionless mask that had been drawn across his face remained.
Standing just inside the doorway for several long minutes, Ben waited, listening and watching. He waited to see if the nearly silent violence had been observed or heard by anyone. No new lights came on in the house. No sound came from it.
The cowboy, still in the light shoes he'd donned that morning, moved like a shadow to the wall of the house. He ducked under each window he came to as he floated silently toward the front door, a little more than half way down the length of the building.
Once he reached the front door, he could just see the glow of a single light through the narrow pane beside the door, coming from somewhere deeper inside the house. It made sense, he'd heard the guard coming on duty saying someone, Janik? was watching Karen in the front room. So, he'd have some light; good.
He reached for the knob, as he drew his pistol from its holster and released the safety. Tightly gripped, he slowly tested the knob. It turned. Slowly, ever so slowly he turned that knob, and moved the door, like the hand of a clock; doing everything he could to avoid any sound, any warning squeak of its hinges.
With the door half open he soundlessly slid sideways through the opening and up against the wall of the entry hall.
Two or three steps in, he cleared the corner of the entry and could see Karen, bound and gagged with duct tape, her blouse torn, lying on a couch. The hand and arm of a man extended from behind the left side of a high back chair, that sat opposite and facing the couch. That hand held a book under the low light of a lamp on an end table beside the chair.
It held a book the guard was reading.
Ben feared to even breathe as he moved toward that chair. There was a single step down from the stone floor of the entry to the carpet of the sunken living room.
He reached the chair without having alerted the guard, but as he looked around the back of that chair, Karen's eyes were open, watching him!
He struggled against the urge to shake his head no. He dared make no movement that could produce an unexpected sound. Instead he firmly, with exaggeration, closed his eyes.
He feared his pounding heart and the sound of the blood roaring in his ears would betray his presence. When he opened his eyes Karen's were closed. "Good girl" he thought.
He closed his own again, momentarily, to offer a silent "Thank You" to the Boss.
Followed by a silent, quick sidestep around the side of the chair as his pistol was extended to slam its muzzle into the side of the guards head.
"Wha...?" the guard started to say, but was cut off by Ben's hissed;
"SHUT... UP!" with a second, hard jab from the muzzle.
"Don't even breathe... you son of a bitch!" Though just a hissed whisper, the rage it carried was unmistakable.
"Get on the floor, there!" Ben pointed in the dim light at a spot in front of the couch. "You make a sound, I'll make a bigger one, only you won't hear it. Now move!" Ben hissed again. "Put your nose in the carpet you... fuck!" He ordered.
The man, eyes wide, silently obeyed. He'd seen crazy men before. This one struck him as maybe the craziest he'd seen. "Maybe this white bwoy crazier than Tyrone!" he thought. The taste of bile filled his throat as he stretched out on the floor, close beside the couch.
Karen lay on her stomach. Ben stepped over to the couch. While keeping the muzzle to the back of the man's head he took the bloody K-bar and sliced through the duct tape that bound Karen's hands behind her back. As he looked down at her, her eyes, filled with a mix of terror, surprise, and... something he wasn't sure of, opened.
Ben slid the K-bar back into its sheath and put a finger to his lips. Karen nodded slightly, acknowledging the warning.
As quietly as she could she sat up and reached for the tape binding her ankles and finally, the strip wound around her head and over her mouth. She pulled that away from her mouth, leaving it stuck in her hair.
She started to reach for her father with both arms, when Ben shook his head violently. "No! Not now!" he whispered, as he reached and touched her cheek.
"The door!" he hissed, pointing at the sliding door on the back of the house. It was on the other side of the dining room. The side of the house that faced the unknown watchers.
As Karen moved across the room toward the door, Ben leaned down and whispered in the man's ear; "Get up asshole. Do as you're told. Don't... FUCK... with me!"
Slowly, not wanting any movement to be misunderstood, Janik pushed himself up from the floor. Ben pointed toward the dining room, where Karen was just getting to the door.
The soft hiss of the door, as she pushed it and its screen open, were the only sounds. Together, Karen leading where Ben pointed, Janik following and Ben in the rear, pistol pressed to the man's neck, the three moved out into the moonlight of the back patio. It only took seconds to cross the landscaped yard. The trio stopped at the edge of the lawn, where the rail fence of another large paddock bordered the yard.
Ben motioned Karen to slide under the rails. He himself, moved in front of his captive, and grinning, pistol pressed to his forehead, carefully climbed the rails.
As he lowered down on the far side the captive Janik started to relax. He'd made it. When he looked at his captor in the moonlight, the crazy rage he'd seen inside was gone. All he could see was the emotionless face of Ben Jensen.
Ben pulled Karen close, pistol, reaching across the fence, still pressed to Janik's forehead. "When I say Darlin'... You RUN." He hissed in her ear. "You run as fast as you can. That way!" he told her, pointing the direction to the coulee that held their only hope of escape.
He looked back at Janik. The man expected to be told to be quiet or he'd die. What he saw, was the blank mask on the man's face and too late, the finger tightening against the trigger.
Karen screamed at the sound of the shots as Ben pushed her and hollered "Run! Run now! Run GOD DAMN IT!"
The loud crack of gunfire outside his window brought Tyrone instantly awake and upright in his bed. He grabbed his pistol off the nightstand as he tore back the sheet and sprinted to the door.
The sounds of commotion and confused hollering came from the three other bedrooms in the house as all doors were jerked open and the remaining seven Jamaicans crowded into the hallway.
Tyrone was already to the end of the hall, eyes and pistol scanning the room, as he raged; "Where the fuck is Janik?"
Sawon called out; "The back door be open Mahn!"
All seven men surged through the door weapons extended. Tyrone held up at the edge of the patio. He pointed to the body of Janik lying by the fence, and hollered to no one in particular, "Check Him!"
One man ran to the body and knelt down, while the other five spread out across the yard moving to the fence. One man shouted, "There!" pointing out into the darkness, and fired three shots.
Four shots came screaming back. One shattered the glass of the sliding door, a second wanged off the bricks of the wall. Tyrone heard one snap as it passed his ear, making him flinch involuntarily.
"Get them!" he hollered as he ducked.
"Sawon! What is out there? Over there?" Tyrone called, gestu
ring toward the fleeing shadows with his pistol.
"Nothing Tyrone. Nothing. Just grass!" Sawon called back, as he fired two more shots. With two more shots fired in return from the runners fleeing across the grass.
Deval called out from the fence. "There is a track. Just a small track. I saw it yesterday when we were coming back from the mine. It just goes from the road, out into the grass!"
"The cars! Everyone get to the cars. Get to that track. Deval you get in the Escalade. You show me that track!"
The seven men sprinted back through the house and out the front door to the vehicles sitting in front of the garage. In seconds, the Escalade leading, all three vehicles were speeding up the driveway, headed for the road.
Chapter 32
After sitting for hours in tedious silence, the muzzle flashes and the rattle of the pistol shots that shattered the stillness of the night jumped the men sitting in the grove of the pullout, a few hundred yards away, to full alertness.
They could see a pair of shadows running across the paddock that ran down the south side of the property. Through their binoculars they saw the men come streaming out of the back of the house. They witnessed them run to the fence line and start firing...
They counted four shots returned, toward the house from one of the running shadows.... followed shortly later, by two more.
With the initial shots, Mirza, sitting on the passenger side of the car, grabbed his cell phone and pressed a speed dial number. After a few seconds, and an answering; "Yes?" He made his report. " Gunfire. Two, running away from the house. Those at the house are firing at the runners. One of the runners is firing back!" He went quiet for a moment, listening to the phone, then, "I don't have any idea! We saw no one approach, it's a bright moon, we'd not have missed them! They had to have approached the house from the north side. But they're moving away now, to the south east." with a final; "Roger. We stay on the primary." Mirza clicked off the phone and spoke to Jadranko.