Sweet Hitchhiker Ch. 02

"Thank you for your interest, but we have no idea what you're talking about. We have a few friends, though, who might be interested in a business relationship. Give us a way we can contact you."

He gave us a phone number and looked at a very pissed off looking Ollie. "I'm leaving now. Let me know when you work out your differences. You know how to contact me."

We watched him get into a '79 Caddy and drive off. I had wondered who it belonged to. Turning, I grinned at Ollie. "This is your only warning. Pack your shit and disappear for a while. Come back next spring, it's really pretty around here then."

"If you didn't have us boxed I'd kill you."

I grinned "You might. If you remember, things didn't go so well the last time we tangled. You pack a mean punch, though, and I don't want to go home with bruises. You made your play, man. Let it go."

I turned around to the bikers. "Well, there it is, all layed out. Think hard before you do something stupid. We'll be going now."

I backed up and turned around, and the boys faded back into the woods. I hoped we'd made our point, but you can't expect much when greed and pride were involved.

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Things were quiet for two weeks. Most of the bikers pulled up stakes and left Ollie, but a week later another half dozen showed up. It was easy to see these were the badasses of the group.

Then Jeremiah went missing. He was the only single one among us, and there was a honkytonk he liked to hang out at. They found his pickup there four days later when people started asking about him, and his body was found three days after that. He'd been beaten to death, in as vicious a manner as possible and it was almost impossible to recognize him because every bone on his face had been smashed. It took some restraint, but we didn't go after who we knew did it. Oh, we would eventually, but our guy was going to get his product, and we wanted it gone first. I knew Tim and his deputies were watching, but we went about our business, farming, working, going to church. The only variation in our routine was to know where everyone was at all times and that our families were watched over.

Two days before the pickup was going to be made, Billy's cousin came out to the farm, walking out to the tomato fields. I greeted him and offered a cool drink, wanting him out of the field and away from the half dozen teenagers we had helping us. After we got our drinks, tea for me and a beer for him, he gave me his news.

"You have to promise me that no one knows what I'm about to say. Remember Josh?"

Josh was one of our original growers but had broken off with us a couple of years ago, wanting to farm on a grander scale. He'd managed to get busted the next year, but they didn't catch him with much, and he did six months in county. He swore one of us had ratted him out, and we didn't get along that great. I nodded.

"Well, my cousin Jenny dated him for a while. She saw him the other day and he was high as kite. He was bragging about something, a big shipment he was going to help jack. A biker came up and dragged him away, after he told Jenny not to listen to the bragging of a drunk, but she didn't believe it. She managed to hear him talking about a tobacco barn and Tuesday morning. I thought you should know. I won't ask, but if you get a chance, make them pay for Jeremiah. He was my favorite cousin."

This was on a Thursday. I talked to the group, and we came up with a plan.

I thought about it Monday night. The little hobby we'd started for a steady supply and a little pocket change had gotten way out of hand. We all swore this was the end of it. The only thing that let me get some sleep was Honey snuggled up against me. I absently rubbed her three month baby bump that was just beginning to show, and knew I had to do it, or we'd never be safe again.

We met on the dirt road leading to the barn before daylight and got into position. I looked at every one of them. "We have to end this or we'll never sleep safe. No survivors, agreed?"

Buck was a Korea Conflict vet, and he'd been in some pretty hairy stuff. Nat was a tunnel rat, slight of frame with balls the size of King Kong's. Alvin was the oldest of us at fifty-four, but he'd been on the beach in Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Billy had done a tour as a gunner for Hueys'. We knew how to kill, had killed, and knew that today we weren't in some far off lands fighting for grand principles. We were just miles from our homes, fighting for our families. These assholes were here to rob and kill us, all to stroke one man's ego. Well that, and to make a bunch of cash. There would be no mercy.

None of them looked comfortable, but all looked determined and nodded. There were three of us in the bushes on one side of the road, four on the other. Our weapon of choice were shotguns, loaded with buckshot. No ballistics, we'd pick up all the empties, and we'd just disappear.

The spot was perfect. It was a dead end dirt road with no houses close, only one way in or out. If things went according to plans, it would be easy. It almost went off the rails when Honey and two more of the wives showed up, including Kim. I had forgotten that Honey was a child of the streets and knew about fighting for survival, and Kim came from a wartorn country where survival could be downright iffy at times. The third woman was Billy's wife, pale as a ghost but determined to defend her family.

Honey grinned. "Don't even think about trying to talk us out of this. If we let them continue, and they got desperate, how long do you think it would take them to go after our kids. We have decided that is unacceptable. Just so you know, Lynne is back at the house with her med kit, in case her services are needed."

Lynne was a wife, and a nurse practitioner, a handy skill to have. We positioned them just past us, with instructions to stop anyone trying to get away. I grinned when I saw Honey had my old 870, a twelve guage pump. She also had her little double barrel slung across her back.

I was carrying a police model Bennelli, holding ten in the tube and one in the chamber. I had super hot loads in it, and I could blow a hole through a truck with it. We lay in the bushes in the hot sun, and I reflected that I never thought my life would ever come to this, but it had, and if I had to defend my family from a mad dog, I was willing to be far more rabid than anything these assholes had ever encountered.

We heard them coming, the rumble of the bikes announcing them. They had three big box trucks, two guys in both trucks, four bikes in front, four behind. Ollie was riding in the passenger side of the first truck. We agreed to hit the bikes first, so I led one and fired. He and the bike went over instantly. It was the signal, and for the next five minutes the shotguns boomed. The guys in the trucks managed to get a few shots off, but they had nothing to shoot at. One biker in the rear managed to turn around, and Nat jumped on a bike that hadn't been hit and took off after him. I didn't even know he knew how to ride a motorcycle.

Buck and I walked the road, looking for survivors. There were two, and Buck slid his Kabar in their throats so there would be no noises. Seven dead bikers, five guys in the truck. I looked for Ollie and didn't see him, then found a trail of blood coming from ther passenger side of the second truck. Honey was beyond pissed.

"I had him, and just when I pulled the trigger one of the bikers stumbled in front of him. I managed to put some in him, and he was cussin' a blue streak when he took off. Track him down, honey, and end that motherfucker!"

I was pretty good at reading tracks, so I called to Buck and started after him. Ollie didn't know the land, and he ran in the wrong direction, towards the river and away from roads. I tracked him to the river from blood splatter, flashing back to my service. This wasn't the first time I'd tracked a wounded enemy. The trail ended at a deep pool in the river, a favorite swimming spot for teens, and seemed to stop. I wondered if he fell in when I heard a whisper of sound behind me. It was enough to make me drop and turn, and the knife swiped where I'd been standing a second before. His momentum took him by me, and I tackled him. Soon we were rolling around in the dirt. He was a lot stronger than me, but he'd been wounded and he didn't have the will to live that I did. I barely felt the blade slide along my ribs before I grabbed his hand and throat.

He kneed me in the balls, and I let go. Rising up, he grinned, sure he had me.

"Hey asshole!"

He turned to see Honey in a full rage. She stuck her switchblade in his neck, and I dragged him backwards into the pool. We thrashed around for a few minutes and I felt him drop the knife, so I put my hands around his throat and squeezed, shoving his head under water. His eyes were burning with hate as he went under, and I held him down long enough for the bubbles to stop.

He floated back to the top as I fell back, his sightless eyes staring into the sun. I heard a sound and looked up to see Buck and Billy on the bank. They pulled me out, then pulled Ollie out. Buck slapped a field dressing on my ribs and helped me back to the road. Honey smiled, the smile of the Angel of Death, pulling her knife out of his neck and wiping it on his clothes before returning it to her pocket.

"Ready to clean this mess up, Honey?"

The rest of the guys looked a little sick as they loaded bikes and bodies into the trucks. We stashed them in the barn, and I grinned at the empty space. We'd sent the product on two days before, so even if they hit the barn, all they'd have to show for it would be molded hay.

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That night, under a full moon, I took the backhoe and dug a deep hole on federal land, and we tossed the bodies and the bikes in, replacing the carefully cut sod back over the scar in the land. They were found, ten years later, and it was a big thing for a while, but we'd poured some farm chemicals over them before closing the hole up, and there wasn't much left. If it weren't for the serial numbers on the bike they would have never known who they were. The trucks were driven a hundred miles away and dumped over a bank on a lonely mountain road. We'd wiped them clean, then set them on fire before pushing them over. The burned out hulks were found three days later.

A week after that Tim came by.

He got out of the car, grinning at the way I moved. "You all right?"

Lynne had put twenty stitches in me. I waved a hand. "Slipped gettin' off the tractor. I'll be fine in a day or so."

"Was out this way, and Emily wanted me to get some stuff Honey had promised her. I heard you're gonna be a daddy again."

"Five more months," I said, grinning with pride.

Honey came out and hugged him. "I hear he's not the only one."

It was his turn to grin. "We're about a month behind you. She wants a girl this time."

"Yeah, that's what she said. We already got a Princess, so I'd like it to be a boy, but we'll see."

She fillted around, geting the veggies ready, while we sat on the porch.

"Hear about them burned out trucks?"

"The ones in Tennessee?"

"Yeah. They tracked them back to the place that rented them, and guess whose name came up? Your old friend Ollie. They suspect it was part of a drug deal went wrong. There were more than a few bullet holes in them."

"He'll get what's coming to him one of these days."

"I'm sure he will. You know the whole crew disappeared? Just pulled up stakes and left."

"Good."

He sighed. "Yeah, I'm glad they set up in someone else's back yard. Maybe things will be quieter now."

He paused for a minute before asking. "It will, won't it? Get quieter?"

"Probably, but how the hell would I know? To quote Max Yasgar, I'm just a farmer."

He grinned every time he saw me, and retired after thirty years. The man who took his place wasn't half the sheriff he was. He was by the book, while Tim was able to adjust to the situation, and if no one one was getting hurt, he was much more relaxed.

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No one ever spoke of that year again. All of us stopped growing, except for a few plants for personal use. Pot growing was still big business, there was even a Time cover of a man wearing overalls, a ball cap, and a bandana over his face, holding an M16. The title was "North Carolina Farmer." At the time, we were the fourth largest grower in the country. The Feds got used to people using Park land to grow on, and were much more aggressive, using planes, helicopters, and ATV's, and a lot of people got caught. A lot more got by, so the trade continued.

I laugh about it now, thinking it will probably be legal before I pass. Our kids, all three of them, were grown now. Shelley inherited Buck and Kim's farm. Our son Walter will probably take over for us when we fully retire. Little Nat followed his godfather's footsteps and became a teacher. Nat' son would be taking over the accounting office in the next few years. I'm 63 now, and my long blond hair is mostly white now. I started to cut it a bunch of times, but Honey threatened to whip my ass every time I bring it up.

Honey was 59, looking 35, in my eyes anyway. She's a mainstay at the Farmers Market, but lets Walter handle the commercial market in Asheville. If you want to launder money a little bit at a time, farmers markets are the way to do it. It's a cash business, and no one would hold out on Uncle Sam, right?

We're going out, down to Charlotte to spend the night and go to the Double Door. We'd go about once a year, if someone we really wanted to see was there. It had been a mainstay in Charlotte for over 40 years, and rumor had it they were closing next year. It saddened us, but all things pass, I guess.

We were giggling when we came through the doors, I'd brought along a couple of fat joints, and we'd smoked them on the way down. I watched as Honey shook her ass to the music, grinning at guys half her age trying to hit on her. The girls there would seek me out, asking if I was an old hippie. I'd just laugh and ask who they were calling old.

We looked exactly what we were, a harmless old couple out for a night, reliving memories. If asked, Honey would tell you not to let the clothes fool you, I wasn't always a farmer. There were fourteen bodies lying in an unmarked hole on Federal lands who could attest to that. It also meant she wasn't the kindly grandmother everyone thought she was. Oh, she doted on them, but try to touch one and the street girl would come out, knife flashing. But if you left us alone and respected us, we'd do anything we could for you.

We fell in bed at the hotel that night, and for a brief time we were the wounded vet and the smartass street hustler who saved each other. After we'd exhausted each other, she draped herself across me and went to sleep, her hands locked around my arm.

Looking back, I thought I was the luckiest man alive the day she tried to jack me. Honey still brought up how we met once in a while, grinning. In the annals of love, it was a most unsual start.