Home Fires

by W L Ripley

  “You won’t shoot,” said dark-hair.

  “Better believe me,” Jake said.

  The two men looked at each other then slowly removed their jackets without taking their eyes off Jake. No weapons on either man.

  “Anything else?” said dark-hair.

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “This place here? Hank’s?” Nodding in the bar’s direction. “Great cheeseburgers. The proprietor has kind of an attitude, but prices are fair, and the beer is cold. You boys have a nice stay, but I don’t want to see you again. Get that? I have an idea who sent you, but you show up in my orbit again I’m going to make it a point to help you find a way out of town. Put it on my calendar.”

  “You threatening us?”

  “Don’t know how you could miss it.”

  “What’re you gonna do? Gunfight at high noon?”

  “Some imagination you got. That’s not bad, though.” He nodded at them. “Promise you’d lose. Get that? You’d better.” He tucked his sidearm away. “You boys have a nice evening.”

  Buck fever. Jake had a touch of it now. That’s what they called the reaction when a big whitetail deer would just appear like a ghost and you got the shakes or froze, staring at the woods, not seeing anything for a couple of minutes, thinking did that happen? He’d heard of guys jacking a lever action gun empty, or ejecting a bullet magazine, without taking a shot, forgetting to pull the trigger.

  Jake feeling that now after fronting the two men. They weren’t much, just local stuff; still there was a light trembling in his hands and shoulders and a little dryness in his mouth. Fear wasn’t any help, so you tamped it way down and did what you had to do. Despite the moment and the danger and all the questions, something else was on his mind. It was Harper. She was at his place when he got home, and he feared he may have inadvertently put her in danger.

  Harper Bannister. She was something special.

  He could hear Sue’s voice in his head telling him she had told him so and that, ‘you’re hooked, buddy. A little scary? You bob and weave and then out of nowhere it hits you. Didn’t expect that did you? She’s cute. And smart and fun and intriguing in a way you never seen before. Something new. Can’t stop thinking about her, can you? Like now. It’s all good, no hard feelings, Jake, we both knew someone would blaze one inside and you wouldn’t be able to knock it back. Your only recourse is to go with the pitch or bail’.

  That’s why Harper was here now, with him. She had called and came out to his place. They talked for a time and she had fallen asleep on his couch, next to him. He watched her sleep, breathed the freshness of her and smiled while he watched a late movie on the television.

  But wasn’t following the plot.

  The two men, named Mac and Gene, which Jake confronted behind Hank’s place decided not to leave town. Well, Mac decided that, not Gene. Gene had been a pro wrestler for a time. Small venues, not the big-time on TV with Hulk Hogan or Triple H. Then he was a bouncer at a bar. He’d broken some noses, put some guys in ER, done some collecting work but he’d never been a shooter.

  “I didn’t like the Texas asshole talking shit at me,” said Boyd Macklin. It was morning and they were having breakfast in their motel room someone else paid for. “I fucking hate smart ass goat ropers.”

  The other man, Gene, said, “Morgan isn’t a Texan, he’s from here. You shouldna called him ‘Tex’. He made us when you said that. You said it yourself,” said Gene, trying to calm his partner down. “He ain’t gonna scare like we were told so let it go? He’s nobody.”

  “I need to settle this.” Gene watched Macklin load up a Glock 24 pistol.

  “Don’t do that. C’mon.”

  “May need it the cocksucker starts with his mouth.”

  “You want to go back to prison?”

  “Wasn’t so bad. Worse is this fucking cracker running his mouth at me.”

  “Do what’s smart. Forget him.”

  Macklin stood and shoved the pistol into his waist, covered it with a jacket.

  “You coming or not?”

  Gene sighed heavily. They drove out of town in a used 2014 Buick.

  Gene thinking to himself this wasn’t the smart move.

  Unbelievable, Harper was thinking.

  Harper watched Jake get up from the breakfast table, look out the window, walk back to his bedroom and return with a handgun, then telling her, “Visitors. I need to go out and say hello. Stay inside and give your dad a call, get Buddy out here.”

  “What?”

  Just like that and without explanation he slipped out the back with the weapon.

  Would she ever understand him?

  What happened next made her think maybe not only would she ever understand him...she may never even know him.

  Jake watched the black Buick creeping up his lane. The same car the night before in Hank’s parking lot.

  Jake went to his room, got his weapon out of the nightstand, heeled a magazine into the butt and racked in a shell. That done he told Harper to call her dad and then eased open the back door and slipped quietly outside.

  He came around the corner of the house, behind the two men who were just getting out of the car and adjusting their jackets.

  “Morning, fellas,” Jake said coming up behind them, his weapon down alongside his leg.

  The pair whipped around, surprised.

  “Shit,” said the man built like a linebacker.

  “I thought we were clear about your future,” Jake said.

  The darker man, who stood on the driver’s side, saying now, “You don’t tell me where I can go or can’t go.”

  “True,” Jake said, getting ready. “But there are consequences when you don’t.”

  “We’re not going.”

  “I see that. Now what?”

  The heavy-set, wrestler type, looked at the darker man, then he said, “I don’t even want to be here. This is his idea. Let’s talk, see if we can calm things down.”

  “I’m through talking to you two. I meant what I said. Get on the ground and lace your fingers behind your necks.”

  “Are you fucking kidding?” said the darker man.

  “Did it sound like that? I was going for authoritative.”

  “It ain’t happening, cocksucker.”

  “Name-calling. So, not going to be friends,” Jake said, saying it like to himself, shifting his eyes from one man to the other. Deciding. “It ends here. It ends now.”

  The two men spread apart.

  “Don’t do that,” Jake said. “Either of you moves again I’m taking that one down.”

  “There’s two of us,” said the darker man.

  “I can wait while you call up reinforcements,” Jake said.

  “Some mouth you got on you, asshole.”

  “Goddammit, Mac,” said the heavy man. “What the hell are you doing? He has a gun. This is no good.”

  “Doesn’t have to be this way,” Jake said, his eyes level on the man named Mac, deciding the other man wasn’t a worry.

  “We can just go our way,” said Mac. “That what you’re saying?”

  Jake shaking his head. “No. You’re trespassing and threatening so you’re going inside for a day or so. Toss your weapons and get your faces in the dirt.”

  “You’re arresting us?”

  “Beats the alternative.”

  Mac, bulled-up, saying now, “You can’t be serious.”

  Jake relaxed now but his eyes hard. “Better believe me.”

  Mac said, “This ain’t the Wild West, boy.”

  “Toss ’em or it starts.”

  “All right,” said Mac. “You win this time.”

  “Every time.”

  Mac laughed, said, “Fuck you”. Reaching inside his jacket for his weapon when Jake shot out the driver side window next to where Mac was standing. Mac jumped and his hand came out of his jacket, empty.

  “Next one dead center. Two fingers, left hand, the weapon in the dirt and then you also on your stomach.”

  The other man,
the wrestler surprised, his mouth open and staring. What just happened?

  “Believe me, now?” Jake said.

  The wrestler got on the ground.

  Jake cuffed both men with zip-tights then walked back into the house got his Ranger handcuffs. Harper stared at him while the phone rang at her father’s office. Jake walked back outside and re-cuffed the men, then walked back inside and picked up his coffee cup and took a sip. Harper watched this, amazed, as Buddy Johnson answered on the other end. She said, “He’s right here,” and handed the phone to Jake and Sheriff Candidate Buddy said, “You did what?”

  Jake told him he had two men in custody.

  “In custody?” Incredible. “You understand neither of us has jurisdiction? You seem unable to keep that in the front of you.”

  Jake told him that’s why he called him and did Buddy know any state troopers would be willing to come out and take a look. Buddy telling Jake the sheriff wasn’t going to be happy and how would it look, Doc’s election opponent bringing in outside law enforcement? Jake telling him he’d completely forgot to consider Buddy’s electoral campaign while he was shooting up the guy’s car.

  Giving up now. “Okay,” Buddy said. “I know a trooper I trust.”

  After talking to Buddy Jake asked the heavy-set man, Gene, if he wanted anything. Coffee or a beer?

  “I drink it how?” asked Gene held up his handcuffed wrists.

  Jake made a show of thinking about it, pointing at the interior of the Buick. “I can cuff you to the steering wheel and you can use the other hand.”

  “This is what you do? You shoot at people then serve drinks?”

  Jake nodded at the other man sitting on the ground cuffed behind his back, who the wrestler guy, Gene, told him was Boyd Macklin. “Well, he gets nothing for being rude. I didn’t shoot at you. Yet.”

  Gene’s eyes widened. “What’s that mean? You gonna shoot us?”

  “Nope. Unless you screw up when I get you a beer. I’ve got some Bud and a couple Heinekens.”

  Gene looked at Jake and said, “You got any light beer? I kinda need to watch my weight.”

  Harper watched Jake walk back outside put one man on the ground and then stepped on the man’s back while he cuffed the other man to the car steering wheel.

  Then a really crazy thing. Jake came into the house, took a beer out of the refrigerator and she said, “You want a beer after that?”

  “It’s for the fat guy.”

  Really? She didn’t know whether to laugh or...well, laugh.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Cop lights danced as Buddy Johnson showed with a state trooper named Fred Ridley. Ridley went six-foot, slim waist and weight-lifter shoulders. Uniform crisp and clean. When the trooper got out of his unit he carefully seated his Smokey the Bear hat on his head. Buddy introduced them.

  Ridley watched Gene drink beer from a can, his other hand cuffed to the steering wheel of the Buick.

  “You gave him a beer?” said Trooper Ridley.

  “He was thirsty,” Jake said.

  Ridley smiled at that, squinting and giving Jake a sideways look. “You’re not going to be trouble, are you?”

  “Don’t mean to be.”

  “Texas Ranger, huh? You shoot a lot of cars down there?”

  “Said he wanted a bullet-hole Buick.”

  Ridley looked at Buddy. “What have you got me into here?” Then to Jake, Ridley said, “You’re aware this is not your jurisdiction.”

  “I hear that a lot.”

  Ridley went to work, first removing the cuffs from the steering wheel, then placing them in the back of the patrol unit. That done the muscular Trooper walked back to the Buick. “You shot out the window?”

  “I was aiming at his tires.”

  Ridley said, “I’ll bet.”

  “Both men were carrying. Their weapons are on my deck.”

  Ridley studied Jake for a moment, shrugged and walked over to secure the handguns.

  Ridley pulled their ID, returned to his unit and called in requests for a white male, Boyd Macklin, birthdate, 7-16-71. Also for a white male, Gene Hamtramck, birthdate, 3-4-65.

  Ridley nodded at Harper Bannister. “You witnessed this?”

  She nodded. Her lips were pursed, and her arms folded under her breasts. “Yes. I did and it was something to see.”

  “Happen like he said?”

  Nodding again. “Yes.”

  “You his girlfriend?”

  “We’re deciding.”

  Ridley chuckled at her oblique reply, then said, “You’re made for each other. Bet the conversations are interesting.”

  Ridley’s radio crackled and he got the information he wanted. Both had jackets. Macklin had a sheet with local authorities. “Mostly assault,” said Ridley. “Some county time. Picked him up myself for DUI. The other guy? He got hauled in a couple times for bar fights. Couple weekends in county lock-up. Nothing big. Looks like Macklin graduated to assault with a deadly weapon. Looks like you put a bad guy on the bench.”

  Jake shrugged. “Doing what I can.”

  “Also a bank hold-up.”

  “I was lucky.”

  Ridley looked at Jake. “Is this something you do a lot?”

  “Give beer to bad actors?” Jake said.

  “Shoot up vehicles. Shoot bank robbers.”

  He shrugged. “Not so you’d notice.”

  “Wonder how you manage to attract the attention of such people.”

  “People are naturally drawn to me.”

  “Trying to decide whether I like you or you’re trying to annoy me.”

  “The former’s my preference,” Jake said.

  “Tell me what led up to this.”

  Jake related the problem with the two men the night before.

  “You think someone hired them,” said Ridley.

  “Or pointed them in my direction.”

  “Officer Johnson says this might be a dicey situation with you and Johnson being close. You don’t like the sheriff?”

  Jake smiled, looked at Buddy.

  “Jake is a good man,” Buddy said. “Unpredictable but a good man.”

  Ridley nodded. “I have to go to the sheriff with this. It’s procedure and I have no choice.” He chewed his lower lip with a tooth. “But I’ll go in with you when you report it.”

  “Thanks,” Jake said.

  Ridley reseated his hat and said, “We know all about Sheriff Kellogg. Promise you.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “You forced them into a showdown?” said Kellogg, leaning in when he said it.

  They were at the Paradise County Sheriff’s office, Jake, Buddy, Cal, Harper and Trooper Ridley. Kellogg asking questions of Jake. Jake was seated in a padded chair, Kellogg towering over him.

  “Offered a citizen’s arrest but they weren’t having it,” Jake said.

  Kellogg removed his Stetson, placed it on his desk and looked at Trooper Ridley. Ran a hand through his hair. “This is not how things are done. Local police calling in a state trooper instead of calling me. Makes me think you don’t trust me.”

  “Should I?” Jake said. “You’ve already established you don’t like me.”

  Ridley, his arms folded over his Sam Browne strap, looked at Kellogg, saying nothing. Looking at Jake again, Kellogg said, “I don’t like people getting shot in my county.”

  Jake nodded. “I shot their car.”

  “I’m going to have to take you into custody, Morgan.”

  Ridley intervened, saying, “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. It was a good shooting. You can do what you want but believe that is a mistake. Both men have records for rough stuff. Two armed men, with assault records, show up at this man’s place and you don’t think they had improper motives? I would advise you to investigate the scene and talk to the other man, Gene Hamtramck. Hamtramck is ready to give a statement in exchange for immunity. He’s going to tell you, off-the-record, that Macklin went there to assault Morgan.”

  Jake cou
ld see Kellogg chewing the inside of his cheek.

  Ridley saying, “According to Mister Morgan, Hamtramck did not draw a weapon or make any threatening statements or movements.”

  “I even provided refreshments,” Jake said.

  Kellogg started to speak, changed his mind and left the room shaking his head.

  Two hours later and a taped statement from Jake and he dropped off Harper at home and now was on his way back home. At home Jake experienced a strange feeling that something was out of place, not inside his head but in his physical surroundings he couldn’t put his finger on. He’d felt it yesterday for the first time as if something had changed in the house. He was not yet familiar with the way Gage set up the house but there was a rhythm and sensation to a home that resonated and that was broken.

  His cell phone rang.

  Jake decided he’d better give his captain a heads-up. Not the kind of thing Parmalee would appreciate hearing second hand.

  He called ranger station B and told Parmalee about his encounter with the two thugs and the other incidents. He left out the visit to the Mitchell ranch as he was pretty sure the conciliatory tone would vanish.

  After Jake finished, Parmalee said, “Maybe you should come back to Texas before you get into anymore mischief. Let the local law enforcement officials handle this.”

  “The sheriff is not a friend. He’s unlikely to investigate Gage’s death and may be a party to covering it up.”

  “You’re paranoid.”

  “Heightened awareness.”

  Pause. “What am I supposed to do with you?”

  “How about a promotion?”

  “Does it occur to you that while you are...that your question is poorly timed?”

  “So, that’s a no?”

  “Son, this isn’t funny. I appreciate your situation and your feelings and factor those in with your youth and your settled demeanor. However, you place me in an untenable position if this blows up in your face. People tend to take an unfavorable view of rogue law enforcement people shooting up the landscape. Realize that if you are wrong about any of this you could be in the unemployment line.”