Bonner Incident (16 page)

“What about the equipment that was at the forestry sale site? It is valued at one point six million dollars?”

“My client has answered that in her written statement that was provided to you by the county prosecutor’s office. She doesn’t know where it’s at and she isn’t listed on the filed company ownership papers, so she has no ties to them. She does have access to the account, but only as a spouse,” Ralph said and pulled out a folded stack of papers and slid them down the table to the IRS agent. “This is a court order for ninety days, barring you from seizing the property that my client inherited. Any trespass on your part that isn’t covered by state law will be prosecuted in civil court. Let me assure you, it will be a big number with lots of zeros.”

For the first time, Agent Griffey looked irritated and couldn’t even force a smile. “That will be all for now,” he almost growled, staring at Buck.

Ralph stood up, pulling Sonya who pulled William. “You may contact my office if you wish to ask my client further questions and any attempt to do otherwise will be viewed as entrapment and harassment. No charges are filed on my client and therefore, she has no responsibility to answer. Good day,” Ralph said laying a business card on the table. He pushed Sonya toward the door and then followed her and William out.

When they’d left, Griffey leaned over the table, still glaring at Buck and Stanley. “I’m filing papers to have charges brought against both of you for violating national security laws by copying a federally protected computer with sensitive information.”

“Go right ahead,” Buck chuckled. “You may have all of our copies, but I can assure you if you try, a copy may be found and released on the internet about how the federal government is seizing private businesses to generate assets.”

Griffey jumped up out of his chair. “This meeting is over,” he said storming for the door.

“I didn’t want the damn thing in the first place!” Buck shouted as the others jumped up, almost running to catch up with Griffey.

Before Stanley said anything, Buck raised his hand and pressed the intercom. “Will you have that electronic guy come in and do another sweep?”

Chapter Eight

Exhausted, Joshua looked around the cabin as the sun slowly rose outside. He had made two trips to the dugout over the last two days. This was his third and final trip. He looked around the cabin, seeing only furniture and dishes. As he turned, he stopped and looked at the fireplace mantle. On it sat a huge fifty-pound grizzly bear trap with a cow bone in the massive jaws.

A grin split Joshua’s face as he walked over to the mantle. “Why the hell not? It may come in handy,” he mumbled, picking the fifty-pound trap up with a grunt and putting it on the floor. He walked over to the closet and pulled out a long set trap tool that was just two steel rods attached at the end and used to compress the springs of the trap.

With a lot of grunting and swearing, Joshua finally got the cow bone out without setting the massive jaws. Just looking at the jaws closed gave him the shivers. Picking up the trap, he carried it out to the mules and strapped it on. Making one last walk through, he grabbed the radios he’d left charging that he had taken off of Wayne. He had a portable solar panel that he used to charge stuff at the dugout.

He now knew that one was an FBI radio, and they were setting up in Nordman on Priest Lake, a few miles away. Many of the transmissions were in code, but he could work them out. Walking out of the cabin he sighed, giving it a longing look. “Don’t know what they’re going to do to ya, but you’ve served me well,” he said patting the door.

Turning around, he walked over to his horse and climbed on. “Come on King. Let’s make this run and then we can rest,” he said giving King a kick. With the mules trailing with leads to his saddle, Joshua guided King on a different route to the dugout. Each trip he’d used a different path and avoided any snow.

If snow was on the ground, Joshua used rocky ridges so he wouldn’t leave tracks. The routes he took from the cabin were trails that were well-worn from all of the riding he and his family had done from here. He had watched a few of those shows on TV, and it was a little more difficult to track someone than they all depicted. If the person you were tracking knew what they were doing and the area had a lot of rock and was large, it was damn near impossible.

Because he was taking different routes each time, Joshua couldn’t doze for long in the saddle. He tried not to doze at all, but staying awake for two days was hard as hell when you’re worn out and the feds are hunting you. Thinking of the feds, his pulse sped up and anger flushed his mind. Sitting up straight in the saddle he took a deep breath, “Anger clouds the mind and you make stupid choices,” he said out loud then laughed. “How many times have I said that to Ben?”

At just that moment, King gave a snort and Joshua grinned. “Yeah, a bunch of times and he never listened.”

It was ten and Joshua was riding along a rocky ridge to stay away from the soft wet dirt along the valley floor, when he heard rocks sliding behind him. As he turned, he heard one of the mules bay out. Looking back, he saw the last mule had slid down the slope, breaking the lead rope tied to the other mule. The mule lay twenty yards down the slope on its side, trying to stand up with the three-hundred-pound pack on its back.

“Shit,” Joshua said getting off his horse. He led the horse and other mule over to some trees and tied them off. He wasn’t worried about them walking away; he was worried about them following him and getting hurt. Using trees, Joshua moved down the steep slope to the mule and froze when he saw its front leg bent sharply the wrong way.

“Damn,” he said reaching down and patting the mule’s head to stop it from trying to get up and end up falling further down the slope. Feeling it was his fault for taking that route and not paying attention, Joshua rubbed the mule’s head. “Sorry buddy,” he said. “You’ve been with me for five years and have done a great job, but I can’t get you out of here to a vet.”

When the mule relaxed and stayed laying down, Joshua moved up the slope to his horse. He dug in his saddlebag, pulling out a suppressor for his 1911. This is one area that Joshua willingly and knowingly broke the law and used what he made. He didn’t believe the government had a right to tell people they couldn’t put a muffler on a gun to make the damn thing quieter and not burst your eardrums.

The only reason suppressors were put on the firearm registration list in the 1930’s was because the government didn’t want people hunting and killing game during the Depression without buying a hunting permit. It was feared since most people, eighty percent of the population, then lived in the country, that they would be able to shoot wild animals without being heard from far away and be able to put food on the table. They would rather a family starve or pay them than survive. That was the only reason for making suppressors illegal to own without a two-hundred-dollar tax stamp. Which in the 1930s was over a year’s pay, not to mention, you could walk in many stores and buy a suppressor for two dollars.

Screwing the suppressor on, Joshua eased back down the slope and sat down beside the mule as it panted. He knew where to aim and placed the suppressor on the mule’s head, squeezing the trigger and making the 1911 give a loud cough.

The mule’s head dropped to the ground and its body was still as Joshua flicked the safety back on. “Hope this isn’t an omen,” he said getting up and he started undoing the pack saddle. It took a bunch of trips, but he loaded the pack saddle on his horse.

Going back down the slope, he cut some bushes and wiped his boot prints away while moving back up the hill. Trying to hide the mule’s body would be a waste of effort and scavengers would be around soon to do it for him.

It was just after noon when he started walking, leading his horse and mule to the dugout. He couldn’t ride with his horse so loaded, and he wasn’t in the mood to unload and come back to get what was on the dead mule.

When he reached the dugout, Joshua was beyond tired as he just pushed the pack saddles off letting them hit the ground. He pulled the saddle off of King and then led the animals to a small rope corral he used. He used to hobble his animals but after a bear had tried to get them several years ago, he’d stopped so the horses and mules could fight back.

Leaving the stuff on the ground, Joshua passed through a small stand of bushes. When you stood back and looked at the area, it looked like the bushes sat next to a vertical wall. But if you walked through the bushes you would find the door that Joshua opened and he walked into the cabin.

He turned on a battery-operated LED lamp on a small table that sat in the middle of the one room cabin. The twenty by twenty dugout cabin was usually rather sparse with only a cast iron stove, a table with one chair; a chair Joshua had made that he could sit and read in, and a cot. Now, it was packed with the stuff he had taken from the cabin and was packed with boxes and storage bins.

Dropping into the reading chair, he laid his head back sighing, feeling bad about losing his mule. “Don’t think that would’ve happened if I wouldn’t have been so tired,” he mumbled closing his eyes and vowing not to make the same mistake again.

Knowing sleep would avoid him for a while, no matter how tired he was, in his mind’s eye, Sonya and William popped up and he smiled. He was worried about them but knew his neighbors and friends would protect them.

Joshua had been lucky in the wife department, first Mary his childhood sweetheart who he still loved. They had gotten married just after high school. Then Sonya, he had known Sonya since high school and had always liked her as a friend. They’d started dating a year after Mary had died, and were married six months later. After Mary had passed, Joshua had moved in with his mother, so she could help with William while he worked.

When he married Sonya, he’d moved to her house and bought the lot next to it for his company. It had worked out rather well, since he used to live close to Lamb Creek and most of the crew lived nearby. Sonya was beyond one of a kind and for a long time, he didn’t understand why no man ever snatched her up when she was younger.

He knew about her aversion to having kids and didn’t think it was a big deal. Hell, if he was a woman, he wouldn’t. But talking to others, it seemed that was a major downside to men. When she turned twenty-one, Sonya had tried to find a doctor to tie her tubes, but she couldn’t find a doctor in Idaho, Washington, Utah or Montana that would do it for a woman so young. Sonya was using a lawyer to get a court order to have one do it, when she found a doctor in Denver that would do the procedure. She was the one girl in school who had looked at the childbirth films as real life horror movies.

William had been a blessing because Mary had been told she couldn’t have kids and Joshua didn’t mind, he loved her. Then Mary told him one day, right after his thirty-second birthday, she was pregnant. That was one of the few times in his life that Joshua almost passed out from shock. One of the others, was the day his dad died.

She was smart, beautiful and Sonya’s only downside, that he could see was her big heart, and he didn’t really consider that a downside, most of the time. She loved to help others. More people knew her than Joshua. When someone in the community fell on hard times, Sonya would do what she could to help and was endeared to literally thousands of people.

Not to say it didn’t get on Joshua’s nerves. Not the fact she helped others, but loved to give. When William was eight, they were all sitting in the living room one Sunday afternoon watching a football game. A commercial came on for a computer game and William bounced up and down on the couch, saying he wanted it.

When the game got to halftime, Sonya kissed them both, saying she had to go but would be back shortly. Unknown to Joshua then, Sonya got in her car and drove to Coeur d’Alene sixty miles away, bought the game William had wanted, and drove home.

She’d found them on the couch watching another football game and handed the game to William who was ecstatic. Well, Joshua wasn’t excited about that and informed Sonya that was spoiling William. He’d watched in stunned horror as sweet little Sonya had changed into a wrath of nature that any sane man would bow to.

Joshua had never been afraid of any man, but he damn sure sat his ass down when Sonya bellowed at him that day. For an hour she yelled at Joshua, that William was her baby now and she could get him whatever she wanted to and whenever she wanted to.

To make matters worse, Sonya had called Joshua’s then seventy-eight-year-old mother and had yelled at her for raising a man that was mean to his baby. His mom finally got out of Sonya what she was mad about and convinced Sonya that’s not how Joshua was raised. To prove her point, his mom climbed in her caddy and drove fifty miles from Sandpoint to his house, and joined Sonya in screaming at him for being mean to William.

Remembering what his dad had told him as a kid, ‘Son, never argue with an angry woman, you’ll have better luck counting grains of sand on a beach. Just sit down or leave because it’s a useless endeavor. When they start to calm down, just say okay and be done with it.’