Patience County War (Madeleine Toche Series)

by Soren Petrek

  “Every time I am with you on one of these ‘look sees’ something happens and a warrior never has empty hands,” Nathan said as he wedged himself into the modified back seat. Even the squad groaned a little as he settled in. Sam had built in an extra heavy duty bench seat. It was more like a day bed. Nathan sat in the middle to balance the rig and off they went.

  “The first stop is over near Taggert’s ridge. There’s an old trailer there and Dad thought it looked like there was some extra activity from the air.”

  “You’re the sheriff Sammy; just tell me what to do.”

  “The usual,” Sam said.

  The usual was that Sam would go in and investigate while Nathan patrolled in the woods, acting as a lookout and back up so that Sam wouldn’t be surprised from behind. Sam always brought Nathan. He knew that no matter what happened, Nathan would not leave him. The day that happened was the day Sam would quit believing in anything.

  Sam and Nathan parked the squad off the road, down an overgrown cart path and out of sight. Without discussion Nathan disappeared into the darkness of the trees and was gone. Sam smiled when he thought of any poor bad guy stumbling upon the giant African prince in the woods, especially given Nathan’s sense of humor. It was just wild how Nathan could blend into the woods so completely. Sam knew the Masai didn’t fight or hunt in wooded terrain, but were especially adept at stealth in environments with very little cover. Given cover, Nathan said any child could do it. It was about knowing where your enemy was, not having to see him all of the time. Just like Sam’s father and his boot camp drill instructor had told him. If you can see to shoot the enemy, he can see to shoot you. That’s one of the undisputed truisms from the day of the bow and arrow.

  As he carefully approached the trailer, Sam could tell that nobody was around. When he got near he purposely banged a couple of old rusty cans together and stayed under cover to see if anyone would flush. Nothing, Sam thought as he approached the trailer out of line of the windows and doors. He saw the telltale signs of manufacture activity. There were piles of solvent cans and lye containers. Sam proceeded with caution around to the back and peeked into a window. There were stacks of garbage and old fast food containers. The only occupant was a raccoon picking around. Satisfied, Sam cautiously went in the back door and looked around. He walked to the front and made a loud screeching bird like sound to call Nathan in. It was the only one he knew. He figured it sounded wild enough to sound natural, at least natural enough to fool your run-of-the-mill druggie.

  Sam walked out front as Nathan ghosted up to the trailer.

  “No sport today?” Nathan said.

  “No, it’s just an old meth lab. These guys are smart enough to keep on the move.” A piece of paper ground into a tire track caught Sam’s attention; he stooped over and picked it up.

  “Sure as hell, Virgil Ward’s gas credit card slip,” Sam said shaking his head. “One way or another Virgil is with these guys.”

  “He’s no criminal,” Nathan said.

  “Only if you considerer dumb ass a criminal offense. The only drug Virgil needs from time to time is a smack from a frying pan,” Sam said as he tucked the receipt into his pocket. “How about we catch some fish with the kid, make some calls, and have a little get together. Don’t forget to call your dad.”

  “I would never make that mistake. I would never hear the end of it.”

  “Old soldiers are like that,” Sam said.

  Sam and Nathan drove over to the restaurant where Yves and Madeleine were sitting on the front porch, cleaning green beans.

  “Nathan, mon chou,” Madeleine said.

  Nathan smiled, “Hardly have to clean ‘em, do you?”

  “Beautiful as always,” Madeleine said.

  “We’re here to take the boy fishing, Madeleine,” Sam said.

  “Good, Christine wants to go too.”

  Nathan started to giggle, gently singing a Masai betrothal song. Sam of course knew it. He’d spent two of the hottest summers of his life with Nathan’s tribe, and the two were regular visitors. Sam loved the easy, live for-the-now atmosphere of tribal life. Everyone worked and shared. Sam often thought that communities used to be more like that in this country in a loose, neighbor-help-neighbor, barn raising sort of way.

  “We’d love to take her fishing. She should wear some clothes to get dirty and a hat for the sun.”

  Madeleine smiled at Sam as if indulging a child‘s silly comment. “My family is from Provence. Your sun is quaint compared to Marseilles this time of year. We also know a little about fishing.”

  Just then Christine came out onto the porch. Sam straightened up despite himself. She had on a frayed cotton top and cutoff jeans, buttoned over a bikini bottom along with worn leather sandals.

  “Sammy will spend a lot of time in the cold creek today,” Nathan muttered.

  Whoa, Sam thought. Christine was as beautiful in her beach bum outfit as any model he’d ever seen. Forget that ‘elegant-as-a-sparrow crap’, this woman’s beauty was uncontrolled and savage. She was looking at him with true pleasure; it was palpable to everyone.

  “We fish?” Yves said, used to men’s reactions to his mother, taking Sam’s hand.

  “We fish,” Sam said as he bent down and picked the kid up by his ankle and slung him over his shoulder. No need to translate that. Old Sammy’s the fun one he thought, as the kid let out peals of joy.

  They drove the squad over to Nathan’s farm and parked next to a log shed where the fishing poles were kept. He grabbed some fly casting rods and a couple of beat up old cane poles.

  “So we cheat today?” Nathan said as he picked up a pole. Nathan and Sam had spent so much time in the creeks of Patience growing up that they would generally creep up to special pools and eddies where the trout would hang and catch them by hand. They shined frogs that way too, never using a gaff. That way they could have the fun without killing the bullfrog. They both liked frog legs, but it was hard to kill a big ol bull frog. It wasn’t about being squeamish, far from it. But most of the time a frog really does look like it’s minding its own business. Particularly with all the old stories about the frog prince, lawn ornaments, kiddie frog pools, and frog floaties. The frog has some standing in the amphibian-man world. You can’t just throw a spear through him, especially one that looks like a trident, so that the frog’s last thought was, “eh tu Poseidon?”

  “We’ll show ‘em both ways.”

  “Which one are you going to teach, my friend?” Nathan teased.

  “We’ll all go together there, Farmer Nate.”

  The sun filtered down through the tree tops and a gentle breeze made the temperature pleasant. The fresh smell and moisture in the air near the creek and the dark shadows cast from the banks kept the heat of the day away.

  They walked, carrying the poles and a small tin can of grasshoppers across one of Nathan’s pastures, ducking under some low lying branches and down a short hill to where the creek ambled by. As they walked over the whitish stones that were the creek bed when the water was higher, Sam saw a water moccasin and pointed it out to Yves and Christine. He demonstrated by curling two fingers over like fangs and striking his arm, “Ne touch pas,” he said.

  “So you do know some French. What’s it mean?” Nathan said.

  “It means don’t touch.”

  “Obviously you’ve met a French girl before.”

  “Once or twice,” Sam said with a grin.

  The creek meandered under and around oaks and cottonwoods, twisting around with a few straightaways. The depth varied as the creek bit into the banks and created some deep pools and shady spots where Sam and Nathan always found something. It was cool and still under the canopy, with only a slight rustle of the cottonwood leaves at the very top of the trees. The sound of cicadas was everywhere. Sam reached up and cupped a cicada out of a tree and showed it to the boy. He was fascinated by the large, prehistoric looking insect and reached out to touch it right away.

  “We’ll turn him into a Miss
ouri country boy yet, just like I did you,” Sam said.

  “No, I turned you into a Masai warrior who happens to live in Missouri.”

  Sam took a fly out of a small packet in his pocket and tied it to the end of his line and gestured for Yves to follow him to the edge of the water. Sam dropped the fly into the current and let it be carried down into a small pocket just adjacent to a patch of faster running water. Just as the fly floated into the pocket there was a silvery flash as a trout took it. Sam handed the pole to Yves and showed him how to pull back and land the fish. The boy landed a beautiful rainbow trout just the right size. Sam showed Yves the gunny sack to put the fish in. The kid was way ahead of him. He easily took the hook from the mouth of the fish, dropped it into the bag, tied the top with a cord, and set the bag into the stream, weighing it down with a rock. Yves then took the pole and promptly caught another fish. Just as that happened, Christine picked up one of the fly rods, attached a fly and expertly flicked it into another small, likely pool, almost immediately hooking into one.

  “Who’s teaching who, Sammy?” Nathan said, duly impressed.

  “I bet they can’t catch ‘em in their hands,” Sam answered.

  “No way am I betting against ole Bill Dance there. She’s as good as I’ve ever seen,” Nathan said.

  It was true. Christine handled the rod with complete control and touch. It was like watching her dance. She looked just like she belonged in that stream, casting for trout thousands of miles away from the Mediterranean under the Missouri sun.

  Janice and Patty smoked cigarettes as they walked down the well-worn trail, oblivious both to the beauty of nature and the beer cans and cigarette butts that lay along the path, evidence of parties long past. They were two teenage friends, bonded by their mutual boredom and their willingness to try just about anything to get high.

  “Hey, let me see that stuff again,” Janice, the taller red haired teen, said.

  “Just hold on. We’re almost at the fire circle. Aren’t you high enough? That last joint was crazy,” Patty said, a little loopy eyed, giving her a friendly pat on the arm.

  “I’m tired of weed. I want to try that new shit, supposed to be like cocaine,” Janice said.

  “You’ve never had any damn cocaine,” Patty said.

  “Yes, I did too, at that frat party we got into when we visited Mary’s brother at State.”

  “It was probably a crushed up caffeine pill,” Patty said.

  “It worked on me.”

  “Everything works on you, especially frat boys.” They both laughed and leaned on each other as they lurched up the path.

  The girls walked into a clearing where some logs had been arranged around a fire pit that had seen some use.

  “My mom used to come here and party years ago. I heard her talking about it to one of her friends,” Janice said.

  “So she knows you come here?” Patty said.

  “Don’t be stupid. No way. Parents don’t want to know.”

  “Did she ever smoke dope or anything?” Patty asked.

  “I doubt it; she was more part of the beer drinking crowd. She’s still pretty straight that way. We don’t talk about things like that. She’s more worried about me getting pregnant and making decent grades than doing drugs. I think she knows we do some drinking, but nothing about weed,” Janice said. “We smoke this stuff, right?”

  “I’ve got a pipe I got from Henry,” Patty said.

  “Where did he get crystal meth?”

  “That’s like the last thing we need to know,” Patty said.

  “True.”

  Patty pulled a small glass tube and a folded tin foil packet out of her pocket. Both girls looked at it like they were examining an alien life form.

  “How much do you put in?” Janice asked.

  “He said just to put some in that little bowl and heat it up and inhale the fumes,” Patty said.

  “Go for it,” Janice said.

  Patty sparked a lighter, vaporized the grains of methamphetamine and inhaled.

  “Whoa,” she said as she blew out the smoke. “Holy shit!”

  Janice had already taken the pipe and finished off the rest.

  “That’s awesome.”

  “No shit.”

  “Hey, give me one,” Janice said as Patty lit up a cigarette.

  “Man, now I know what everyone is talking about, this is outrageous.”

  “I don’t see why everyone’s so wild about this stuff. People just do it too much and get screwed over by it.”

  “Give me a little more.”

  Both girls took turns burning up the small amount that they’d been given as a sample. They smoked cigarettes and talked about their new discovery. They had instantly decided that the first order of business was to get some for the weekend and take it to a party. A friend of theirs was having a party to celebrate his parents being gone for a few days.

  “Man, what time is it?” Patty asked.

  “Like five.”

  “We got to go. I’ve got to be home before my mom gets there,” Patty said.

  “Alright, let’s go.”

  “Make sure you keep it cool when you see your mom,” Janice said.

  “She doesn’t know shit and we don’t smell or nothing.”

  The girls made it back down the trail and to Patty’s car. They got inside and pushed the hamburger wrappers aside and found a fresh pack of cigarettes. Patty cranked up the local rock station, and soon the whole car was vibrating to a blaring, rapid-fire beat. With the wind in their hair and the drugs making everything seem like so much fun, Patty drove faster along the park road, ignoring the speed limit and the upcoming stop sign.

  Just as the girls turned off the tar leading from the state park, a ranger truck rounded the corner off the gravel. Patty blew through the stop sign and into the path of the ranger truck. The impact knocked the girl’s car onto its side.

  “Where’d they come from?” Mike Schmidt blurted out to his fellow conservation officer Charlie Berry, as their car came to a jolting stop, throwing them both against their seat belts.

  The two jumped from their vehicle and ran over to the car resting in the ditch.

  “Is everyone alright?” Berry said, as he climbed up so that he could see into the driver’s side window.

  “I don’t know, I think I broke my arm,” Janice said from the passenger seat. Both girls were jumbled up together, along with the trash that composed a large percentage of the inside of the vehicle.

  “I didn’t see you,” Patty said, as she untangled herself from Janice.

  “Let’s get you girls out and then worry about that,” Berry said.

  The girls climbed out through the driver’s side window.

  “My mom is going to kill me, patty moaned, starting to cry.

  “Call it in, Charlie.”

  A few minutes later a sheriff’s car pulled up, Deputy Larry Swanson stepped out.

  “Howdy Mike, Charlie. Running people off the road?” Deputy Larry, Swanson called out. He surveyed the scene and could tell from the girls’ expressions that they were more scared than hurt.

  “Actually, more of an accident. That’s a bad turn there,” Charlie said.

  “Anybody hurt?”

  “Passenger probably has a broken arm.”

  The deputy walked over, spoke to the girls, and looked at Janice’s arm.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t see them,” Patty blurted out.

  “I wasn’t driving,” Janice quickly said.

  “I just said I was driving, Janice,” Patty said.

  “Okay, Okay. First, let’s get you both looked at and fix that arm up.” Swanson led the girls to his squad, and put them both in the back seat.

  “You guys can get a tow when I call TJ in a minute.”

  “Game’s on in an hour, Swanny,” Mike said.

  “Yah, Yah, he’ll be right out. Just enjoy nature until he gets here,” Swanson said making a few quick notes. “Failure to yield, kids driving too fast. Good thin
g nobody was hurt. I’m sure insurance will pay for a new truck.”

  “Good thing it was the old truck and not the new one,” Charlie said.

  “That at least is something,” Mike said, looking at the smashed front end of his truck. “I didn’t see her, and she didn’t see me, that’s for damn sure,” he added.

  “I need to piss,” Charlie said as he walked over to the side of the road.

  “Good for you Charlie. I’m sure I would have figured that out,” Mike said.

  “I’m like a damn well-oiled machine.” As he unzipped his pants, Charlie glanced down and saw a glass pipe and a scrap of foil.

  “Mike, quit throwing your pot pipe on the ground. I’m always picking up after you.”

  “Like hell. Those girls throw it down? It looks like it hasn’t been there long.”

  The men examined the pipe and some small scraps of residue remaining in the tinfoil.

  “That, my friend, ain’t pot,” Mike said.

  “What is it?”

  “No idea. We’ll drop it off at the bunker and let them figure it out.”

  “Fantastic, there’s TJ. Let’s get him to take us first. You know valuable evidence must be delivered to law enforcement.”

  “Technically, we’re law enforcement.”

  “No, we keep the world safe from wildlife offenders, we’re animal cops. Remember that if you’re ever called to help track an armed felon.”

  “Unless he’s dragging a poached deer I’ll leave it to the pros, Mikey.”

  “Fantastic.”

  The two conservation officers leaned against the counter just inside the sheriff’s station. Deputy Swanson walked over from his desk in the day room where a couple of the other deputies were writing reports. The small glass tube and crumpled tin-foil lay on the counter inside a small zip-lock evidence bag.

  “I think Sam’s going to want to see this,” Deputy Swanson said as he picked up the pipe and foil.

  “What is it, Swanny?”

  “Meth, almost for sure.”

  “You think it was those two girls, they’re sixteen, maybe seventeen.”

  “Happened before in Patience. Beer and pot must not be doing it anymore,” Swanson said.