Buck Out

by Ken Benton

  Ryan shot Malcolm a playful smirk.

  An hour went by without incident. They left the Pennsylvania Amish country behind, crossed the border into Maryland, passed through the outskirts of Hagerstown without witnessing anything of concern, and trucked their way westward through the Cumberland Valley. More traffic materialized here, but not the threatening kind. State troopers, occasional military vehicles, and other big trucks were comforting to see. The highway took them through the heart of the city of Cumberland, where there were no signs of civil unrest or any indication that anything was out of the ordinary. Smaller cities were definitely a better place to be when the shit hit the fan.

  Malcolm and Ryan switched places just before crossing the West Virginia border. Malcolm now held the shotgun. Ryan opened his pack and broke off three 400-calorie squares from his dwindling Mainstay 3600-calorie bar. If everything kept going this smoothly, they would pick up the “real” guard within the hour, and be at Ryan’s land thirty minutes after that.

  But it was too much to ask for. Morris picked up a traffic report out of Morgantown that there was a problem with police activity on southbound Interstate 79. Travelers should expect significant delays.

  A highway delay with police presence sounded fine to Malcolm. But he wasn’t a professional truck driver who had incentives for making timely deliveries. Morris decided to skirt the problem by taking Route 119 south to Highway 50 instead. It was a mountain road that wound its way through rural communities, and backtracked some. But it sounded better to Morris than “significant delays.” The twenty-mile diversion figured to still put them in Clarksburg in a little over an hour.

  Route 119 took them through spectacular scenery. This might very well had been where John Denver was driving when he wrote the lyrics to Country Roads. Lush forests of sugar maples occasionally yielded to even greener fields of knee-high crops of some sort, with a quaint township dotting the landscape every ten to fifteen miles. The only other vehicles they encountered were motorcycles and tractors.

  …Except for one Amish horse and buggy, trotting slowly on a slight downgrade through a heavily wooded section. Morris had to brake hard when he came up on them. The buggy, perhaps in reaction, moved to the center of the road.

  “Are they letting me by on the right?” Morris mumbled.

  Several Amish sat on the rear of the cart with a load of hay. One held a pitchfork.

  Morris waited, but the cart stayed in the middle of the road, blocking both ways around it.

  Then it slowed even more.

  “What the heck?” Morris said. “This isn’t even an Amish area.”

  “Ryan,” Malcolm said in a concerned voice. He gripped the shotgun tighter and rolled down the window. Something wasn’t right.

  The buggy then came to an abrupt halt. The Amish farmer with the pitchfork set it down behind the hay. When his hand reappeared, it held a shotgun.

  Malcolm opened the passenger door of the truck and swung out with it, propping himself up with elbows on top of the door, keeping one foot in the door jamb for support. He aimed the shotgun at the back of the cart as the three Amish men jumped off it. The other two now held pistols.

  Malcolm fired a shell into one of the haystacks just as Morris stuck the truck in reverse. Malcolm had to hold the top of the swinging door with his armpits to keep from falling out of the cab, and was unable to pump the shotgun to load the next round.

  Fortunately, the startled Amish impersonators had an abrupt change of plan after being fired upon. The one with the shotgun ran left off the highway. The other two went into the trees on the right.

  They weren’t the only ones who were startled. The horses also panicked, and ran to the right shoulder. The cart followed, but when the horses cut back left the cart kept going straight. It toppled, ending up on its side just off the road. The horses were forced to stop.

  Ryan appeared next to Malcolm outside the cab, standing above the still-open passenger door at the hinges. He had the 10/22 rifle in his hands.

  “Go past them, Morris!” he shouted.

  Morris stopped his retreat. Malcolm regained his balance and pumped the shotgun. His leg, still inside the cab, was now tangled with Ryan’s, who was also balancing himself between the open truck door and the door jamb.

  Morris drove them forward again. As he did, Ryan began firing rapidly—and over a wide pattern—into the trees on the right side of the road. When they came to the crashed buggy, he switched to the left side. Malcolm decided to put a couple more shotgun blasts on the right side.

  Morris put the truck in third gear, then fourth. By that time they were safely past the scene. Malcolm and Ryan pulled themselves back inside and Malcolm closed the door.

  “Dammit!” Morris said. “Dammit! I’ve got to be more careful. It really is dangerous out here. Thanks, guys.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ryan said. But Malcolm could tell by his tone he wasn’t happy.

  Malcolm noticed Morris’s knuckles stay white as he kept a death-grip on the steering wheel for seven or eight miles. Malcolm was on edge himself, and grateful that they encountered no additional traffic on Route 119. In another fifteen minutes they came to the Highway 50-West transition, where everyone began breathing normally again.

  Not that Highway 50 bore any resemblance to the New Jersey Turnpike. But it was bigger than Route 119, with a much wider clearing on both sides. It took them through frequent towns and didn’t cut into steep mountain passes. Just as importantly, there were other motorists using it—including police, military, and additional food delivery trucks.

  Malcolm finally spoke. “I don’t mean to tell you your business, Morris, but you may want to adjust your priorities during the food shortage. Making good time isn’t as important as staying safe. Being delayed on an interstate, surrounded by police, sounds wonderful to me after taking that mountain road.”

  “Agreed,” Morris said. “You’re right. That was foolish of me. I’ll be sticking to the main highways and waiting out traffic jams from now on.”

  Within another half-hour they arrived in Clarksburg. Morris pulled off the highway and drove on city streets several blocks before turning into a housing tract, where he stopped in front of a single-story home. He honked the horn three times. A short Army Reservist wearing fatigues emerged from the house, carrying a small pack and an assault rifle. Malcolm was happy to see him, but it meant he and Ryan had to squish together in the extra cab space for the rest of the trip.

  It went fast. The reservist heard about the shootout at Oak Grove Farm yesterday and was enthusiastic to learn the finer details of the story. For him, they arrived in Pennsboro much too quickly. Ryan had Morris drop them at the edge of town rather than force him onto a dirt road for three and a half miles. Morris opened the rear of the truck and presented them with a box of ice-cold spinach as unofficial payment for their services. Ryan decided to leave the box on the truck, stuffing the spinach into Malcolm’s backpack. They said their goodbyes.

  Malcolm and Ryan found themselves alone. That hadn’t been the case for 36 hours.

  “Looks like we made it,” Malcolm said as they hiked the dirt road, packs on their backs. Malcolm still held the shotgun, and Ryan didn’t bother breaking down the 10/22.

  “Yep.” Ryan smiled. “What should have taken eight hours took two and a half days, but we made it.”

  “I feel a little lucky we made it at all, to be honest.”

  Ryan took the rifle off his shoulder and held it with both hands. “When you’re prepared, a ‘little’ luck is all you need.”

  “Well, you certainly were. Kayaks. Scooters. Buried gas. A case of wine stashed at the homeless camp. I would have thought you were nuts doing all that. But we needed every bit of all your wacky preparations.”

  “No we didn’t. Not even close.”

  Malcolm tilted his head. Ryan smiled back mischievously.

  Malcolm chuckled as he looked around at the West Virginia countryside just north of Pennsboro. If planet Ear
th could boast a greener place than this, Malcolm hadn’t seen it. Thick forestry cradled occasional clearings of homesteads, small farms, ponds, and creeks. The trees would recede as they passed private roads or driveways, but the farther they walked the less frequent those became.

  “I almost became your neighbor,” Malcolm mumbled.

  “What’s that?”

  “The Friday after you left, I looked through your Off Grid Magazine and found a plot of land near West Union. Had a foundation and a well already dug.”

  “How much was it listed for?”

  “Forty-eight thousand. I didn’t even bother haggling and offered them full price.”

  “And they wouldn’t take it?” Ryan sounded flabbergasted.

  “Oh, they took it all right. I had a signed purchase contract in my hands the same evening.”

  “So what happened?”

  “They backed out a couple days later, after the market completely crashed.”

  “Can they do that?”

  “No, but they did. Their realtor sent my deposit back and refused to provide wiring instructions to complete the deal. If they won’t sign the deed over, what can I do?”

  “Take them to court.”

  Malcolm looked at Ryan and contorted his face. “Really?”

  Ryan laughed. “Maybe not. Under the current circumstances, I mean. I’m proud of you for trying, Malcolm. Damn! Your place would have been less than ten miles from mine. That would’ve been one hell of a surprise. Guess I was wrong about you after all.”

  “In what respect?”

  “You know, how I said you couldn’t stop trading no matter how much money you made, and that you’d never purchase any real assets because you couldn’t stand the idea of reducing your bankroll. Sorry about all that.”

  Malcolm thought for a second. “You might have been right.”

  “No, no, you proved me wrong, man. Way to go. Too bad you were a bit late. Normally I’d tell you not to worry, that there are plenty of other land plots for sale around here—but as you’ve discovered, the sellers aren’t likely to accept U.S. currency anymore.”

  “I know,” Malcolm said. “It just makes me sick. Here I am after making millions, poorer than ever.”

  Ryan stopped in his tracks. “What did you say?”

  “Millions, Ryan. I made millions. Bet everything I had on the crash and parlayed the winnings. Abandoned all sound reasoning and went totally rogue, hoping to score big and get my wife back. And I won, too. But it doesn’t amount to more than that anthill over there.”

  Ryan looked back and forth between Malcolm and the anthill several times. “We need to talk about this. After we get set up.”

  “We about there?”

  “Yes. Let’s go up this way. I have something to show you.” He left the road, walked past the anthill to a creek bed, and waved for Malcolm to come along.

  “Isn’t this a neighbor’s land?” Malcolm asked.

  “No, the creek is public. Borders my property on the south and west. We’ll get the view I want you to see coming in from this direction.”

  Malcolm followed. After a short ways, Ryan led them away from the creek towards a thick patch of trees. When they got close, the trees suddenly parted, giving way to a wide clearing.

  And on the other side of the clearing, just beyond a wooden picnic table, a small blue and white travel trailer sat parked, looking as though it belonged there every bit as much as the trees. It even had a tarp giving shade to the front side.

  “What’s that?” Malcolm asked.

  “That, my friend, is our home. For a while, anyway.”

  “Wow!” Malcolm patted him on the back. The little round trailer wasn’t much, nor was it new—but Malcolm recognized it for the beacon of shining light it was. They had shelter, and weren’t going to have to sleep on the ground.

  “I’m surprised you left the tarp up,” Malcolm said.

  Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “Thought I didn’t. Hmm. Stay quiet and follow me.”

  Ryan took them into another grove and began to circle the clearing, staying behind cover. Twice he stopped and gave Malcolm the shushing sign, appearing to strain to listen.

  Then they came to a plastic storage shed. Ryan inspected it and seemed satisfied, but they continued to creep through the trees.

  Closer to the trailer, they came upon another shed. This time Ryan wasn’t satisfied. The door was open, and the latch looked broken. Ryan waved Malcolm down to a crouching position, where they stayed in place a few minutes.

  Malcolm then heard a muffled noise coming from close by. He didn’t recognize the sound, but knew it wasn’t natural.

  “Someone’s in my trailer,” Ryan whispered.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Garth Crowley sat calmly as the well-dressed female snooped her way to the front side of the garage that doubled as his shop. He watched her through the side window first. She made an unorthodox approach, and spent more time than he liked sniffing around the trailhead.

  Finally, she appeared before the open garage door.

  “Is this your shop?” she said with an authority only a cop could summon.

  Garth never liked women in suits. This one was attractive enough, with neck-long blond hair giving way to a shapely figure that was a little too firm on top. She was probably wearing armor.

  “You don’t look like you’re here to do business,” Garth replied.

  The woman reached into a coat pocket and produced a badge. No surprise there.

  “I’m here to conduct federal business,” she said, “which may include purchasing an off-road motorcycle from you, assuming you have one for sale. Looks like you build them?”

  “Yeah, I build ‘em.” Garth stood. “I repair them, take them apart, put them back together again, junk them, buy them, sell them, and sometimes eat them. What can I do for you, Miss…”

  “Agent Carter. Judging by the parts you have here, I’d say you could put together at least two running dirt bikes and one quad-runner, couldn’t you?”

  Garth sneered. “Is that what the federal government wants from me? To buy two bikes and a sissy-runner? If so, I hope they’re prepared to pay me in something other than worthless American currency.”

  “Would you accept gold bars?” Agent Carter asked.

  She was a clever one. Garth thought for a second before responding. The best thing to probably do was appease her, and let her move on thinking she had done her job. In order to do that, he would need to call her bluff.

  “Gold, huh?” Garth forced a more cheerful tone. “That would be a new one for me. Times certainly are changing. Why not? I’ve accepted about everything else in trade over the years. Sorry about my manners. I don’t get many customers who look like you—and usually visits from law enforcement are an unpleasant experience, with suspicious cops rummaging through my piles looking for parts off stolen bikes. I’m Garth.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Agent Carter said dryly.

  “I’ve got a half-dozen 750 motors and several good frames they can go on, so two isn’t a problem. That Quad in the back I can have ready in an hour. It’ll be slower than the bikes, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “So the question, then, is what should I charge you?” Garth rubbed his scraggly chin. “Don’t know much about gold, though I guess I’m going to have to learn. If I remember right, before the stock market crash it was selling for about twelve hundred an ounce, right? Got no idea what it is now, but I’m guessing it’s a lot higher. What do you say we call it an even deal for two ounces? I promise the bikes will run great.”

  Agent Carter didn’t answer. She just kept poking around the parts pile.

  “You going to be using them …locally?” Garth asked.

  The bitch spun her head back at Garth and stared. It was a chilling look.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. We’re chasing a home invasion gang we suspect is hiding in the nearby hills. So I advise you to be careful.”

  “I apprec
iate that, Agent …Carter, is it? But there’s no need to worry about me.”

  She tilted her head. “No, I wager there isn’t. Have you seen any strangers around lately? There’d be three of them, all male, riding the kind of transportation that would blend perfectly into your parts pile.”

  “Nope.” Garth ignored the insinuation. “Nobody new has been around. Only the usual neighbors. I’ll be sure to warn them as well.”

  “You certain? There are fresh tracks on the side of your shop that more or less match the type of vehicles we’re searching for.”

  “Look, lady.” Garth pointed towards the side yard and moved his arm in a wide motion. “My usual customers park there, and most of them arrive by bike or quad, especially lately. That’s also where I do my test rides, as there’s a trailhead behind the shop. So there’s always bike tracks all over that ground.”

  “It rained two nights ago,” Agent Carter said. “These tracks are in the freshly-dried dirt. Must have been made yesterday or this morning. And I don’t see any bikes in here that appear immediately ride-able.”

  Garth remained still, forcing himself to keep his composure. Finally, he offered a shrug.

  “I don’t know what to tell you. I was out there earlier on a bike I’ve taken apart since. Maybe some others came by while I was out on the trail. You interested in the transaction or not?”

  Another short staring contest ended when the bitch nodded.

  “Yes,” she said. “I believe we are. Can you have them ready for me in two days? I’ll be back with my partners and the payment.”

  “Two days. Okay, it’s a deal. You got a card or something where I can reach you?”

  Agent Carter seemed reluctant, but she surrendered a business card before leaving.

  When the sound of her black SUV faded in the distance, Garth whistled. The side door to the house opened. Duncan, Joseph, and Chad came back out into the shop.

  * * *

  “It could be Hannah and her partner,” Malcolm said.

  Ryan shook his head and pointed to the old Plymouth Duster on the back side of the trailer. “Would they be driving such a piece of crap? And intentionally park so it was hidden?”