A Pair of Second Chances (Ben Jensen Series Book 1) (31 page)

Ben was just starting to crouch down to crawl under the bottom rail of the split rail fence, when a flare of light caught his eye in the doorway of a small barn that sat to the east side of the house. He sat back on his heels and again raised the glasses to his eyes.

There had been a guard! That was close... a few more seconds and he'd have moved out of the camouflage of that rail fence, and into the open of the paddock beyond. Now, fortunate enough to have a guard fool enough to reveal himself, by smoking on duty, he could see the tiny speck of the orange tip of his cigarette, every time the fool drew on his cancer stick.

Ben sat back on the ground and just watched. He'd no idea of how long the guard had been in his position, or when he was likely to be relieved. If he just crawled down there and put him on the ground, his relief could come at any moment and all advantage would be lost. Better to wait. Take more time... See what developed.

Knowing he was outnumbered by at least eight or nine to one, discretion seemed to be his best course of action now.

... and then the phone in his pocket vibrated!

Turning away, so his body would shroud the light of his phone, from the view of the guard at the barn a few hundred feet away, he took it out and looked at the screen. Damn! Amanda was calling him. Well he sure as hell couldn't talk to her now.

With clumsy thumbs he punched a quick message into the phone; "Wait. Can't talk now. Wait!" and hit the send button. Damn... "good thing I remembered to turn off the volume on the damn thing. Would have been a lot of fun for it to start ringing now!" he thought.

A minute later, the damn phone buzzed again in his pocket. "Damn it!" Ben turned once again to shroud the phone and looked. It was a return text from Amanda; "Call me. I'm SO Scared. Please!"

Something in the tone of her message got to him, made him nervous. Sitting there, looking through the fence rails knowing Karen was just over there. Just a few hundred feet, with 9 dirtbags 'tween him and her, and not knowing what was happening inside, compounded the tension in his head. The pressure was intolerable.

He looked back across the ground behind him. It fell away, slightly, from the fence line. It was one reason, along with his careful and slow approach, that the guard in the barn hadn't spotted him.

To go back now, to leave without Karen, tore at his soul. But, he couldn't continue forward not knowing if something else had happened that might have changed the game. Before he could take any other action, he had to find that out. What had Amanda more scared?

Slowly, looking back at the dark house in regret, he crawled through the grass the way he'd come.

He moved several hundred yards to the north, to a place the land dipped into a dry drainage coming down from some low foothills to the west. He stopped there and punched the speed dial to Amanda. She picked up on the first ring.

"Ben!"

"What's going on Amanda. What's so urgent?" Ben failed to conceal the frustration in his voice.

"Don't be angry with me!" She exclaimed; "I haven't had a sound or a message since you left, and now your face is all over the news!"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"The News Ben! The state police have posted your picture as "a person of interest" they want to talk to. It's about the shooting in Ennis. God Ben! They're looking for you!" Amanda's voice was near to hysteria.

"Calm down girl. I told you they would be. It's not unexpected. Listen. I bet they've been to the ranch, and found nothing. They've probably tried to call my phone, likely even already got the phone records trying to find me that way... and again nothing. Relax Amanda, I'll take care of it." Ben tried to make his voice sound calmer than he was.

Though he'd known and expected the police to come snooping around, he also knew he'd left nothing for them to trace. If he did his job well enough, he never would. The risk was great though. With them now officially looking for him he'd have to pull off this next bit, virtually under their noses.

The sound of Amanda's voice broke into the internal monologue rattling in his head; "Ben? Ben! Are you there?"

"Yes, I am, Amanda, calm down. Relax. Nothing has gone wrong. Nothing has turned against us. With a little bit of luck, this will all be over, tomorrow, or the next day. You have to calm down. You got this far. You can go the rest. OK?"

"I don't know Ben! I'm shaking! I'm so scared, every time I hear a noise. A pine cone falls on the roof and I nearly jump out of my skin! Are you coming home soon?"

"Coming Home?" The sound of those words startled him; Left him silent for a minute.

"Ben, damn it! Answer me will you?" she pleaded.

"Sorry... I ... uh... I don't know Amanda... you just threw me off balance with that "Coming Home" bit" Ben laughed rather sardonically.

"Oh, sorry, you know what I meant. When Ben? When are you coming?"

"I can't really say Amanda, it's really up in the air. I... can't say what's happening. Best for now, if you don't know that. Just... it's close. One way or the other, the next 48 hours and this is all over. You have to trust me. I have to go Amanda. Don't call me unless Timmy's on fire ok? It's... uh ... dicey here... I'll call you as soon as I can, OK"

"Ok... I'm sorry to be so much trouble for you Ben. I'm sorry."

"Aw, don't go gettin' all soppy on me now gal. I haven't had this much excitement in years. You've been good for me! Hell, I ain't been this sober in years." he joked. "Amanda, we'll get through this. We will. I promise. I gotta go!" Ben hit the end button and stood holding the phone a few seconds.

"I sure hope I'm not lying to the girl." he thought.

Chapter
31

Ben climbed back up out of the drainage and stood on the lip, looking back toward the house to the south and thinking. There had to be a way through this. Karen was just over there, in that dark house. He wouldn't bring in the feds. He'd never seen them do anything except make a bad situation worse, and then claim credit as genuine western heroes in the face of their failure.

He'd not risk Karen's life, or that of Amanda and her son for that matter, to the bureaucratic stupidity of any employee of any government. Not while he still had the freedom to maneuver.

But that still left him with his dilemma. Nine men at least in the house, holding Karen. Two unknown men, over in those trees a few hundred yards south, watching the house; Six more of their compatriots, sitting in a camp down below the Blackfoot. Then, just to spice up the mix, the State Police looking to hang that Ennis party on him.

Yeah, he'd not had this much excitement in years!

But What? How? What was the course of action that would shuffle all these pieces around to fit together in a puzzle that left both him and Amanda, breathing, and walking away?

The answer hit him like one of those religious epiphanies. It had been there, right in front of him, since he'd skirted the ambush back at the mine that morning. It was so simple it was elegant. So simple, one mistake, one, single, sliver of a miscalculation, one fart at the wrong moment, and he was pig food with Amanda sliding back in to hell.

But, never the less he liked it. It was a 'plan' that suited his nature. But, did he like it because it truly was a good idea? Or, did he tell himself it was a good idea that he liked, because it was, in fact, the only idea he could come up with?

The biggest question was, could he pull it off? In his fantasy there was no doubt. In the reality that stood in front of him, his confidence was not quite so strong.

The watch on his wrist said it was after 1 a.m. by the time he worked his way back to the fence line, being more cautious this time, and found himself with the same problem. He hadn't any idea of where he was in the guard's rotation schedule. Had the guard been relieved while he was gone? Had anything else changed?

He couldn't see the scouts at their position behind the pines that sheltered the pullout. The two vehicles at the house still sat where they'd been, in front of the garage. The house was still dark.

Ben raised his glasses to search the barn once again, and all the dark recesses of the house and the few other small outbuildings. Again he could see no one. There was no revealing glow from a cigarette. He couldn't see him, but he knew he was there, and he'd bet money, he was sitting in a chair, in the alley of that barn.

The barn was a standard alley type configuration. It looked to have four stalls on one side, and four on the other. A wide alleyway ran down the middle with an open sliding door at either end. The west end faced the house, and it was in that dark opening, he'd spotted the flare of a match when a foolish guard lit a cigarette.

That barn was his immediate target. Ben low crawled through the grass, down the fence line until he'd reached a line roughly even with the east end of the barn, away from the expected position of the guard. He lay for some minutes listening, watching for any sign that his movement had been observed.

After five minutes without a sound or a movement, he slowly crawled under the bottom rail and out into the open of the short grass in the paddock beside the barn.

Ben felt, in the open glare of a nearly full moon, like a spotlight was trained on his back. His desire was to scramble into the protective shadow of the barn, but he willed himself to move slowly. Painfully slowly. Every inch of the way, he felt like the red dot of a rifle laser sight was focused on his head. Every inch he pulled himself along he could see the slack being taken out of the trigger. Every inch as he crossed that space he expected to hear the crack of a shot and the pain of the impact.

Silence and almost imperceptible movement was his only protection. It took him many minutes to cross that few hundred feet between the outer fence and the inner, that ran beside the barn to the west end.

If it wouldn't have allowed a sound he'd have breathed a huge sigh of relief as he again slid under the bottom rail and up against the East wall of the barn.

Slowly, imperceptibly, he raised his head, at the base of the doorway, and moved it into the opening, so that only the left side of his head, and one eye, was visible, if someone was looking. Even then, as slow as he moved, and low to the ground, it would be difficult to spot.

There, silhouetted against the lighter, graveled roadway beyond, sat his guard in a chair. Ben still didn't know when this one had come on duty. Was it the same guard? Or a fresh one? He chose, for the most part, to wait and see. But, while he waited, he might as well get closer. Peering down through the barn he could see barrels and what he took to be a large grain bin, on his side, about half way down the alley.

Slowly, on his hands and knees he silently crept through the barn. As he crawled, watching the guard at the far end, he was careful to keep his vision focused on a point to the left and beyond the guard. He'd been taught, never, ever; stare at what you're hunting. Some form of telepathy is transmitted that warns your intended target. Always, look away.

When he'd scoffed at the idea, they'd told him; "Don't believe? Next time you're sitting at a red light, turn your head and stare at the driver beside you... or at the one in front of you, stare hard. Concentrate on them. See if a hell of a lot of 'em don't start acting nervous and looking around!"

Ben had tried it, expecting to see nothing. But damn, more times than not, it was true! So, to the side and beyond was where he focused, and kept watch on the guard with only his peripheral vision.

He only had to cover the length of two stalls, maybe 24 feet to gain the cover of the grain bin. When he made that without a problem he silently slid in behind it and sat with his back to the wood and just listened.

It was nearly an hour before he heard the crunching of boots in the driveway approaching the barn.

Guards, not as careful as they should have been, exchanged a few words, louder than they should have;

"I know Stevie. How dat fool know where we are? What he gon' do if he did? There's nine of us and only his puny white ass! But Tyrone say we keep a guard, so we keep a guard! Go on now and get your own black ass back to bed. Janik is watchin' dat white girl in the front room till morning. Go now!"

"Ok Amani... I'm goin'... don' go fallin' asleep now!" Stevie laughed softly as he turned toward the house.

Ben listened as the relieved guard walked away toward the house. He waited for the guard to get settled and relaxed before he eased over to peer around the bin.

"What the...?!!" he almost said aloud before he caught himself. The man sat in the chair but his head was bouncing and his hands were tapping his legs...

Ben peered through the darkness at the Man in the chair, silhouetted against the moonlit driveway. He didn't see what he thought he saw, did he? He pulled his binos out of where he'd tucked them into his shirt and put them to his eyes. The guard was sitting less than thirty feet away and he thought he could see, but needed to make sure.

"Jesus Christ" he thought. "How have these fools stayed out of jail bein' this stupid?!" With the binoculars, and the guard silhouetted against the moonlight, Ben could clearly see the wires of an Ipod, dangling from the idiots ears!

Seeing that, and with little need left for caution, Ben just stood up and walked toward the man, drawing the K-bar from its scabbard as he neared.

He stood just behind him, his shadow from the moonlight streaming in the door thrown back into the darkness of the barn. Ben looked at the man's back for a part of a second; a blank, emotionless mask descended over his face. He shook his head slightly, as if in disbelief. With a quickness that blurred his movement, and a silent yet savage violence, his left hand covered the seated man's mouth jerking his head to the side, as simultaneously, the K-bar in his right hand, the back of its blade reversed against his arm, slid in an arc across the dead man's jugular on the outstroke, as the hand and arm flashed forward

While no one knows how long it takes the soul to leave the body, the life departed this one in mere seconds, accompanied by the massive gush of blood from the severed vein in his throat that soaked Ben's hand and sleeve.