Bonner Incident (5 page)

Ben climbed in and grabbed his seat belt. “Charlie was called to the main office in Missoula. He has to go there today.”

Shaking his head, Joshua turned to Ben. “Did you go over there and whoop his ass after I told you not to?”

“No,” Ben scoffed and saw Joshua just staring at him not believing it. “Well, I was going to, but Charlie basically laid down on the ground crying when I got out of my truck. I just didn’t have the heart to stomp his ass with him acting like that.”

Turning in his seat and grabbing the steering wheel, Joshua backed out of the driveway. “Ben, you’re not fighting MMA anymore, so you need to chill with the fighting. Bail is starting to get expensive,” Joshua said pulling out on the street.

“You’ve only bailed me out like four times,” Ben said waving his hand. “And I’ve always paid you back.”

As he drove, Joshua counted in his mind each time he’d had bailed Ben out of jail for beating the shit out of someone and more than once, it was several ‘someones’ at the same time. One thing that could be said, Ben could fight and wasn’t scared to do it. Pulling into a gas station that served breakfast, Joshua parked. “Since high school, I counted twenty-two times I’ve bailed you out of jail for fighting, and one for taking a man’s gun away from him and shoving the barrel in his ass.”

“The motherfucker was divorced from the bitch,” Ben snapped as Joshua climbed out. “You don’t come to my house and pull a gun out because I’m banging your ex. The fucker is lucky I didn’t shoot his ass.”

Joshua pointed to Ben’s hip at the bulge under his coat. “You aren’t supposed to have a gun, Ben.” Like Joshua, Ben carried a gun, believing the old adage, ‘it’s better to be judged by twelve than carried by six’.

“You know all but two of those charges were dropped and I’ve never had a felony conviction. It was knocked down to a misdemeanor.”

Not in the mood for Ben’s logic, Joshua headed inside to grab premade sausage, egg and cheese biscuits. Climbing back in the truck, Joshua tossed the bag to Ben. “So, you wanted to tell me that Charlie got called to the regional Forestry office today?” Joshua said pulling out on the highway.

“Yeah, but Charlie thinks he’s going to be fired today,” Ben said passing a biscuit to Joshua. “Charlie said this Ronald guy wants to be moved higher in other branches of government and wants to make a name for himself.”

“Asshole is a good name for him,” Joshua said unwrapping his biscuit as he pulled off the highway onto a dirt road heading up to the mountains.

“Uh, Josh?” Ben said in a nervous voice glancing over at him. “Charlie said we need to really consider sabotaging our equipment on-site to get out of the contract.”

Having known Ben all his life and considered Ben his best friend, Joshua slowed down hearing Ben’s voice quiver. “Come again,” Josh said turning to look at him.

“Charlie said we may want to sabotage our equipment to get out of the contract.”

“Ben!” Joshua shouted slamming on the brakes. “You know most of that equipment is new, you were with me when I bought it. You’re talking about breaking almost two million dollars in heavy equipment and need I remind you, insurance doesn’t cover logging equipment in a national forest, thanks to the last administration that was in the White House. You have to wait for the cops to find who did it and sue them. If we did it, I’d have to eat it.”

With a flat expression, Ben turned away and looked out the front window at the dirt road in the headlights. “I talked to the guys. We can take a few months without pay to fix the equipment.”

Shaking his head, Joshua opened the center console and pulled out the contract, holding it out for Ben. “That’s nice, but that wouldn’t cover anything,” he said dropping the contract in Ben’s lap. “Go ahead and read it. Eighty percent of your operating heavy equipment has to be damaged to fifty percent of value. So that means, of the two log trucks, skidder, crawler, Hahn processor and loader; five would have to be damaged fifty percent of value. You’re talking well over a million dollars, Ben. Last I checked, and I’m the one who writes the checks, you and the crew don’t make near that much in a few months.”

“Josh,” Ben said turning to look at him. “Charlie said that Ronald went after a large logging company in Washington. They ended up having to do their sale site for free, then pay several million in bullshit fines. Ronald never went after the small outfits like ours because we don’t have a lot of money to pay fines, but with the attention he got in D.C. from that large company, he wants to take what any company has. Bringing in that kind of money for the government makes a big name for him.”

Reaching over and putting the truck in park, Joshua threw up his hands. “Whoa, let me get this straight. Ronald Gifford is bankrupting businesses by fining them, getting money for the government, and putting people out of work, so the government has to support them. Is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s what Charlie said, and I believe him,” Ben said with a straight face. “America is the only country that punishes businesses so hard they bankrupt them, the same businesses that provide jobs supporting the economy. Unless you are a massive business that can buy protection from a politician like you’re paying the mafia.”

Turning around and grabbing the shifter, Joshua put the truck in drive. “Ben, all that new equipment almost bankrupted me. If it’s hurt, the company is dead, and I’m going under.”

Ben just stared out the window as Joshua drove down the dirt road up into the mountains. “I know, but maybe we can break the stuff so it doesn’t really cost that much,” he offered, but he knew it was hopeless.

“Let’s just bust our asses and get this job done,” Joshua said.

“I’m all for that,” Ben said. “To be honest, I don’t want to log in Washington this summer. How about we just go to Alaska and Canada?”

Seeing the snow line start up ahead, Joshua pushed the 4x4 button. “If we get picked up for Canada, we can do that.”

They drove in silence until they reached the mountaintop valley that the job site sat in. Ben finally unwrapped a biscuit and looked over at Joshua with a grin. “William did a great job yesterday, didn’t he?”

“He sure did,” Joshua said grabbing his mug. Ben didn’t have kids and had never been married. He had fallen in love with many women and like his fights, sometimes more than one woman at the same time. Ben just didn’t stay in love for very long. Some of the others on the crew had kids, but no boys as old as William came to the logging sites. 

“You load and I’ll get the vehicles warmed up,” Ben said climbing out and grabbing his gear.

After grabbing his own gear, Joshua walked over to the loader, shining the flashlight around on the wet snow. “If they leave me alone, we can be done next week,” he said and climbed up on the loader.

Before Ben had the skidder and crawler cranked up, Joshua was finished with the first truck. Leaving the loader running, he climbed out to see Ben climbing in the log truck, hauling the trailer he’d just loaded. Heading over to the other log truck, Joshua looked around as the lights from all of the vehicles lit up the area, and was certain they would be done by next week.

Unless a strong warm front moved in, they shouldn’t have any problems. The site was at fifty-eight hundred feet and the snow was still over a foot deep where the equipment hadn’t been, and the ground had refrozen overnight.

When Ben pulled the loaded truck out of the way, Joshua pulled into the loading area and jumped out. Landing hard, he grunted and bellowed out a puff of fog in the cold air. “I remember when I could jump off the roof of a skidder and that didn’t hurt my knees,” he grumbled heading back to the loader.

Loading the second trailer, Joshua glanced over to see Ben strapping down the first trailer. “It’s not so bad having help in the morning,” he said with a nod. When the trailer was loaded, Ben came over and they strapped the loaded logs down.

“Remember when we could only put two or three logs on a truck because they were so big?” Ben laughed locking down a chain.

“Shit, I remember when I was a kid, putting one log on a trailer for a load. Heads up,” Joshua said tossing a chain over the trailer.

With the trailers loaded, Joshua looked at his watch and saw they had over an hour until the crew showed up. “Let’s eat the rest of the biscuits and drink some coffee before the crew shows up,” he said as Ben walked around the trailer.

“Fine by me, Boss,” Ben said bellowing fog out. “We should be completely done next week. The thermometer in the crawler said it was twenty degrees.”

Joshua spun on his heel heading toward his truck. “Ben, don’t go jinxing us,” he said. “You can’t say it out loud.”

Breaking into a trot, Ben ran up beside Joshua and fell in step with him. “You mind if I make the first run to the mill and then I’ll get back to working the site?”

“No, but why?”

“I want to ask the foreman at the mill if they could spare a few more trucks to haul for us,” Ben said looking at the stack of logs. Even after loading both trucks, Joshua hadn’t made a dent.

“Ben, they’re paying for those other two trucks running, I’m not. I’ve never heard of a mill so desperate for timber, they used their own trucks and aren’t charging me for mileage. Believe me, if they weren’t paying for those two trucks, all we would be running is our own. The company is strapped, if I’m going to continue paying the crew weekly until our next job.”

They walked on in silence until they reached the truck and climbed back inside and Ben looked over at him. “I know, me and the boys talked it over and we’re going to pay for two more trucks,” Ben said, shocking Joshua. “With six trucks running, we can have the logs out of here by the end of the week and start on clean up.” Ben didn’t want to tell Joshua that he was going to ask for more than two trucks.

“You know how much that is going to cost?”

Nodding, Ben answered, “About two grand a day.”

“You do realize it’s Tuesday,” Joshua said grabbing a biscuit. “Not saying that’s not a good idea, but you’re talking about ten grand and I can’t pay any of you back until winter.”

“Gene called his sister at the bank and filled out for a loan for all of us. She brought the paperwork out to his house last night, and we all went over and signed it. Josh, with just four trucks running, we won’t get the cut logs cleared out till the end of next week.”

“Shit, if it was just our trucks, it would be the week after,” Joshua said trying to figure out how to pay the guys back before winter.

Grabbing his coffee, Ben looked away. “All of us still have half of our New Year’s bonus. So we don’t have to borrow that much.”

“How in the hell have you hung on to seven grand for four months?” Joshua said choking on his food. “Money burns a hole in your pocket faster than William’s.”

Shrugging his shoulders, Ben snorted, “Just been puttering around the house when I’m not working for you.”

In shock, Joshua stared as his buddy. “It’s getting that serious between you and Barbara?”

“Whoa now, hold on,” Ben said throwing up a hand. “It’s not serious. She’s just nice to be around.”

“Ben, I’ve known you your entire life, and you’ve never dated a woman for more than six months straight with the exception of Penny, and that was seventh grade. I thought you were breaking up with Barbara before Valentine’s Day,” Joshua said and started counting up how long that made and realized that it was a record for Ben.

“Well, ah, she moved in three weeks ago,” Ben mumbled.

Blown away, Joshua’s body went numb, dropping his food and coffee mug. Luckily, the coffee mug’s spill proof top was closed. “She’s got a kid,” Joshua mumbled.

“Yeah, Sammy is great,” Ben smiled. “I turned the guest room into his bedroom.”

Stunned to the core, Joshua just blinked. Yeah, Ben had other women ‘stay’ at his house, but never had he said one ‘moved in’ and never with a kid. “Why in the hell didn’t you tell me?” he finally said then his body jerked. “You were over for supper last week and didn’t even bring her?”

“Hey, I’m adjusting here, so don’t go spazzing out on me,” Ben said shoving his mouth full of food.

“Sonya’s going to kick your ass,” Joshua said reaching to the floorboard for his mug.

Swallowing the mouthful, Ben took a sip of coffee. “Hey, you tell your wife she can chew on your ass, not mine.”

“Sonya chews your ass out every time she sees you. Mostly for running around acting like a male whore and sleeping with anything that had a crack between her legs,” Joshua said wiping dirt off of the top of his mug. “I’ll probably have to take her to the hospital when I tell her.”

“Well, don’t tell the guys yet,” Ben said. “I want to give it a few more weeks at least before I tell anyone else. You know, in case I fuck it up.”

Nodding, Joshua reached over patting Ben’s arm, “Happy for you, brother.”

“I don’t know if I’m happy or not. More like scared of a tiny woman with the name, Barbara,” Ben groaned as headlights entered the valley. “Guys are here, let’s get this shit done.”

Glancing out his window as Ben opened his door, “I’ll try to pay you guys back when the mill pays me for this job,” Joshua said opening his door.

“Nope,” Ben said getting out. “You’ve always been there for us. This is our gift to you.” After he got out Joshua turned, looking through the cab at Ben standing on the other side of the truck holding his door open. “Besides, the only way we can keep our great jobs is to make sure you keep the business.”