I told Smokey, “I spoke with Judge Hammer’s assistant, Mama Lo. Said the Judge claims all he knows is that Doc and his engineer haven’t reported back in over six days, and they’re getting hit by a second blizzard. I’m booked on the 6:30 flight in the morning.” I sighed and glanced at her. “Rabbit okay?”
Smokey nodded. “Yeah. But he’s scared to death about your dad. It brings back unpleasant memories from losing his own father.”
“You have one hell of a great kid there.”
Smokey leaned against me and placed her hand over mine. Jazzy was getting double teamed, and the eight-week-old pup loved it. She lay down and licked our hands at every opportunity.
Smokey asked, “What do you think happened — to Doc, I mean?”
“I don’t know. But if Judge Hammer is involved, it’s something very big. Doc’s not just missing in a blizzard. There’s much more to it than that. Hammer doesn’t give a shit about my father. He’s drawing me into something that I would otherwise not want to get involved with. I just don’t get how Doc’s ended up in the middle.”
“What are you going to do?”
We gazed at one another.
I said, “You don’t want to know.”
Her dark brown eyes reflected the moonlight and seemed deep and unearthly — angelical. “I do.”
“I’m going to find my father — and if it’s foul play, I’m going to kill everyone who’s involved with his disappearance.”
“They’ll put you back in prison.”
“Probably.”
“I was hoping … maybe —”
“With me, you should never hope. I’m the worst horse in the race to bet on — always will be. I don’t canter around the track like the rest of the stallions, don’t go by the track rules. I jump the rail and run my own race.”
She ran her finger down the side of my cheek and neck. With a little theatrics, she said, “They’re all geldings compared to you.”
I smirked, appreciating her injected humor, knowing she was trying to relieve a little tension. “You don’t know that.”
“I can guess,” she said and looked away, her gaze on her own hands. “Besides, I don’t want a man with a harness and a bit in his mouth.”
“Are you sure you want a man at all?”
She kept her eyes fixed on her hands. “Someday. I just need a little more time.”
“But, you’ll never forget him. From everything I’ve heard, he was a one-of-a-kind guy.”
“Yeah, he was,” she said, her eyebrows raised. “And, no, I won’t forget him. I don’t want to. I just want to live a normal life with a partner I can love and feel safe with. And Rabbit needs a father-figure to love, as well.” She picked up Jazzy and laid her across her lap. Then she scooted closer and placed her head on my shoulder. “You’re a one-of-a-kind sort of guy, too. I feel safer with you than anyone I’ve ever known.”
I chuckled. “Bullets flying all about me, and you feel safe?”
“I do.”
Her chin atop Smokey’s thigh, Jazzy wagged a couple of times as if she agreed.
I put my arm around Smokey and leaned my face against her dark hair. It smelled pure and clean but sweet like lilacs after rain. “You’re one crazy lady.”
“I can be. And I want you to go take care of business and come back to me in one piece. I know you’ll do what has to be done.” Finally, she pulled her head back and looked me in the eyes. “And I’m not asking for any kind of commitment. That wouldn’t be fair of me. When the time is right, things might be different for us. Just keep coming back and checking with me, will you?”
Her head went back in place on my shoulder, and I took in her fragrance. I closed my eyes, not eager for the storm ahead, but looking forward to the rainbow I’d find if and when I returned.
Chapter 2
Rillie, E Z?
Just before noon the next morning, Denver International Airport
The flight from LAX was delayed over an hour having to skirt the spring blizzard stalled out over the Rockies. I deplaned from the Delta 737 with Smokey Smith still on my mind. I was determined to ensure the lovely proprietor of the sailboat marina where I live wouldn’t be the one who got away. At the same time, I reminded myself that we didn’t have any sort of agreement or anything close to even an unspoken understanding —except that I’d “keep coming back and checking.” She was a grieving widow and could be for months or even years to come. I was a man still climbing the hill toward forty, with plenty of those “male urges”.
More simply put, I’m a dog. But I can be collared — I’ve been faithful before, and enjoyed being married to my now deceased wife. I miss her so.
I was thinking about Smokey and all the other really wonderful women in my life, when I noticed a beautiful strawberry blonde just outside gate 42 as I walked through. She was a knockout — reminded me a little of an FBI lady friend of mine, Special Agent Pooh Dooley, who worked out of the Big Easy. But this one’s hair was a bit more on the blonde side of red than Poodoo’s.
She held a homemade cardboard sign that said E Z in large letters — and she was getting some big smiles from a whole bunch of guys. She gave them grins in return.
I stepped up to her as the crowd of chuckling men were about to have some fun conversation with her.
“I’m E Z,” I told her.
Her eyes brightened as if they had 100 watt bulbs behind them. She gave a sexy tone to the words that slipped from her full, red lips. “And for a hundred bucks, I am too!”
At first I thought I’d made a mistake, but I quickly realized her little joke was for the benefit of the boys. A couple of them got out their wallets, and I was pretty sure they were about to start a bidding war.
I took her by the arm and ushered her away from the mob of testosterone-filled men that’d formed. “I’m Ethan Zachariah Knight. You must be Rillie Wilde.”
“Rillie Bee Wilde,” she said, flipping the E Z sign like a Frisbee back at the group of disappointed fellas. “At your service.”
“Don’t I wish,” I told her.
She raised her eyebrows. “Some wishes really do come true-hoo-hoo,” she sang.
I got down to business and raised my bag. “This grip is all I have. You got the chopper ready?”
“A Jetranger III at the heliport — just a short tram ride away.”
I had nearly 300 hours in the Jetranger, alone. It has four doors, with a passenger compartment and easily seats four plus the pilot. “Perfect.”
Rillie continued, “They received your pilot credentials, flight plan and the credit card number you faxed. Just waiting for your signature, Mr. Bob Johnson.”
Judge Hammer’s assistant, Mama Lo, had set me up pretty good. Somebody would have to be looking hard to figure out I’d left Southern California. Smiling at her without explaining my alias, I asked. “They say anything about my flight plan?”
“No. The clerk just warned against deviating any from the southeast flight path. He said going west or northwest was totally out of the question with the blizzard.”
Little does he know …. I asked her, “Where do we start our search?”
“Slaughterhouse Yards,” she said. “It’s just on the other side.”
I know she meant the other side of the Continental Divide, where the blizzard had stalled and was at its worst. “Sounds somehow appropriate.”
“Let’s hope not.”
I nodded to her. “From the weather report, this could be one hairy ride. You’d better sit it out.”
“Bullshit!” She stopped in the middle of the concourse, her face serious. “If you’ve got the balls to risk it, I do too.”
I stared into her gorgeous blue eyes, not even wanting to consider her balls. Why me? How am I so lucky to always get hooked up with the beauty queens? Maybe it’s just me, my perception of women in general. To me, big, little, short and tall — black and yellow, red and white — they’re all beauty queens in their own ways.
Inside my head I started
singing my own “E Z Loves the Pretty Women” version of “Jesus Loves the Little Children.”
Rillie continued, “You don’t know how close Doc and I are. He’s your real father. But, in the short time I’ve known him, he’s become about the closest I’ve ever had to one, too. And he’s been a lot more to me, besides.”
I was puzzled by the “a lot more” part. Rillie was one of those women who looked twenty-one. But, from what I learned about her railroad experience from Mama Lo, I guessed she was around thirty — and she looked exceptionally nice in her tight, insulated overalls. My father, Gervase “Doc” Knight, was sixty.
I urged her forward, and she complied without further argument. Within a few minutes, we found the tram to the heliport and boarded.
“How’d you get involved in this, anyway?” I asked, grabbing a handhold inside the tram. “How do you know Judge Hammer?”
“Who?”
“Judge Hammer. He’s the one who called to let me know Doc was missing. When I called him back, his assistant told me to meet you here.”
“I don’t know any Judges, and don’t really care to. John Sites is the one who called me. After telling me about Doc, he asked that I help you make arrangements for the helicopter and help you find your dad. He gave me quite a shopping list, too. It’s all waiting for us in the helicopter.”
“John Sites? I haven’t seen him in years. He’s retired, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, a retired Federal Railroad Administration inspector, but he still dabbles with some contract work for a couple of short lines.”
“He must know the Judge, or Hammer selected him from his background and connections to be the go-between. Judge Hammer has considerable influence with the government.”
“Is that the guy that Doc said you —”
I interrupted her, “Doc would never make a secret agent … or a secret anything. Yeah, I did some mercenary work for the Judge. Quit him years ago.” I changed the subject. “Where exactly are we headed?”
“You filed the flight plan.”
“No, kidding. The fake one. I reported we were going south to Albuquerque. So who’s most likely to know where Doc is?”
“The trainmaster at Slaughterhouse Yards,” she said. “Slaughterhouse is the Colorado Western Express’s interchange with the Union Pacific as well as several short lines serving the western part of the state.”
“Yeah, Doc mentioned he was working out of Slaughterhouse some.”
“Doc and Specks left from there eight days ago with the snowblower consist. They’d positioned themselves about a hundred miles west of the yards in preparation for the big blizzard, and were going to work their way in.”
“So what happened?”
“Something strange right after the first blizzard hit, a day after they left. The last communication Slaughterhouse Yards got was just before they entered dark territory. Specks radioed them while Doc was outside the units, sweeping a switch. Specks said Doc had gone crazy. He told the operator that after Doc got a cell phone call he became emphatic that they dog catch Mother. That’s a nickname for the Mother Lode Express, a unit copper ore train running loaded from a mine in Utah to Denver. Mother picks up a new crew out in western Colorado at Rangely and then again at Slaughterhouse before running to Denver and turning back empty to do it all over again.”
“Is that all the engineer said?”
“Yeah, and that’s the last they’ve heard out of either Specks or Doc. Their communications had been normal stuff up until then.”
“Who’s this Specks guy? That name’s familiar.”
“He’s a buddy of Docs from the old BNSF Railway days. Came over from Kansas a few years ago when the Colorado Western Express was booming. Damn good hoghead. About the best long-haul driver we got — besides me.”
“Uh-huh,” I said and smiled. Then I recalled the name. “Specks — Jimmie “Specks” Reader? Wears thick glasses?”
“One and the same.”
“Yeah, I remember him from back when Doc let me ride in the cab on a local out of Newton running to Emporia, Kansas. He’d always let me ride on his lap and blow the horn — and he’d give me red licorice.”
“Yep, that’s gotta be Specks. Always has a pack of red licorice on him. So how long ago was this that you were riding on Specks’ lap and tooting his horn? You’re not like, weird or anything, are you.”
“When I was six years old, thank you very much.”
“No need to get testicle on me. I was just checking.”
“Got any ideas who called Doc or what was said to get him all worked up?”
“Not a clue. Doc has a lot of friends — and plenty of foes, too. Some people get kinda pissed when you tell them the truth. Doc’s never pulled a punch the two years I’ve known him. And we were together for most of that time.”
My dad is, well, let’s say opinionated. He’s made his share of enemies over his sixty years of life by speaking his mind every chance he gets.
The curiosity was killing me. “Together?”
“Yeah, he was my ramrod, and I was his driver.”
“Conductor and engineer?”
“Sure. What else would I mean?”
I didn’t reply.
She turned away, keeping her eyes averted, and she seemed somewhat solemn. “We were that, too, for about eighteen months before he dumped me in favor of his Mary.”
My mother died five years back, just before I went to prison. Doc had hooked up with his Mary two years later. She’s a wonderful gal. She’d been close friends with my mother. Doc always referred to her as “my Mary”.
Then one day, Doc decided to retire early. He moved his Mary and my kids to Crested Butte, bought a B & B and started contracting to the Colorado Western Express, part time. In the two years he’d been in Colorado, he said he made more money, worked less and was able to be home more.
To think that he’d cheat on his Mary, even though they weren’t actually married, was disheartening to me. Of course, I wasn’t privy to all the details. There could have been extenuating circumstances I didn’t know to consider.
We didn’t talk anymore until we made the heliport, and then the conversation was all business.
Within forty-five minutes, we were inspecting the Bell Jetranger III on the tarmac.
Rillie said, “By the way, they said we shouldn’t need the rotor heater.”
I was impressed. “This bird has a rotor de-icing system?”
“Yeah, electronic.”
I took a look at the thin rubber sheet cemented to the leading edge of the rotor blades. This system was the type that had resistive elements embedded in the rubber. An uncommon feature on a JetRanger, when they worked, they were great.
“Of course, they didn’t know the real direction we’re headed, but I think they were wrong about us not needing the heaters,” Rillie said. She pointed at the thunderheads looming in the west. “Thundersnow.”
Towering and ominous, the billowing wall of storm clouds threw fiery bolts from their dark underbellies along with millions of tons of snow and ice — and that was exactly where we were headed.
Chapter 3
Whirly Bird or Snow Bird?
1:35 PM MST, Heading west from Denver International Airport, gaining altitude
The chatter from the helicopter leasing facility, then the Denver control tower, seemed endless and very annoying. After reporting the Jetranger’s compass and GPS malfunctioning, I switched the helicopter’s radio off.
Rillie turned it back on and synced her iPhone with it. She began bopping to her favorite music. Not necessarily appropriate at the moment to me, still, I enjoyed glancing at her on occasion as she sang along to the lyrics of “Call Me, Maybe” a few too many times. She had a lovely voice, and it lifted my spirits some watching the beautiful woman enjoying herself — especially when she’d throw me a coy but sexy smile. She had a look that would melt steel and harden men’s flesh in a glance.
We followed Interstate 70 most of the way west. A
bout sixty miles out, we found a little turbulence along with some snow and ice while ascending the Continental Divide in the last few miles of the east slope of the Rockies near Loveland Pass. With the rotor collecting the frozen moisture along its airfoil and the added weight due to icing over the entire aircraft, the Jetranger engine seemed sluggish. It was working hard as we finally made 12,500 feet. We scraped over the saddle between peaks above the Eisenhower Tunnel, and to the western slope of the continent. And that’s where we hit the monstrous front, nose down.
We descended to 11,000 feet and found a less than smooth ride between there and 11,500, while trying to avoid the reported 100 mph, gusty surface winds, heavy snow and ice. Still, fighting the sporadic fifty mph crosswind was a battle even in the powerful Bell helicopter, and I had to stay attentive to the collective lever to my left side and especially the cyclic stick between my knees to keep us on course and off the mountain.
Rillie had turned off her music, and although white-knuckled on the sides of the copilot seat to my left, she was taking the rough flight rather well. My own knuckles were like ivory bones from my grip on the cyclic control stick. With the tunes off, Rillie turned out to be a pretty good navigator, eyeing the map and the reportedly erroneous GPS while ensuring we stayed off the mountain slopes. With a complete whiteout, we couldn’t see the ground, let alone a wall of granite that we might be flying headlong into at 150 mph.
When the yellow strobes of Colorado State Highway trucks appeared below, I checked the radio just in case there might be any distress calls — as if we could possibly do any more than observe in a blizzard like this. It would be nearly impossible to set down, even if there was a safe place to do it. Highway crews in the snow-bladed trucks were trying to clear the interstate just outside the Eisenhower Tunnel. What little progress they made might give them a small jump on the huge job they’d be facing once the enormous storm finally blew over.
Not hearing radio chatter of any kind, we proceeded toward the railroad yards.
“Doc told me a lot about you, you know,” Rillie said. “We spent a bunch of lonely nights out there, just him and me pulling rolling stock through the mountains. About all you can do is talk or sleep when you’re watching that ol’ ribbon rail. He’d say, ‘E Z did this, E Z did that — it was always about E Z. I kinda started feeling as if we were family.”
KNIGHT'S REPORTS: 3 Book Set Page 17
