by Robin Gideon
Then another crack! and this time, with the back window no longer there, Jacob heard it clearly. The bullet Andy had fired went through his front window, perfectly in the center, going harmlessly between driver and passenger.
“Bastard’s got a gun,” Caleb screamed.
Jacob began moving the steering wheel left and right, not by a lot, but just enough to prevent Andy from getting a clean, steady shot.
The Ford burst through the end of the corn field, and the Lexus did a split second later. Suddenly, they were in a ditch, but there was no possible way Andy was going to get up onto Logan Road. On the gravel road, almost bumper to bumper were what looked like fifty or more vehicles. There must have been thirty men standing by their trucks, holding deer rifles at the ready.
Never kidnap a woman in North Dakota, thought Jacob, when most of the trucks in the state have gun racks in the back window.
The Ford took a left turn, but it had been damaged, and now smoke was coming out from somewhere under the engine. Jacob tromped on the gas pedal and within a couple seconds was side-by-side with Andy.
“Do it, Jacob! She’s tough! We’ve got to stop him now!” Caleb said.
Jacob knew his brother was right. The longer this chase went on, the greater the chances of a catastrophe. He looked at Bobbi Jo, now only feet away, and saw the horror etched in her lovely face.
He turned the steering wheel hard to the right, sending his bumper smashing into the Ford’s front left wheel.
There was a sickening sound of metal bending, and the grinding of two heavy automobiles moving fast and wreaking havoc with the other. The Ford suddenly dipped low, and Jacob realized the front left tire had blown. In thirty yards the tire had disintegrated. When the now-tireless rim hit the soft earth of the ditch, it dug in deep. The Ford lurched forward, kicking up a wave of grass and soil, its back tires coming off the ground before landing once again.
Jacob hammered the brakes. He was out of the Lexus and headed for Bobbi Jo before it had come to a complete stop. Caleb ran with his brother shoulder to shoulder toward the woman they loved.
He glanced up toward Logan Road. There were at least a dozen men standing by their trucks with deer rifles held steady.
Johnny, in the front seat, was slumped over the steering wheel. He had apparently taken the worst of it when the Ford came to its abrupt stop. The back door opened, and Andy stepped out, pulling Bobbi Jo by the hair with him. He had a snub-nosed revolver in his right hand.
“Stop! Stop right there, or I’ll shoot her!” Andy shouted. He was using his Ford as a shield against the men on Logan’s Road, and Bobbi Jo against the approaching brothers. He now had his left arm around her throat. Though Jacob couldn’t see it, he could tell that he was jamming the pistol into Bobbi Jo’s back. “You’re gettin’ me out of here, Jacob, or I’m killing her. You know I’ll do it.”
“Let’s think this through,” Jacob said, his tone calm as he made a patting-down motion with his hands. “We’ll get everyone out of here, but only if everyone keeps their wits about them.”
Andy kept looking at Jacob and Caleb, and then up at the road where there were more pickups coming every second, and in most of them there was a man pulling out a high-powered rifle.
The longer this stalemate goes on, the more likely he is to use that gun, Jacob thought. It’s now or never.
“Forget the girl. She means nothing and she’s not a good bargaining chip,” he said. “Take me instead.”
“Why would I do that?” Andy jammed the unseen gun harder into Bobbi Jo’s back. She grimaced and squirmed, but the arm against her throat was tight and she couldn’t move very much. “Everybody knows a woman’s a better hostage than a man.”
“A waitress? Do you really think that’s a bigger ticket than a millionaire oilman? A millionaire many, many times over,” Jacob said. “She’s just a girl. I’m an oilman.”
Jacob could see Andy mulling over his proposal. Jacob wanted to say something more, add a sweetener that might seal the deal, but Andy was too close to the edge to be pushed. Andy looked up at the road where now there must be much more than fifty vehicles with the drivers standing at the edge of the ditch, more than half of them holding high-powered rifles, most of those weapons having telescopic sights on them. North Dakota is hunting grounds made of vast, open prairies.
“Take me,” Jacob said quietly, his tone as submissive as a man like him could make it, “and we’ll take one of the trucks up on the road. It’s a good deal. She’s a waitress and I’m an oilman…and out here, oil is king.”
“Ain’t that the fucking truth,” Andy said bitterly.
The three brothers in the front seat were still there, two of them looking to Andy for guidance. Jimmy, still slumped against the steering wheel, was starting to regain consciousness. He was groaning and seemed to have great difficulty sitting upright. The look that Andy gave him—one of utter contempt—gave Jacob an idea.
“We’ll go together,” Jacob said, “just you and I. We’ll be faster that way. Your brothers are baggage, they’re dead weight. They’ll only slow us down.”
“Ain’t that the fucking truth,” Andy said, and Jacob knew he had closed the deal. “They’ve been a pain in my ass from the day they were born.”
“Let Bobbi Jo go, and I’ll come to you.” The sneering look that Andy gave him told Jacob that he’d made a mistake. Not an unsolvable one, but a significant one nevertheless. “Okay, I made a mistake. You’re the one writing the rules. How do you want to make the switch?”
“You get over here and stand between me and all those bastards up on the road.”
Jacob could hear the tension in Andy’s tone. He was running out of courage.
“Okay, just take a couple steps backward so there’s room for me.”
Andy did as requested, moving deeper into the ditch and farther from the gravel road, keeping his arm tight around Bobbi Jo’s neck. Jacob moved so that he stood between Andy and the posse of heavily armed oilrig workers all looking to defend their favorite waitress.
“Let her go now,” Jacob said, once again trying and failing for the tone of a defeated, submissive man. “Andy, I’ll be your shield.”
They moved slowly, neither man trusting the other. Jacob eventually positioned himself directly in front of Bobbi Jo, standing so that he was between the armed men on the gravel road, and Andy.
“Get out of here,” Andy said, pushing Bobbi Jo aside. He moved forward quickly, whipped an arm around Jacob’s neck, and jammed his revolver into his captive’s lower back. “Blink, motherfucker, and I’ll blow your kidneys out.”
“Easy,” Jacob said, fighting against the urge to grab the arm that was against his throat. “And putting that gun in my back isn’t where you want it.”
He felt Andy tense up. He clearly hadn’t expected to get a lecture on how to hold a hostage in front of a hostile posse.
“You’ve got your gun in my back,” Jacob said, trying to be as calm as possible while his life was endangered by a man whose sanity was, to say the very least, suspect. And since Andy was several inches shorter than Jacob, he had to reach up to put his arm over his hostage’s shoulder. “Put the gun to my head, where those idiots up on the road can see it. They won’t know you’re serious unless they see the gun.”
Andy hesitated. Jacob could tell that he was thinking the situation over, part of him inherently opposed to agreeing with anything that was said to him, but part of him realizing that an obvious threat was much better than an implied one.
“You know,” Andy said, “when this whole thing’s over, you and I could be friends.”
He pulled his snub-nose from Jacob’s back, and raised it to his head.
The instant the muzzle touched his temple, Jacob thrust his right hand straight upward, grabbing Andy’s gun hand by the wrist as he simultaneously bent his knees. The very instant the gun was above his head, Andy managed to squeeze the trigger. The roar of the .38-special was deafening, but harmless. Jacob’s grip on An
dy’s wrist was vise-like.
Jacob spun, holding on tight to Andy’s wrist, jerking his captive in a semi-circle so that he was no longer a shield between his captor, and the men standing at the edge of the road with high-powered weapons held steady at their shoulders.
Jacob was not surprised when, while Andy struggled to keep his balance as he was being spun far away from his own source of protection, the gunfire began.
It lasted barely two seconds. In the first second, more than a dozen rifles were fired, all of them striking their target with lethal intent and effect. One second later, several vengeance rounds were fired into the corpse, but they had no effect on the outcome. Andy Culvers was already as dead as any man was ever going to get.
Epilogue
Bobbi Jo looked at herself in the ladies bathroom mirror at Wings & Things. She wanted to present herself properly to the customers. For the occasion, she was wearing jeans that fit her to perfection, and a white silk blouse. Gone were the days when she wore a denim miniskirt or short-shorts, with a halter top without a bra. Those days were in her past, and they were never coming back. Not ever. The only thing from her past that would continue were the white stilettos Jacob and Caleb liked seeing her in.
She glanced at her wristwatch. It was a gold Rolex Oyster Perpetual, with diamonds to indicate the hours. It was a gift from Caleb and Jacob. They had assured her that she wouldn’t wear cheap wristwatches ever again.
She checked her hair one last time. Gone were the days of ponytails or pigtails or anything like that. As a waitress, putting her hair in a high ponytail made her look younger, and helped to increase the tips she earned. But she wasn’t a waitress anymore. Now she was the owner of Wings & Things, and since this was her first day as owner, she wanted to give the impression of a young entrepreneur in charge of her world.
She unlocked the front doors at precisely eleven o’clock. There were already several men waiting to come in, men hungry from working on the oil rigs since before the sun had come up. They all smiled when they saw Bobbi Jo.
“You haven’t changed the menu, have you?” one of them asked as he walked past Bobbi Jo, heading for the bar.
“Everything’s the same,” Bobbi Jo replied, speaking loud enough so that all the men entering the restaurant could hear.
“Everything but you,” an older man said as he went past, winking at Bobbi Jo. “But even in long pants you still are a looker.”
Bobbi Jo smiled. It was exactly the response she hoped for.
Then Jacob and Caleb walked past her. They smiled at her and took off their cowboy hats, but said nothing.
I owe them everything. It’s because of them I own this restaurant. It’s because of them I have a beautiful, luxury apartment. It’s because of them I drive a brand new Lincoln SUV. It’s because of them I am happier and satisfied than I’ve ever been in my life.
She had to pull her gaze away from the two men hat she loved. She had a tendency to stare lovingly at them, and she didn’t want anyone to accurately read her thoughts regarding them. A shiver went through her when she saw that they had taken the end booth—the one where she had watched her friend crawl under the table to perform fellatio to her three lovers. Bobbi Jo had acted as “lookout” for her friend. Though she couldn’t really see much of what her friend was doing, just being close and hearing the sounds of lovingly performed blow jobs was enough to get her panties sopping wet.
“Lookin’ good, Bobbi Jo!” someone said.
Without looking at who had complimented her, Bobbi Jo replied, “You too, stud!”
She received laughter for her response, and she thought that her first day in business was going to work out better than she had dared hope for.
She glanced at the waitress station. She had four on duty for the lunch rush hour. Three of them were wearing miniskirts and halters without bras. Bobbi Jo knew exactly why they were dressed that way, and she didn’t begrudge them for their racy attire. How could she? Hadn’t she herself worked for tips not so long ago? Hadn’t she realized that the more skin she showed, the more money she made?
She looked around the restaurant. She had the usual crowd and recognized most of the faces, even if she didn’t know all of the names. These were fine men, hard working men, and they came for the good food and pretty waitresses, though they didn’t let their hands stray—and for that, Bobbi Jo adored them all.
She went to the waitress station and grabbed two menus, and then went to the booth where Caleb and Jacob were sitting.
“Good day, gentlemen,” she said, putting a menu in front of each of them. “Can I get you something to drink before you make your orders?”
“Got any specials going on for your first day in business?” Jacob asked.
“Sure. Blow jobs in the ladies’ bathroom,” Bobbi Jo said. She was shocked that she’d actually spoken the words that had hardly entered her consciousness. From the expressions she received from her lovers, she could tell that they were both as stunned by what she’d said as she was. “Actually,” she continued after a moment, glancing around to make sure that nobody else could hear what she was saying, “let me retract that offer. The last time I tried to get naughty with you guys here, it turned into an absolute nightmare. I hadn’t even gotten your zippers down before some lady caught us and made an absolute hissy fit about it.”
Jacob put his face in his hands. “I ran out the back door like a scalded cat. Damn, that was embarrassing.”
“Tonight,” Bobbi Jo said softly. “Tonight I’ll treat you both like kings. Just let me get through this first day of being the owner of Wings & Things and I promise you, you’ll have a night you won’t forget.”
“We have the rest of our lives together,” Caleb said, “so I guess Jacob and I will just have to be a little patient.”
THE END
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robin Gideon is the author of numerous novels and novellas. She was once the featured artist on the nationally syndicated weekly television series CBS Sunday Morning. She lives in the Upper Midwest (what the cartoons called “Frostbite Falls, Minnesota”) and loves hearing from her readers.
For all titles by Robin Gideon, please visit
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