Home, Finally Home

Dad was retired from the FBI. He had been a Senior Director and went back as a consultant to hunt for cowboy and my assailants. He brought me some news about a week after I got out of the clinic.

"Jill here is what I have found on Cowboy. He is William Theodore McCombs. He is 31 years old. He was born in Waurika, Oklahoma. He went to MIT and is a computer expert and a coding genius. He was partners in a software company in Dallas. He was partners with a Rodney Curran. Teddy, as he is called disappeared nearly three years ago. Nobody is exactly sure when. He closed all his bank accounts and his corporate accounts and left. His wife and daughter are living with Rodney Curran. It seems they have been having an affair for the past five years. According to them, he probably committed suicide somewhere. He can't be found after he found out about the affair. They want to have him declared dead, but they can't find his estate, which is the only reason they care whether he is dead or alive.

Here is a picture of him from his Texas driver's license.

"Jill, he is a handsome guy. He does have Paul Newman eyes."

"Yes he is mom, and he is a lot prettier on the inside than on the outside."

She held the picture up talking to it, "Cowboy, I'm going to find your handsome butt and make you marry me."

"Jill there is some value in playing hard to get, you know?"

"Not with him mom, he's a put your cards on the table kind of guy. To get him, you would have to be all in as a, what you see is what you get kind of girl, with no games. He can detect a phony in two seconds."

"To tell you the truth Jill, you will have a leg up on all the other women because you have always been a, what you see is what you get kind of girl."

"Yes I know mom, I think he really cares about me. I think that is why, because I was straight up honest with him and he was with me, except for who he is and why he is running. He told me that if he wasn't on the run and had so much baggage he would be after me like Wiley coyote chasing the road runner. "

"He has a sense of humor. That's good."

"Mom, I was with him for ten days I think, and in that time he hit every check mark I wanted in a husband, and he didn't ever know I was testing him. I was just some girl he was helping. He knows I'm an FBI agent, and he still helped me even though he was on the run and afraid of any contact with law enforcement."

I arrived on the Gulf coast about three days after I left Jill in Junction. I tried my best to not think about her. She was better off with me out of her life. But she would creep into my thoughts without me ever realizing until I was thinking about her.

There was an old motel down from Corpus that I stayed at when I was fishing. It was one of those old motels with the old cement block separate cabins for each customer. It was definitely not plush. The floors were cement with tile laid on top. It was clean but rough. I didn't care. It was just a place to sleep. I fished and gave away some of my catch at the dock. I would keep a few good fish and grill them at my motel. I had a gas grill, and I had fish nearly every night and sometimes in the morning.

I stayed there for three months just fishing and drinking a little Scotch some times. I thought I had stayed there long enough so I packed up and headed into Louisiana. It was lonesome touring those old plantation homes. I loved looking at them, and I loved the food in Louisiana. I could eat gumbo till I was sick. I hung around for a while then decided that I better leave before I was noticed.

I came back thru Jefferson, Texas and decided to look around there. It was a tourist town with lots of things to look at. I stayed a while and then went to Gladewater. It was a town full of antique shops. I loved looking at old things and there was everything there. I browsed every shop and it took me a week or so, then I left and went to Forney. It was gigantic and had some of the most beautiful antique furniture I had ever seen. I looked for days. I got restless and decided I would head back to the Hill Country.

I didn't want to go anywhere near Dallas. I cut across to I-35 south and on toward I-10. I was on I-10 headed west. It was a nice day, big cumulus clouds floating in the sky. I longed for the day that I could stop running and be in one place. Where I could lay on my back and look up at the sky and know all was right in the world.

The thought of Jenny crossed my mind. I tried not to think about her. It was too painful to contemplate about how she was and how she felt about me. I remembered talking to her at her school. She was a confused little girl. I was leaving, but I couldn't just take her away from everything she had ever known. I asked her to go on vacation with me just to see what her reaction was. She didn't want to go, and I could understand how she must have felt with me just popping up out of the blue with the idea. I knew realistically I couldn't take her with me. I would be on the run, hiding and keeping away from people. It would be no life for a little girl, and she had to attend school, and she needed the stability of a home. It would be an impossible situation. I knew I had to just leave her as it was best for her.

I stopped at Kerrville and went down on the Guadalupe River a ways out of town. I found an old fishing camp. I camped in my tent and fished. It was quiet and I liked it so I stayed there a month. I made a mental note to come back sometime in the future. It was an enjoyable place.

I got back on the road. I went past Junction and thought about Jill. I hoped she was home with her folks and all healed and enjoying life. It would take time for her to get over the terrible trauma she had endured, but she was the type that could get through all that. She was the strongest woman I had ever been associated with. I had feelings for her, but the situation was impossible. I could only hope to have a resolution one day. I didn't stop at Sonora this time. I went on toward Fort Stockton. I got there and looked at some tourist brochures and decided to go to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.

I was stopped at a rest area and got a call. It was Val.

"Amigo, I got a couple of visits from an FBI agent named William Jefferson. He questioned me about a William T. McCombs. I told him I knew no one by that name. He asked, was I sure and I said I was. He wrote a phone number on the back of his card and told me that if I happened to run into a guy by that name to tell him to call this number. He said that someone at that number needed to talk to him. I told him if I ever did run into this guy, I would tell him. Be careful amigo. He knows more than he was telling."

I pretty much knew who it was. I drove on to Carlsbad, NM and checked into a motel. I got situated and went to the beach that was on the Pecos River. I was getting some sun when I called her. I was pretty sure who would answer. It started ringing and the phone was answered and someone said, "Hello cowboy, I've missed you."

"Well hello beautiful, I've missed you also. You are good, you know that."

"I wasn't sure if I had found you. One of the ranchers down there around Sonora said he thought he saw a gringo with long hair and a beard at the Val-Hom ranch. So Billy went and visited the ranch. He told them he was with the FBI and had they seen any strangers in the area. He had a buttonhole video camera rolling when he went in and he made sure to scan all the rooms he was in. He sent me a copy and I examined it very closely. I saw a picture of Mr. Valencia and a gringo with Paul Newman eyes with their arms around each other. They were young and in some city and the gringo didn't have a beard. I haven't identified the city yet. So I sent Billy back to talk to Mr. Valencia. He gave him a card identifying himself as an FBI agent. He stressed the point of being an FBI agent. He told him that he was looking for a William T. McCombs. He just wondered if Mr. Valencia knew anyone by that name. Mr. Valencia assured him that he knew no such character. So Billy wrote my number on the back of the card and told Mr. Valencia that if he ever ran into such a man, would he please give him that number to call. Someone would really like to talk to Teddy. Mr. Valencia said he knew no such fellow but if he ever ran into him he would give him the number. "

"Val is an old friend. I helped him get that ranch. I love his wife Laura. She makes the best tamales in the world as you know. He has three girls that I love dearly. He saved my butt one time when I was treed. He is a good guy."

"Cowboy if he is a friend of yours I have no doubt he is a good guy. I took those tamales home you left and mom froze them. When I got out of the Mayo clinic she fixed them for me. I savored them as you said you did. Every time I ate one I thought of you. OK, let's quit pussy footing around, where are you? I want to come see you. I will be by myself. I just need to see you and tell you some things you need to know."

"First Jill, how is your health? Second: I'm sorry that I ignored your wishes and called your parents. But you needed to be in a hospital and have proper care. People were hunting you and people were hunting me. I knew you would be safe with your mom and dad."

"Cowboy, you were right to do what you did. Thank you for doing what I was too proud to do. My health is great. I spent two weeks at the Mayo Clinic. I had some plastic surgery and some other minor surgery. Then I went back every week for a month and then every month for six months. I am disease free and had a lot of counseling. I feel really good both mentally and physically. I don't know how I can ever pay you back for saving my life and all the rest you did for me.

When you gave me that good bye hug and kiss, which I didn't know was good bye at the time, it was the first time I felt that life might be worth living again. Before that, I was surviving on guts alone. I acted tough, but sometimes I thought everything had been taken away from me and what was left, nobody would want. With that hug, a ray of sunshine peeked out from behind a very dark cloud. Since that happened, even as independent as I am, I know you are everything to me."

"Jill to be honest, I have to tell you that I feel the same way about you. You have been with me every night we have been apart. But nothing has changed. I'm still married and still have a truck load of baggage."

"I don't want to hear that shit cowboy, tell me where you are or I will hunt you down like a coyote on a jack rabbit. You are my best friend, and I need you. You have no idea how worried I was that you might reject me, that you only felt sorry for me. Where are you? "

"I'm at the beach."

"Would that be on the Texas coast?"

"No, that would be in New Mexico."

"Baby, has the sun got to you? There are no oceans in New Mexico.

"Carlsbad Beach Park on the Pecos River in Carlsbad, New Mexico, I'm staying at the Hampton Inn & Suites, 120 Esperanza Circle, Carlsbad, NM, Rm 222.

"I trusted you with my life when I told you that and you know it."

"Yes I know cowboy. You should also know that I would die before I would ever betray you. I won't even tell my parents where I am going."

"Jill I trust your parents. I trusted them before, and they kept their word so I trust them now. Tell them for me, thanks for coming and getting you. I owe them."

"Cowboy I will tell you that they think a lot of you. My dad would do about anything for you."

"I wonder if he will be alright with me marrying his only daughter once I get out of this mess I'm in."

"I can answer that for him right now, yes from him and yes from me also."

"I haven't asked you yet."

"Then I'll ask you. Cowboy, will you please marry me? I love you and need you so bad and I want to be with you the rest of my life."

"I don't know Jill. You snore and you got a smart mouth."

"Asshole, you better say yes or I'm going to cry."

"Will you hurry up and get out here? I need a hard headed woman to argue with. And yes, I will."

"I'm on my way baby."

About an hour later, I got a text. Pick me up at the Cavern City air terminal at 4 pm tomorrow. I have to fly around the world to get there. Love you

"I could hardly sleep that night. I hadn't seen her in eight months. I don't think I had ever been so excited to see someone. I slept late the next morning. I went to the beach and got some sun. I walked to little Caesars pizza and ate. I walked around a while then went to my motel and got dressed to go get baby doll.

I got there about 3:30pm. I found the terminal. It was a small building. I read a magazine waiting on her. Just before four, I saw a two engine plane landing. There was a bank of windows facing the runways. I watched it taxi up near the terminal. I saw about 10 people deplane. The only woman I saw was a gorgeous brunette dressed to the 9's. Where was Jill?

The brunette started walking toward me. I kept looking around her for Jill, but they shut the plane door. What could have happened? The brunette walked right up in front of me.

"Cowboy, are you trying to ignore me?"

My god, the brunette had Jill's voice. My mouth fell open, and I was in shock. Jill was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

The brunette looked at me questioningly. "You don't recognize me, do you?"

"Oh my god Jill, I was looking for a beaten up skinny blonde. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. My goodness, you take my breath away."

"I forgot I was a blonde then because I was undercover. Was I that skinny? I know I was beaten up."

"Jill, you are so beautiful I feel nervous around you. I have never known a woman as ravishing as you are. It will take me a while to get used to you."

"Cowboy you had me at hello. You don't have to butter me up. But I did have a little plastic surgery. That might have helped."

"Jill, I'm tongue tied around you. You look like a fashion model ready for your runway walk. It is like I don't even know you. You are perfect in every way."

"Cowboy, I was naked with you for most of the time we were together. I don't have anything that you haven't seen and bathed. Mom had to go buy some sweats for me to wear home. She asked me what I wore around you. I told her sheets." She got a laugh out of that.

"I was looking at your body hoping I was capable of taking care of you with how bad you were beaten up. I felt so bad for you. I wanted to help you and make the hurt go away. You were a beaten up little caterpillar and now you are a beautiful butterfly. I don't know if I deserve someone as beautiful as I find out you really are."

"Too late to back out now cowboy, you already said yes."

Cowboy told her he was going to get a rental car because he didn't want to drive her around in his doggy old truck. She was waiting for him in a nice café. She heard a helicopter landing but thought nothing about it. She waited and time passed and she got worried. It had been over an hour and he still wasn't back. She got up and paid her check and walked out of the café. An FBI chopper was sitting in a parking lot down the street and fear shot through her. She went to the helicopter, and her brother was there. She became frantic.

"Billy, what are you doing here?"

"Your friend doesn't have to run anymore. Apparently his old partner had started laundering money for a drug cartel. They found out he was skimming from them and confronted him. He was thrown off the roof of the business. Mr. McCombs' wife Ellen has disappeared. We don't know if she just skipped out or if the cartel got her. Either way, your friend doesn't have to be on the run."

"Billy I have a bad feeling that when he saw the FBI helicopter, he is in the wind again. He probably thought I had thrown him under the bus. Let's go to his room and see if he is there."

At the room, they found his old pickup with the hood up and his air cleaner torn apart, his battery lying in the parking lot. His floor mat under his back seat was ripped up. All his stuff was gone and nothing in his room. Jill just screamed and fell on the bed crying.

He had rented a Hertz car. They got the information about it and put out a bolo on it. Two months later the car he rented was found on a Hertz lot in Lubbock, Texas. They were doing a quarterly inventory and found it. They checked on it and found it was a missing car that had been rented from an office in Carlsbad, NM. They contacted the FBI, and some agents checked it out. They found $1000 in an envelope in the dash. A note to the manager of the Lubbock agency said that he had left the car there 10 days after he had rented it in Carlsbad, and the money should be enough to cover the charges. They found no information in the car. It had been detailed before he had left it.

He had disappeared and nothing could be found on him. Jill was completely destroyed. She went to Dallas and found that his daughter, Jennifer McCombs was a guest of social services. Her mother was estranged from her family or had none, and Jennifer knew nothing about her grandparents or any relatives. Jill befriended her. She found that Jennifer's relationship with her mother and Rodney Curran had soured, and she had come to doubt that Rodney was her father as her mother had told her. She was taken care of by a nanny and hardly saw her mother or Rodney.

She told Jill that Teddy had come to her school and talked to her about going on vacation with him. Her mother had told her that Teddy wasn't her father, and he might try to kidnap her. She believed her as her mother and Rodney lavished her with gifts and petted her. She later realized that her mother had conned her, and by that time her father had disappeared. She could do nothing but just stay with the nanny at the house where her mother and Rodney lived. Jill became friends with Jenny. She visited her regularly and took her places and mothered her.

Jill, with the help of an FBI director, got temporary custody of Jennifer. Jennifer was pleased and agreed to Jill having custody because she liked her, and Jill talked to her and wanted to take care of her. Jill told her all about her father, and they teamed up on a quest to find him.

Jill thought that Teddy would sooner or later come back to the country around Sonora or Junction. She figured he would someday get in touch with people he was connected to in that area. She had exhausted every avenue that was available to her. She knew how good Cowboy was at not being found. There was nobody else for her. He was her man no matter how long she had to wait. She tried a few unorthodox ways to find him but nothing had worked out so far.

She wanted to settle down with Jennifer so she bought a ranch and they moved there. She got Jennifer in school in Sonora and she and Jennifer became a family. She, the tough FBI agent, joined the PTA. She was helping with bake sales to buy things for the school. Her mother laughed when she called her to find out how to bake a cake. One day out of the blue, Jennifer started calling her mom. She just accepted it. It made her feel good. They just hoped that someday Teddy would come back to them.

The quiet atmosphere of the arroyo was suddenly disturbed by a loud motorcycle entering it and driving hesitantly to a monument standing there. The skinhead got off his bike and walked over to the gravestone. It was a double monument. On one side was Jill Jefferson and on the other was Teddy McCombs. The monument looked like it had been there for a long time.

It read, Cowboy, Billy came to tell us that you didn't have to run anymore. Rodney Curran was thrown off the building and Ellen has disappeared. Jennifer is with me, and we are waiting for you to come home. Talk to Val. He knows everything.

The skinhead fell to his knees. He stared at the monument with tears in his eyes. Had fate played another cruel joke on him? He had to find out.