by Jeff Noonan
Lee smiled at Ray. “Don’t worry about the cost. Just get the pump as soon as you can. Is there any place that I can stay here in town?”
“Yeah. Just down the road by the second bridge you crossed coming into town, behind the grocery store, there’s some little log cabins. They’re our only motel. They’re clean and not too costly. You can rent them from the cashier in the grocery store.”
“Okay. That’ll work fine for a day or so. I could use a rest and a shower anyway.”
“I’ll go get on the phone with the Ford dealer and check on the pump. Stop in the garage before you go to the motel and I may have a price for you.”
“Will do.”
Lee watched the big man walk out the door and then turned back to his meal. The waitress was there as he turned. “Car trouble, eh? That’s no fun.” She was smiling at him, obviously looking for some interesting gossip to tell her customers.
Lee nodded in the direction that Ray had taken and said, with a question in his voice, “He seems like a really nice man.”
The girl nodded. “The best. He and his wife own this place and the garage. His wife, Dawn, is the lady in the back that cooked your burger. Where are you coming from?”
“Pennsylvania.”
“Wow! That is a long way from here. What brings you west?”
“Just wandering around, seeing the sights.”
“That’s cool. But aren’t you scared to be in all these new places? I know that I would be. And I’m a lot older than you. I think.”
“No. I guess I should be, but I’ve never thought about it. People have been nice to me wherever I’ve gone, so I just never thought to be worried about anything.” Then, as a defiant afterthought, “But I don’t think you’re much older than me. I’m eighteen years old.”
She laughed aloud at that. “I’ve got you beat by a bit. I’m twenty.”
Her laugh was infectious. Lee found himself grinning back at her, something he hadn’t done much in the past few months.
One of the teenage boys came up to the counter for a refill on his soft drink, giving Lee a respite from the cross-examination. He finished his burger while the waitress took care of the order. When she returned, she had his bill in her hand. Lee looked at it and covered it with a silver dollar, saying, “I guess I’d better go see what Ray found out about my car.”
She returned with his change, which he declined. At that, she reached across the counter to shake his hand. “My name is Betty. I’m glad to meet you.”
He grasped the proffered hand and mumbled a bashful, “Me too. Thank you. I’ll see you later.” He made his escape, startled at the feelings coursing through him. It had been months since he had talked to a female other than his aunt. The whole encounter had left him a bit confused and the soft, gentle, touch of the handshake had shaken him to the core. He shook his head and made his way over to the garage.
Ray was still on the phone. He looked up and gestured for Lee to take a seat. Speaking into the phone, he said, “Hold on a minute. The car owner is here. Let me check with him on this.” He covered the mouthpiece and looked at Lee. “I hate to tell you this, but they don’t have a pump in Missoula. None in Spokane either. They’ll have to order it from back east and it’ll take about three days to get it to us. What do you want to do?”
“How much will it cost?”
Ray looked down at his notes, “It’ll cost $59.50 plus shipping costs for the water pump. Then a couple of hours labor to get it put in and some antifreeze. The total will be somewhere around $90.00.”
“Go ahead and order it. I’ll just have to wait. Not much choice.”
Ray went back to talking on the telephone as Lee waited. When he put the phone back in its cradle, he and Lee went into the garage and Lee took his overnight bag out of his car trunk. Then, after promising to check back with Ray regularly, Lee headed for the grocery store to see about getting a cabin for the next few days.
The cabin was a pleasant surprise. It was a classic one-room log cabin. Over the years, someone had cut a door in the back and built a lean-to bathroom that was attached to the new opening. The room had a bed, a night stand, a small dresser, a hot plate on the dresser, and some pegs on one wall where he could hang clothes. All in all, it was nicer than a lot of the motel rooms he’d seen in the past few weeks.
Lee stripped and let the shower run over him until the water ran cold. Then he toweled off and crawled into the bed. He was studying his maps, looking for lakes in the area, when he fell into a deep, exhausted, sleep.
CHAPTER FOUR: ROBBERY
It was late evening when Lee woke to find that he was starving. Quickly he splashed his face and brushed his teeth. Then he threw on a flannel shirt, jeans and sneakers before locking the cabin door on his way out. Soon he was walking into the café, hoping it wasn’t too late to get a meal.
The waitress was gone now, but the lady that had been cooking when he was here before was behind the counter. Digging back, he remembered that the waitress, Betty, had called the lady Dawn. She was Ray’s wife. Lee took a lot of pride in remembering people and he decided to try using that talent now. “Hi, Mrs. Moore. Is it too late to get something to eat?”
“Certainly not. The door was open, wasn’t it?” She said it with a smile to take the sting out of the comment. Lee slid into the seat beside the cahier’s station for the second time that day and took the menu that she offered him.
“Do you have anything back there in the kitchen that you need to get rid of today?
“Actually, we do. There’s some brook trout that we got in this morning. I hate to keep them more than a day. They’re real good - still fresh from the creek. Never been frozen. Want to try a couple?”
“That sounds great. Can I have some fries and a cup of coffee with them?”
“Sure thing. I’ll get that going. I’m doing double-duty tonight. I’m waitress, cook, and bottle washer right now.” She brought him a mug of coffee and left for the kitchen.
Lee found a newspaper and sipped the coffee as he checked the news. There’d been a bad auto accident in Missoula and President Eisenhower had made a speech yesterday, but nothing really caught his interest until he noticed an article about the Clark Fork River. He’d followed it for a lot of miles lately and he was interested to read about it. The article was about a local politician named Kurt Kochran who was saying that the river was badly polluted. Other politicians were calling the first guy crazy and asking voters to get rid of him. Lee thought about it a bit and decided that the second group must be right. How could the beautiful river that he had seen earlier today be polluted? The guy must be a nut-case. He went on to other news.
Soon the platter of fish and fries was in front of him. He attacked it with gusto. He wasn’t happy about having to stay in this little town, but he had to admit that the food here was as good as any he’d tried lately.
Coming up for air, he noticed that Dawn was watching him with a soft smile on her face. He realized that she had been watching him wolf down his meal. He blushed and returned her smile. “It’s really good.” She laughed. “I’m glad you like it.”
She re-filled his coffee and turned to walk back to the kitchen, but she never got there. With a loud crash, the front door flew open and a man came in. He charged across the aisle and, before either Dawn or Lee could react, was in front of Dawn with a revolver pointed at her face.
“Get your ass over to the register and give me everything in it.” The voice was a snarl that came from behind a dirty towel that was wrapped around his lower face as a makeshift mask. Even as he spoke, he waved the gun to point first at Dawn, then at Lee. “Don’t even think about moving, kid. I’ll blow your fucking head off if you move a muscle.”
Lee froze, his coffee mug raised to his lips. “No problem, man. I’m not moving.”
The gunman turned his attention back to Dawn. “Get over to the register, bitch. You’re gonna pay for putting us out of work. Start piling the cash on the counter.” She moved to the regi
ster and opened it. Slowly she started unloading the money, one denomination at a time. First the ones, then the fives, then tens. When the bills were all carefully arranged, she started stacking coins on the counter. First came silver dollars, then half-dollars, then quarters.
She was moving at an agonizingly slow pace. Finally, the robber grabbed her by the front of her shirt, jerked her toward him as he screamed at her, “What’re you waiting for? Move faster, bitch.” Then his eyebrows arched in a surprised look and he released his grip on her shirtfront. His hands turned around and he grabbed her breast. She froze, staring at him with surprise on her face. He kept his grip, slowly messaging her as she instinctively tried to back away from him.
He moved forward, still squeezing her chest. “Hey, you’re hiding some good stuff here, aren’t you? That tree-loving husband of yours shouldn’t be able to keep all this for himself! What ‘cha say we get together? The kid can watch and learn some .....”
But he never finished his sentence. The man’s forward motion had brought him closer to Lee. Without warning, Lee’s right hand, with the coffee mug in it, flipped toward the man and the hot coffee arced directly into the would-be bandit’s eyes. The man jerked back and screamed. At the same time he whipped his pistol around toward where Lee had been sitting and fired.
The shot boomed like a cannon in the small café and a window at the far end of the counter shattered. But Lee was not where he’d been a moment before. He’d jumped backward into the aisle behind his stool and then spun around to face the robber from behind. He still had the heavy mug in his hand and he brought it down on the top of the man’s head with all the force in his young body. That ended the encounter. The man collapsed in a heap, his head bouncing off of the cash register before he flopped, unconscious to the floor. Blood was already pouring from a huge gash across the top of his scalp.
Lee picked up the pistol and pointed it loosely in the direction of the unconscious man on the floor. He looked at Dawn, who was staring open-mouthed at the scene before her. Her dress front had been ripped and she was clutching it together as she stared. “Are you all right, ma’am?” He was genuinely concerned, but he instinctively knew that it wasn’t the right time to move any closer to her. He could see that she was badly shaken.
“Yeah. I guess I’m okay.” The words came out slowly as she gathered herself. “Is he alive?”
Lee bent down and checked the man’s pulse. “Yes. But he’s bleeding pretty bad. I’ll put that towel of his over the cut. That should help. But we need to get some police or someone. How do we do that?” Having said that, he bent and pulled the towel off the man’s lower face, folded it and place it firmly on his gashed head.
Dawn had regained her poise by this time and she actually chuckled. “My husband is on his way already. As soon as this guy came in, I pushed a switch under the counter that set off a fire alarm at our house. That’s why I was counting the money so slowly. I was hoping that Ray would get here in time to catch this fool.”
She had hardly finished this speech when the door opened and Ray came through it with a carbine in his big hands, pointed loosely in Lee’s direction. He took in the scene immediately, but was obviously confused by the pistol in Lee’s hand. He kept his hard gaze fixed on Lee as he asked his wife. “What happened? Are you okay, Hon?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. The ass on the floor tried to rob us, but this young man clocked him with a coffee mug. That put his lights out. That’s about all there was to it.”
“Your dress is torn. What did he do to you?”
“He got grabby, but it didn’t get anywhere thanks to our friend here.”
Ray relaxed and grabbed Lee in a huge bear hug. “Thanks, man! Thank you.” He drew back to arm’s length, looking at Lee. “I was scared silly when I got that alarm. All I could think about was that something must’ve happened to Dawn. I really mean it! Thank you, Lee!”
“No problem. Hell, it was you guys that lost a coffee mug.” He grinned widely. “But we probably need to do something with his head. He’s bleeding a lot. Do you have a doctor around here?”
“Naw. Nearest one is in Big River, about fifteen miles east. I’ll call the Sheriff and he can worry about this guy. By the way, do either of you know him? I don’t think I’ve seen him around here before.”
Neither Dawn nor Lee had ever seen the man before. While they were discussing this, Ray got on the pay phone in the corner and called the Sheriff’s office. Dawn started putting the money back in the register. She was almost finished when a long groan came from the recumbent body and the would-be robber stirred. Lee pulled a chair away from a table and sat at the man’s feet, waiting, with the pistol pointed at the man’s face.
Ray came away from the phone smiling. “The sheriff will be here in a few minutes. He was out this way patrolling the highway anyway, so it won’t be long.”
The robber slowly came to, shaking his head and letting out a yelp when the shaking made him realize that his head was not feeling its best. His hand came up to grasp the towel on his head and he moaned loudly. Finally his eyes came into focus and the first thing he saw was Lee looking down at him. He moved to sit up, groaning at the effort. Lee moved the chair back a couple of feet and kept the pistol pointed in the general direction of the man’s face.
The man finally got to a sitting position, never taking his eyes off of Lee. Clear hatred was showing in his face. He hadn’t noticed Ray yet. “Kid, if you want to live the day out, you’d better give me that gun and get the hell out of this town. My friends will be here any minute.”
Lee looked at him incredulously. The guy might be a total sleaze-bag, but he did have balls. Lee laughed aloud at the man. “If you have any friends, which I doubt, they’re long gone. Oh, yeah. My friends are already here. Ray, would you like to say hello?”
Ray had been standing behind the man, listening to the exchange. “Sure Lee.” He smacked the seated robber smartly on the top of the towel and, with mock formality, said, “Hello, mister. I’m Ray Moore. I would be pleased to know who I have the pleasure of addressing this fine evening?”
The man twisted to look at Ray and immediately lost his bravado. “Get fucked.” But the voice was small and discouraged sounding.
Ray stepped forward and rested his hand, palm down, on the towel. “That doesn’t really sound like a name and there’s a lady present. Want to try it again? And where are you from?”
“Ow! Let up, asshole. That hurts.”
Ray pushed down. “Name?”
“Ow! Stop it! Okay. Okay. I’m Willy Gohmert. I’m from Texas, but I’ve been living in Big River for the past few months.”
“Okay Willy. Now just shut up. Sit there and hold the towel over that cut. If you move, I’m going to let Lee shoot you.”
Dawn finished putting the money back in the register at about the same time as the sheriff’s big patrol car pulled up just outside of the café’s front windows. Ray moved to the door and held it open to let the sheriff know that all was well inside the café. At that, the sheriff emerged from the car and walked to the door, his hand out to shake with Ray.
“Hey Ray, you got me a villain, eh?”
“Yeah, Frank, but not much of one. Tried to hold Dawn up with a pistol. He got grabby with her and tore her dress. Then he shot out my window trying to hit the kid here. But the kid cold-cocked him.” He paused and looked thoughtful. “Cold-cocked by a kid from back east. That does sound bad. But the guy says he’s from Texas, so it’s understandable, I guess.”
By this time, the sheriff was in the café, checking out the prisoner. “Well hello, Willy. Screwed up again, eh?”
“I didn’t do nothing Sheriff. I come in here for a cup of coffee and these guys started beating on me. It’s them that needs arresting, not me!” Willy had an almost pleading look about him as he was saying this, as if he was expecting the sheriff to be his ally tonight. The sheriff soon doused that thought.
Laughing aloud, he just reached down and placed handcuffs on hi
s prisoner. “Sorry Willy, but you went way too far this time. You’re headed for the crowbar hotel. But I’m gonna put the cuffs on in the front so you can hold that rag on your head.”
The prisoner began protesting loudly. “Hey, Sheriff Rose. I didn’t do it. You can’t arrest me! I’m from Big River and that’s where you’re from. We elected you, not these St. Dubois assholes. Why’re you taking their side?”
“Because I’m the law, you idiot. You tried to get some easy money and got caught. You shot a pistol at another human being, and you stepped over the line with a nice lady. I’m charging you with attempted murder, armed robbery and assault. If you open your mouth again before we get to Big River, I may think of other charges. Now shut up.”
The sheriff turned to Ray, laughing. “He elected me? I bet he ain’t even registered to vote.” He shook his head as Ray and Dawn both chuckled. “By the way, I’m going to need statements from all three of you, but it’s late now. Can you come down to the jail tomorrow sometime so that we can get all the facts straight?”
Ray nodded. “Sure. Dawn and I can be there early tomorrow afternoon. Is that okay with you, Lee?”
“Certainly. I’m just hanging out here anyway. But I’ll need a ride. Oh, this pistol belongs to Willy there. Do you want to take it, Sheriff?”
“Yeah, thanks, Son.” The sheriff advanced to where Lee was standing, holding his hand out toward Lee. “I’m sorry, I guess I must’ve forgot my manners. I’m Sheriff Frank Rose. What’s your name? Ray says that you’re from back east?”
I’m Lee Raines. I’m from a little town close to Philadelphia, back in Pennsylvania. I was just passing through, but my car broke down and it looks like I’ll be around for a few days. By the way, that towel on his head was what he used as a mask when he came in here, so you probably want to keep it around.”
“That’s good thinking. I’ll keep it for evidence.” The sheriff held the handshake a little longer than necessary as he studied Lee’s face. “Welcome to Montana, Mr. Raines. You did a good thing here. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you while you’re in the area.” He turned back to the prisoner, “Let’s go Willy. We need to get the Doc to look at that head of yours.”