Cantina Valley (A Ben Adler Mystery Book 1)

by Trevor Scott

  “Absolutely. Not in humans, of course. But in other creatures on Earth it is not uncommon. Look at the chameleon, which changes color to match its environment. Even more realistic is the octopus, which not only changes color, but also changes shape and texture. Let’s say the Bigfoot can change to human form. He could be living among us right now.” Marlon suddenly turned to Ben. “Shit. You could be one.”

  Ben laughed. “Not likely. I wouldn’t have joined the Air Force.”

  “They could be infused throughout our society, Ben. There have been sightings in every state in America, from Maine to California. From Minnesota to Texas. Like I said, perhaps they can only maintain the human form for a short period and must go into the woods when they shift back to Bigfoot form.”

  Maggi leaned forward, stretching against her seatbelt. “How would they give birth?”

  Marlon considered that conundrum. “Well, not in a hospital. The medical people would be able to determine they were not human. Maybe once they get pregnant they head up into the wilderness to give birth. There have been many sightings of younger Sasquatch.”

  All three of them sat in silence for a while, considering the prospect of what this former professor was postulating. Ben reasoned that he had questions about his own faith in God, so could he possibly believe in shape-shifting Bigfoot aliens?

  A squawk from the radio broke the silence.

  Marlon grabbed the radio, pressed the talk button, and said, “Say again.”

  A bunch of garbled talk came over the small speaker.

  “Was that gunfire in the background?” Ben asked.

  “You’re not coming through,” Marlon said into the radio.

  “How far are we to the first camp?” Ben asked.

  Slowing the truck, Marlon turned onto a smaller road heading to the south. “About two miles up this road.” Then into the handheld radio Marlon said, “Say again. You’re not coming through.”

  Ben saw a vehicle coming down the mountain toward them. The road was barely wide enough for both trucks. As the dark blue truck got closer, Ben could see something wasn’t right.

  “Pull over to the side,” Ben demanded.

  Marlon found a wide spot and did just that.

  Ben grabbed his AR-15 and jumped out. “Get down,” he yelled, before rushing around the back end of the SUV.

  As the truck passed by them, Ben saw the barrel of the rifle extend farther out the window. Flashes came from the barrel and then the sound of semi-automatic gunfire broke through the mountain air.

  The truck continued past, picking up speed. Ben trained his rifle on the rear of the truck and squeezed off a dozen shots, hitting the back end of the truck. By now the truck had rounded a corner and was out of sight.

  Ben rushed to the back seat of the truck and opened the door, finding Maggi still hunkered down. “Are you all right?”

  She sat up, her eyes wide and her disposition uncertain. “I think so.”

  “In case you care, I’m fine too,” Marlon said from the front seat.

  Looking closer, Ben could see that the shooter had aimed high, not even hitting the side of Marlon’s truck. What the hell was going on?

  Suddenly, a large truck came from the direction of the truffle camp.

  Ben got out with his AR-15, unsure if it was a second truck affiliated with those who had just shot at them, or simply a group of deer hunters.

  The truck slowed and came to a halt next to them, the driver’s window down. Behind the wheel was Kevin Engel, the new owner of the Compound.

  By now, Marlon Telford had also gotten out of his vehicle.

  “What the hell is going on?” Marlon asked.

  Kevin shifted his head toward the road behind him and said, “We just got attacked.”

  “I told you they might be coming,” Marlon said. “They just shot at us as they passed us.”

  “Is anyone hurt?” Ben asked.

  “John took a bullet to the arm,” Kevin said. “We patched him up and are bringing him to town.”

  “I’m fine,” a large man said from the back seat. “It’s a graze. I was hit four times in Iraq. This is nothing.”

  “What the hell is going on?” Kevin asked Marlon.

  Shaking his head, Marlon said, “It’s the truffle cartel. They’re pissed that we’re selling our product there.”

  “That’s crazy,” Kevin said.

  Maggi had gotten out of the truck and she nudged her way toward the driver. “Is Tavis McGuffin in camp?”

  Kevin considered her question. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m his sister.”

  Now Kevin lifted his chin with acknowledgment. “You were with Ben at our place the other day.”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “Guff is back at the camp breaking down our gear,” Kevin said.

  Marlon broke in. “Did they get the product?”

  Kevin shook his head. “No. We’re making the delivery now. We better get going. We have one stop before the airport.”

  Marlon tapped his hand on the roof of the truck and said, “All right. Carry on.”

  The truck drove off and the three of them piled into Marlon’s SUV, continuing on toward the truffle camp.

  21

  By the time they got to the truffle camp up the road, all the tents had been broken down and were being rolled up and placed into the back of a truck bed.

  When the men noticed the vehicle, all four of them pulled guns until Marlon Telford got out of his SUV and waved at them.

  Then Ben and Maggi also got out.

  Maggi walked quickly toward her brother and put the man in a bear hug, not letting go of him for a considerable amount of time. While she hugged him, she whispered in his ear. To do so, Maggi had to stand on her toes, since her brother was a good six inches taller than her. Tavis McGuffin was a strong man with broad shoulders, still wearing his hair in a tight military style.

  Ben hung back and watched as Marlon talked with the three other men. He wasn’t sure what more he could do, since Maggi had officially found her brother. He guessed that Marlon Telford had a problem, but the man had enough money to make that problem go away. In some cases money solved everything. But Ben was wondering what motivated Marlon. Didn’t the man have enough money? Perhaps his motivation was more toward the unseen. The Bigfoot impact. Telford was seemingly a man on a mission.

  Maggi pulled on her brother’s hand and brought Tavis to Ben. She introduced them and Ben and Tavis exchanged a strong handshake.

  “Maggi tells me you were former Air Force,” Tavis said.

  “Guilty. Retired now.”

  “We had an OSI agent imbedded with us in Afghanistan,” Tavis revealed. “He was very good at interrogation.”

  Since the Air Force had more than two thousand special agents, Ben didn’t ask for a name.

  Tavis continued, “Could you tell my sister that I’m all right? That I can handle myself?”

  Ben smiled. “I think I mentioned something about you being a grown assed man.”

  “See,” Tavis said to his sister. “Listen to this man.”

  Assessing the situation, Ben reasoned that Tavis probably felt more alive today than he had since leaving the Army. The hard realization of every former military member was the notion that they would never do anything as important as serving their country. The loss of that importance was probably a major factor in so many former military members taking their own lives as they struggled to integrate into a society that could never understand them.

  “What happened here, Tavis?” Ben asked.

  Tavis turned toward a grove of spruce and firs. “A couple of us were just coming in with our buckets full of truffles when we heard gunfire. We came running and found the rest of the guys engaged in a firefight. So we started sending lead downrange.”

  “It’s amazing nobody was killed,” Maggi said. “This is crazy fighting over truffles.”

  “We were just defending ourselves, Mags,” Tavis said.
r />   “I understand,” she said. “But still.”

  “How many were there?” Ben asked.

  “I think three, plus the driver. We could have used that AR-15. I’d say nobody died because they were at a stand-off position down the road, and all we had were our handguns. They were out of our effective range. They had AR-15s. They should have been able to pick us off, so they had to be horse shit shots.”

  Or they weren’t trying to hit anyone, Ben thought. But he kept that to himself.

  “My concern is how these men found your camp,” Ben said.

  “We’ve been racking our brains about that as well,” Tavis said. “Kevin said he got word from Marlon Telford that his house was also shot up.”

  “We were there,” Maggi said. “Ben returned fire and scared them off.”

  “Thanks for protecting my big sis,” Tavis said.

  “We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Ben said. “But that’s why I carry.”

  “Same here,” Tavis said, tapping the butt of his handgun on his right hip. “I’ve been trying to convince Maggi to carry for years.”

  “I’ll work on her,” Ben said. “Maybe a little three-eighty for her purse.”

  “Christmas is coming.”

  “You boys and your guns,” she said.

  Ben said, “Nobody wants or needs a gun until they actually need one. Then they’re glad they have one.”

  “I like this guy,” Tavis said. “Listen, we need to get packed up and down the mountain. We head out to a new location in the morning.”

  Maggi gave her brother another long hug. Then her brother pulled away and went back to work packing up their truck.

  Ben nudged next to Maggi and said, “He seems like a good young man.”

  “He is.” She let out a heavy breath of air. “Thank you for sticking with me.”

  “I didn’t do much,” he admitted. “Besides, I fully expect you to get those assholes at the IRS and the EPA off my back.”

  “I already sent a scathing letter to the IRS,” she said. “In due time they’ll send a letter to me saying, at no fault of their own, that you have complied with all regulations. It’s a delicate dance. Sometimes you have to give them a little incentive to save face. If you push back too hard, they start digging for more.”

  “There’s nothing to find,” he said. “This all started with the disposition of property with the death of my parents. Once that was cleared up, they went after additional income they think I did not report.” Of course he was telling her something she already knew.

  “I know. The EPA will be more difficult to persuade.”

  “How can they think the state of Oregon or the federal government controls the rain that falls on my property?”

  “That will be my argument,” Maggi said.

  “That’s like charging those in Nevada a sun tax, because they shouldn’t be allowed to get all that sun for free.”

  “I’m sure they’re trying to come up with a tax table for that as we speak,” she said.

  Marlon Telford wandered over to them.

  “Are you ready to head out to your other truffle sites?” Ben asked.

  “There are two other crews,” Marlon said. “And we were able to get them both on the radio. Both are keeping an eye out for any trouble. They’re much more remote than this camp.”

  “Have you tried to figure out how the truffle cartel got this location?” Ben asked.

  Marlon shook his head. “These men don’t know. I’ll talk with Kevin when I get off the mountain and can pick up a cell signal.”

  “We should report this attack,” Maggi said. “As well as the one at your house. They’ve gone from taking pot shots to actually hitting one of your men. That’s a felony.”

  Marlon mulled that with great consternation. Finally, he said, “I’ll bring it up with the sheriff. I’ve known him for years.”

  “If this truffle cartel can’t dissuade you from selling to the Europeans, they might ramp up their attacks,” Ben concluded.

  “I know,” Marlon said softly.

  “Do you know who might have hired these men?”

  “Probably the Latin Truffle Consortium,” Marlon said. “They’re mostly the French, Italians and Spanish, but their membership extends to Portugal to the west and into the former Yugoslav countries to the east. The Greeks are about to join, I hear.”

  “Well, you’ve pissed them off.”

  “I can undercut their prices,” Marlon said. “I could make a much bigger profit by using illegal aliens at a cheaper labor rate, but I refuse to do so. I pay the collectors a lot of money. They take a percentage of what they pick. That way they have an incentive to pick more.”

  “I’m sure my brother and the others appreciate that,” Maggi said.

  Marlon said, “I hire mostly veterans. They deserve a good break after what they’ve sacrificed for this country.”

  Maggi surprised the former professor by giving him a big hug. “Good for you,” she said as she pulled away from him.

  Marlon, a little flustered, glanced at Ben and asked, “Would you consider coming to work for me?”

  “Digging truffles is a young man’s game,” Ben said.

  “No, you know what I mean. I need security. But more than that, I need to find these people who are trying to destroy my efforts. Not to mention putting these good men in danger.”

  “I’ll sleep on it, Marlon.”

  “That’s all I ask.”

  22

  By the time Ben and Maggi got down out of the mountains, it was late afternoon. Ben picked up his truck at Marlon’s house and urged the man to notify the police about both shootings. But he had a feeling Marlon wouldn’t report them. Would the police believe there was such a thing as a truffle cartel? Doubtful. Ben wasn’t sure he believed it. Maggi was sure she didn’t believe. In fact, she seemed to be having a hard time believing anything that had happened since she had met Ben and Marlon.

  Now, having driven back to his house, the two of them sat in his living room sharing a bottle of pinot noir from Springdale Winery.

  Ben stared out the picture window at his back yard, which angled upward toward the Coast Range in a wide grassy swatch where deer and turkeys often came to feed. Periodically a small herd of elk would also show up. But now the animals must have been hunkering down to fend off the relentless rain that had started falling again in earnest just after they had gotten to his house.

  “It’s so peaceful here,” Maggi said.

  “Yes, it is. It’s not a bad life.”

  “I’m really impressed at all the things you make.”

  “You haven’t seen half of it,” he said. “I have a huge root cellar built into the hillside with just about anything you could imagine stored there.”

  “For the zombie apocalypse?” She grinned and sipped her wine.

  “I don’t know much about zombies, but we are just one pandemic virus away from real trouble in this world. If that happens, isolation is the only thing that will save anyone. At least until governments can find a viable cure.”

  “If that happens, how many people will show up at your door?” she asked.

  “By next year I should have enough stores to supply enough for five people for five years. So, that means four more.”

  “How many do you have on your list so far?”

  “Nobody has ever asked.”

  “Not even Sonya?”

  “Like I told you, we are mostly just friends.”

  “With benefits.”

  “Nothing exclusive.” He thought for a moment and then added, “Anyone who shows up here doesn’t get a free ride.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “I mean, they’ll have to work the garden, collect eggs, milk the cows. Know how to shoot guns.”

  “You think you’ll need to protect what you have?”

  “Of course. Every scenario for a collapse of society includes potential armed conflict.” He took a long sip of wine, his eyes concentrating o
n Maggi.

  “I do know how to shoot,” she said. “Growing up in Central Oregon kind of requires it.”

  “I had a feeling. You want to see something?”

  “Sure.”

  He set down his glass of wine, got up and she followed him toward his master bedroom. Once in the bedroom, he walked toward the en suite bathroom but turned right into a walk-in closet, clicking on an overhead light.

  “I need a closet this big,” she said. “You barely have any of the racks filled.”

  “Well,” he said. “All my Air Force uniforms, which I rarely wore for twenty years, are in sealed boxes in a back closet. Most of the clothes I wore as a special agent I gave to charity. These are mostly work clothes.”

  “Okay,” she said. “You wanted to show me your clothes?”

  He smiled. “Not exactly.” He moved a jacket hanging on a hook and punched in a four-digit code to a cipher lock. An audible lock released and the cedar paneling on one wall popped open. He pulled the door open further and a light came on automatically, revealing his hidden storage of weapons. To the left was a line of long guns, from AR-15s to tactical shotguns and scoped hunting rifles. To the right was three shelves of identical 9mm handguns. Above the handguns was a padded shelf with rows of full magazines for the AR-15s and the handguns. Across the floor under the handguns were ammo boxes.

  Maggi stood with her mouth open. “Wow.”

  “Does this disturb you?” he asked.

  “No. That’s not the word I’d use. I’m a little turned on.”

  “Just a little?”

  She turned to him with a look he had not seen in her since she asked if he wanted to shower with her. Then she latched on to him and kissed him passionately on the lips, which he reciprocated.

  Together they embraced and moved out to the bedroom, alternating between kissing and ripping off their clothes. By the time they reached his bed, they were wearing only their underwear.

  She stepped back and removed her bra, exposing nice breasts that curved up, the nipples hard as a rock. Then, her chest heaving, she dropped her underwear, revealing a tiny landing strip.