Miranda Cortez: Ditch Girl

Miranda Cortez: Ditch Girl

To the reader:

All sexually active characters are at least 18 years of age.

This story is 11,000 words long (20 book pages)

The plot encompasses both polyamory and mixed ethnicity relationships.

I had liked the looks of Miranda Cortez ever since the first time I saw her. I didn't know then where she'd gotten those Latino genes, but they certainly were nice. She'd come to our college three years before me, she was a senior now, while I was a barely eighteen, mere freshman when I arrived on campus that fall.

Maybe it was all that equal opportunity, political correctness, anti-discrimination, hate-every-man-because-he's-a-White-male crap that made her that way. I don't know. What I did know was her manner toward me completely demolished any favorable effect her looks caused. What an obnoxious, stuck-up bitch!

I did my best to shrug all this off. In spite of how vicious and better-than-you she acted, I always tried to give her the benefit of my doubt. I always treated her well in hopes she might someday morph into a human being. But until that Saturday morning on Project Road #246, nothing changed.

In our area, the twenty-five miles in all directions surrounding our closest state university, most of the roads had whimsical names like Project Road #246, so unless you had a map or good memory, it was easy to get lost once you left the main roads. I'm not saying all the bureaucrats who laid them out suffered from cerebral-anal inversion, but most must have. The only consistency was the roads with numbers ran pretty much east and west, those with letters ran more or less north and south.

I was a displaced farmer boy from twenty miles out of town, and also a hunter, mostly birds: pheasants and later in the season, ducks. We don't hunt big game around here: i.e. deer or elk. We take a week or two off each fall and go up into the mountains for that.

So, that morning I was scouting the flat-lands of the irrigation project for promising bird hunting areas, hoping to find something interesting, then pray I managed to track down the owner and get permission to hunt. Mostly this area was alkali flat which during wet weather became mud and alkali, then dried up to become sage brush and rock-hard clay bottom with sparse grass all summer. No one tried to farm here, but a few owners ran cattle. Why the government ever tried making a farm irrigation project out of this land I'll never understand, but they did—probably to make-work for FDR's solution to Great Depression. Lots of birds made their homes there, though, which explained my interest that day.

In most places, the nearly unused and therefore mostly stagnant irrigation lateral ditches followed the roads, one side or the other. Such was the case for Project Road #246: Alkali flat on one side, irrigation lateral on the other. I guess Lateral A sounded more prestigious than Medium Size Ditch A.

I'd driven this road—and its lateral—ten miles from the paved road before finding anything interesting enough to follow up on. What I found was a car run off the road and submerged in the lateral up to an inch short of covering it entirely. Must have happened last night; the morning's rain-sprinkle in the road's soft dust obscured the tire tracks by which the little Ford import-look-alike had found its way into the ditch.

No one around, so might as well have a look, see if I should drive back twenty miles to a phone and call this in to the Sheriff's office. Usually when the joy-riders around here stole a car, they drove it to a place like this and ran it into a ditch or one of the larger canals so it took John Law longer to find it.

At first glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Probably I had nothing more before me than a stolen car.

Second glance, though, was another story. Face down, half in the cold water, half out on my side of the ditch, lay a woman's body, not moving, with a ghastly skin color, and not much clothing on. Was I looking at an abduction? A rape victim? A murder? Or what?

Did I want to get mixed up in this? From my first glimpse, she looked obviously Latino. Yeah sure! Call the cops, then spend the rest of the month as a person of interest involved in whatever fate had befallen this woman? And me, White, and her Latino? I could just see that! The whole nine yards of political correctness and the rest of that liberal BS falling upon me? Me with my 12 gauge bird gun and .22 cal. plinking rifle in my truck? Can you imagine what our liberal news media would make of my mobile firearms cache?"

Several times I almost got in my truck and drove away.

But several times I didn't.

You remember those 1^st Aid classes you suffered through in high school? Well, I needed one once I got close to this body. Not much blood, only a few scrapes and gashes on her head and exposed sides and legs, but what little I could see of her front was another case. Blood all over it. Not looking good, and if she was breathing at all, not by much.

I slogged around ankle deep in the ditch's waterline slop. But without falling into the ditch myself, managed to drag her onto the bank, clear of the cold water. That's when I got a good look at her face.

You guessed it: Miss Stuck-up Bitch!

Two more times I almost got into my truck and drove away.

And two more times, I didn't.

So, off came my coat to cover her, for some warmth maybe? Out of my truck came a blanket I kept there in event, with some extremely rare luck, I might need it on a date some night, and all the time, I tried to come up with a decision as to what to do next. And yes, I did have a flip-phone, but it had gone into the drink a week before on a hunting trip and had yet to recover.

There I was, with an almost dead woman who I just knew would throw me under the bus when it came time to discover what had actually happened to her. And there I was with a firearms cache in my vehicle—as the news media and John Law would make it into—not to mention National Gun Association stickers on my truck's front and back glass and an NGA Life Member card in my wallet.

There I was with a woman who I certainly couldn't, with any conviction, say I both knew and liked. Hate wasn't the term I'd have used, but had she fallen under a bus, I'd have never endangered myself to rescue her. And there I was, twenty miles out in the boonies with a why explanation so thin as to hold no water at all with an interrogator who hated hunters.

Again, I almost got into my truck and drove away.

But just then, she coughed. Weak it was, but she coughed. She was alive—hopefully—and I couldn't just leave her there and hope John Law or an ambulance got there in time after I drove ten miles of dirt road then ten more of pavement to a phone to call them.

Well, I thought, better see what else I have to contend with. I walked to where she lay, picked my coat and blanket off her, and rolled her onto her belly. I got only a wheeze and moan for my effort. She rolled like a rag doll, a full sized, beat-up, worn out, rag doll. Took me several readjustments to get her flat on her belly.

But the good news—for her, at least—was no blood or injuries appeared sufficiently severe to be fatal. Apparently something less had spread that blood all over her hands, face, and front.

So I returned her to her back and covered her again. God, her front was a bloody mess, particularly her hands and arms! She must have done that bashing her way through the window glass to get out of her car. I resisted applying the TV and Hollywood-approved method for 1^st aid to a drowned person; I didn't try to sit her up like they seems to think you should. No. Keep victim's head lower than the rest of the body so the brain is the last organ starved for blood or oxygen, right? This woman wasn't in danger of choking on anything, so keep her horizontal!

I forced her mouth open, stuck my finger inside just to check she really wasn't chocking on anything—like her tongue. Apparently she wasn't. So I gave her jaw a gentle slap to bring her awake if she could. She moaned and turned to one side.

"Miranda? This is Johnny Slocombe. From the college, you know? Can you hear me?"

She just moaned again.

"Miranda! Say something."

A third moan preceded her falling limp again.

Was she now dead? More of a pickle for me! Again, I speculated on the benefits of just driving off and going on my way. But again my hero impulse kept me there with her dead or dying corpse.

***

Through a series of shrewd accidents, I managed to keep clear of John Law and the rest of their ilk as they investigated Maranda's abduction, rape, and nearly—murder. Mostly because they never got my name or my truck's license number—Before arriving at the hospital, I smeared mud on my license plate to make it unreadable—so I remained an unidentified person of interest because they had no clue who I was.

Good thing, too. Our Sheriff situation those days was tribalistic, wherein an incompetent Latino was nominated and elected mostly because of his genetic background rather than having any valid experience or understanding of his duties. He immediately set himself out to prove all Whites in our county intended to commit every heinous crime in the book against Latinos and Mexicans. A White woman was accosted, beaten, or raped at least once a month in our county, yet no arrests resulted. But the newspaper filled several pages each week with news about some White guy being arrested for a mostly minor offense—an insult, maybe—like saying something a Latina didn't like.

My solution? Move somewhere else after college graduation three years later, somewhere else being two hundred miles away. Luckily, there is a wide variety and selection of work in engineering jobs, and no shortage of locations where an engineer may ply his trade.

One Thursday evening I sat in my cramped apartment's spacious living room, eating the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I figured should last me until I returned from the Camaro Club's monthly meeting. News played on my TV, but I ignored it.

Well, I ignored it until an item came on about solution of a four year old rape case in the county back home around my college. Yeah, four years ago! The news broadcasters must have been starved for news that night!

Seems the electorate had finally wised up and voted that earlier Sheriff out and voted in one competent for the job. Although this new guy was Mexican, too, my parents said he had a lot on the ball and had set out to correct much of the previous sheriff's malfeasance—including taking bribes.

And one of those cases under reinvestigation was Miranda Cortez's rape—probably because her family was well enough connected to force its reopening.

Also seemed the investigation turned up a gang of five had done the near fatal deed: Four Mexicans and one White. Well, I never said Whites couldn't go wrong, did I?

The news item ended with a short segment about the emotional challenges Miranda faced raising the child that resulted, and her search for the Good Samaritan who saved her life on Lateral A that morning.

Good Samaritan? Me? Six or seven times I damned near drove away and left that bitch out there. I wasn't about to get in the middle of that uncertainty again; forget that phone number the TV listed and never look back!

***

Two weeks later, my seldom used front doorbell rang. Another peanut butter and jelly sandwich in hand, I headed for the door only to find a quite attractive Latina with a maybe three year old Latino child at her side.

So? What was this? A donation plea for a Save the Latinos charity? I put her to be maybe three years older than me

She smiled. I suppose one reason I didn't recognize her was I had never before seen her smile.

"John Slocombe?"

"Yes?"

"I don't expect you remember me? From State University? Miranda Cortez?"

"Miranda? Cortez?" Really? The bitch from the ditch? She looked lots better than that now, even with a kid in tow! I supposed I looked down at the boy.

"This is my son, Juan. I hope you don't mind me giving him your name."

I shook my head. No way he could be my kid! Loading a rape victim into your truck and hauling her bouncing in its bed twenty miles to the hospital doesn't cause pregnancy.

She went shy a moment, then said. "There's one man in my life who really matters, and that's you, John. My family pitched a fit when I legally changed his name to Juan, but I owe you that much, now that they finally found out who saved me. Had you not been there, I'd have no son, and I'd be in a cemetery somewhere."

What can a guy say to something like that? I just shook my head.

"Yes, John, it does matter. Matters to me and matters to my son."

I smiled, looking down as I did, mostly because I didn't know what else to do. The kid apparently thought my expression change was meant for him. He smiled cautiously back.

"Can we come in? Hope I'm—we're—not keeping you from something."

I stepped back, still a bit numb and cautious, and motioned toward the couch. The boy beat his mother to it, to the far end. She sat, and folded her quite nice legs and tall heels against the couch's front edge. I retreated to my Lazy-Guy chair. Awkward moment! as they in a stage play scripts.

"You graduated, I understand," she said. "So did I. Barely."

I nodded.

"Working in this town, now, I assume?"

I nodded again

"Doing what?"

"Engineering. High voltage electrical—for North District Power & Light. Almost a year."

Now she nodded. "This is your place?"

More nodding on my part.

"Nice. One bedroom, I suppose."

I nodded again.

"No maid?"

I shook my head. Last thing I could afford was someone to pick up after me!

"I suppose no butler, either?"

I shook my head. She mumbled something I couldn't make out except for bigger.

Little Juan's eyes flicked between looking at his mother, then me, then back again. What the hell had she told this kid? That I was his long lost father? Surely not that he was the result of his mother's five man gang-bang!

"You need a woman's touch in here," she said, after looking around.

"Just temporary. Hoping to close on a house purchase by end of next month."

"How many bedrooms in your new home?"

"Five. Too big for me, but the price was right. A master bedroom, two spares for storage, an office and a guestroom." It would be plenty for me.

She nodded. "When you moving in?"

"Don't know yet. Depends on the other party."

"I see. Now, so what are we interrupting tonight?"

"I was leaving for the Camaro Club meeting in a few minutes."

"Can we go with you?"

What the hell? I shook my head, more to make me believe I'd just heard that than to say no.

"I suppose not." She turned to Juan, cocked her head to one side, and said, "Man thing. Someday you'll be going to car clubs, too, I'll bet."

Little Juanito smiled.

***

Why is it every time something unexpected happens, I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my hand? Sure enough, there I was just settling into my Lazy-Guy chair with a sandwich in one hand and a cold beer in the other when my doorbell rang. This time the space at my front door held three men, two looking like drug gang enforcers and a smaller, less dominating third man standing to one side.

"Mr. Slocombe?" The smaller man said.

"Yes?" I said, not sure I shouldn't have claimed to be someone else. I had no clue who this guy was.

"I'm Miranda's father. Little Juan's grandfather."

So? How did that concern me? I mean, unless those two heavies with him amounted to a muscle team brought here to beat something out of me.

"May I come in?"

Why not? Did I have any real choice? I nodded.

"You men go wait in the car," he said to the closest. "This is the man I want. Miranda says he's all right."

With that, the muscle turned and left, but as they did, they kept their eyes turned back on me.

"Sorry, Mr. Slocombe. In my position I'm at risk sometimes. Miranda's situation happened partly because of me."

Oh, so her rape wasn't some small-time frolicking that got way beyond too far out of hand. As we passed into the room, I motioned toward the couch where Miranda and Juan had sat several days before.

"Glass of water?" I said, not knowing what else to do. I still had my peanut butter sandwich in my hand and skittered to one side looking for some place less obvious to stash it.

"Water would nice."

"Sorry, Sir. No coffee. Don't drink the stuff. I do have one more beer, though, if that suits you?"

"Just water. Can't stay long. Must get back to Marinda and my grandson."

So why did he bring that up? My uncertainty made me nod again.

"So, why am I here, keeping you from whatever you do in evenings when you're not going to Camaro Club meetings?"

She told him that? I quirked my head to one side to show I'd heard him but lacked a answer.

"You like Miranda?"

What could I say? Before her ten minute visit a couple days ago, I'd have left her under a bus had she fallen that direction?

He chuckled. "Yes, I know. She used to be a pain in the ass. I couldn't stand to have her around myself. Complete bitch!" A father said that about his daughter? I suppose I smiled.

"But no more, not since that night in the irrigation ditch. I think she died a hundred deaths out there, trapped in her car. You saved her at the last moment."

Guess I had. At least she had damned little life left in her when I dumped her off at the hospital's emergency door and skedaddled out of there. I took no chance, hanging around so I'd be answering a bunch of John Law questions for which I had no answers.

"I'll make it worth your while to take her." I know those words sound really strange now, written that way, but that evening they sounded far more like a father pleading for his daughter's life. Take her? What the hell did he mean?

"I want my grandson to have a father, Mr. Slocombe."

Me? Why me?

"Might as well be you. You're the only man Miranda has ever said anything good about, and she needs a man."

Yeah, right! Like I was going to play house with that bitch?

"As I said, I'll make it worth your while. So why not?"

I shook my head.

"How much salary you make, Mr. Slocombe?"

"Enough." None of his damned business, far as I thought.

He shook his head, looking around "No, not enough. My daughter is used to much more ... uh ... luxury than you got here." He waved his arm to include my whole apartment.

So what?

"Where you going to put the butler and the cook, at least two maids, and the driver and all the rest of your staff?"

Did I care? I wasn't about to take his daughter and his grandson anywhere—or worry about whatever else she might be used to. No way. I shook my head, trying to get it to function.

"I hope you grow to like Miranda," he said. "I'm willing to have you give it a try—even if you change your mind later—although I hope you won't be careless with Juanito's affection for you."

The kid's affection for me? What had his mother told him?

"Already he thinks you're a great man."

After just five minutes last week? Huh! Well, I guess if you had no comparison, that might do it.

"Tell you what. See if you like this. You take Miranda and Juanito and go live in my house up on Cedar Ridge, north of the college. It'll be close to where you could work—North District Power & Light owes me a favor, here or there—place is big enough to match Miranda's idea of a home, there's garage space for her car and yours and your truck, the Mercedes you'll need when you two and Juanito go out together, the van, and two other cars you will find you need for a household that size. There's six bedrooms, not counting the servant's quarters, so if you make me a couple more grandchildren, you'll have plenty of room. How's that sound?"