They were out of the rain and headed for The Sunshine State.
***
Back in Ridge Creek, Amber and Brittany were reading the morning news with great interest as they sipped their coffee.
The stories about the bank robbery were fascinating, as well as the search for a man named Tanner, who the girls were fairly certain was the same man they knew by the name of Romeo.
They both agreed that what was written about their friend couldn’t be true, and they wondered if they would ever see him again.
Amber made a face of displeasure as she took a sip of her coffee and found it to be cold. She had been so engrossed in reading about the bank robbery and the goings on at the jail, that she had forgotten it.
She rose from her chair and walked to the microwave to heat it, and that’s when she found the twenty grand Tanner had left them inside the machine.
There was also a note.
Don’t wait. Open your shop now — Romeo.
The girls did as the note said and, weeks later, a new salon opened in Philadelphia.
It was named, ROMEO’S.
THE LIFE & DEATH OF CODY PARKER
By
REMINGTON KANE
CHAPTER 1 - King of the road
Forty hours after he leapt off a pedestrian walkway and onto a train, Tanner awoke to find himself still riding the rails. He was also fighting for his life, as a large man lifted him from the floor and slammed him against a wall of the train car.
Tanner, still weak from his wounds, slid to the floor and let out a moan. The moan was real, as was the pain that gave it birth, but he exaggerated his reaction and let his hands drop onto his lap.
The behemoth who had assaulted Tanner glared down at him in disgust and then started in on an old man who was cowering in a corner.
“I want everything you two got; otherwise, I’ll toss you off the train.”
The man had a long black beard that nearly covered his entire face, leaving just a potato-sized nose and two dark eyes showing.
Tanner made his move as the brute reached for the old man and sent an uppercut between the big man’s legs to smash his testicles.
The brute bent over so fast that he slammed the crown of his head against the wall beside the old man and suffered a cut from the impact.
Tanner had given the punch everything he had, but because he was weakened from the gunshot wound he’d recently suffered, it was a question of who would recover first, him, or the big man.
It was Tanner who recovered first, and he jabbed stiff fingers at the man’s throat, but the blow was cushioned by the woolly beard and had little effect.
Then, Tanner watched with surprise as the old man kicked the big man in the gut and sent him tumbling backwards.
Tanner grabbed the man by his beard and dragged him towards the open door of the moving train car, with the intention of pushing him off. The man realized what he planned to do, and, in a panic, he made it to his feet.
Tanner let go of the beard, tried to hit him in the throat again and managed only to jab the man on the ear.
The bearded man growled and reached out a hand to grab Tanner’s throat, but Tanner ducked beneath the man’s outstretched arm and rammed his clenched fists into the brute’s gut.
The big man bellowed in fear as he nearly fell from the moving car, but he managed to snag the edge of the door with his right hand.
Unfortunately, for him, his weight was causing the door to slide shut, while most of his body was still leaning outside the train.
Once the door slammed into his left foot, which was supporting his weight, his fate was decided, and he tumbled out of the train car with a scream on his lips, as the door slammed shut behind him.
The old man came over and slid open the door, to peer back down the tracks.
“Ouch! That tumble will have him spending time in a hospital for sure.”
When the old man looked back at Tanner, he saw that he was down on one knee.
“You’re dizzy, aren’t you? Well, that’s no surprise after the fever you had.”
Tanner stood on weak legs, walked over to the back wall and slid down to a sitting position with his legs straight out in front of him.
The old man brought him a bottle of water that was half-filled, and Tanner drained it.
Tanner stared at the old man and found that he had vague memories concerning him.
“You helped me, didn’t you?”
“I got that bullet out of you.”
Tanner nodded, as the events of the last two days came back to him.
***
After leaving Ridge Creek, he had evaded being captured by leaping into a coal car, which passed within feet of the train car full of sand he’d first leapt into. By the time that second train finally came to a stop, he found himself in Bowling Green, Kentucky, with a throat as dry as the sand he once laid upon.
Judging by the position of the sun, it was mid-morning, and Tanner realized that he must have slept for hours. He had a fever to go with the dry throat and after checking the wound in his chest, he knew it needed tending to or it would become infected, if it hadn’t already done so.
There was construction going on at the train depot in Kentucky, and inside the job trailer of a plumbing contractor Tanner found bottled water and a first aid kit, along with a bag of potato chips.
After gobbling down the chips, he went through the two desks in the office and found a pint of whiskey, along with a prescription bottle with eight pills remaining inside.
The pills were white, oval-shaped and labeled as Cephalexin, an antibiotic usually prescribed for upper respiratory infections. According to the date on the pharmacy label, the pills had likely expired, but thieves, like beggars, can’t be choosers.
After cleaning his wound with the whiskey, Tanner downed two of the pills and pocketed the bottle, then, he considered finding somewhere on the property to rest up.
It was not to be. The office had a window in the wall, and through it, Tanner had seen a man wearing sunglasses talking to two cops who were inside a patrol car, and the man with the sunglasses was pointing towards the trailer he was in.
The man must have seen him enter the trailer, which had been locked and pried open by Tanner using a claw hammer he’d found nearby.
Tanner stuffed the bandages and painkiller from the first aid kit into a pocket of his cargo pants, and as he was doing that, he realized he no longer had the gun he had used in Ridge Creek, and which had been the Chief of Police’s duty weapon.
The empty gun had been tucked in his waistband, but must have fallen out along the way; Tanner’s best guess is that it was still in the train car that carried the coal.
However, acquiring a new weapon would have to wait, and Tanner left the trailer before the cops could trap him inside.
He made it clear of the trailer, but when more cops joined the hunt, Tanner again climbed aboard a train car, riding inside for once, and traveled towards who knew where.
The train just kept rolling, and as it did, Tanner felt himself become more feverish. He swallowed more of the antibiotics, but doubted they would work any better than the first dose had.
In time, he slept, but awoke to see an old man peering down at him with a concerned expression. He knew the man was old because he glimpsed the deep wrinkles around the man’s eyes, but could see little detail in the gloom of the darkened train car.
“That bullet has to come out,” the old man said, and Tanner had nodded in agreement.
“Where are we?”
“Just outside, Dallas,”
“Texas?”
“Yeah,”
The old man had held a bottle of water to his lips and Tanner drank it greedily, while realizing how weak he had grown. He knew he was hot with fever. He also realized that it was night again and had a vague memory of stumbling out of one train car and climbing into another.
“Doctor,” he said.
The old man smiled.
“Just call me,
Doc.”
And then, Tanner was out again.
The next time he opened his eyes, was when he was rudely awakened by the bearded man he had shoved off the train.
***
Tanner stood, felt the pain in his wound, and when he looked at it, saw that it had been bandaged. He lifted the bloodstained gauze that had been taped in place and found a neat row of blue stitches that appeared to be made of simple sewing thread.
He looked down at the old man, who was seated on the floor.
“You do decent work.”
“Thank you and you’re not the first man I’ve had to stitch up on the fly.”
Tanner’s clothes were damp with sweat and he smelled sour, but when he laid a hand on his forehead, he could tell that the fever had broken. He looked out through the open door and saw desert, but could also make out a highway in the distance.
When his bladder reminded him that there were more urgent matters than sightseeing, Tanner stood at the edge of the open door, whipped it out, and watched his stream wet the weeds that grew between his train and the tracks on the opposite side.
“Where are we?”
The old man pointed towards the south.
“We should be pulling into the train yard at Culver, Texas in about twenty minutes.”
Tanner turned his head and blinked at the old man, as surprise animated his usually stoic features.
“Culver?”
“Yeah, there’s not much there but the train yard, but to the east is the town of—”
“Stark,” Tanner said. “To the east is Stark, Texas.”
“I guess you’ve been there before, because Stark is barely a dot on the map.”
Tanner nodded.
“Yeah, I’ve been there before,” he said and his mind drifted off into memory.
CHAPTER 2 - Cody Parker
Stark, Texas, September 1997
The young man with the trim beard calling himself Tanner, had stopped on the side of the road to consult a map, when he saw the dog being chased across a field by three coyotes.
The dog was a beagle; his short legs were no match for the predators who pursued him, and Tanner guessed that the coyotes would run the dog down within seconds.
When something on the dog’s neck twinkled, Tanner assumed that it was a license or nametag attached to a collar, and knew it meant that the hound was someone’s pet. He thought about trying to shoot the beasts pursuing it, but his gun lacked the range and would be useless.
Four seconds later, the fastest of the coyotes moved within inches of the dog. That was when Tanner saw the creature’s head explode, heard the sound of the first rifle shot, and then watched the other two coyotes be torn apart by gunfire, followed by the echo of two more blasts.
Tanner looked over towards the right where a man held a rifle steady. It was perched on the top horizontal slat of a white fence and at least a hundred yards away.
The man had hit three running targets with consecutive shots from that distance, a feat that Tanner would find difficult to duplicate.
When the man sprang over the fence and began walking towards the quivering hound he had saved, Tanner tossed the map back in his car and went out to meet him.
Tanner was closer to the dog, and so he was closer to the dead coyotes as well. When he checked the bodies, he saw that all three had been put down by head wounds.
“Damn impressive,” Tanner muttered, and then he became further impressed as the man drew closer, and he saw that the marksman was even younger than he was, and probably no more than sixteen or seventeen, with dark hair peeking out from beneath the cowboy hat he wore.
At least, he looked young if you didn’t take into account the boy’s eyes, which broadcast more experience than they should have.
“That was some damn fine shooting, kid.”
The boy glanced at him and Tanner could tell that the kid had spotted the bulge of the gun on his hip, beneath his untucked shirt.
After giving a loud whistle for the dog, the animal came over to the boy and rubbed against his legs, while still shaking from fright.
When the boy slung the rifle onto his back by its strap, Tanner could see that it was a Remington 760 with a scope. The pump-action rifle was older than the kid, since they stopped making them some time ago, although the one across the kid’s back looked to be in good shape.
After squatting down to pet the dog, the boy looked up at Tanner.
“Are you passing through, mister?”
“More or less, but maybe you can help me, I’m looking for the McKay Ranch.”
The boy stood again, and Tanner realized that they were about the same height, six feet tall, give or take an inch.
After looking Tanner over again, the boy asked a question.
“What kind of work is McKay paying you to do?”
“Well, that would be between him and me, wouldn’t it?”
The boy just stared at him, and so intense was his gaze that Tanner felt the weight of it as he stared back.
The boy broke eye contact and pointed down the road in the direction that Tanner’s car was facing.
“Go another three miles and you’ll be on McKay’s land.”
Tanner nodded his thanks and then turned to walk back to his car, as he did so, he spoke over his shoulder.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“I’m Cody Parker, what’s yours?”
“Call me Tanner.”
“Hey, Tanner?”
Tanner stopped walking and turned back to look at the boy.
“Yeah?”
“I’m not a kid.”
Tanner smiled. It was only a few years earlier that he was the boy’s age and he remembered that he hated being called kid too and it was the main reason he grew the beard.
“I’ll remember that, Cody, and maybe I’ll see you around.”
Cody Parker tipped his hat and walked off with the dog at his side.
Tanner took one more look at the bodies of the three coyotes and nodded his head slightly.
“Damn fine shooting,” he muttered and headed for his meeting with Andy McKay.
CHAPTER 3 - The old and the new
While seated, Tanner checked the pockets of the cargo pants he was wearing and felt the money he had placed inside one of them.
It was a little less than five thousand dollars.
He looked over at the old man and saw him smile.
“That’s quite a bundle of cash you’ve got there.”
“You went through my pockets?”
“Yeah, and if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have found those antibiotics you had on you. Those pills saved your life you know, I think it was just enough to fight off the fever and infection you had.”
Tanner touched his wound.
“You took the bullet out and stitched me up inside a moving train car?”
“I sure did. I keep a needle and thread in my pack, and lucky for you the bullet wasn’t too deep and hit nothing vital.”
Tanner counted out two thousand dollars and passed it to the old man, whose eyes bulged at the sight of so much cash headed his way.
“That’s payment for helping me.”
“Damn, son, I’m haven’t seen this much cash at one time in years.”
“What’s your name?”
“You can call me Doc.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“I was, but that was many years ago. Now I’m just an old man making it day by day.”
“Why didn’t you call the police when you realized I’d been shot? That way, you could have also taken my money.”
The old man chuckled.
“I hate the damn cops, all they ever do is hassle you, and you look like a man who would hold a grudge and come looking for me someday.”
Tanner thought about pointing out that, given how sick he had been with the fever, the old man could have easily murdered him and taken the money.
The fact that some people never considered killing someone, no matter how expedie
nt it would be, always puzzled Tanner. He had never had a problem with killing anyone if he thought it the best course of action, but then, his conscience, his sense of right and wrong, had always differed from that of others.
“What’s this depot like? Will there be heavy security there?”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. A train yard is like everywhere else these days, fewer people doing more work. Most of the time, the guards stay in their shack and keep out of the sun, and I know how to avoid the cameras.”
“I need a place to wash up.”
“There’s a truck stop a mile from the depot, you can even shower there.”
Tanner studied the old man.
“Why were you headed to Stark, Texas?”
“I heard there was work. I can’t do much at my age, but I can still muck out a stall, of course, thanks to you, I no longer need the money.”
“One of the ranches is hiring?”
“Yeah, the Reyes Ranch, a Mexican family owns it.”
Tanner looked out at the passing scenery and spotted the highway in the distance.
“That’s Highway 16, isn’t it?”
“Yeah and the ranch is not far from it.”
“Are you from this area?”
Doc nodded.
“Originally, yeah,”
“The Reyes Ranch, what did it used to be called?”
The old man’s back straightened.
“Oh, so you know about that, huh? Yeah, it’s the same ranch, the Reyes Ranch used to be called the Parker Ranch and after the... tragedy? The place just sat there for years.”
Tanner stared at the old man.
“Tragedy? That’s one way of putting it.”
The old man, Doc, squinted at Tanner.
“Were you around here back then?”
Tanner ignored the question and stood, as the train began to slow.
“Show me where this truck stop is, and after that... I guess I’ll go to the ranch with you.”
Doc smiled.
“Fine, I could use the company.”
They left the train yard without being harassed and walked across the wide sandy field that separated them from the highway.
The old man wrinkled his nose as the breeze carried Tanner’s scent.
The TANNER Series - Books 4-6 (Tanner Box Set Book 2) Page 12
