Pennies from Hell

By James L. Fox

© Copyright by the author 2008

Neil Sterling didn’t believe in fate; he didn’t believe in magic; in fact, he didn’t believe in much of anything except work, family and the good life. As a middle-class, middle-aged assistant postmaster, the only real worry he had was the recently enacted rule about no smoking in the workplace.

Thinking about the new ruling prompted him to reach for one last cigarette as he came down the off-ramp and merged with surface street traffic.

“Damn.” He started checking his other pockets.

“What’s wrong?” asked his carpool buddy, Phil, looking up from his folded newspaper.

“I’m outa cigarettes. I’ll just be a minute.” Neil pulled over to the curb in front of a tobacco shop, left the motor running and ran into the shop. He stood waiting impatiently as the clerk slowly approached.

Drumming nervously on the counter with his fingertips, he waited. . .

“Gimme a pack of Winstons,” he ordered. The man turned, retraced his footsteps and reached under the counter. He came up with a package of Winstons.

“That’ll be $1.21,” the man drawled, “and y’all best slow down or you’ll be given yerself a heart attack.”

Neil threw down a dollar and a quarter and started to hurry out the door. He was jerked back abruptly by a grip of steel holding his wrist. He was suddenly frightened. The man was so strong, he felt helpless.

“You forgot your change, mister, and I told you to slow down, ya hear! Now listen, your change is in this here little sack along with a note. It’s the most important note yer ever gonna get, so read it and pay attention. It just might save yer onery hide.”

The man placed the sack in Neil hand and released his grip. Neil scooted out the door and ran to the car.

“What took you so long?” Phil said. “I was getting worried.”

His concern was evident. They had been carpooling for two years, and although they didn’t socialize, they had become very good friends. Phil was an attorney and worked in the building across from the post office.

“The guy working in there was some kind of nut case. He started lecturing me about my lifestyle, my health, and then damn near broke my arm to get me to take a lousy four cents in change. That guy’s spooky. He should be locked up before he hurts someone.”

“You going to report it to the police?”

“Don’t have time right now. Maybe after I get to work, I’ll phone in an anonymous complaint. That way I won’t have to file charges and go to court. After all, he didn’t actually hurt me.”

It was almost lunch time before Neil remembered the sack with his change. He pulled it from his coat pocket and dumped the contents onto his desk blotter. There were four pennies that were covered with what appeared to be some kind of chemical. And there was a plastic card that read:

A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

Give one of these pennies to a friend or an enemy. If they hold it for two minutes, it will read their thoughts or feelings about you. Use the pennies wisely for they are coated with a chemical which quickly loses its properties.

Neil laughed as he read and thought about how great it would be if they really worked. It would be really neat to find out how his friends really felt about him. As he sat fantasizing about the potential uses of his pennies, he was jarred into reality by Bertha, the jeep driver.

“Lunch time, Mister Sterling. Here’s your order — one cheeseburger, one large fries and a pint of milk. Right?” She dropped the white sack on his desk, counted out forty cents in change and was turning to leave when Neil grabbed her hand and put one of his pennies in her palm. He smiled at her and said, “A penny for your thoughts, Bertha.”

She stood looking at him as time slowly ticked away. The situation was rapidly becoming embarrassing as his smile became frozen on his face and he continued to hold her hand.

“Mister Sterling, if this is an excuse to hold my hand, it’s a pretty stupid way to make a pass at a female worker, and if that penny is supposed to be a tip, you’ve got to be the cheapest bastard I’ve ever worked for. Now let go of my hand or I’ll go to the union about this.”

When he released her hand, the penny fell to the desk pad. Before she spun around and hurried from his office, he had just enough time to see that her hand appeared unmarked by the penny’s coating.

Damn, he thought, what a stupid thing to do. Now the word would be all over the station that he had put the make on fat Bertha. Nobody would believe her, but someone could have walked in on that scene and then he really would have some explaining to do. He should have known that the pennies were just pennies.

He sighed and picked up the phone. He was facing a very disagreeable task, and he knew he couldn’t delay it any longer. He spoke into the phone,

“Sally, please locate Karl Anderson and have him come to my office right after lunch. Thank you, Sally.”

He munched away, not really tasting any of his food 0;”>. . . He and Karl had started working for the post office the same week fourteen years ago. He had progressed slowly through the ranks until now he was assistant postmaster. Karl, on the other hand, had decided to become active in the union and had organized several walkouts and demonstrations.

Neil hadn’t been told as much, but he strongly suspected that this was the reason Karl was still sorting mail. He and Karl had always been good friends and bowled together in a Saturday league. Now he had to confront Karl with a copy of a surveillance tape that showed Karl opening mail and stealing checks and credit cards.

He had been instructed to confront Karl, give him the opportunity of making restitution and then resigning or being fired and going to jail immediately. He knew that Karl would think that he had set him up and would probably blame him for the whole situation. He didn’t look forward to the interview, but he knew that it went with the job.

Karl entered the office and, with his customary familiarity, dropped into the chair across from Neil, picked up the forgotten penny and started flipping it into the air.

“Hey, buddy, what goes?

“Give me a minute here, Karl.” Neil hastily wadded up his lunch papers and stuffed them in the wastepaper basket.

“I need your help with a delicate situation.”

“It’s not like you to ask my advice during working hours, but if yer really stuck, old Karl’s here to please.”

Neil didn’t answer. He just flipped the switch on his console, and the video screen unrolled in front of the blackboard. As the film started, he dimmed the lights in the office.

After two or three minutes, he heard Karl’s strangled voice: “That’s enough, you sneaky son-of-a-bitch. How long have you had a camera on me? I thought we were friends, but no, you had to ruin me. Damn it, Neil, how could you?”

“I didn’t — it wasn’t me, Karl. The main office had so many complaints that they didn’t trust any of us. They installed the equipment over the holidays and never told anyone until they got all the evidence they needed. You only have yourself to blame.”

“Bullshit, Neil, you had to know — you had to be in on it!” He was practically screaming.

“Karl, I’ve been instructed to tell you that if you make full restitution and resign, they won’t file formal charges and have you arrested. If you don’t agree, they’ll be filing against you tomorrow. What’s it going to be, Karl?”

He stopped talking and stared at Karl. All during the meeting, Karl had been nervously playing with the penny; now he was frantically trying to get a red coloration off his hands. Some of the color had even transferred to his lips when he had rubbed his mouth with his hand.

“What’s this!” screamed Karl, throwing the penny down. “Another one of your crummy tricks? What’d you do, coat some social security checks with red dye? You bastard.

“I’m going home. I’ll be back tomorrow and give you my answer about restitution — gotta see how much dough I can come up with.”

He stormed out of the office. Neil, however, hardly noticed. He was staring in total fascination at the penny lying on his desk pad. Good God, it really worked.

He was so excited at the discovery and shaken from the intensity of Karl’s emotional outburst that he automatically reached for a cigarette. He was about to light it when he remembered the new ruling and decided to go behind the building to have a quick smoke.

He lit up and inhaled deeply as he closely inspected the penny. He reread the card — this time, on the back side, he read the following words:

A red spot means they resent you and blame you and everyone else for their failures. They are unstable and dangerous when they are rejected.

He was standing in the alcove that held the trash containers and was holding the penny up to the light, looking for the source of the red dye, when he heard the first shots. They came from very close inside the building and were so loud that he dropped the penny and dived between the trash dumpsters. He huddled there shaking with fear . . . listening to screams and then more shots. Suddenly, there were police running up the alley and approaching the building.

“You there — by the dumpster, put your hands on the top of your head and come on out.” Neil did as he was told, and after several steps, he was grabbed roughly and forced to the ground. He was held there until his hands were cuffed behind his back.

By the time he was able to convince the police that he was the assistant postmaster, then explained his reason for hiding in the dumpster alcove, his interrogators got the word over their walkie-talkies that it was all over inside.

The grim-faced sergeant of the SWAT team unlocked the handcuffs, shook his head and grunted:

“First time I ever heard of a cigarette saving a guy’s life. You gotta be just plain lucky. Do you know a Karl Anderson?”

Neil nodded his head. “Yes, I had a meeting with Karl just a few minutes ago. Why?”

“Well, evidently this Karl Anderson went crazy. He shot up the whole damn place, killed two supervisors, wounded three other employees. He musta been really pissed off at you, ’cause he shot your office all to pieces. Those AK47s really do the job. My guys had to kill him. Got any idea what his problem was?”

Neil told him about the meeting and what Karl’s choices were. He was careful not to mention the incident with the penny. The penny was gone, anyway. He had seen it go through the sewer grating after he dropped it.

They closed the post office for the day, the police were busy cleaning up the scene, and the employees after giving their statements were allowed to go home. When they finally let Neil go, he was surprised to see his wife, Marge, sitting on the hood of her little red Fiat. She had a black silk blouse tied around her middle, and her black jeans looked like they were painted on.

He saw Phil standing near as he walked up to the car.

“Marge, what are you doing here? You couldn’t have come all the way from home.” Phil moved a little closer.

“I wasn’t home, silly. I was shopping for an outfit for the Harrison’s party tonight and I heard about the shooting over here. I thought I’d better drop by and see if you were going to be tied up here, or if everything was still on for tonight?”

Neil wasn’t surprised. He’d known that the twenty-five years difference in their ages would eventually present problems, but he hadn’t expected her to lose interest so soon. Oh well.

“No, honey, you go on home. I’ll drop Phil off and join you shortly. Lay me out a change of clothes for the party and maybe a quick sandwich and a glass of milk.”

He watched sadly as she gunned the little sports car to attract attention and burned rubber out of the parking lot. He turned to Phil. “And what brings you out in the middle of the day?”

“Christ — Neil, I was worried about you. We could hear the shots from across the street. Sounded like a goddamn war. You coulda been killed. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.” He caught himself, obviously embarrassed, grinned and joked, “I’d never find anyone else who could stand my driving. Shit, my gasoline bill would double and so would my parking.” They both laughed, got into Neil’s car and headed for home.

Neil parked his car, entered the house and flopped down at the kitchen table. He didn’t see his sandwich and hadn’t really expected to find one. He stacked some bologna and cheese on a slice of french bread, slopped on a thick layer of mayonnaise and had to settle for whole wheat for the other side of his sandwich. He opened the spout of the quart of milk and was just taking a drink when Marge entered the kitchen.

“Neil, must you eat like a pig? How gross! We’ve got glasses, you know.”

When he had his mouthful of sandwich chewed down to where he could talk, he mumbled, “Don’cha wanna hear what happened at the office? Karl went off his rocker and tried to kill me.”

“What’d you do to make him that mad?”

“I didn’t do anything. The main office caught him stealing social security checks and credit cards.”

“Big deal, couldn’t you just give him another chance? After all, he was one of your oldest friends.”

“I didn’t have a say in the matter. They told me to show him the proof and give him the option of making restitution or going to jail. Hell, I’da helped him if I could.”

“It still doesn’t sound fair to me. In a way, you’re responsible for his problems and now his death. Did the cops have to kill him?”

“Yeah, they said he wouldn’t stop shooting people. And how am I responsible for his problems?”

“He was obviously stealing because he needed money. If you hadn’t been so damn tight with his raises and promotions, he wouldn’t have had to steal. So you see — it was all your fault.”

He was watching her as he talked and chewed. She had changed into a stunning white outfit for the party. Her hair was a golden halo around her perfectly shaped face, and her white jeans were, if anything, even tighter than the black ones of the afternoon. He felt like the ugly toad with the fairy princess.

“A penny for your thoughts,” he smiled as he handed her one of the pennies, folded her hand around it and kissed her on the forehead.

“I think we’re gonna be late if you don’t get your ass upstairs and get dressed. You got mayonnaise on my forehead. Now I’ll have to redo my makeup, and damn you and your sick jokes!

“And how am I supposed to get all this damn black dye off my hand? There — now I’ve got it on my forehead, too. Damn you, Neil, you’re such a slob.”

She ran over to the sink and started scrubbing her hand.

Neil stood up slowly. Thinking quickly, he said, “Marge, you go on to the party without me. I’ve been trying to tell you, but you wouldn’t let me get a word in. The cops want me back down there this evening while they package up all of our evidence and Karl’s stuff from his locker. I have to be there to record their signatures, sorry.”

She didn’t even turn around as he left the room. Her parting remark was, “Damn you, I coulda left for the party two hours ago if you had just phoned.”

He didn’t answer as he hurried to his car. He put the key in the ignition and leaned back, his head against the headrest . . . Was he really ready to pull out that card and read its message? Did he really want to know? Why not just throw the damn card away, go on to the party with Marge and forget all this nonsense?

He turned on the dome light, removed the card from the sack and started to tear it, but his hands wouldn’t obey and he knew why. . .

His eyes were brimming with tears, but he could still read as he glanced at the back of card:

A black spot means that this person hates you and is planning to murder you.

…………………..

On the way into town, he phoned the Murphy Detective Agency. They said it was late. He said it was urgent. They said it would be time and a half. He said money was no problem. They said come right over. When he arrived, there was a young, bearded, hippie-looking fellow waiting for him.

“Come right in, Mister, ah — what’d you say your name was?”

“Sterling, Neil Sterling, and you’re Murphy, right?”

“That’s right, Mister Sterling. Now, what’s this problem that couldn’t wait until morning?”

“I have good reason to believe that my wife is planning to kill me, and I want you to prove it. I want you to go to my home and bug it. Go right now while she is at a party. You must hurry. Then I want you to keep a watch on her and find out what she’s up to — I just found out tonight, and after what happened today at work, I’m scared half to death.”

Murphy wanted to know how Neil had found out about the plot to kill him, but Neil would only assure him that the information was reliable. He had Neil sign authorization for installing surveillance equipment, told him to calm down, stop worrying and leave everything to him. As they left the tiny office, Murphy punched Neil playfully on the shoulder and joked:

“Neil, you just go get yourself some dinner, have a few drinks and go on home. If anything happens, I’ll be listening. Just don’t forget and get too frisky ’cause it’ll all be on videotape.”

The next day, as they rode to work, Phil sensed that Neil was troubled and so he drove with a minimum of conversation. He figured that when Neil was ready to unburden himself, he would do so voluntarily. Neil didn’t need anyone prying into his personal affairs.

The day passed slowly, and although Neil knew people were speculating over the cause of Karl’s fit of rage, no one approached him with any direct questions. He was glad, because he didn’t have any good answers to give them.

That evening, Marge complained of a headache and didn’t seem bothered when Neil told her that once again he had to go back to the post office to take care of unfinished business. In fact, she appeared glad to be left alone.

Murphy opened his office door at the first knock. Neil entered quickly, and Murphy closed the door and locked it.

“Sterling, I don’t know who your source is, but he was right on target. Do you know anyone by the name of Nick? A dark, curly-haired guy about thirty — he’s about six foot tall, and he’s got a tattoo of a knife on his arm.”

“Yeah, he’s my sister’s kid, my nephew Nicky. What about him?”

“Well, you hadn’t been gone for much over a half hour this morning, when he drives up. Five minutes later, he’s in the sack boffing your old lady. Boy, have I got some great dirty movies for you.”

He stopped talking when he saw the expression of pain and anguish on Neil’s face.

“Hold on there, fella, don’t be wasting you tears over that black-widow spider. She and your nephew spent most of the morning discussing the best way to rid themselves of your unwelcome presence on this here planet. Seems like they need your insurance money and the estate in order to live happily after you’re gone.”

“God, it’s just so hard to believe. I’ve known little Nick ever since he was in diapers, and Marge — Marge was so innocent, so beautiful, and we were so happy; I just don’t know what happened.”

Neil was interrupted by a light knock on the door. Murphy jumped to open it, and two men entered silently, sat down and opened their briefcases.

Murphy turned to Neil: “Mister Sterling, these two men are Los Angeles police officers. I’ve called them in for an off-the-record meeting because the information I’ve gathered has convinced me that your life is in imminent danger. If you should be murdered, and it was proven that I had prior knowledge, I’d be in deep shit.

“So, I’d like to play my recordings for the group; then perhaps we can come up with a plan that will put these people out of business and keep Neil Sterling alive at the same time, okay?”

The two men nodded, and although Neil hated the thought of these strangers seeing his wife in bed with his nephew; he was becoming angry enough and frightened enough to agree to any proposal that would punish his betrayers. He muttered, “All right, Murphy, let’s get this over with.”

The two officers were tactful enough not to comment during the video, and they listened intently as Marge and Nick argued during a rest period about various methods of finishing off poor Neil.

Neil was sick, ashamed of being so gullible, and trembling with suppressed rage by the end of the film. The lovers had finally agreed that each must have an unshakable alibi; therefore, Nick would have to find a professional to do the job. Marge told Nick that she would weasel the front money from the old goat.

She laughingly said it was only right that the cheap old son-of-a-bitch should finance his own execution.

One of the cops saw the look on Neil’s face and grabbed him by the shoulder: “I know what you’re thinking, Pops, but just forget it. You leave those assholes to us. We’ll take care of them. I know where that Nick hangs out, and I can guarantee that if he tries to locate a pro out of the Italian Grotto, he’ll be hiring one of our team. So stop worrying. All we’ll need from you, after we get hired, is a realistic photo of your dead body. We prove you’re dead, they pay us, and bingo! They’re busted and will do at least twelve years for conspiracy to commit murder.”

…………………..

It took about two weeks for it all to work out exactly as the officer had predicted. At Neil’s request, he was allowed to sit outside in the police car while the trap was being sprung on Marge and his nephew Nick. She was screaming and fighting mad as they escorted her down the driveway to the waiting police cars.

When she saw Neil leaning against the black-and-white, she exploded in a fit of rage. She tore free from the grasp of the officer and rushed toward Neil: “You’re supposed to be dead, you rotten bastard. You set me up — God, how I hate you. When I get out, I’ll come back and do it right next time.”

She lowered her head and tried to butt him. Neil stepped to the side and laughed uproariously as she slammed her head into the police car. He felt better than he had in days.

The following Monday, as he drove to work, he told Phil the whole story — from the day he was given the four pennies to the point where they took Marge and his nephew Nick into custody for conspiracy to commit murder. Phil sat quietly listening, and when Neil was finished, he spoke.

“Christ, Neil, what a ghastly set of circumstances. It’s a wonder you didn’t go out of your mind. How can you just calmly pick me up and head for work like nothing has happened?

“Phil, I think work’s what has kept me sane through all of this. If I had to just sit in that empty, lonely house, I would go bonkers.” Phil looked at Neil, looked away nervously, then looked back again.

“Neil, there’s something bothering me. You tested those pennies out on several people, but you never tried one out on me. Why, Neil? Why not me? We ride together every day, so I’m the logical choice. C’mon, Neil, why not me?”

Neil glanced sideways at Phil, hesitated, then spoke.

“After Karl, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to invade your privacy. I didn’t want to jeopardize our friendship.”

Phil stopped him: “Neil, give me one of those pennies.”

“No!”

“You must. It’s gone too far now. We can never be good friends again until you know for sure. It didn’t matter when you didn’t have the power to find out, but now you do, and it will eat at you until your suspicions destroy our friendship, so give me the goddamn penny, okay?”

Neil’s shaking hand dropped the penny into Phil’s waiting palm. Phil closed his hand firmly around the penny, waited until Neil was on the off-ramp and then opened his hand. Neil stopped at the stop sign at the bottom of the off-ramp and looked over as Phil held out his palm covered with bright blue dye.

“Neil, I could never do anything to hurt you. You have nothing to worry about. Or is the knowledge itself going to destroy us?”

Phil’s voice was getting shrill, and Neil could tell he was on the verge of panic.

“Damn it, Neil, say something! Nothing’s changed between us. I’m not asking anything of you, except to just keep on being my friend. So, my hand turned blue. What’re you going to do?”

Neil nervously felt for a cigarette. Finding none, he pulled to the curb in front of the tobacco shop, left the motor running and yelled, “Be right back, gotta buy some cigarettes. He put two dollars in the sack containing the plastic card and the remaining penny.

The proprietor slowly approached. “Aha, I see you’re back. What’ll it be this time?”

“Gimme a pack of Winstons.”

“Still smoking, I see. Bad for your health, you know. That’ll be a dollar and twenty-one cents.”

Neil threw down the sack with the two dollars protruding from the top and snarled, “Keep the f—king change and your advice to yourself.” He spun on his heel and hurried from the store.

He jumped into the car, grinning at Phil like a lunatic, and chuckled, “Well, I just got rid of that last damn penny. I don’t ever want another penny.

“In answer to your stupid question, Phil, old buddy, I never did look at that damn card, so I have no idea what the color blue means nor do I want to know.

“Now how about answering a question for me . . . How would you like to cut down on expenses? I’m rattling around in that big house all alone, I can’t cook, and I’ve got this extra little red Fiat sports car that needs to be driven every once in a while. What do you say –you want to give it a try?”

Phil blushed and replied, “I’ve been packed ready to move for the last three days. I thought you’d never ask.”

Cross Roads

By James L. Fox

© Copyright by the author 2008

Samual Nelson Munson — 1790/1858

“Whoa, whoa, I said, you lop-eared son of a bitch! Whatcha tryin’ ta do, kill us both, you ornery critter?”

Old Sam Munson tried desperately to keep the mule from sliding any farther off the narrow trail cut into the side of Devil’s Gulch, but his efforts were useless, and he cried out in frustration as Sassy, the mule, and all his provisions slid over the edge and out of sight.

Sam sat on the edge and swallowed his rage long enough to take stock and face reality . . . With Sassy gone and no provisions, he, Samual Nelson Munson, was as good as dead. If he didn’t die of thirst, he’d surely starve to death ’cause he’d stupidly made Sassy carry his scatter gun. Damn! If only he hadn’t been so damn lazy. Well, if he waited too long or thought too much about it, he’d chicken out, so best get it over with . . . Sam stood up, saluted an imaginary flag and jumped out into space. . .

Bobbie D. Harris — 1927-1958

Bobbie pulled into the gas-check at the end of lap two and fell off the bike. He had been in motorcycle races before, hundreds of them, but this 150-mile man-killer was the roughest he’d ever rode. Why they decided to lay out a course through Devil’s Gulch was beyond him. It was not only dangerous, but it was sure to destroy a guy’s equipment. And keeping a racing bike in running shape was expensive.

When his heart slowed down enough to where he could drink without puking, he drank about a pint of cool water, ate a Hershey bar for some quick energy and jumped back on his refueled bike.

“Go gettum, Bobbie!” his pit crew yelled. “You’re running sixth, and two of those guys look like death warmed over. They won’t last another fifty miles.”

He lowered his face shield and took off in a huge cloud of alkali dust. Running easy and smooth at about 60, he got a chance to rest a little more for about five miles, then he entered the rocky approach to the gulch itself. The way was strewn with sharp lava rocks, both large and small. The small ones could destroy a tire, and the large ones — well, ‘nough said!

Soon he was on the narrow trail cut into the wall of the gulch. At some points, it was over 600 feet straight down on his left side and straight up on his right. The trail sometimes narrowed to six to eight inches and then widened to several feet. It was on this trail that Bobbie caught up with the rider running fifth.

Bobbie tried several times to pass him, but each time, the guy would swing in or out to prevent Bobbie from passing. Usually the trail would narrow down at a turn, then immediately widen out afterwards. The rider ahead would always slow way down in the real narrow part of the turn, so Bobbie figured the only way to pass was to wait for an inside turn, then go fast enough to ride the wall as he passed the guy and then drop back down ahead of him.

It would have worked, too — except for that dust-devil. Bobbie was just starting to pass when this whirlwind filled with choking alkali dust enveloped both riders. The one on the level slammed on his brakes because he couldn’t see two feet in front of his face, but Bobbie couldn’t stop, Bobbie couldn’t see, and Bobbie went sailing over the edge and down out of sight to the rocks below.

Search crews were never able to find the body or the bike because of the roughness of the terrain, but with the eyewitness account given by the other rider and the depth of the fall, there was never any doubt about Bobbie being with the angels.

Jan-21-2134-157 — 2134-2158

Jan-21-2134-157 glanced at his instrument panel, and his forehead wrinkled with worry as he spoke.

“Zender, this field strength meter has malfunctioned. The zweedle is pegged! Do I have a spare?”

Zender the computer did two rapid searches and ran diagnostics.

“Jan, there are no other Jans in the immediate area; therefore, protocol permits use of first name. You have no spare. Only parts critical to ship’s survival are carried in sets; however, there is nothing wrong with the meter in service. We have entered an area with an unstable spatial matrix that is generating enormous amounts of magnetic energy. We will be trapped in 32 seconds.”

Jan slammed the decelerator into reverse mode, but all that happened was that they dropped out of hyper just in time to drop like a rock into Devil’s Gulch. The ship landed in soft sand, rocked back and forth a few times and came to rest. The field strength meter had returned to normal.

“What happened to that field? I thought it would tear the ship apart.”

There was no answer.

“Zender, what’s wrong? Where are you? Oh Zed, I’ll bet that damn field wiped out his ICs. Now, what am I going to do?”

Jan put his head in his hands and started weeping, tears streaming down his cheeks. . .

“Why are you leaking like that?” came a familiar voice. “Were you damaged in the crash? When the radiation became dangerous, I went into my shield bubble; otherwise, I’d be gone by now.”

“Oh Zender, I’m so glad to hear your boring voice. Don’t ever scare me like that again. You still haven’t answered my question — where did that damn field go?”

“If you asked the question, I was still in my bubble. I believe the field is still here, but we are inside the core, and there is no activity. If we try to leave while the field is still active, we will be destroyed. We must move closer to the field so we can monitor its strength. As unstable as that spatial matrix was, I am sure this field is periodic.”

Jan restarted the engines and slowly slid through the sand at a 90-degree angle to their original skid marks. Soon he started picking up a reading on the meter, and when the zweedle reached the medium range, he stopped.

“Zender, is this a safe level for you?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because I’d like you to alter your circuitry so we can go exploring and still monitor that meter while we’re away.”

“That will be no problem. At this radiation level, I can transmit and receive for approximately three clacks.”

Jan made some quick environmental checks, then satisfied, he put on a broad-brimmed hat, shouldered into a backpack and left the ship. With Zender floating and flittering back and forth in front of him, Jan strode off in the direction of a cloud of dust visible to the north.

“Zender, flit on ahead, determine the reason for that cloud of dust and report back.”

“Aye aye, sir!” Zender replied with a sarcasm that lay beneath his usually formal demeanor.

“What in the Burning Zone does that mean?”

“It is an anachronism. Don’t be offended.” Zender disappeared in a flash headed north. Almost instantly, he was back hovering nervously.

“Well, report . . . What caused the dust cloud?”

Zender replied after a moment’s hesitation.

“There are two humans in conflict . . . apparently over the younger human frightening the older human’s large ugly animal with his mode of transportation. The older is angry and threatening to do harm with a weapon which fires lead shot propelled by a chemical explosion . . . amazing. More amazing still, they have no implants. I tried to identify them, but could not.”

“No implants, impossible! All humans have been implanted for the last 200 years. Your sensors must have been damaged in the crash. Let’s go see these amazing humans.”

Jan hurried off toward the dust cloud. As he walked he tried to imagine how horrible it would be — living without an implant:

You could be lost without being missed or searched for.

You could carry around a deadly virus undetected and be damaged.

A person could commit a crime against you without being apprehended.

A person could father a child and not bear the burden of responsibility.

Without the implant, a person wouldn’t have any individuality. Jan’s identity was being the 157th baby implanted on the 21 of January in the year 2134. Jan was the one and only Jan-21-2134-157 that would or could ever exist, so there was no need to break from society to establish his own individuality. In fact, society was engineered around individuality.

Low-cost, solar-powered monitors blanketed the surface of the earth. They stored only the passage of the last 100 implants. When a person passed a monitor, his passing was recorded and number 100 dropped out of memory, making room for the next. In times of emergencies, the movements of any person on the planet could be tracked by satellite.

Jan shuddered at the thought of losing the security and protection provided by the network of humanity and his helpmate Zender. His eyes started filling with tears which he hastily wiped away — not wanting to try to explain them to Zender.

He squeezed between two huge boulders and came upon a strange tableau. An old grey-bearded man stood pointing an ancient weapon at a strangely garbed creature. The creature was in the act of removing its huge bulbous head. The huge head turned out to be a helmet similar to the early space helmets worn by the ancient space explorers. The younger man dropped the helmet and spoke.

“Hey, Grampa, put down the shotgun. I didn’t mean to scare your damned old mule. I sure didn’t plan to fall off the trail and crash down here . . . Speaking of here, where the hell are we, anyway, and why ain’t I dead? It musta been 600 feet straight down into this canyon. Seems like I only sailed a few feet and my motorcycle landed in some soft sand. Sorry ’bout scaring your mule.”

Sam slowly lowered his scatter gun and ignored Bobbie as he walked around the motorcycle in dumb wonderment.

“Boy, what in God’s creation is this contraption? You say you was a riding on her when you fell off the trail? I ain’t seen nothin like this in all my born days.”

Bobbie grinned: “Gramps, you help us get out of here and I’ll take you for a ride.”

Jan stepped out from behind the boulder. Both men spun around and gazed wide-eyed as the new arrival spoke.

“Would you citizens please tell me why you’re not implanted? Every baby on the planet has been implanted for over 200 years, and suddenly, I find two who have no implants in the same place on the same day . . . It’s quite worrisome.”

“Just who the hell might you be?” Sam growled as he half-raised his scatter gun. “And what in blue blazes is an implant.”

Zender floated close, speeded up the molecules in the barrel of the scatter gun until it got too hot to hold. Sam dropped it with a yelp of pain. Zender floated above Jan’s head and spoke:

“Jan, let me scan for some points of reference before you try to explain implanting.”

The floating, doughnut-shaped ring that was Zender hummed, glowed and settled first over Sam’s head, then over Bobbie’s . . . In a few seconds, it was back over Jan’s, humming and glowing. Jan’s eyes opened wide with amazement as he received the information.

When he spoke, he tried to keep his voice as calm and as soothing as possible, although inside, his brain was racing in all directions like a trapped animal. He sat down and crossed his legs.

“I think before I get into any discussion about implants, I should try to give you two citizens a status report. A sort of analysis of where we are and what we can do about it. First, in answer to where we are . . . When my ship’s instrumentation indicated a huge electromagnetic field, I figured it to be an unstable spatial matrix. I tried to avoid it but couldn’t stop in time, so here I am. I arrived here at 11:23 a.m. 6/18/2168.

“Bobbie, you rode your motorcycle off the cliff during that dust storm and arrived here at 11:15 a.m. 6/18/1958.

“Sam, you and your mule Sassy arrived here at 11:10 a.m. 6/18/1853.

“Now, Sam, how long does it seem like you’ve been here?”

“‘Bout 20 minutes, maybe. You gotta be teched, mister! You trying to say I been sitten here fer almost 300 years?”

Bobbie chimed in: “How come I don’t even need a shave yet, if I been down here for 210 years . . . Get outta here. This must be some practical joke!”

But Bobbie wasn’t laughing. Because this stranger was telling things that only he and Sam should know. Bobbie had a flash of inspiration.

“If you want us to listen to your wild tales, show us this ship that you say you arrived in. If it looks like it was made in the future, maybe we’ll listen to some more of this crap. Otherwise, I’m going to fire up my trusty bike and head outta here.”

Jan shrugged.

“Zender, go bring the ship to the other side of those rocks. Keep the field strength constant because I want to know the minute it starts to become unstable, okay?”

“Aye aye, sir.” Again with the sarcasm.

“Get out of here, you clown!”

Zender disappeared over the boulder and headed south.

“What was that?” asked Sam, who had been quiet since Jan told him the present date.

“That is my personal companion, helpmate and computer. It’s sort of like having a friend, a father, a protector, a teacher and a huge database floating above your head 24 hours each day, watching over you. Having a personal Zender and the implant network guarding and protecting you makes social security a reality throughout your full lifetime rather than just during your twilight years.”

Jan went on to explain how each baby get implanted with a tiny transmitter that constantly transmits its identity number in a 100-foot radius for as long as it is alive. It also transmits a stream of code indicating vital signs, organ function conditions and indications of virus infections. It senses fear and turns on a distress frequency.

“Don’t think I’d like it.” old Sam snorted, “Hell, boy, you ain’t got no privacy a-tall. Them thar sensors take a good whiff when ya fart, too?” Bobbie laughed in agreement.

“What may I ask is a fart?”

“Gaseous byproduct of the digestive process,” Zender replied. He had returned during Sam’s tirade. “It’s usually expelled via the rectal orifice. From the other direction, I believe it’s called a burp. Both are disgusting habits carried over from archaic times when people ate flesh of animals or recently killed plant life.”

Jan quickly put the picture from his mind before he became ill. He led the way around the boulder with Zender floating over his head. He spoke back over his shoulder.

“You wanted to see my ship, well, there it is . . . It’s the latest geological survey model. Strictly short-range — nothing out of this galaxy, you know. The budget is always tight, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, doesn’t have a pot of gold for scientific research. But we make do. . .”

He stopped and turned around. Sam and Bobbie were standing stock-still. For once in his life, Sam was struck dumb. He just stood and stared at the huge ship, a replica of Zender, resting lightly on the sand.

“Golly, Jesus! Does that contraption really fly? Fly to the stars? Oh my, I gotta sit down. My old heart can’t take too much of this crap.”

Sam collapsed into a heap in the sand.

Bobbie’s eyes were gleaming. He was impressed, but not awed. He had always known that space travel was coming, but he hadn’t figured to be around to see a real space ship. Now he was beginning to be consumed with the desire to take a ride. Racing his motorcycle was fun, but the speed this beauty could achieve was almost unbelievable. He just had to experience it for himself.

“Is it hard to learn to drive?” he asked. Zender flashed several orange flashes, then returned to normal color. “Why’d he flash like that?” Bobbie asked.

“Yes, Zender, what is it?” Jan asked, although he already knew that Zender’s warning signal came from intimate knowledge gleaned during the brief scan done earlier.

After a brief moment’s confusion, Zender replied:

“My co-processor has finalized the details of our escape from this force field. I will explain, and then I think we should start our preparation. First, a brief description of our problem. . .

“We are trapped in a small intersection in time and space where time has stopped and space is not a place but exists as a crossroads in time. Should we try to leave here, we would only pop into existence at some time in the past, present or future. From an historical point of view, no one has ever escaped into the past because there would have been some record or report of such a happening. It is illogical to think about being trapped in the present and yet immediately returning to the present. Because when Sam arrived, it was only about 10 minutes before Bobbie scared the mule, Sassy, but outside, a hundred years had gone by. They were still arguing when we arrived 200 years later.”

Jan, who was prone to leaking eyes, pulled his hat down over his eyes and asked:

“Zender, are you sure we can get out of here? Every minute we waste talking takes us years farther away from where we entered.”

The others looked up at the little blue doughnut floating in the air, their eyes almost pleading for the answer.

“Well, Jan, try to visualize the past, present and future as a huge long tapestry. A tapestry that stretches from the beginning of time to the end. Into this cloth is woven all of life’s events. Something like one of the old interactive virtual-reality adventure games. I know the others will not understand, but the analogy is similar. The game is always there on the disk — beginning, middle and end. Always static until you arrive to make it active. Very well, now listen.

“The point in the game where Sam and Sassy fell off the trail is still there at that point in the game. If I monitor the field closely and, when it starts to distort, I carry Sam and Sassy up and drop them on the trail just ahead of where they fell off, Sam will just feel a little vertigo for a few seconds. The problem is, if I do not get back through the rift quickly enough, I will have to conceal myself until the field goes unstable again. It will only be minutes to you and Bobbie, but it might be a few years for me.”

Jan, not wanting to be without his Zender, asked:

“Are you absolutely sure it will work and you won’t be stuck forever in the past?”

“I am sure that if we do not try, we will be stuck here in limbo forever. And I am sure if someone back in the 19th century had found me, I would have read about it. I have digital records dating back to the year 500 B.C. There is no record of reverse time travel, that is, from the future back to the past. If it was ever accomplished in the other direction, the evidence has not arrived yet.”

Jan took Bobbie for a guided tour through the ship, but couldn’t take him for a ride because he wanted to be watching when Zender levitated Sam and Sassy up the canyon wall to where they had entered. He couldn’t wait to see the expression on the old prospector’s face.

Zender flitted around the rocks piled at the juncture of the sandy floor and the rocky wall. He kept flashing from green to a light-blue color. Suddenly, he changed to a brilliant yellow and started humming loudly. After a loud crack, a large yellow nugget emerged from the wall of rocks. Zender floated it over to Sam.

“Is this the metal you have been searching for?” he asked.

“Glory be!” Sam bent over and slowly lifted the nugget. “This beauty must weigh over 10 pounds. Zender, you just made us rich!”

“You may keep it, Sam. I have no use for this metal. My electronic circuitry and contacts are coated with the substance, but it is just to keep me from corroding.”

Sam put the nugget in one of Sassy’s saddlebags and asked:

“How soon do we head fer town, little buddy?”

“Soon now,” Zender replied. “Now you must get into Sassy’s saddle because the field is starting to distort and we might not have much time.”

He turned up his sound volume: “Jan, take Bobbie inside the ship and raise the shields — it is starting.”

Sam grumbled: “Sassy cain’t climb that darn wall by herself, let alone with me and all this gear on her back. I’ll have ta get off and help her.”

Zender had not turned the volume back down, so when he spoke from his position about a foot over Sam’s head, it came as a roar:

“STAY WHERE YOU ARE! DO JUST AS YOU ARE TOLD! I will help both you and Sassy up and out of here.”

“Well, okay, little buddy, you don’t have to get pissed about it.”

Suddenly, Sam and Sassy were floating upward at a rapid rate of speed. When they could see the trail cut in the side of the canyon wall, Zender spoke quietly: “You must look for the marks where Sassy slid over the edge. We must find the exact spot.”

They started floating north at a fast rate.

“There, there,” Sam shouted. “See those scratches! She dug quite a ditch before she finally went over the edge. And there in that chaparral bush, that’s my gold pan. It was hooked to the saddle horn.”

Zender stopped directly beneath the scratches and lifted them above the trail. He flew 20 feet north, dropped them and hurried back to the scratches, then zipped straight down until he could see the sandy floor before turning south toward the ship — or so he calculated.

Floating along the wall on a southerly course, Zender carefully monitored the strength of the magnetic field. When it started showing signs of disappearing, he hurried to the exact point of departure. He arrived just as the field distortion’s collapse was displayed by a brilliant flash of orange in the sky.

Jan and Bobbie emerged from the ship. Jan once again had tears streaming down both cheeks.

“What went wrong?” he asked. “What happened to poor Sam and his mule? One minute, he was sitting there on his mule with you hovering over him, and the next, he was gone in a flash of orange light, but you were still hovering in the same spot. Were they destroyed in the orange lightning?”

Zender explained how successful the escape had been and how he had ample time to return to the point of departure. He indicated that perhaps the 10 minutes’ difference in time of arrival between each of them was the length of real time the field stayed unstable.

Bobbie, who had been strangely quiet, quickly interrupted:

“You mean by our time, here in this canyon, every 10 minutes we could escape to the outside world and explore the future, then come back here and leave right where we was when this all started?

“Theoretically, yes,” replied Zender, “but it would be totally uncontrollable. You would never know where you were going to find — or if you could locate — the return point. What if this canyon became part of the Pacific Ocean floor at some time in the future? You would perish instantly.”

“Well,” Bobbie replied, licking his lips, “I think it’s worth the risk. Don’t you know that anyone who knows the future can rule the world. Where I come from, they’d think he was the Christ reincarnated. I’d just grab a history book or two, and I’d never have to work again. You gotta let me try it.”

Jan shrugged his shoulders. It really didn’t matter if this greedy character from the past survived or not. Jan knew anyone Bobbie talked to about his adventure would think he was quite mad. He nodded to Zender, then to Bobbie.

“It’s your decision, but there’s one drawback . . . Zender can levitate only tissue or items that are attached to tissue. What I’m trying to say is, Zender can take you out, but you must leave this antique motorbike behind.”

Bobbie agreed, so they waited patiently for the field to start becoming unstable. Before long, Zender floated over to Bobbie, took a position over his head and started lifting. Jan ran for the safety of the ship. He locked the hatch, engaged the shields and peered out of the viewport. It didn’t take long before Zender reappeared and floated over to the ship. Jan opened the hatch.

“How did it go?” he asked.

“Exactly as you knew it would,” Zender replied. “You realize what you did was almost a homicide.”

“Not so. If he’d been paying attention instead of dreaming up greedy schemes, he would have remembered that the field goes unstable only every hundred years. It’s 10 minutes in here, but where he’s gathering his historical data to get rich with, it’ll be a hundred years before you go back up to bring him safely down. Now get busy loading that beautiful BSA Golden-Flash into the cargo hold. I’ve had my eye on that bike from the first moment we arrived.

“We’ll wait 10 minutes and see if Bobbie lived to be 131 years old, if he made it back to the pickup point and if he wants to go back home and rule the world. If he does, we’ll drop him off before we head for home.

“Zender, those old foggies at the university will have to believe my report after they get a readout from your memory disks, and especially when they see that antique motorcycle. What is their logical reaction and course of action?”

“I would surmise that they will recognize it for what it is . . . a dangerous road hazard to hyper-travel and a risk to national security. If individuals without implants could slip through undetected, it would put the whole structure of our society at risk; therefore, it must be destroyed.”

Jan thought a moment.

“Do we have to tell them?”

“They will know.”

“Damn!”

Feeding Frenzy

By James L. Fox

© Copyright by the author, 2008

Jeffy Osbourn’s Saturday started out to be a miserable disappointment and ended by being the most horrifying experience in his short eleven years. Dad promised faithfully to go to Little League this time, but just like always, right at the last minute, he came up with the lame excuse that the state auditors were coming on Monday, so he had to hurry to work and straighten out some accounts. Sorry, but he’d probably be gone all day.

“I’ll just bet he’s going to his office,” Jeffy grumbled. The one time he’d followed his dad through the heavy traffic on his bicycle, he only had to follow for about six blocks. Dad pulled into a parking lot, walked across the street to a motel and knocked on the door. A red-haired lady in her bathrobe let Dad in, and he didn’t come out for a long time. Jeffy hadn’t told Mom ’cause he knew what happened to kids when moms and dads got divorced, so he just kept his mouth shut.

Jeffy was sprawled on the couch watching cartoons and Mom was getting lunch ready when somebody rang the doorbell.

“I’ll get it, Maw,” he yelled over the noise of the TV. He opened the front door and stared up at several people standing on the porch.

“Is your mother home, Sonny?” asked the nearest, a big, bald man — holding a microphone in Jeffy’s face.

“Yeah, she’s in the kitchen. Whatcha want her for?” He was roughly jostled aside.

“Great! We’re here first,” the bald guy told the others. “Get set up inside. Run those cables through that window, so we can lock this door . . . the whole damn crew will be here in seconds. Now move, damn it, there’s no time to spare.”

Jeffy leaned against the wall and watched dumbfounded as these strangers took over his house. The fat, bald guy grabbed him by the arm.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Jeffy Osbourn.”

“Jeffy, let’s go see your mother.” Jeffy led the man into the kitchen where his mom was still cooking, the noise of the cartoons having muffled all the other sounds. He tugged on her sleeve.

“Maw, this guy wants to talk to you.” She frowned and walked into the living room to turn off the loud TV.

“Don’t turn off that TV,” the bald guy shouted. “Just turn down the sound and turn it to channel twelve.” She did as he asked and was turning toward the man when something caught her eye. She turned back to the TV.

“Oh, my God, that’s Harry, my husband. What’s he doing up there?” By this time, the room had filled with the cameraman and the other technicians. The bald guy wiped the sweat from his shining dome.

“Missus Osbourn, that’s exactly why we’re here. I’m Brad Patton from TV12 news, and this is my crew. This morning, your husband returned to his place of employment to cover up a nifty piece of creative bookkeeping — one in which he ended up with forty thousand dollars more than he was entitled to. Fortunately for the company, they had the auditors in last night, and after working all night, they were ready for good old Harry when he came sneaking in to hide the evidence. Harry panicked, and now he’s up there on the roof, threatening to jump at any minute now.”

“Can’t someone help him? Where’s the fire department? Aren’t they supposed to help in emergencies like this?”

Brad Patton said something into his lapel mike, and the TV picture changed — it slowly panned the waiting crowd. Many were news media snapping hundreds of pictures, and the rest were eager lookie-loos waiting hopefully for Harry to jump.

“No help there,” Brad answered, “and the fire ladders won’t reach that high. I’d get the kid outa here if I was you. You don’t want him watching when his old man splatters his brains all over the sidewalk.”

Jeffy’s mom was so much in shock that she just nodded, so Patton told a technician to take Jeffy to the kitchen and watch him.

The technician didn’t want to miss seeing the jumper, so when Jeffy went to the bathroom, the technician returned to the door to the living room to watch. Jeffy zipped into his bedroom and locked the door.

With tears streaming down his cheeks, he watched the camera from the TV12 helicopter zoom in on his father. He could see that his father was also crying, his thick glasses were steamed, tears running down his cheeks and a look on his face that would stay with Jeffy forever. His dad hunched his shoulders and started beating himself in the face . . .. again, again and again until, horribly bloody, he just stepped off the edge. The camera followed the twisting body all the way down and then had the incredible poor taste to linger on the slowly spreading pool of blood.

Jeffy listened in to the conversation going on in the hall. Patton was talking to the cameraman.

“Did you keep the camera on her face as he was jumping and then that beautiful spectacular landing. God! And we got an exclusive. When I asked her how she felt being married to an embezzler and how much of the fifty-thou she had stashed away, I thought she was about to have a stroke . . . Did you get that on camera, too? We’re good for at least ten rating points for this piece of work.”

They packed up their equipment and left, leaving Jeffy and his mom huddled together on the couch.

The next month was a living hell for both Jeffy and his mom. The police arrived with a search warrant and tore their home apart. They found nothing and left the home a shambles. The media camped out on their lawn and questioned everyone who would talk to them. Jeffy couldn’t go to school without having a microphone thrust into his face and being asked how he felt about his dad’s suicide, being the son of a thief and did he have a clue as to the whereabouts of the money. He got beat up at school for defending his dad and for refusing to loan the big guys a coupla hundred.

Jeffy kinda knew why his dad took the money and where it went, but for some perverse reason, he couldn’t bring himself to telling his mom about the redhead. He rightly figured that she was on the ragged edge and it wouldn’t take much more to push her over. The police weren’t that considerate, though. They were turning over every rock in the neighborhood in search of the fifty-thousand, and when they discovered that Harry Osbourn had been keeping a mistress in quite a lavish lifestyle, they lost no time in accusing Jeffy’s mom of ripping Harry off to get even. It was a stupid accusation, at best only a fishing expedition, but it did the damage Jeffy had been dreading. When he got home from school, he found his mom with her head in the oven. He shut off the gas and opened the windows.

Now he was alone.

Jeffy knew if he hung around, the county or the state would put him in an orphanage or a foster home, but he remembered his dad had a brother in Oregon. He dug through his dad’s papers, found the address, removed all letters to or from his dad and his brother, kept one and burnt the rest. He found his mom’s “cookie jar.” It had almost two hundred dollars in it. He put the money in different pockets and in his shoes, filled his backpack with clothes and headed for Oregon.

He was hitchhiking up the Coast Highway, and his third ride was a trucker going into Medford. Jeffy hitched from Medford to Salem and called his uncle, Pete. Pete told him to stay at the phone booth where he was calling from, he’d be right there. When Pete arrived, he explained that the Long Beach police had already contacted him about a missing 11-year-old boy. Jeffy hadn’t known it, but his mom had given Pete’s name and address as next of kin when Harry died. The cops were just touching all bases, Pete said.

“Jeffy, I guess you been through hell fer just being a little tyke, but you’re going to hafta hide out a little longer before you can come on home and live with your Aunt Martha and me. Those cops will have someone out to check me out before they give up on the idea that you’re here somewhere.”

“Where you gonna put me, Uncle Pete?”

“I’ve got some real good friends who have this militia camp up in the hills. They’ve got their whole families up there, including kids your age. They’ll hide you and even fight to protect you, so don’t worry about a thing — you’re safe now, Jeffy.”

It was warm in Uncle Pete’s station wagon, and soon Jeffy drifted off into a fitful slumber. Time ran backward in Jeffy’s mind as he dreamed about the day’s events. When he discovered his mother’s dead body, he started sobbing quietly and continued crying until the vision of his father’s body hitting the concrete sidewalk. Suddenly, he screamed and started struggling. Pete pulled over and held the little boy tenderly as he threw up violently in the bushes.

The more Jeffy struggled, the louder he shrieked, and slowly it dawned on Pete that the tears that were now coursing down the little tyke’s cheeks were tears of rage. Pete tried to calm him.

“Jeffy, I know how you must feel. Harry was my brother, and when I saw the whole thing on TV, I couldn’t believe my eyes. You poor little guy — and then your mom, too.” He held Jeffy close and rocked back and forth.

“You, you don’t know nothin’ ’bout what happened! That damn TV guy, Mister Patton, told the camera guy to keep the camera on my mom’s face so they could get a good picture of her when dad jumped . . . They come crashing into our house, set up their cameras, locked me in my bedroom and ruined our lives forever. Just so they could get a lousy picture.”

“Well, Jeffy, where I’m taking you, them damn media guys don’t dare come around or they’ll get their asses shot off! And old Johnny Law don’t bother us any, unless he brings a small army. Like I told you, you’re safe now.”

Jeffy wasn’t done with his anger: “If they hadn’t camped out on our front lawn and stuck a microphone in my mom’s face everytime she went outside, and if they’d kept their damn mouths shut about my dad’s girlfriend, she wouldn’ta went and killed herself. It’s all their fault!” He started crying again, but finally fell asleep.

Pete passed through the Sons of Freedom perimeter gate and drove up to the stockade. He left Jeffy asleep in the wagon while he explained the situation to the members. In less than fifteen minutes, Jeffy had a volunteer family including two brothers and a baby sister. Pete went back outside and brought the sleepy, now suddenly shy Jeffy in to meet his new family. Pete left Jeffy with the Ferguson family for three months. During that time, Pete had been visited by the police twice, the insurance detective hired by the estate to track down Jeffy and three times by the media who were sniffing around for a story. They finally wrote Jeffy off as a missing runaway.

When Pete gave Jeffy the option of coming to live with him or staying with the Fergusons, Emily Ferguson put her arms around Jeffy.

“Pete Osbourn, you just try to take this boy away from me and you’ll be sorry. Jeffy wants to stay with us, don’t you, honey?” Jeffy just grinned sheepishly and nodded. He walked outside with Pete.

“Uncle Pete, I ‘preciate what you did for me, but I really would like to stay here. These folks have come together here because, like me, they been hurt or shit on. They came together for, Carl says, ‘mutial protection,’ and I sorta like that idea. I’d like to learn how to fight back, and this is sure the right place to learn that. They got schools for school stuff and schools for all kinds of fighting stuff. When I leave here, those damn media guys better not try to mess with me, or ruin the lives of folks I like.”

——–

Jeff at the age of twenty-two was almost an invisible man. He had never been fingerprinted, he had never worked and had no Social Security number. His mentor, Carl, had overseen his training for the past eleven years, and now Jeff was ready to embark on his career.

The Militia Family Group understood and approved his vendetta with the media. After hearing the complete story of the Osbourn family’s destruction, the group had been keeping tabs on the most unethical in the media and deciding how much help they could offer Jeff without endangering the continued existence of the group.

The ‘Family’ would supply the necessary funding and equipment, but not sanctuary. Jeff would supply his own transportation. Jeff would always leave his fingerprints — insuring that no other would take the blame or the credit. Last, Jeff would always leave in a prominent place the following excerpt from the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi:

CODE OF ETHICS

The Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi, believes the duty of journalists is to serve the truth.

FAIR PLAY: Journalists at all times will show respect for the dignity, privacy, rights and well-being of people encountered in the course of gathering and presenting the news.

1. The news media should not communicate unofficial charges affecting reputation or moral character without giving the accused a chance to reply.

2. The news media must guard against invading a person’s right to privacy.

3. The media should not pander to morbid curiosity about details of vice and crime.

They had carefully cut the words from many newspapers and pasted them onto a master, then run xerox copies at a local post office. Carl handed Jeff ten copies.

“This should do for starters. If you need anything else, just run the ad in the paper, and it’ll be in the box in two days. They shook hands and Jeff left. Pete drove him into Eugene and left him off at the bus depot.

“You sure this is what you want to do?”

“Uncle Pete, it’s what I’ve looked forward to for eleven years. I either do it now, or kill myself — I just can’t wait any longer. I don’t know, Pete, but I’m beginning to understand them. They attack in a pack, and in their feeding frenzy, they destroy everything, even each other, to get the story — to get the rating points. The more blood, the more points they get.

“Well, Pete, get ready, ’cause there’s gonna be a lotta points flying around. When I get through, they’ll be afraid to step off the sidewalk onto someone’s private property.”

He got on the bus, waved out the window and was gone.

It was just a week later, when a fatter Brad Patton and his crew piled out of their truck and set up their camera equipment in the front yard of a small house in North Long Beach. The dispatcher’s report was that there was an aborted robbery at the Seven-Eleven store at Lomita and Long Beach Boulevard. One robber was in custody and the other had taken refuge on the roof of the apartment building next door. The SWAT team had taken positions after evacuating the area. They had exchanged fire with the man on the roof whose name was Sam Sastonie. There was only one Sastonie in the phone book — a Mable Sastonie.

Patton as usual was giving orders left and right. . .

“Set up that big portable TV right by the front door so we can watch the action, and goddamnit, this time keep your camera on her — don’t be watching the damn TV and miss another good shot. You got that?”

“Yeah, Brad, I’ll be more careful this time, I promise.”

“Well, you better, or you’ll have a lotta time to watch the damn tube.”

When everything appeared to be ready, he turned and knocked on the door. A little old lady came to the door and spoke through the screen.

“What do you want? Who are you and all these people?”

“I’m Brad Patton from TV12 news. Are you Mable Sastonie?”

“Yes, why?”

“Do you know a Sam Sastonie?”

“Sam’s my grandson. What’s he gone and done now?”

“He was involved in an armed robbery, and now he’s engaged in a shootout with the SWAT team. Come out on the porch. I’ve got a big screen TV set up so you can watch while you tell me about Sam.”

Brad helped her out and onto the sofa on the porch. He sat beside her and stuck the mike in her face.

“How do you feel about having a thief for a grandson? Did his parents just dump him on you, or are they in jail, too?”

Mable Sastonie turned from the TV to glare at him, just managing to say,
“Well, I never. . .”

When she felt the mike fall into her lap, a neat round hole appeared in the center of Brad Patton’s forehead. He fell forward into the shrubs, and she fell into a deep, dark hole where bad things weren’t happening.

When she awoke, she found police standing over her. She looked around and saw other people lying beneath white blankets, not moving. The police questioned her for several minutes, but all she remembered was that hole in Brad Patton’s head.

Bill Phillips, the investigating detective, didn’t press the issue because he had already figured that the hits were by a long-range sniper — and a damned good one at that. The sniper had selected his targets in such an order that none of the others noticed, and each with such deadly accuracy that no one had cried out. Phillips shuddered. He had been part of a spook team in Vietnam, trained in the art of killing, but none of the team could have made those shots.

When Phillips turned in his report, his supervisor read it and whistled softly. He read it again and shook his head.

“No, Bill, I think you’re jumping to conclusions. One snowflake doesn’t make it winter. It’s an interesting theory, but you’ve really got nothing to back it up except a hunch and a lot of admiration for a job well done. You bring me some proof that there’s someone out there with a blood feud against the media, then I’ll give you the go-ahead to open the case and some manpower. Right now, we’ll wait and keep our mouths shut. We don’t want to start a panic, and that’s an order!”

“Okay, boss, but just remember, the next one belongs to you — you go tell the families.”

Phillips stormed out of the office before his mouth got him into more trouble. He spent the rest of the day working out the logistics of the bullet paths until he had a reasonable fix on the location of the sniper when he fired his six perfect shots — a spot on the roof of a warehouse a half-mile away from the Sastonie house.

Under six shell casings, Phillips found the excerpt:

CODE OF ETHICS

The Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi . .

The more he learned, the more worried he became. Those shots had to have been mechanically controlled — a human heartbeat would throw the shot off a couple of inches from that distance. This guy was using telescopic equipment controlled by computer tracking and motion control. Instead of using the telescope to look into a crater on the moon, he was using it to look into a man’s ear a half mile away and firing a bullet at the third hair on the left lobe. God, this guy could kill anyone, anytime, anywhere and never get caught. It gave Phillips the creeps just thinking about it.

He knew the next time some TV crew started invading someone’s privacy, that crew would die and there was nothing he could do to keep it from happening. He returned to his office and rewrote his report. He wasn’t really angry about his boss, Captain Edwards, being reluctant to believe his theory about the killings, but he didn’t want him to ignore the impending danger that was lurking out there somewhere. He took his report, the shell casings and the excerpt from the code of ethics and caught Captain Edwards just as he was leaving his office for the day.

“Could you spare me a couple a minutes, captain? I’ve got something on those killings you should see. It won’t take but just a few minutes.”

“Can’t this wait ’til tomorrow morning?

“I don’t think so. This guy’s got a hard-on about the media’s invasion of people’s privacy, and I think he’s gonna kill any crew he finds sticking a mike into a private citizen’s face. He’s a highly skilled nutcase, and not about to stop.”

Edwards grumbled, but he did turn around and unlock his office door. They went inside, and Phillips sat on the edge of the captain’s desk as Edwards read the report, looked at the casings and read the portion from the code of ethics pledge. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

“Half a mile away, you say,” he mumbled. “Pretty damn smart for a nutcase. Even the TV cameras wouldn’t have picked up a picture of his vehicle at that range. He has to set up some equipment to make a shot like that. Okay, Bill, you win. Go find the bastard and put him out of business.”

Edwards took a sheet of his stationary and wrote ‘Priority Red’ on the top line and signed the bottom line. He told Phillips to get whatever help or equipment he needed and to use the signature for authorization.

Phillips stayed at his desk, calling every TV news service in the area — including the one station in San Bernardino. He warned each station manager that the Long Beach police had reason to believe that a mentally disturbed person had killed the six TV12 newsmen because he considered what they were doing was not ethical.

The station managers for the most part thought Phillips was putting them on, but when he assured them he wasn’t joking, they angrily told him that no nutcase was going to dictate media policy. They had their First Amendment rights, and they fully intended to exercise them.

Phillips sat back and shook his head, thinking how foolishly stubborn people could be. Then an incoming police call caught his attention.

The fire department’s paramedic unit had called for police crowd control. They were trying to get to a private residence in response to a 911 call about a small child in the family swimming pool. The mother was trying to give CPR, but the child wasn’t breathing. Access to the street was blocked by two different TV crews dragging cables from their trucks and trying to get set up on the residence front lawn. The resultant lookie-loos made the street impassable.

Phillips jumped to his feet. If he hears this on a scanner and gets there first, I’ll never be able to save those assholes. This is just what he’s looking for. . . Damn.

By the time Phillips got to the scene, the paramedics and the ambulance were leaving. The detective showed his badge and went to the officer guarding the front gate.

“What happened? I was at the station when I heard it on the scanner. How’s the child?”

“She didn’t make it,” the officer replied. “They worked on her, but she was too far gone. It’s a crying shame.”

“Are those vultures from the TV station still inside with the mother?”

“Yep.” Phillips thanked the officer and went to the house. A burly figure with a TV12 emblem on his jacket blocked his way. Phillips flashed his badge and brushed past. When he entered the house, it was lit up like a sound stage. The mother was moaning and sobbing while the cameras were grinding away. Phillips walked over and unplugged the lights, the cables, and told the crew to vacate the premises or he’d run them in for trespassing.

A silver-haired fellow who looked to be about fifty sat on the sofa beside the mother. He held a microphone in one hand and had been holding it close to her face as she cried. At the sound of Phillips’ voice, he stood up and spoke into the mike.

“You’re overstepping your authority, young man. We’re conducting a perfectly legitimate interview here, and you have no right to interfere.” He pointed the mike at Phillips, who smiled and spoke into it.

“You, sir, are under arrest. I’ve spoken to the paramedics and to the police who were dispatched to this location for traffic control. They are in agreement that if you and your crew hadn’t obstructed access to this property and created a congested condition, that poor little girl would be alive right now, so in an indirect way, you, sir, are guilty of the murder of that poor child.

“You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney. . .”

The silver-haired one shut up and remained silent as his crew quietly packed their gear into their trucks. TVchannel8 was already loaded and ready to roll, but when they saw TV12’s star newsman in handcuffs, they decided to wait and watch. Of course, they had their cameras rolling.

Phillips put Steve Spellman, the TV12 newsguy, in his car and headed for the station. He had an uneasy feeling that something was wrong, but couldn’t put his finger on it. He knew the sniper should have put in an appearance. These vultures had even gotten under his skin, so why the sniper hadn’t done his thing was a real mystery.

It didn’t remain a mystery for very long. Before they had gone two miles, the scanner went crazy: Calls for fire trucks, paramedics and police to the on-ramp from Lomita Street to the Long Beach Freeway South came in from several sources. Two panel trucks had exploded while on the on-ramp — no other traffic was involved, but the on-ramp was impassable. Phillips continued on to the station and turned Spellman over to the booking officer. He called TV12 to find out if their panel truck made it back or had reported in. He was told that the truck had exploded on the freeway.

I knew it, I just knew it, but where will I find the pledge?

——–

Jeff watched as the tall, slightly grey-headed police detective methodically traced the trajectory of the bullets to the six shell casings and the paper left intentionally. This detective was a tracker — a hunter that he’d have to watch out for. But he’ll have to move faster than that if he expects to catch me.

When Phillips had arrived on the scene in time to save the prime target, Steve Spellman, Jeff had mixed feelings. He was angry at missing Spellman, but figured he could always get him later, and he was excited by the promise of a real battle of wits. It was obviously his move.

Detective Phillips was probably keeping quiet about the obvious link between the journalistic code of ethics pertaining to violating the right to privacy and the punishment he was handing out to those who violated that pledge. Maybe Detective Phillips needs a push in the right direction.

Phillips was exhausted. He knew Steve Spellman would be out on the streets before he finished his paperwork, but he hoped Spellman would realize that the only reason he was alive was because of being busted and driven to jail. TV12’s high priced attorneys would probably sue the police department for violating his First Amendment right, but right now, Phillips didn’t care.

Once again, he was right. He was just finishing the paperwork on Spellman when he heard the commotion at the duty desk. He hear the word ‘bodies’ and hurried to the desk. People were rushing out the front door of the station. He followed and stopped short in disbelief. Spellman and probably his attorney had tumbled down the twenty steps to the sidewalk. They both had holes in their foreheads.

“That SOB! He followed me here to the station, so he could get Spellman. I wasn’t helping Spellman, so he didn’t kill me — the attorney was, so he got it, too! Damn, I’m beginning to get scared . . . This guy is a real spook.”

Phillips went back inside, turned in his paperwork and headed out to his car to go home.

When he got in the car, he found twelve copies of the pledge stacked neatly on the passenger seat of his car. They were held down by a cassette. He slipped it into the player beneath his dashboard.

Phillips listened as Jeff outlined his plan to terrify the media into complying with all the items in the code of ethics they pledged to uphold. He appealed to Phillips to get the word out, start a panic if necessary, but make sure that every media employee knew he was out there somewhere and wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who violated the privacy of another citizen and made a public spectacle of their pain and suffering . . . and that included natural disasters. Public service, yes; pain and suffering, no.

His final statement indicated that even if his plan worked perfectly, which he doubted, he had a short list of TV interviewers whose crimes were so egregious that they had to be executed. Their actions had produced so much pain, misery and havoc in the community that they had to be punished. Those he would kill individually and exempt their crews. And last, he hoped Phillips wouldn’t get too close, because he must complete his work . . . at all costs.

The last made little fingers of fear run down Phillips’ spine. He had never been afraid of anyone before, but this guy was so good at what he was doing and so invisible, it was like trying to put smoke in a bottle on a windy day.

Phillips knew if he took the story to the top brass at any of the TV studios, they would suppress it. They couldn’t afford for their field crews to refuse to respond to breaking news. Newspapers, radio stations and TV studios were all syndicated or owned by conglomerates, so he couldn’t go that way. He finally decided to take the story to PBS, the Public Broadcasting System. If he could get it aired and on the TV news report, the others would have to pick it up and go with it. Otherwise, they’d run the risk of being charged with withholding information having to do with public health and safety — maybe even being charged with responsibility in the deaths of the second two news crews and Steve Spellman. They had been warned by the Long Beach police and chose to ignore the warnings. Ha!

PBS was happy to make a public service announcement on the evening news. Phillips gave them copies of the pledge and let them run a copy of the tape cassette. They interviewed Phillips for almost an hour, then had him wait while they edited and cut the tape to fit the news program. They played the edited version for his approval, he signed the necessary releases, and they were ready to roll.

Phillips went to visit his boss at six-fifteen that evening. Captain Edwards opened his door.

“Bill, this is a surprise. You got something that can’t wait ’til mornin’?”

“Yeah, boss, I thought I’d better be with you when you get the news — that way, the folks down at the station don’t have to see you turn purple. Turn your TV on the PBS channel. I’m gonna be on TV.”

“What did you go and do now?”

“You’ll see — oh, by the way, did you hear about Steve Spellman?”

“No. Why?”

“Well, I arrested him for obstructing traffic at the scene of an emergency and causing the death of a little girl who drowned. Paramedics couldn’t get to her because of Spellman’s camera crews blocking the whole damn street. Anyway, it seems like that PO’ed our sniper, so he came down to the station and knocked off old Steve and his shyster attorney the minute they stuck their noses out on the street. Tumbled down all twenty steps. Neat, huh?”

“What the matter with you, Bill? This maniac murders a prominent citizen on the top step of the police station and all you can say is . . . neat, huh! When you gonna catch this guy?”

“Watch the TV. After the news hour, we’ll have a lot more to talk about.”

Phillips turned up the volume on the TV and sat on the end of the couch. Edwards sat in stunned silence as the program unfolded. When it was over, he looked at Phillips in amazement.

“This murdering nutcase asks your help in shutting down the entire media system in this country, and you do it — you help the SOB! He warns you that if you get too close, he’ll kill you, too, and you still help him! Have you gone out of your mind, boy?”

“See, I told you, you’re turning purple. What I’m trying to do is save some lives. If you’ll notice, he’s killing whole crews — everybody who accompanies the butthead with the microphone is getting killed along with the butthead. He’s doing that to get the word out that he’ll kill anyone who violates private property. Once the word is out, he’ll just concentrate on the names on his hit list and leave the poor crew people alive. The networks wouldn’t listen. I tried, but they just laughed and more people died. I felt partially responsible, so when he left me the pledges, the tape and the opportunity to stop the killing, I grabbed the chance and made a deal with PBS.

“Now you can fire me, or let me get some sleep, because I’ve got a very clever killer to catch, and I can’t do it in the condition I’m in.”

Edwards didn’t say anything, so Phillips walked past him and out the door. He felt so mentally drained, he drove home and dove into bed, removing only his shoes.

While Phillips slept, Jeff was busy scanning the networks for reactions to the PBS broadcast. The media was surprisingly quiet. The coverage of breaking news events was almost non-existent, and what coverage there was was low key and geared to reporting only the factual portions of the incidents. Jeff was elated, he couldn’t believe he had won so easily. But BMC World News at eleven quickly burst his bubble of joy,

Frank Larson, the nightly anchor, snickered as he reported that a nutcase with a penchant for knocking off TV camera crews had the West Coast news media hiding under their beds. He bragged that World News was sending several crews from the East Coast to cover the story, and while they were there, they’d try to pull the local news guys from under their beds and get a first-hand interview to find out why they were so terrified of just one psychopath with a rifle.

Jeff took the red-eye flight to New York. He traveled light, not even any carry-on luggage. After landing at noon, he took only six hours to locate Frank Larson and managed to be alone with him on the elevator to the Skyroom Restaurant where it only took three seconds to snap Larson’s neck. Jeff got off two floors below the restaurant and sent the body back down. Then he took the adjacent elevator to the basement parking lot, drove his rental car to the airport and caught his flight to Dallas. A bus to Fort Worth and a flight to Ontario and he was back in Long Beach, although not in time for the eleven o’clock news.

A much-refreshed Bill Phillips strolled into Captain Edwards’ office and sat on the edge of his desk.

“‘Mornin’, captain,” he grinned sheepishly. “Well, do I clean out my desk, or should I get my butt to work? I’ve got a couple of ideas about how to trap our terrorist. I think I can get him mad enough to make a big mistake, and then we’ll nail him.”

“You’re gonna have to be fast on your feet and have a sizable travel allowance if you hope to get that SOB.” Edwards answered. “While you were sleeping, I think he went to New York and executed old Frank Larson from BMC World News . . . broke his damn neck in an elevator. Why . . . why? Just because he didn’t like the way Frank was talking about hin! That’s why.”

“What’d Frank say?” Phillips asked, suddenly worried.

“I got a copy of his newscast. He was a little mouthy, but that ain’t no reason to break his neck.” Edwards slipped the video into his machine, and Phillips watched and listened as Larson condemned his news crews to death with his big flapping mouth.

“That idiot, someone should have broke his neck a long time ago,” Phillips said. “Do you realize what he did? The first time they go out on a story and go into territory where they ethically don’t belong, our guy will kill them like a flock of sheep. Can you get them to go back to New York ’til we clean this up?”

“You know better than that,” Edwards said. “We’ll be lucky if they don’t sue our asses off for not protecting their First Amendment rights. I expect the feds any moment now.”

Phillips just shook his head and left for the parking lot. On the front seat of his car, he found airline ticket stubs from LAX to New York, New York to Dallas and Fort Worth to Ontario . . .

“That bastard is mocking me, defying me to catch him. Well, we’ll see who laughs last!”

World News refused to believe that some two-bit terrorist from Long Beach, California, had flown to New York and killed Larson for just mouthing off. They blamed it on local talent and decided to send Sid Porter in his place, but they would appreciate it if the Long Beach cops would kinda watch their backs while they were there.

The local media snickered openly when their inside guy from police headquarters told them about the request and made a statement over the networks that the Long Beach ‘Keystone Kops’ couldn’t even protect their own station from the guy . . . so how did anyone expect them to protect the public? The mayor was angry, the police commissioner was furious, and if Edwards hadn’t been black, he’d have had red blisters all over his fat butt.

He called Phillips in and in no uncertain terms warned him about letting anything happen to the crew from the Big Apple. Phillips got the flight number from the New York office, commandeered a paddy-wagon, four SWAT specialists, and headed for the airport. Enroute, he put in a call to the tower at John Wayne Airport.

The 747 carrying the World News crew landed and, instead of taxiing to the terminal, stopped at the end of the runway. The news crew were forced to exit down a portable ramp and herded into the paddy-wagon. The wagon was leaving by way of a side gate when Phillips displayed his credentials and introduced himself.

“What about our luggage and equipment?” Sid Porter asked. “We don’t even have any film — it’s all still on the plane. Are we under arrest, under protective custody or what? This is ridiculous.” The others growled their agreement.

Phillips started out by giving a firsthand description of just how deadly this terrorist was. He went into some graphic detail about how deadly accurate the sniping had been from half a mile away because he wanted to scare them enough to take this whole situation seriously. When they got to the safe house, he sat with Porter and discussed strategy for several hours.

Jeff also had been waiting for the 747 to land. He had listened to the on-the-air verbal battle between the two news agencies and the ridicule of the local police. He was angry that the New York bunch hadn’t taken the warning, so he’d decided to talk a little plainer. He’d meet the plane and, during the passage through the crowded terminal to pick up the luggage and exit the terminal, he figured he’d kill as many as he could without creating a commotion. A shot of quick-acting poison should do the trick. He could do the injection and be stalking the next one up ahead before his first victim dropped. Probably get three or four before the panic started to set in. He’d be home watching on TV before they even started searching the terminal for the ghost who did the killing.

When that plane stopped at the end of the runway and Jeff saw the tall, dark-haired detective unloading the news crew into the police paddy-wagon, he wanted to scream. He felt suddenly empty and frustrated.

Not really angry at Phillips, the guy was pretty clever . . . dangerous. More angry with myself for failing, making mistakes and wasting precious time, mistakes could end this game way too soon . . . Can’t let that happen!

Jeff had Phillips’ car bugged and his office phone, that’s how he’d learned the flight number, but somehow he’d missed the call that arranged for the transfer at the end of the runway. Oh well, Mister Phillips, all you did was buy them a few more days on this planet. He turned and swiftly left the terminal.

Nothing earth-shattering happened during the next three days. The news reports were limited to local government issues and some litigation filed by minority schools for replacement books and other essentials that disappeared faster than they could be purchased. Porter and his crew were getting hard to contain. They were beginning to believe Phillips was keeping them off the airways to embarrass World News and make the local TV news look less like fools to the viewing public. Finally, Phillips agreed to their doing a broadcast, but only if they would agree to a police escort their first time out.

Shortly after nine that evening, a plane loaded with Peace Corps volunteers returning from Jakarta crashed on landing at the Burbank Airport. The plane had exploded into a fireball, and there were no reported survivors. Porter jumped to his feet, his face aglow with excitement,

“‘Bout time something happened around here,” he shouted. “Ronny, you take Bill and Harry and get to that airport as fast as you can. Get plenty of pictures and some personal interviews. I’ll make some phone calls and find out who was on that plane. Now get out of here!”

He grabbed the phone out of Phillips’ hand with a curt apology and placed a person-to-person call to Mildred Bishop at World News Headquarters in Jakarta.

“Milly, Sid Porter here, Yeah, I know . . . Milly, a flight, TransAsia flight 593 from Jakarta, just crashed and burned here in Burbank, California . . . No, no survivors. Had a bunch of Peace Corps people on board. Milly, I need that passenger list like yesterday, and if possible, any next of kin you can dig up. I need to get to the next of kin before the cops or the airport people notify them. The best stories come from the relatives when you first break the news — really great camera stuff. Call me right back will you, Milly? I’m at area code 818-555-1435.”

He hung up and grinned at Phillips: “Gotta get up early to get ahead of ole Sid Porter.” Phillips shook his head and walked out the door.

Porter followed him outside and found him sitting on the steps with his head in his hands. He didn’t look up.

“Look, detective, don’t be acting so holier-than-thou. Who the hell are you to be judging me? This is what I do for a living, and I’m damn good at it, too. There’s a million stories like this out there, and someone’s going to make big bucks telling them. By God, Sid Porter is going to get his share.”

When Phillips didn’t answer, Porter got up and walked back inside. What he didn’t know was that Phillips had been wrestling with a moral dilemma, and Porter’s greed and lack of consideration for the victims had tipped the scales in his decision.

It seemed obvious to Phillips that there was either a leak at the station or the terrorist had the communication system bugged because he appeared to be able to get to the scene and arrange his ambushes before the TV crews arrived. Therefore, it was equally obvious that the best way to catch him was to be at the scene before he arrived. That meant orchestrating a fake disaster or feeding him fake information about a real one.

Phillips jumped up, went inside and called headquarters. He got Edwards on the line and started talking excitedly, not letting Edwards get a word in.

“Captain, this bunch of nuts from World News have got a hold of the passenger list from that TransAsia flight that went down over in Burbank. They’ve located the mother of one of those Peace Corps volunteers who died in the crash and insist on going over there to get some human interest footage when they tell her that her son died in that flaming inferno. I can’t talk them out of it, so I’m sending the three officers assigned to guard them, and I’d like you to send a SWAT squad to meet us at 5435 Lemon. I’ll meet them and set up a safety net that Mister Terrorist won’t stand a chance of penetrating.”

He hung up quickly and hoped that Edwards would realize that 5435 Lemon was the safe house where Phillips had been calling from and would take appropriate action.

He hurried outside and called a conference on his walkie-talkie and met his three-man crew at his car. After explaining his plan, he opened the trunk and took out a large suitcase. He gave his keys to a young officer recently assigned to the detective division and told him to park it at least two blocks away, come back and get the other department vehicle, then wait for the SWAT squad and lead them back quietly to the area. He explained about not wanting to spook the guy. After the young officer left in Phillips’ car, the detective explained the rest of his plan. He sent one officer to bring in the news crew — one person at a time. The second officer helped restrain each one as Phillips gave each a generous injection of tranquilizer. Soon, everyone, including Porter, was stacked like cordwood in the bedroom and the door securely locked.

Jeff once again was forced to hurry when he should have taken the time to carefully plan his actions. The address was all the way across town from his motel; however, it was thoughts of his mother that sent him speeding to Lemon Street in an effort to protect some other mother from the same agonizing experience. If he could get there quick enough, those ravenous vultures wouldn’t get the chance to feed on her pain and misery — they’d never get to find out how she felt about losing her baby boy. He stopped his angry ruminations and parked one block past Lemon. He cautiously tested the area behind the small house where he was parked . . . Good, no dogs. He slid over the back fence like a ghost, and once again, there were no yapping dogs to give away his presence. He crept silently between the houses and gazed across the street at 5435. There were no cars in the driveway or in front of the house. There was light in one window, and an amber 40-watt bulb provided a little light on the front porch. Jeff could see a cloud of moths circling the bulb in the hot, sticky evening air. The humidity was so oppressive, sweat was already running from his forehead into his eyes.

In the glow of that amber bulb, Jeff could dimly make out someone sitting in an old wooden rocker. He pulled out a small pair of binoculars and gave the figure a closer look. It appeared to be an old woman with, of all things, a shawl over her head. It looked like she wore a light blue nightgown and wore a long string of rather large beads. Her hands were busily fingering the beads as she sat and rocked. Suddenly, Jeff had a plan. He’d started out intending to just play it by ear, but by God, now he had an idea that would work . . . He would put the old lady in a safe place, borrow her clothing and when the TV vultures descended into her front yard to get her reactions to their bad news, he’d take out the whole damn bunch right on camera. Maybe then they’d get the message and start leaving folks alone at the one time when they needed privacy the most. He checked out the AK47, made sure the spare clips were securely clipped to his back belt and melted into the darkness.

Phillips was beginning to think the terrorist wasn’t going to show. He had one officer under the porch at each end. Their only job was to lie in wait and listen to what came over from his walkie-talkie, which had the transmit button taped tightly down so it transmitted constantly. If Phillips gave the signal, they were to come out to assist him with the capture; otherwise, stay in place until he called them out. He was looking at his big right hand, wondering if the killer would notice the lack of wrinkles, when he felt a hand on his shoulder — he almost screamed.

“Mother, it’s time for you to take a little nap.” Phillips felt the sting of the needle as it penetrated his shoulder. “There are some bad people coming. They’re coming to hurt you, but I won’t let them. Stand up now, so I can take you inside and put you to bed — I need to borrow your clothes before they get here.”

Phillips kept silent as he fought the drug that was already blurring his vision. A hand reached down and took his right hand to help him up. Phillips grabbed it firmly and snapped the handcuff he held in his left hand on the extended wrist. The arm jerked back, but it was closely coupled to Phillips’ left wrist. He heard a scream of rage as the shawl was pulled from his head.

“You! It’s always you. Why are you doing this to me? I never did anything to you.”

Jeff started to drag Phillips across the porch toward the street. The detective was too weak from the drug to resist; in fact, he would have dropped into that deep black hole of unconsciousness if Jeff hadn’t fired the AK47 about a foot from his head. His eyes jerked back open just in time to see Jeff fire again at the chain linking the handcuffs together. This time, he was successful.

The two officers, thinking Phillips needed backup, had crawled out from under the porch. They stood up just as Jeff fired the second round and saw Phillips slump to the floor unconscious. They had their weapons leveled at Jeff, and when Phillips hit the floor, they both emptied their weapons into the spinning, screaming Jeff. When his body fell beside Phillips, both officers marveled that the terrorist hadn’t fired a single round in their direction. They were more than embarrassed. however, to find that Phillips was merely asleep.

Phillips opened his eyes in a private room at Saint Mary’s Hospital. After he’d been awake for about a half hour, Edwards came into his room and sat next to his bed.

“Well, Detective Phillips, you’re quite the hero with the media and with some of the brass, but tell me, Phillips, what ever possessed you to use yourself as bait to catch that madman? You could have been killed. If your backup hadn’t killed him, you wouldn’t be here today. And that stupid bit about drugging the entire crew from World News — do you realize if your plan hadn’t worked, the city of Long Beach doesn’t have enough money to settle the lawsuit? How are you feeling, Bill?”

Phillips smiled sadly and replied, “I’m all right. I just wish they hadn’t killed him. He wasn’t trying to kill me — he was shooting at the chain between the handcuffs. He coulda killed me if he wanted to, and I’m sure he could have taken my guys with him, but he couldn’t hurt anybody except the people working in the news media. He had a blood feud going with them and couldn’t stop. I’d have liked to hear his story.”

“Bill, he was a killer and a madman. His story doesn’t matter . . . in fact, it’s better if we don’t know their stories,” Edwards replied in a fatherly tone. “Now, if you’re okay, why the hell are you wasting the taxpayers’ money lying there. Get up and go solve a murder or something.”

——–

Somehow or other, World News in the person of Sid Porter refused to let the story die. Repeated efforts to find any next of kin to the phantom killer of the media crews came up dry. His fingerprints were not on record, he didn’t have a Social Security number, and a search of his motel room produced at least forty identification kits, so the only thing left was to offer a reward to anyone who could positively identify the killer. His photo went on the complete media network, both domestic and international, and a starting offer of fifty thousand dollars was announced.

——–

Old Pete Osbourn had sold off his livestock some time back. The ever-increasing pain of his arthritis made it impossible for him to keep up with the demands of keeping a small string of quarterhorses. He loved the horses too much to neglect giving them the care they needed. Soon after that, without the exercise to keep him mobile, Pete’s movements were reduced to painfully shuffling to the porch steps and sitting in the morning sun until the heat drove him inside to sit in darkness and watch the damn tube.

When Pete saw the picture of Jeff on the TV and a closeup of the poster offering the fifty thousand dollars, he knew it was just a matter of time before they’d come beating on his door. He made a couple of calls to the militia encampment, warning them of the uninvited company that would soon be littering the neighborhood, asked for a couple of favors and hung up. Called his buddy, Chad Tucker, the local sheriff.

“Chad, Pete Osbourn here. Just wanted to warn you, there’s gonna be a herd of TV camera crews and what-all comin’ through town, looking for me. Chad, them big city newspaper people aren’t to be trusted, so you better keep your kinfolk off the streets. Yeah, I know you can’t legally make ‘em stay away, but for God’s sake, Chad, don’t let them follow those bastards out here. Just might be some bullets flying around, and I don’t want anyone hurt.”

It was over a week before the former owner of the hardware store, now living in Eugene, Oregon, remembered seeing Jeff riding to town with the Fergusons to pick up supplies. Missus Simms from the hardware asked Missus Ferguson about Jeff ’cause she’d never seen him before. Emily Ferguson said he was old Pete Osbourn’s nephew. The boy’s parents had committed suicide, and he’d come to live with Pete.

Within twenty-four hours, an armada of news vehicles descended upon Salem. To keep them moving and not stir up the town, Chad offered to lead them out to the turnoff to Pete’s ranch. He said Pete had forty acres of alfalfa and the only blue barn in Oregon. Sid Porter was impatient, but agreed to wait while Chad got his keys. From his office, Chad called Pete and told him he was leading a whole army of news people out his way, but was going back to town because he didn’t want to be a witness if Pete started shooting at them.

“Good idea, Chad, go on back and make sure I don’t get no unexpected company.”

Pete hung the phone back on the wall hook, looked around his familiar room and hobbled out to the porch. He got comfortable as he could, filled his pipe with a full load of rum and maple and lit up. He was sitting there looking up at the fleecy clouds, seeing first one image, then another, when the mob arrived. From between slitted eyelids he could read, TV7 on one truck, World News 15 on another and Portland CableTVN on another. The crews raced against each other trying to get set up. They dragged cables through his pansy beds, knocked down the delicate little lattice border that lined the walkways . . . Mildred had worked for months making the lattice, painting it powder blue and digging the tiny trench that fit it so perfectly. That was the year before she passed.

Porter raced up, hand extended: “You must be Pete Osbourn, Jeff’s uncle . . . Let me introduce myself, I’m Sid Porter, World News 15. We’ve come all the way from New York City just to interview you on TV.”

“Don’t rightly recollect anyone invitin’ ya out here to trash my front yard and invade my privacy,” Pete replied, his pipe gripped tightly between his clenched teeth.

“That’s the price you pay for being famous, Pops,” Porter answered as he checked out their images in his monitor. Satisfied, he turned to Pete and continued, “Okay, Pete, now we’re taping for the networks, but we’re live in Portland and locally, so watch what you say now. Tell me, Pete, how did you feel when you found that your nephew was a mass murderer?”

Pete went a little pale, but he managed to answer, “Shucks, Sonny, I been watching you folks on the TV for quite a spell, so I can’t say I was surprised by what he done.”

Porter choked back an angry retort, but he couldn’t lose control of the interview, so he decided to put old Pete on the spot and make him explain.
“Wait a minute there, Pete, I don’t understand. What possible reason could anyone have for killing newsmedia people for just doing their job — just like we’re doing right now? Is this invasion of your privacy so damn bad that Jeff had the right to kill us? No, Pete, I don’t think so! Now tell me, darn it, why did he do it?”

Old Pete grimaced against the pain, turned and smiled a yellow-toothed grin:

“Just runs in the family, I guess,” he grunted as he pushed down on the detonator.

TV screens in Oregon went black, Salem shook gently from the shock of the explosion twelve miles away, and Sid Porter never did find out why anyone might object to him sticking a microphone under their noses and filming their tears.

However, hardly any media people do any field work any more — might be because of the thousands of copies of the journalistic code of ethics that flooded the USA. And the rumors of the militia groups training young men to take up the “Jeff Osbourn” cause.

Lonesome Charlie

By James L. Fox

© Copyright by the author 2008

“Of all the stupid ideas you’ve ever had — Fred, damn it! Slow down, I’ve got sand in my shoe.” Betty Williams stopped tramping through the sand wash, sat on a large boulder and poured sand from both slippers.

“There — now as I was saying, this is absolutely the dumbest thing you’ve ever done. You spend a small fortune on a metal detector and a bunch of other crap. Then you insist on me following you for miles up this godforsaken, snake-infested sand trap. And this is supposed to help put our marriage back together? I don’t know who’s the dumbest, you or that stupid marriage counselor.” She lapsed into sullen silence.

Fred knew when she got into one of her moods, there was no negotiating. She wouldn’t walk another step farther away from the van, and he was sure she wouldn’t try to have fun looking for nuggets in the old sand wash.

“Why don’t you just rest a while? I’ll check out this area for another half hour, and if I don’t get rich, we’ll head back to the van.”

When she didn’t answer, he walked away swinging his Gold Bug back and forth. He soon forgot all about the time, and after successfully digging up his fifth nice little nugget, he looked around and found that he had covered almost a mile. He couldn’t see Betty, but he figured that she was either sitting behind the boulder or had returned to the van.

He headed back, working the ground as he went. When he got to the boulder and looked on the other side, he found her chatting happily with a grizzled old prospector. It was the first time he had seen her laugh in months.

“Fred, I want you to meet Charlie. Charlie’s my new friend. He’s a barrel of laughs, and I don’t know when I’ve heard so many funny stories.”

Fred held out his hand, and Charlie, with an agility that belied his age, jumped to his feet and wrung Fred’s hand like a long-lost friend.

“Fred, I’m sure glad to meet you and your lovely wife,” Charlie said, his whiskered face contorting into a toothless smile. “We’ve been getting along like kinfolks. Did ya find any color in that wash? I’ve been doin some drywashin’, but can’t do any braggin’ yet.”

Fred shook out the five nuggets into the palm of his hand. Charlie squinted at them.

“Not a bad day’s work for a beginner,” he said. “Maybe tomorra, you’ll let me try that fancy gadget?”

“Well, Betty and I hadn’t really decided on coming back tomorrow.”

“Oh no! You don’t have to rush off so soon, do ya?”

Fred, thinking about Betty’s tantrum if he agreed to camp out on the desert, answered, “I’m afraid so, Charlie.”

Charlie walked with them as they started back to the van. After about a mile, he pointed to a circle of rocks fifty yards to the right.

“My camp is right there, and the road is right behind my camp. Why don’t you stop by my camp, have a cold drink, and then you can walk back to your van on the road. It’s easier walking.” That was all it took to get Betty’s agreement, so they headed for Charlie’s camp.

Arriving there, they were surprised to see quite a few people milling about. As they entered the camp, several came up, happily greeted Charlie and asked to be introduced. When they had Charlie alone again, Betty asked:

“Charlie, are you putting us on or something? These people are all in costume — not really costume, but their clothes remind me of some of my grandma’s old photo albums. What’s the deal?”

“Well, honey, didn’t you notice? I’m in costume, too. We came out here to do a tintype — you know a motion picture. The equipment is delayed, so we’re just sittin’ around havin’ fun. Sure you don’t want to stay?”

Seeing no cabins or tents, Betty shook her head no.

She turned to Fred: “Why don’t you go get the van? I don’t think I could walk another step. Okay?”

Fred grumbled and headed off down the canyon. As Charlie had said, he found the road not far behind the camp. Soon he was packing his gear into the van and heading back up the canyon.

When he got to where he figured the camp was, he stopped, got out and locked the van. He looked for several minutes.

The area looked vaguely familiar, but strangely different. There was no circle of rocks. He could find no footprints. He searched the road until he found where he had entered the road, but when he tried backtracking, he could find no prints in the desert. He hurried to the sand wash. Plenty of prints there. His, hers, but wait a minute, Charlie had walked between them. How could he do that without leaving any footprints?

“BETTY!” He shouted — not even an echo. Where were all those people? Where was Betty? “BETTY!” Nothing.

In the midst of the panic that was taking over his mind, it suddenly occurred to him: “God, no one’s going to believe that I just lost her up here. I’d better get some help.”

He dashed back to the van and headed for the little town of Fort Exile.

Fort Exile was the only available source of help for forty miles. Most of the other small towns and villages had long since boarded up and moved out. The new interstate had created many ghost towns as it lured business to new locations closer to the flow of traffic.

Fred slid to a stop in front of a mud-colored adobe building with a weathered sign that read, “Fort Exile Sheriff.” His cloud of dust made visibility almost impossible, and when he got out of the van, the heat was like a blast furnace. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, smearing dust across the sweat on his forehead, and entered the small building.

Inside it was quite cool, and as he waited for his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness, he could hear the hum of the swamp cooler. There was a counter running across the entire room, and behind the counter seated at a table were two men playing checkers. Fred counted eight empty beer bottles on the table, and both men had their hands firmly closed around their refills.

“Where can I find the sheriff?” he asked impatiently.

“Well, that depends on why you want to see him.” one of the men answered, looking up with a sleepy grin.

“Mister, I need help. My wife and I were prospecting up the canyon, and I lost track of her. I’ve looked all over the place where we were, and she ain’t around anywhere. I think an old prospector that we met might have kidnapped her.”

“You sure she didn’t just go voluntarily?” The larger of the two got up and walked to the counter. He picked up a clipboard and got ready to write. “First, let’s have your name and your wife’s name and age. Then I’ll need a complete description. Okay?”

Fred was starting to get a little angry. “I want to see the sheriff. In the first place, my wife isn’t about to take off with a decrepit old prospector. Why, hell, Charlie must be at least seventy. He might be a smooth talker, but Betty wouldn’t walk across the street with the likes of him.”

When Fred mentioned the name Charlie, the other man got up and approached, “Did he say Charlie, Dan? Could it be?”

He turned to Fred: “Mister, my son, Dan, is the sheriff. My name’s Harold, and I’m his one and only deputy. Did you see any other folks with this Charlie fella?”

Fred looked at him, puzzled — “Yeah, there were quite a few folks at his camp. I left Betty there while I went to get the car, and when I got back, they were all gone. They even wiped away their footprints, but I’ll never figure out how they moved all those big rocks.”

Dan let out a sigh, “Well I’ll be . . . Old Lonesome Charlie has paid us another visit. I was sorta hoping he was gone for good.”

Fred interrupted his musing with, “Damn it, I’m the one with the missing wife. How about filling me in? Who is this Lonesome Charlie? If you know him, why don’t we just go get my wife, then we can all go home instead of standing here filling out stupid reports?”

Harold handed Fred a cold bottle of beer, turned to Dan and softly muttered, “You better tell him the bad news, son.”

Dan nodded. “You’ve got the wrong tense, mister. It’s who was Lonesome Charlie.”

“Back in the early eighties, the fort that this town takes its name from was located at the entrance to that box canyon you were prospecting in.

“They built the fort at the entrance because the walls of the canyon were so steep that no one could get in or out. The fort only had to defend against a frontal attack, and the horses, cattle and supplies were safe in the canyon.

“Gabby Charlie Wilson carried supplies to the fort. His wagon train arrived every four months. They called him Gabby because he talked all the time. Couldn’t stand to be alone. He even hired a different companion to ride with him on each trip so he’d have someone new to talk to and swap stories with. People at the fort started avoiding him ’cause he’d talk their ears off.

“Then trouble with the Indians started, and this one time when Charlie was back in the canyon unloading his wagons, the Indians attacked. The fort was doing fine until the Indians started a rockslide that covered the fort with a pile of rock six hundred feet high and a half mile deep. That slide killed everyone at the fort. Charlie survived but was left sealed in that canyon.

“Forty years later, when they discovered gold out in these rocks, this town came to life. When they were clearing the entrance to the canyon, they found Charlie’s body. According to his diary, he dug for nearly eight years trying to get out. You could tell from his writing how he gradually went mad for lack of human companionship.

“Wasn’t long after that, folks started disappearing. Some claimed to have seen Charlie leading people up into that canyon. Seems like Old Lonesome Charlie would pick up someone to visit with for a while, then when they ran out of interesting things to talk about, Old Charlie’d go get another one.”

Fred could feel reality starting to slip away. Either these local yokels were giving him the treatment or the whole sun-baked world had gone mad.

“Just hold it one damn minute. I hope you’re not trying to get me to believe that some ghost from the past has kidnapped my wife just because he wants to talk to someone. If you expect me to believe a cock-n-bull story like that, you’re crazy.

“The Charlie I met is just as real as you or me. Hell, I even shook hands with him. If you’re too damn lazy to help me find her, then call the state troopers over at Bizel Junction. I want some action, and I want it now!”

Harold reached across the counter, patting Fred on the arm, “Calm down, sonny. What is your name? You never did say.”

“Fred, my name’s Fred Williams, and my wife’s name is Betty.”

“Well, Fred, you don’t hafta believe what Dan’s tellin’ ya, but all the folks around here will tell it just like it is. We can call ole Cap’n Rogers over at Bizel Junction, but I doubt if he’ll come over.”

“The last time Charlie grabbed someone, it was a female surveyor working for the government. Cap’n Rogers got in trouble ’cause he didn’t believe us when we told him about Charlie. He told us that she was probably hiding behind one of those Anheuser-Busches that we’re always sippin’ on.

“Anyway, the Feds chewed him a new behind for not reporting her missing and conducting an immediate search. The Feds had their own search team out there for a couple a weeks, but never found hide-nor-hair. Her tracks just disappeared, so they just hushed it up and left.

“You’re the first one to have actually talked with Charlie and got to leave. You musta not been very interesting.”

“That’s exactly what Betty always said,” Fred replied. “Has anyone ever escaped from Charlie?”

“Not in recorded history,” answered Harold. “At least this time, we didn’t lose one of our locals. ‘Course that don’t make you feel any better. Sorry.”

Fred finished his beer and grinned as Dan handed him a refill.

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Harold. I’m starting to feel better already. Who’s winning the checker game?”

All That Glitters

By James L. Fox

© Copyright by the author 2008

There are some folks who always seem to be standing down below when old mother fate empties her chamber pot. You know . . . they’re the ones you don’t get too close to . . . for fear some’ll splash on you, too.

Poor Bernie Twopops was one of the worst cases of no-luck-at-all I ever did see. His maw named him that ’cause she warn’t quite sure which one was his pop. One look at little Bernie and both of them left town — never to be heard of again. It wasn’t that he resembled either one of them, it was that Bernie only had one good arm. The other was half-size and kinda twisted. He had a club foot and a hare lip, but outside of those little imperfections, he appeared just a normal little baby. It wasn’t until he got to be about eight that his teacher decided that Bernie was a little slow in the head.

He grew like a weed, so by the time he was fifteen, he was man-size in body and still eight in his head. He was kind and gentle with everyone — especially with animals. Animals just loved Bernie, so when his maw ran off with the strong man from the carnival, Hiram Fugate took Bernie in and let him work at the livery stable.

Bernie was a happy kid and a hard worker. Couple a’ times, some drunk would use poor Bernie for a punching bag, but Bernie would just curl up into a ball, whimper and cry until they’d pull the mean bastard off. Bernie never did get violent. He did develop a wracking cough. Hiram thought it was from getting his ribs kicked in by a drunken trail hand, but Doc Patterson said no, it wasn’t that. He said that Bernie was in the advanced stages of consumption. He said lung fever was highly contagious.

Hiram didn’t know what to do. He felt guilty about making Bernie sleep in the stable with the horses — probably got the damn lung fever from sleeping on the ground in an empty stall. Couldn’t keep him around, and sure as hell couldn’t tell the folks in town. He sighed as he stood up and went out to the stable.

He found Bernie curry-combing the mule Hiram gave him for his last birthday.

“Bernie,” Hiram began, “how would you like to go into business with me?”

“Doing what, Uncle Hiram?”

“Gold prospecting.”

Hiram dug into his pocket and pulled out a nugget he’d been carrying around for the last year or so. . .

“See this beauty, Bernie! This is worth almost a hundred dollars. These little beauties are lying all over the place up there in those hills over yonder. If I give you the digging tools and enough grub for a month, how would you like to go up there and find us some of these gold nuggets?”

Bernie’s eyes started to gleam.

“Do you think I could do it all by my lonesome? What if I get lost and can’t find my way back? How will I know if I got the right stones?”

“Sure, you can do it. You take this stone with you, so you can compare it to the stones you find, and if you run out of food and want to get home, wait till dark and tell that mule to go home. He’ll come right back — believe me, he knows the way.”

“When do I leave, Uncle Hiram?”

“First thing in the morning, right after breakfast,” Hiram answered. “I’ve got to go get you some tools and a gold pan. You’ll probably find enough water to do a little panning in your spare time. I’ll show you how to work a gold pan this evening, before we turn in.”

Hiram stopped and told Doc what he had planned.

“Don’t breathe a word to anyone about his consumption,” Hiram said. “I’ll keep him out in those hills prospecting for gold until he gets too weak to make it back to town. When the mule comes back with an empty saddle, I’ll go up there and bury the little tyke. I just don’t have the heart to let the town destroy him.”

Doc agreed, and so Hiram finished his shopping and returned home to teach Bernie to use a gold pan.

The next morning, Bernie climbed up onto his mule, grinned happily at Hiram and rode north into the mountains in search of gold nuggets. He was sure he’d find a whole bunch and make Hiram real proud of him. He didn’t know what a hundred dollars was, but Hiram seemed to like the sound of it, so it must be good.

Three days later, he was beginning to get a little worried. Hiram said they were all over the place up here, but he hadn’t found any yet. Maybe someone got here before he did and got all the nuggets — Hiram would be so disappointed. Bernie started to cry, but quit right away because he couldn’t see good when he cried, and he had to see good to find those nuggets.

During the fourth night, Bernie really had some bad luck. The mule woke him up . . . it was braying, jumping up and down and acting frightened. When he untied the mule to calm him down, the animal jerked the tether out of Bernie’s hand and ran off into the darkness. Bernie followed, calling his name and begging him to stop and wait. After about a mile, the mule did stop and waited for Bernie to catch up. Bernie was coughing so hard from the exertion that he started to cough up blood, but he didn’t notice. He just wanted to get back to camp. He arrived back at camp just in time to see a big black bear leaving with the last of his food. That’s what had been scaring his mule.

Now he was in trouble: He hadn’t found any nuggets, and a month’s supply of food was gone in four days. He couldn’t go back to Uncle Hiram after making such a mess of everything, and he couldn’t kill any of the little creatures in the mountains, even if he had to starve to death. He cleaned up his campsite, got on the mule and rode up the next canyon in his search for nuggets.

By two in the afternoon, he was hungry, had seen no nuggets and was ready to give up. He got off the mule and sat on a boulder, leaning back against the almost vertical wall. It was cool and shady, and he was asleep in minutes.

When he woke up, it was dark. He could see okay because there was almost a full moon. He looked around in a panic for the mule and was relieved to see him standing quietly nearby. Something bothered Bernie, though. It sure seemed like when he woke up, he heard a whole flock of birds chirping. Didn’t sound like the pigeons that hung around the stable for scraps of feed the horses dropped . . . sounded more like those canaries Missus Wilson hung in the window of the dry goods store. Couldn’t be, though — birds slept when it got dark. Musta been his imagination. Darn, but he was getting hungry!

He was startled to hear another burst of twittering from above his head. He looked up and caught a glimpse of three heads ducking back into a hole in the face of the cliff. Looked like some kids about ten or eleven years old — strange thing was, they were kinda light blue and they glittered when they moved.

“Hey, you kids, come on down . . . I won’t hurt you. Don’t pretend you ain’t there ’cause I saw you real plain. Quit playing games now and show yourselves, but be careful and don’t fall.”

He got no answer. He looked up at the hole and over at his mule. He thought he just might be able to reach the hole by standing on the mule.

When he got the mule in place, he climbed up and could just reach the lower lip with his fingertips of his good arm. There was a branch growing about six inches higher. As he crouched to leap up to grab the branch, the mule moved and off he fell. He lit hard on the back of his neck and suddenly lost the ability to move anything below his chin. His eyes filled with tears, and all he could do was yell at the mule,.

“Go home, Sam — go home!!” The mule trotted off into the darkness.

Bernie lay there completely helpless, figuring he’d probably die long before Uncle Hiram found him, when the twittering started up again. From where he was, he could see the hole in the wall. One of the blue kids took something out of his purse and made a blue bubble with it. He stepped into the bubble and slowly floated down to where Bernie was lying.

The blue kid made a bubble around Bernie and guided it up through the hole and out of sight inside the mountain. Bernie had been terrified at first, but as soon as he was inside the bubble, he felt so calm and safe, he just knew that nothing bad was going to happen.

Once inside, they left him in the bubble while they examined him. Every time they’d find something that was messed up, they’d look at Bernie with big, sad eyes and twitter like a whole flock of magpies. Like they were scolding about something. Finally, they seemed to be arguing about something, almost like they were voting. Bernie watched with the eyes of a helpless wounded animal. He knew they were deciding his fate, but he didn’t know the enormity of the decision. He figured he’d lost in the voting when they filled his bubble with a greenish gas that put him out instantly.

Bernie woke up with a start. His left arm was tingling all over like he’d slept on it and cut off the circulation. He rubbed it to make the tingling go away . . . then reality sank in. He could feel! He looked at his left arm — it was the same size as the right! Then he remembered the little blue bird people. They musta fixed him somehow. Glory be!! He couldn’t wait to tell Uncle Hiram. He looked around . . . he could see the town to the south and the mountains to the north — they musta brought him halfway home and dumped him there. It was an easy walk home. He picked up his backpack, it seemed extra heavy, but he blamed that on his being weak from his operations. How in heck did he heal up so fast, anyway?.

He walked into the livery stable.

“I’m back, Uncle Hiram. Did Sam, the mule, get back okay? I got hurt, so I had to send him back all alone.”

Hiram walked into the stable, turned white as a sheet and sat down quickly,.

“Bernie, is that really you? We wrote you off for dead six months ago. How in Hades did you survive out there for six months with no food?

“When Sam came back, we searched every inch of those damn mountains, and there wasn’t a single trace of you. We figured someone did you in and buried you and all your gear. Tell me, boy, what happened?”

Bernie told Hiram his story, and while he was doing the telling, he was unpacking his backpack. He stopped close to the part where he woke up in the desert and proudly held up a sack.

“My little bird people musta read my mind because not only did they fix my afflictions, they figured that gold was important to me, so they gave me these.”

He dumped a pile of gold nuggets at Hiram’s feet. Hiram picked one up, examined it and excitedly asked:

“Bernie, do you think you kin find that spot again? If you can, we’re gonna be so damn rich, we’ll never have to work again the rest of our lives.”

Bernie said he was sure he could find the spot. Hiram grabbed him by the arm.

“Let’s go over to Doc Patterson’s,” Hiram said. “I want him to give you a checkup — you know, make sure you’re really all right. Lord knows what you been eating to make you see visions like you been talking about. You find any funny-tasting mushrooms out there?”

Doc Patterson examined Bernie and nearly had a heart attack. There was no sign of any consumption, his hare lip had been surgically repaired, and his left arm had undergone a miracle — it had simply started growing and repaired itself. Bernie’s fall had crushed two vertebrae in his neck, but that damage had been surgically repaired also, and he had healed in less than six months.

Doc wanted to tell the world, but Hiram showed him the gold and got him to shut up. For a third of the action. They spent the rest of the day planning their prospecting trip. Hiram wouldn’t hear of Bernie sleeping in the stable, so he ended up spending the night in a room at the Plaza Saloon and Fancy Hotel.

During the night, something happened to demonstrate that although Bernie’s body was all fixed up, his bad luck was still the same. The day-shift barkeep and desk clerk went off shift at eight in the evening and Cliff Barton, the owner of the saloon, came on duty.

Cliff worked the night shift because that’s when the trouble usually started, and there was nothin’ he liked better than beating the crap out of rowdy drunks. Anyway, one of the ladies agreed to go upstairs with one of the drunks and asked Cliff for the key to an empty room.

He gives her a key to the room Bernie is sleeping in. She and the drunk go upstairs, and two minutes later, she and the drunk start screaming and come running down the stairs. She tells Cliff there’s a big blue monster in the room. He grabs his scatter gun and sneaks up the stairs . . . He kicks open the door, turn on the light and finds Bernie sound asleep, lying naked as a jaybird on the bed.

Bernie sits up, rubbing his eyes, and wants to know what all the ruckus is about. Cliff tells him to shut up and go back to sleep. When Cliff turns off the light, he sees that Bernie is glowing a beautiful shade of light blue. Cliff looks closer, and Bernie starts to glitter like a star.

“Oh my God, he’s got the Blue Plague! Everybody outa here!” Cliff shouted. “I’ll call the military base — they’ll know what to do with him.”

So Cliff, his ladies of the night and all the drunks piled out into the street. Cliff went to Doc Patterson’s to use his phone. Doc let him in, but when he found out Cliff wanted to bring in the military, he sat him down and told him the whole story. At the mention of the gold, Cliff suddenly forgot all about calling the military.

“You say Bernie said there were a whole bunch of those little blue people? They must be friendly or they wouldn’t have helped Bernie . . . Hmmm.”

Cliff agreed to keep his mouth shut if they’d cut him in for twenty-five percent of the gold and take him along on the trip they had planned. Hiram didn’t like it, but he agreed ’cause ole Cliff sorta had them over a barrel.

Everbody turned back in for the night — everybody except for Cliff. He still had to close up the saloon and throw out the drunks for the night.

All the time he was going through his nightly routine, he kept thinking about how easy it would be to grab off Bernie from upstairs, head for the mountains and beat the crap outa him until he showed where he got those gold nuggets. Cliff didn’t put no stock in the wild tales about weird blue people who twittered like birds . . . Bernie musta been chewing on some loco weed or sumpin’. The more Cliff thought about all that gold, the greedier he got. Finally, he threw his bar rag down, rushed up the stairs and slapped Bernie awake.

“Get up you blue-ass little bastard, we’re gonna take us a little ride. Put your clothes on — you hear now!”

Bernie hurriedly dressed. He knew from past experience how mean Cliff could be.

“Are we gonna tell Uncle Hiram? Are we gonna get my mule? Hiram’s gonna be real mad at you if he wakes up and find me or the mule gone.”

“Just shut up and do what you’re told. I’ve got a nice gentle horse you can ride . . . Now come on, hurry up, it’s gonna be daylight in a few hours.”

They hurried down the back steps and rode off into the night.

Hiram was so excited about getting rich, he hardly slept. At the crack of dawn, he was over to the saloon to wake up Bernie. When he found both Bernie and Cliff missing, it didn’t take him long to put two and two together. He rushed over to Doc’s, beat on the door and started yelling that Cliff had kidnapped Bernie and was gonna get all the gold for hisself. Doc came running out, pulling his suspenders up over his underwear. He told Hiram to get them three good horses and some supplies. He said he had an injun family that owed him a big medical bill.

“Crazy Charlie is a damn good tracker and will be glad to help if I write off some of that bill.”

Hiram rushed off in one direction, Doc in the other, and in less than an hour, their tiny posse was ready to leave.

Bernie had pointed out a notch in the ridge of mountains to the north when he was telling his story to Hiram, so they had a general direction to start in. Ten miles out of town, the tracks grew so few that it wasn’t hard for Crazy Charlie to find a pair going north. Another two miles and those two sets of tracks were the only ones not covered by desert winds.

When they reached the opening to a box canyon, old Charlie balked. He wouldn’t enter the canyon, said there was big medicine in there — no injun would ever go into sacred canyon. He pointed out that there were no tracks coming out, so Cliff and Bernie had to still be in the canyon.

Hiram and Doc thanked him and left him there waiting while they went on in.

They were sneaking along real quiet for a couple of reasons — one being that ole Charlie’s fear had transferred and caused the hairs on their necks to be sorta sensitive, and the other was that they knew that Cliff was just mean and greedy enough for him to try to leave three bodies in the canyon instead of just poor little Bernie’s.

They were about to walk around a huge boulder when they heard a bunch of birds twittering just on the other side. They cautiously peeked out from around the big rock expecting to see birds; instead, they saw Bernie on his knees, crying — and Cliff holding him by the throat with one hand and punching him in the face with his pistol with the other.

“You sniveling little bastard, I’m not going to ask you again. Where did you find the gold — the gold nuggets, stupid? If you don’t tell me, I’ll blow your brains out.”

Cliff was so intent on what he was doing, he didn’t notice the big blue bubble that was slowly drifting down directly over his head. It wasn’t until it touched him that he looked up and started cursing. He tried beating it off with his hands, never letting go of the pistol, but it slowly sank lower, totally enveloping him until he was inside. Hiram and Doc could see him gasping as he tried to breath, but obviously there wasn’t any air inside. There was some more twittering, and they saw some heads duck back inside a cave high up the cliffside. The bubble slowly started to rise in the air.

“Good God,” Doc whispered, “would you look at that!” The bubble kept rising until it was several hundred feet above the rock they were hiding behind. Suddenly it popped and down fell Cliff’s body. It hit on top of the boulder and squashed like a ripe watermelon.

Crazy Charlie tried desperately to calm them down as they waited for Bernie to come out. It was almost two hours before he emerged. Once again, all his wounds were healed, and he was surprised to see Hiram and Doc waiting for him.

“Uncle Hiram, Doc . . . how did you guys know that mean old Cliff made me come out here, and how did you ever find me? I was worried about finding my way back.”

Doc said that Charlie had tracked them because they were worried that Cliff might do something bad to him to try to get the gold.

“Well, you were sure right about that. If my little friends hadn’t protected me, he would have hurt me real bad or shot me. My friends got really angry and punished Cliff, and they told me to go home and never come back ’cause all people were interested in was the gold, so they were going to hide the rest of it where nobody could ever find it. Sorry, Hiram, but they meant it, I’m sure.”

“It’s okay, Bernie. We’re just glad to get you back safe and sound.”

Bernie used his share of the nuggets they did have to buy a farm there in Troublesome Creek and start a family — he took Hiram’s last name ’cause he didn’t want to make a bunch of Twopops.

Some folks have heard Doc and Old Hiram Fugate out by that box canyon making bird sounds and flappin’ their arms like a bird, but that was put down to their just getting a little old and teched in the haid.

Lucky Dawg

By James L. Fox

© Copyright by the author 2008

Normally, the sight of his campsite at the base of the huge outcropping of decomposed granite cliffs brought feelings of excitement and anticipation to old Jim Graham, but this time as he brought his ancient jeep to a stop alongside the small bubbling brook, he felt only sadness. The kind of sadness that can only be understood by those who have suffered a similar loss.

The mid-morning sun was already unbearably hot as Jim stared back down the canyon. The clouds of white alkali dust still hung in the dead air to mark his passage.

“Think I’ll rest a little,” he muttered, resting his head against the back of the seat. “It can wait a few more minutes.”

He closed his eyes, remembering back to when he had discovered this magical spot. . .

Back in 1978, when his doctor had insisted on his early retirement, he fought tooth and nail against it, but too much had done him in. Too much eating, drinking and sitting behind a desk on his fat behind had made a physical wreck out of him and brought on a serious coronary problem.

He didn’t fancy chasing a little white ball all over the pasture, so when the doctor insisted on his getting regular exercise, he decided for going prospecting. He had always planned on doing it someday, so why not now?

Martha, his ever-loving, nagging wife, blew her stack. There was no way she was going to allow him to go off alone into the desert where he could have a heart attack at any moment.

They argued for weeks until finally he solved the problem by going to the animal shelter and getting a young lop-eared hound. He named the hound Dawg and enrolled him in an obedience training school. He installed a voice activated CB radio in the jeep and had the instructor teach Dawg to run to the jeep and bark into the radio at Jim’s command.

When he and Dawg put on their performance for Martha, she relented and agreed to let them go look for gold. He lost no time in buying all sorts of equipment and heading into the hills to seek his fortune.

He did a lot of metal detecting, digging and dry washing for several months and had almost nothing to show for his efforts. Then one day his luck changed. Normally, while he was prospecting, Dawg would search the area for jackrabbits, but would never get out of sight; however, on this day, Dawg took off through a narrow ravine and could be heard baying way off in the distance.

He followed Dawg out of curiosity, and about a mile up canyon, he found Dawg digging into a hole, obviously after a rabbit. Looking around, Jim noticed a small stream coming right out of the rock face. He had never used his portable sluicebox, but with the stream right there, now was the ideal time.

He sat it in the stream, then noticing the pile of dirt that Dawg had dug out of the face of the cliff, he took a couple of shovels of dirt and ran them through the sluicebox. Almost instantly, he started seeing color. By God, Dawg had found what he had been looking for. The more dirt he shoveled, the more gold he saw piled up in the box.

He put out markers like he had read about, carefully brushed away any traces of their presence and drove hell-bent for home. He excitedly told Martha about their good fortune and headed downtown to register his claim.

He named the mine The Lucky Dawg Mine. And throughout the years pulled out over forty thousand in gold. He pulled out something more valuable than gold from that mine — he got his health back ’cause he worked it by himself.

Every day a little harder, a little more and a little longer until his body was lean, his hands hard and his heart stronger. He renamed Dawg. Dawg’s new name was Lucky Dawg. Jim would work and Lucky would watch until early afternoon.

Then Lucky would take off up canyon hunting for their dinner. When Jim could hear Lucky’s baying getting close, he’d drop the shovel, pick up the shotgun and wait. Soon, old Lucky would run that rabbit right into the clearing, so that they wouldn’t hafta carry it too far after Jim shot it.

Lucky always hated to leave. When Jim would quit work and wash off in the creek, he’d take off his boots and soak his feet in the cold water. Then, when he’d get ready to leave, his boots would be missing. Lucky would steal them and hide them — so they couldn’t go home.

He and that Dawg were closer’n two ticks, and lately they’d sorta grown old together. Too damn bad that Lucky had gone first. Wasn’t going to be much fun coming up here anymore. . .

Jim opened his eyes, wiping away the moisture with the back of his wrinkled hand, and muttered to himself,

“I best get on with this — gotta find some high ground, and I’ll probably need a couple a’ wheelbarrows a’ rocks. Them damn coyotes’ll dig him up if I don’t use lotsa rocks.”

He worked in silence for about an hour, then returned to the jeep. He tenderly removed a blanket wrapped bundle from the rear seat. After the last rock was firmly in place, he sat on the bank of the stream lost in thought.

He took off his boots and put his feet into the cold water. The fast-moving water felt so good to his aching feet. He thought, “If only I could find something like that for what’s aching inside me. Damn!”

He was leaning back on his elbows, searching for familiar shapes in the fluffy white clouds high above, when he heard the first sounds of the hound coming from up canyon.

At first, he thought he was hearing things, but the next time, there was no mistaking the sound of a hound baying in full pursuit. It was getting closer now — much closer. . .

———-

Sheriff Bob Simpson sat awkwardly on the edge of the sofa, twisting his hat in his hands as he talked.

“Missus Graham, I just want to reassure you that old Jim went easy. He was flat on his back on that creek bank, his feet soaking in the water and a happy smile on his face. He obviously didn’t have any pain.”

Martha nodded, wiped her eyes and answered:

“Yes, Jim loved it up there in the canyon. He and that dog spent more time up there than they ever did at home.”

“That reminds me,” Bob Simpson spoke as he stood. “In my report here, it says that when you called 911, you said that you knew your husband was in trouble because a dog told you over the radio. Could you possibly explain that? Frankly, I’m confused.”

Martha explained about Jim’s heart condition back in 1978, the voice-actuated radio, and how Jim had trained the dog to use it. Then her hand flew to her mouth. She looked wide-eyed at the sheriff.

“My goodness, in all the excitement, I forgot that Jim went up there to bury poor old Lucky. Our dog died of old age just yesterday.

“I’ve been sitting here worrying and waiting for that distress call for sixteen years. When it did come, I plumb went outa my mind. I called 911 and gave directions to where the mine was located and never once, ’til right now, give any thought about that call. Our dog Lucky couldn’t of made that call. That’s awful strange, don’t you think, Mister Simpson?”

“Very strange, Missus Graham, very strange — and stranger still, we never could find old Jim’s boots.”

James L. Fox is a Navy veteran, retired manufacturing manager, industrial engineer, jack-of-all-trades and self-proclaimed hermit who writes tall tales from his lair in the Mojave Desert.