A Pair of Second Chances (Ben Jensen Series Book 1) (12 page)

In her ignorance, Amanda worked at lighting a campfire in the steel firebox that sat on a small concrete pad, a short ways from the pic nic table. She piled a few small sticks Timmy had gathered at her request, on top of a pair of sawdust and wax fire starters the clerk at Wal-Mart had talked her into buying. He promised she'd have no difficulty getting a campfire going, as long as she only tried to burn dry wood. Not quite having confidence in his promise, she used two fire starter sticks, rather than the single one he'd promised was all she'd need...

As the fire grew and spread into the small pile of sticks she'd added on top, Amanda loaded more and more wood, slowly moving up to the bigger pieces they'd found in the woods around their camp site, as well as leftover firewood left at surrounding sites by departing campers.

She had quite a blaze going when she turned back to their supper, cooking on the camp stove, and a grinning Timmy ran up from the creek bank. As he stood beside the blazing fire the boy exclaimed; "Wow Momma! Our fire is hot! It's burning my face!"

Amanda looked over her shoulder as she filled the plates with their supper and laughed at the boy; "You just make sure you stay back little man... We don't want it to really burn you! OK?"

"OK Momma!" Timmy laughed back at her...

It was a joyous time for the pair. They sat laughing and eating their supper on a large, unsplit, log left lying in their site by some previous visitor to the campground. For the two this was a miraculous day. They couldn't put words to the new emotions they were feeling. But, in their own way they each reveled in the sense of peace that was growing around them. The bright yellow dome of their tent stood cheerfully where she'd pitched it over against the trees. The campfire flickered on its nylon cover. Parked on the graveled apron of their site, sparkling in the firelight of the deepening dusk, sat their little red car. They sat close together, touching, mother and son, sharing their meal... able for the first time, to laugh without fear, and love without apprehension. For the first time their world was filled with colors other than the blackness and torment of the abuse they'd endured. They'd never known a time so free of fear and tension.

Though, to be honest, deep in the back of her mind, pushed down as far as she could shove it, hidden from Timmy, but unable to totally ignore it herself, lurked a dark cloud that haunted her. It endured no matter what she did to dispel it. From within that cloud spoke a small voice, whispering a warning; "They're looking... They won't just forget you and give up. They're coming... It's not over yet!"

She looked away from her son and closed her eyes, just for a moment, willing the dark thoughts to be silent; to go away and leave them alone.

She didn't know what she would do, or what she could do. Her thinking hadn't gotten past the single and dangerous act of escaping. She wouldn't even claim yet, that they had escaped. All she knew was that at this moment, she and her son were safe. They were happy; and if it was within her power, they would remain hidden. She would, somehow, preserve the happiness they'd found.

"I've got a surprise for you Mr.!" Amanda suddenly exclaimed as Timmy finished gobbling up the food on his plate. The boy ate as if he was twice his size.

"Not shmoes silly! Sh-mor-es! They're like... uh ... gooey cookies... only, you make 'em when you're camping! And you know what? I've never had any either, but a friend told me how her Momma and Daddy used to make them for her when they went camping when she was a little girl." Amanda explained.

She didn't explain that the girl left home a couple of years later as she had, after her father died and her mother remarried. Or that she ran away because her Mother whipped her for lying, when the girl went to her mother in tears after her stepfather raped her.

The thought crossed her mind as she and Timmy roasted their first marshmallow over the fire, that she would never disbelieve a tormented story from her son. It would have to be proved a lie before she would turn away from him... and then... she would distrust the proof.

The pair laughed and teased each other into the evening, as the stars of a high mountain night sparkled in the endless Montana sky that hung above them.

High above, camped on the mountainside behind them, sipping another cup of coffee and looking up at those same stars, a cowboy sat with his back to a log. His face lit with the red glow of the dying embers of his own fire, the cowboy tilted his head and listened. Had he heard laughter from the valley below? Smiling, he shook his head. "Guess it was only the wind in the trees. Funny how these mountains will trick you... Sure sign of old age... when you start hearing voices!" he laughed to himself.

The Jamaicans slept in shifts, three at a time, in the two beds in their room at the Motel 6, less than twenty miles away in Columbus, Montana. One man tasked to watch the screen on that cell phone, twenty four hours a day, along with the screen of the Television.

Chapter
13

The sun rose over the bright yellow dome tent pitched in the campground along the bank of Lodgepole creek. Amanda, slender, blonde, and beautiful, if you discounted the fatigue and fear that remained in her eyes, crawled out of her sleeping bag and on outside, leaving Timmy to asleep.

Standing just outside the tent, she stood, hugging herself in the crisp morning air. With her head tilted back she sucked deeply at the clear mountain air and exhaled slowly; the unfamiliar sensation of Freedom continuing to slowly grow within her.

She reached back into the tent for her jacket. Standing again, she stamped her feet to get the blood pumping as she walked over to the rear of her car, key in hand.

The clerk had been adamant about her packing everything back into the trunk after preparing a meal, or; "Lock it up in the Bear Boxes if they have 'em where you camp. Put all your trash in the Bear proof trashcans. Leave nothing out that will spread an odor to attract Bears!" he warned. "Take nothing into your tent that is food, or smells like food, not chewing gum, not perfume, not even toothpaste!"

He'd assured her that staying safe was all in just keeping a clean camp, and that the people who had ever had Bear trouble had brought it on themselves by being careless with their camp hygiene.

She'd been a little unnerved by the energy with which he delivered the warning, but was determined to go on with her plan to camp for a few weeks as her way for her and Timmy to disappear. She'd religiously adhered to the particulars of the warning and actually felt pretty safe... especially with that big can of Bear Spray he'd talked her in to buying that she kept handy in a pouch hanging on her belt.

The lid of the trunk swung open and reaching inside she again pulled out the Coleman stove, hurrying it over to the Pic Nic table. Then she returned to the car and grabbed the handle of a fry pan with one hand, the handle of their small cooler with the other and turned back to the table to start preparing their breakfast.

A few minutes later, Timmy woke to the smell of bacon and eggs frying in their forest camp under a glorious Montana sunrise. Laying there in his sleeping bag he spotted his Momma's phone lying beside her bedroll.

He reached out and picked it up, flipping it open as he'd seen her do. Playing with it for several minutes, he started pushing buttons and pretending to make calls. His Momma hearing his soft voice from the tent walked over and looked inside just as she heard him say; "I don' care Mahn! You do as you told or you'll have big trouble bwoy!"

"Who are you talking to?" she asked, smiling as she kneeled in front of the tent.

"No one Momma, I was just pretending. Like I heard Daddy say."

A dark cloud passed across Amanda's face as she reached out for the phone, noticing that Timmy had managed to turn it on. She pressed the power button, turning it off as she spoke to her son, the smile returning to her face; "Climb out little man, breakfast is almost ready!"

Amanda helped Timmy into his clothes, pulled a small hoodie sweatshirt on the boy, zipped it up and taking his hand walked back to the table and their simmering breakfast.

"Gee Momma that smells good!" the little boy exclaimed with a laugh.

"Really? I'll have to consider the source fella. I believe you'd eat my shoe if I put ketchup on it!" she said, tousling his hair and laughing; "I swear, you wouldn't know good from poison!" Her eyes, hardened by his imitation of his father, softened. The only time her eyes ever made that change was when she looked at, or talked to, her son.

Laughing again himself, the little boy ran back to his Momma and wrapped her up in a pint sized Bear hug... "I love you Momma!"

"Not nearly as much as I love you, little troublemaker! Now sit down and eat your breakfast before a Bear comes running in here and steals it!"

Timmy's eyes grew wide looking up at her; "Bears?" he asked... slowly looking around the camp. Laughing, Amanda pushed him over to the table; "Yes Bears, great big Grizzly Bears, but not this morning, now eat!"

Chapter
14

Twenty miles away in Columbus a commotion arose in room 224 at the Motel 6 a few minutes after 7. Musa, who had taken over phone guard duty at 5 am suddenly jumped out of his chair.

"Jamal!" he hollered... "Jamal!"

Jamal, startled out of deep sleep, sat up in the bed he occupied alone, heart jumping from the surprise, looking around in a panic, reaching for the pistol laying on the nightstand; "What? What you hollerin' 'bout? Jesus Mahn! You scared the fuck out O' me Fool!"

"Jamal! Get up! She here Mahn, she turned it on... she turn da' fucking phone on mahn!" Musa hollered excitedly thrusting the phone close in front of Jamal's still unfocused eyes. "She turn da phone on mahn, we got to go!"

Jamal tried to focus his eyes on the phone shoved in his face, and failed. "Get the son of a bitch out of my face Musa! I can't see it! Just tell me what it says."

"So what?" Jamal replied loudly. "It already told us what we need to know. It don't matter any more. We got her mahn! We got her! She probably just turned it on to see what time it was! Dumb bitch!" Jamal grabbed the phone away from Musa, looked at the blank screen, and tossed it on the bed grinning. "This time mahn, we got her!"

Musa's hollering and Jamal's angry response had woke the other two, and now the room was filled with angry shouts to; "Shut the fuck up mahn, I'm tryin' to sleep!" and Jamal's angry reply as he kicked the bed the two men were trying to sleep in; "You'll have time to sleep when we get dis bitch back to Tyrone so get your black asses up!"

In minutes the four were back in the Yukon, checking the Custer National Forest map they'd picked up late the previous day at the Forest Service office in town. They were looking for the location of Forest Service Road 763, the location flashed across the cell phone screen by the gps system hidden within Amanda's phone.

"There it is" Jamal" spit out, jabbing the map with his finger. "This early, if she's camped somewhere, she ain't goin' anywhere. She fucked up this time. This time we got the bitch and we can go home!"

"Drive Terrance, go now! Follow road 78 south out of town... out 20 miles or so, look for a road off to the right, a dirt road... that should be it mahn. Look for a sign for road 763... and Terrance?"

"Yeah mahn?" Terrance asked, looking back at Jamal in the rear view mirror, as he turned the Yukon out of the parking lot into the road.

"We don' wan' to screw this up now. Drive slow an' easy mahn." Jamal gestured as he spoke, waving his hand up and down slowly, his fingers outstretched, palm down. "This close we don' wan' to get in a hurry and get attention we don' need. So take it easy, Understand?"

"Yeah mahn, I drive this car slow an' easy mahn" he replied as he braked to a stop at the same red light where they'd sat waiting the previous afternoon as Amanda passed through unseen.

The light turned green and the Yukon turned south onto Hwy 78. Finally, they were closing in on the prey they had pursued across four states into the Montana Rockies. The Black SUV rolled along, five miles under the speed limit, every man now wide awake, ready for whatever came. Knowing this job was nearly done.

They drove along ignorant of the herd of horses, driven by a lone cowboy, coming down the mountain above their prey. They wouldn't have assigned any importance to that cowboy if they had known of his existence. As ignorant as the rabbit, seconds before the strike of a Hawk, the Jamaicans rolled south.

Amanda and Timmy sat at their table, soaking up the morning sun, laughing over their breakfast, blissfully unaware of the darkness descending upon them. They enjoyed their morning, unsuspecting. In just a few minutes the brutality of the world they had risked so much to escape would come roaring back, shattering their day, and their dreams.

Ben, driving his horse herd, a wide smile on his weathered face, rode slowly along, driving his pack horses in front. The horses grazed their breakfast as he moved them slowly along. He was alive. He was a Cowboy. He was horseback in the Montana Mountains! On this day, in this place, life was good. Or, so he thought.