The Surrogate Ch. 03

After a few miles Mila could see a series of long low buildings in the distance and then she saw a gate. A very substantial gate she realised as she braked hard. Two men on horseback holding military-style assault rifles watched her approach and one of them made a motion for her wind down her window, which she did.

He rode over, leaned down and looked into the car.

"Howdy Mrs Randal; this is far as you go today I'm sorry," the man smiled at her amiably enough but there was menace in his tone.

"I'm just out for a drive, I didn't see any signs or anything," Mila didn't want to sound apologetic but it was her natural reaction, probably because they both knew that she was lying.

The other man on horseback took position on the other side of the car.

"Well I'm sorry honey but you're going to have to turn back to Redhaven," the first man was still staring intently at her.

It was then she realised why the horsemen were so keen to stare through the windows. Mila was wearing a miniskirt and pantyhose and her skirt was nearly up around her waist and she was showing off her pretty pink satin panties. She struggled to pull down the hem of her skirt in the cramped car and the cowboys grinned at her as she flushed with embarrassment.

"Looks like they sent an escort to take you back to town," one of the men nodded down the road.

Mila looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the flashing lights of a patrol car. The car pulled up behind her and a young, good-looking uniformed police officer got out of the car and adjusted the Stetson on his head. He nodded to the two men on horseback and went over and spoke to them for a while before he came over to Mila's car.

Uninvited he opened the passenger door and got in beside her.

"Good afternoon Mrs Randal, it appears you've taken a wrong turn back aways. I'm here to make sure you don't get lost," the man was confident and polite.

Unlike the two cowboys he kept his eyes locked on hers and not down her lap where her skirt stubbornly refused stay put under her ass.

"I don't need an escort, I can simply re-trace my route," Mila was angry at the way she was being treated.

"Look ma'am, I know that you are an important person in this town but you are not of our faith and there are some things you don't know. One of them is that the Sons of Jehovah ranch is off limits to all visitors. It's a working cattle ranch and city people like yourself are libel to get hurt."

To Mila this seemed like a flimsy excuse to have men with automatic weapons guarding the gate to a farm.

"Seems like overkill to have cowboys with machine guns and municipal law enforcement guarding a few cows."

Mila saw a flash of intense anger in the police officer's eyes and then his friendly demeanour returned.

"We don't get many visitors to Redhaven as you are probably aware but we do get a few gawkers who think we are some kind of weird religious cult or kind of interesting and quaint like the Amish."

"You've been among us long enough to know that we value our privacy, you agreed to abide by our moral code and religious tenets."

"Yes I get that but no one told me that I couldn't take a drive whenever I wanted to," Mila was still angry.

"And that is your right ma'am. Just not along this road and out to this ranch; it's off limits."

"Look we've had a few issues with so-called environmental warriors collecting what they call 'resource data', taking pictures and collecting soil and water samples on our land without prior permission."

"A bunch of fern-sniffing pinko lefties set up camp out here when we invested in natural gas fracking and we had to move them on so we found the easiest way to keep them out was to make this road and the whole area legally off limits except to those who work here."

"Now if you would be so kind as to turn around and drive back onto the main road I'd be obliged," the police officer gave her his best smile.

"Sorry officer, I'll turn around right now."

Mila was not convinced by the officer's story but she was in no position to argue.

"Thanks ma'am. Nice legs by the way," the police officer grinned at her and exited the vehicle.

Mila was fuming all the way back to the main road where her police escort overtook her and took off at speed. Officer Friendly gave her a wave as they drove past her and Mila gave him the finger.

As Mila's anger dissipated it was replaced by curiosity. How had the cowboys known that she was coming and how had the police turned up so quickly? Were there were guards on the ranch gates at all the times? She had seen the radios on the cowboy's belts and the sophisticated wireless earpieces around their necks. Did they have a direct radio link to the police department? That still didn't explain how the cops had arrived so quickly.

More importantly they had addressed her as Mrs Randal. How did they know who she was? Sure, it was likely that most of the citizens of Redhaven knew that they had outsiders living in their town; they were a close-knit religious community after all. But the cowboys? How would they know?

To be continued