The trucker glanced over his shoulder one last time, wavered, then tossed the tire iron on the ground. “Ah, shit,” he said, disgusted.
Another vehicle approached from the main road and Steven recognized Sheriff Walker emerging from a pickup truck. He was dressed in faded blue jeans, sneakers and a black police-issue ski jacket. Steven’s relief was tempered with disappointment that Walker hadn’t arrived in a cruiser with its siren blaring, wearing his official uniform. He felt a hand touch his arm and looked down at Amy, who grinned triumphantly, still brandishing her sign.
“Looks like we’re going to get that publicity you said was so important,” she said as Walker approached the scene. He came to a halt and flashed his badge and ID briefly for the benefit of all to see.
“Sheriff Walker,” he announced. “Someone care to tell me what’s going on?”
“These people blocked the road on me,” the trucker said. “All I want to do is my job, and they won’t let me.”
“This road was built illegally and that man has no right to be driving his big dump truck over it,” Amy cried.
“That the truth?” Walker said to Steven, who was spared from having to explain by the deep rumble of what sounded like a fairly large convoy of industrial-size vehicles coming down the mountain road toward them. Everyone turned at the sound. Steven shouldered through the group of citizens, edged between their cars and looked up the access road. Walker came to stand beside him, and the reporter and her accompanying cameraman trotted up as the sound grew ominously louder and the earth began to tremble underfoot. The first vehicle loomed into view around the sharp curve and Steven saw Walker instinctively reached for the butt of his revolver even as he heard a most unladylike expletive from Channel 6 TV’s roving reporter, Melissa Sue Pauley.
“Run for it!” she shouted.
Instead, Walker drew his pistol and stood his ground beside Steven in the middle of the mountain road while the gigantic dump truck growled in low gear toward them, followed by a fleet of others. “Sorry it took me so long to get here,” Walker apologized over the sound of the engines. “My deputy was responding to a traffic accident out on Puma Ranch Road and it took me a while just to get out of those damned waders.” He held up his badge as he spoke and waved it back and forth above his head, and when this had absolutely no effect he shoved it back inside his jacket and leveled his gun in both hands. “Okay, Young Bear,” he shouted, his voice nearly inaudible over the roar of the big motors. “There’s backup from Bozeman on the way, should be here any minute, but what do you suggest we do in the meantime?”
“We hope they stop,” Steven shouted back.
But they didn’t even slow down. The lead truck came straight for them, and they heard Melissa Sue Pauley shriek out, “No, you lame-brained idiot, keep the camera running! Get this footage. Get it!”
Steven wondered what the cameraman would get, what the nightly viewers would see as they sat in their warm living rooms and watched the world from a safe distance. Would the cameraman capture him and Walker being squashed beneath the aggressive and totally intimidating tires of an entire squadron of monstrous dump trucks? Common sense told him that he should leap aside and let these behemoths mow down the barricade of civilian vehicles. Common sense was a good thing and it came in handy at times like this, but the sheriff obstinately stood his ground. Ninety feet shrunk to fifty in a heartbeat, and just as Steven decided to forcibly pull Walker aside, the sheriff fired a single warning shot into the air.
The response of the truck driver was to lay on his air horn and accelerate, two rash and foolhardy actions that caused Walker to lose his temper. For a shocked moment the sheriff stood in disbelief, and then, with the bumper of that massive truck less than twenty feet from him, he leveled his pistol and emptied the remaining five rounds into the truck, judiciously avoiding the driver and scaring the hell out of all the onlookers. The truck veered sharply to the left and came to an abrupt halt. The door wrenched open and the trucker jumped down, eyes wild.
“You okay, Clyde?” he bellowed, walking forward. “They hurtin’ you?”
“Hands in the air, you stupid bastard! You are under arrest!” Walker shouted, moving to block his advance.
“They got a camera, Reggie,” the first trucker called out. “They says we’ll be on the evening news.”
“You okay, Clyde?” the second trucker repeated as if his comrade hadn’t spoken, still advancing toward Steven and the sheriff.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Walker reached under his jacket and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. He handed them to Steven. “Cuff that damned idiot when I say so,” he said, and before Steven could respond, Walker moved forward, a soldier marching resolutely into battle.
“You! Turn around! Hands in the air. I won’t say it again,” he barked out with great authority.
He didn’t, either, because at that very moment the big trucker called Reggie reached out, wrenched the empty pistol from Walker’s hand and tossed it aside. He then lifted the sheriff and effortlessly threw him to the ground as well. “You okay, Clyde?” he said for the third time.
Walker scrambled to his feet and tackled Reggie from behind with the athletic finesse of a professional linebacker. They fell together in a heap on the flinty soil. “Cuff him now! Now!” he shouted to Steven, who had absolutely no idea how to get the cuffs around Reggie’s wrists while the sheriff was grappling with him on the ground. “Cuff him!”
Steven hovered, leaned forward, jerked back, felt a hand grab his arm. Clyde loomed beside him. “Don’t hurt Reggie,” Clyde said. “He’s just trying to protect me.”
“Talk to him, then, tell him to stop!” Steven said. “Tell him he’s beating up an officer of the law!”
“Stop, Reggie! You’re beating up an officer of the law!” Clyde said, but it was too late. The sheriff, with his ineffectual blows, had gotten Reggie mad, and Reggie had commenced to beat on the sheriff with those big fists. Steven reached down, still holding the cuffs, took a handful of Reggie’s shirt and jerked backward, trying to pull him off the sheriff. The next thing he knew, stars were exploding in his head and he was flat on his back, spitting blood. He struggled to his knees in time to see several other truckers trotting toward the melee. Good, he thought. They’re big enough to break up the fight. He lurched to his feet just in time to be knocked down by Reggie’s elbow as the trucker drew his arm back to hit the sheriff yet again. Another explosion of stars. He lost the handcuffs, was searching for them when a boot caught him in the ribs. Didn’t see it coming. Flat on the ground again, dirt in his mouth, ears ringing with shouts and curses. Wondered if it wouldn’t be wiser to stay down, but he rolled onto his knees. Had to help the sheriff. Reggie was out of control….
Afterward, Steven would wonder how he ever managed to survive that unfortunate day. He would later watch the complimentary copy of the tape that Melissa Sue Pauley had sent him with her thanks for helping her be nominated newswoman of the year, and he would wonder how anyone had survived. Over and over, with a kind of morbid fascination, he watched the unedited footage, feeling the same numbness come over him each time, the same overwhelming sense of his own foolishness. He saw himself trying to drag Reggie off Walker in the early moments, then trying to parry the blows of another trucker who was coming to Reggie’s aid, and doing all right, doing pretty damn good for a lawyer wearing a suit and tie, actually holding his own in the fracas for a split second or two.
Melissa Sue Pauley’s cameraman caught not only Walker’s valiant struggle with Reggie, but the subsequent beatings both he and Steven took when the rest of the truckers jumped into the fracas while the rest of the protestors cringed back. It was violent, gruesome footage and the cameraman never flinched. Not even when Melissa Sue Pauley, in an extraordinary attempt to stop what appeared to be a run of violence that could easily end in hot-blooded murder, shouted, “Stop! For the love of God, stop! Stop! You’re on live camera!” Not even when Amy threw herself between the sheriff and Reggie and beg
an striking at the huge trucker with her fists.
It was Amy’s rash action that broke Reggie’s concentration long enough for Clyde to shout, “You idiots, that’s a cop Reggie’s trying to kill! Stop him, before he gets us all thrown in jail for life!”
It was a command that Steven never heard until he watched the tape because by that point in time both he and the sheriff were beyond hearing anything at all.
BY THE TIME MOLLY ARRIVED at the New Millennium access road, having chafed and champed during the entire commuter flight, fidgeted impatiently while the car-rental agency finished the paperwork and handed her the keys, and driven like a madwoman from Bozeman to Moose Horn, the confrontation was over. Most of the protesters had dispersed and the media had departed with their high-tech equipment in a frenzied rush to get their footage on the evening news. For a moment she hoped that nothing really bad had happened, but then she caught a glimpse of the yellow police tape cordoning off the road, and Steven’s Jeep parked higher up, beyond the police cars and the roadblock. Her breath caught in her throat. She told herself that he was all right. Steven was a peaceful man. He wouldn’t have gotten involved in any violence, he was just waiting for her, that’s all. She parked her rental car behind the banner of yellow tape and hurried toward the nearest uniformed officer, who stood on the outskirts, scribbling notes in his log.
“What happened here?” she said. “Was anyone hurt?”
The officer looked at her from beneath the wide brim of his hat. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the officer said with a disapproving pause, “but this area is off-limits to the public.”
“A friend of mine, Steven Young Bear, is the attorney representing the people who blocked the road,” she said. “His Jeep is parked up above. Can you tell me what happened?”
The officer rested his pen. “Are you Molly Ferguson?” he asked, and at her nod continued. “There was a fight between some construction workers and locals who tried to block the road. Sheriff Walker was taken by ambulance to Bozeman about half an hour ago, but your friend’s still here. He’s waiting for you in his vehicle.” He nodded to the cluster of vehicles in the road ahead. Molly thanked the officer and started away. “Ma’am?” She glanced back. “According to the EMTs, your friend refused medical treatment, but in their opinion he belongs in a hospital. Maybe you could take him to get checked out.”
She was half running through the maze of vehicles, heart in her throat, when she finally reached his Jeep. The driver’s side door was open and Steven was sitting inside, head tipped back against the seat, eyes closed, holding a thick wad of very bloody gauze bandages to the side of his face. He didn’t see or hear her approach. She stopped beside the open door and then gently laid her hand on his shoulder. “Oh, Steven, dear God in heaven, what have they done to you?”
His eyes opened. “Please don’t faint on me,” he said. “I need you to get me out of here.”
“Don’t worry.” Molly’s voice wavered, shocked by how badly he looked. “I only faint at the sight of my own blood. I’m parked at least five hundred feet down the road, and that’s too far for you to walk in your condition. Wait here. I’ll get some help.”
“No. I’m all right, this looks worse than it is. But my Jeep’s parked in, and will be for hours at the rate things are going.”
“You’re not all right. You should be in the emergency room right now. I’ll have the officer I spoke to radio for an ambulance.” Molly started to turn away but Steven’s hand reached out and grasped her arm.
“Molly, I’m fine.” As if to prove this to her, he levered himself out of the Jeep and stood. “Just a few cuts and bruises,” he said. “Nothing serious. Besides, if I’d gone for a ride in the ambulance, I wouldn’t have gotten to see you.”
“Of course you would have,” she said, slipping her hand around his upper arm to steady him as they began walking back to her car. “Do you honestly think I couldn’t find the hospital in Bozeman?”
Five hundred feet passed slowly in Steven’s tucked-over limp, but finally she was helping him into the passenger seat of the rental car. Her hands were shaking as she fumbled with the ignition key, turned the car around on the gravel road and started for the hospital as fast as she dared to drive, hoping he didn’t die on the way. “For God’s sake, what happened?” she asked, dismayed to hear her voice was shaking as badly as her hands.
“Amy and her group blocked the road, just like you said. One trucker was stopped coming up the mountain and apparently he radioed to the other truckers what was going on. They all converged just about the time the sheriff and the media showed up. Everyone was pretty hot under the collar, and when the sheriff tried to stop the dump trucks, there was some fighting.”
“That’s quite an understatement, from the looks of you. How badly was the sheriff hurt?”
“Don’t know yet. They carted him off in an ambulance. None of the townspeople were injured, and I don’t think any of the truckers were, either. I tried my best, but they were as big as their trucks. And that Reggie character…there was just no stopping him.”
“Did you see Ken Manning?”
“No.”
“Damn the man!” Molly blurted, gripping the steering wheel so tightly her hands cramped. “He could have stopped this, but I couldn’t get hold of him. No one could.”
“Amazing, what a lot of fuss one little legal document can cause.”
She shot him a sidelong glance. “Yes, but is shutting down the access road for a week or two while the permits get straightened out worth all the pain and suffering? You’re lucky you weren’t beaten to death.”
“It’s the principle of the thing,” he said. “Besides, the roadblock wasn’t my idea. Amy thought it would be a good attention-getter.”
“I hope she’s satisfied.”
“Subdued might be a better description.”
“That cut on your face is going to need stitches, and you’ll need X-rays, too. You could have suffered broken ribs, a fractured skull, internal injuries. They’ll want to keep you overnight for observation—”
“All I need is the ice pack in my freezer, a few butterfly bandages from my first-aid kit, some aspirin, and a cold beer.”
“I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“I don’t need a hospital. Take me home.”
“Steven…”
“Home, please, Molly,” he repeated in a voice that brooked no argument.
She bit her lower lip and drove.
“SO, TELL ME,” Steven said as he sat back on the couch while Molly gently cleaned the cut on his cheek with a fresh gauze pad dipped in an antiseptic solution. “How did you come by such selective sensibilities? Fainting at the sight of blood should be an across-the-board reaction, regardless of whose blood it is.” Her ministrations were deft and amazingly gentle, and it was nice, even in his misery, to have her bending so near.
“Just be grateful God made me so special,” she murmured, concentrating on the task.
“Believe me, I am.”
She drew back to survey her work. “Okay, the cut’s clean and the bleeding’s stopped, but it’s a nasty gash and needs stitching. I don’t stitch, Young Bear. I flunked sewing in grammar school.”
He handed her the package of butterfly strips. “Just close it up with these and it’ll be fine.”
She sighed, took the package and removed several sterile strips. “What did you get hit with, anyway?”
“A big fist, wearing a big ring.”
“Did he hit you twice?”
“After a while I lost count. Why?”
“You have another cut on your chin, but it’s not as bad or as bloody.” She dabbed at it with a fresh piece of gauze and then applied antibiotic ointment. “I never thought of you as being a fighter, Young Bear. You seem more like a peacekeeper to me.”
“The sheriff thought he could arrest all of them single-handedly, but as it turned out he needed help. That Reggie character…”
“By now they’re probably all in jail,
where they deserve to stay for the rest of their lives for what they did to you. There. How does that feel?”
“I could get used to being fussed over,” Steven said. “Thank you, and thanks for the ride home.”
Molly regarded him somberly for a moment, then gave him a tender smile that warmed that lonely place deep inside of him. “You’re welcome. I owed you that much, and a whole lot more. I’ll get you that cold beer.” She pushed off the couch as she spoke, gathering the first-aid supplies, and walked into the kitchen. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, heard the refrigerator door open, heard her returning footsteps and opened his eyes again to accept the beer. “You probably haven’t eaten since breakfast. What can I get you for supper?”
Steven twisted off the bottle cap and took a swallow of the cold brew, letting the bitterness wash away the sweet, coppery taste of blood. “More beer,” he said. “And more aspirin.”
“After what you’ve been through today, you need proper nourishment.”
She returned to his kitchen and he heard cupboard doors opening and closing. Then he heard the freezer compartment open as she searched, no doubt, for a frozen dinner she could zap in the microwave. But she’d find no quick fixes there. She then opened the lower compartment and he imagined her studying the contents of the refrigerator. After that, the cupboard doors opened and closed. “I have a confession to make,” she called out after a long pause. “I flunked cooking in grammar school, too, and you don’t seem to stock up on my kind of groceries. Easy, foolproof meals like canned soup and frozen dinners. How about scrambled eggs and toast?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m not hungry.”
She fixed him scrambled eggs and toast anyway, setting the plate on the coffee table and dropping down beside him, bracing her elbow on the back of the couch and leaning her head into her hand. “Go ahead, the eggs are edible and I scraped most of the charcoal off the toast.”
Steven did his best, but after a few mouthfuls he retreated to his beer. “It’s good, thanks,” he said. “I just don’t feel much like eating.”
Montana Standoff Page 11