Pat ruger box set 2, p.35
Pat Ruger Box Set 2, page 35
part #4 of Pat Ruger Series
I tried the door of an old white-and-rust-colored motorhome with part of its “Fleetwood” logo worn off. It was locked. I pushed and pulled on it until it popped open and gingerly stepped inside. I would have thought the insides of an abandoned rig would be trashed or gutted, but the opposite was true. There was some major water damage but all the appliances seemed to be intact, the seats and tables were warped but otherwise usable, and the floor was moldy but not broken. It was as if someone parked it, locked it up and covered their tracks so no one would find it.
I uncovered and entered rig after rig with the same result — untouched interiors that were aging and water-damaged. One even had a set of dinner plates and silverware set on its dinette table. I brought out my phone and found I didn’t have a signal, which wasn’t a surprise. I ran the GPS app to mark the coordinates of this aging storage lot. I wasn’t sure what I would do about it. I began taking photos and realized that none of the RV’s had license plates. I snapped about a hundred pictures of the interiors and exteriors of several of the rigs and some of the military vehicles until I was satisfied I had a good sampling of what was here.
I looked around again for signs of life, walking from one end of the camouflaged boneyard to the other and then stepped off a wide circle around it, and saw nothing — no tire tracks, no houses or cabins nearby, no cans or bottles thrown out, nothing. Bizarre, I thought.
A thought came to me and I decided to take another look through the lot, this time keeping an eye out for a red-and-white teardrop trailer. I walked back through, uncovering or brushing off every small trailer I came to, in case someone had tried to hide it here. There were no teardrops to be found.
I headed back toward the stream with Guy following closely, in and out of the trees and shrubs. As I reached the meadow I saw the gleam of what looked like a rifle scope and I dropped down into the grass. I grabbed Guy and held him down with me, then waited for a shot, or to be approached, or something, but there was nothing. After a few minutes we got back to our feet and I ran to where I thought I saw the scope. There was nothing apparent there or anywhere nearby. In the distance I heard a motorcycle start up and leave but I couldn’t get there in time to see it.
I decided my exploring was done for the day and we hiked back down the trail, following the stream back to the campsite. I looked for signs someone had been there but didn’t recognize anything that would indicate that. I was no longer comfortable here and began packing up to move.
Chapter 12
I edged my way back out to the main road and continued north as before. I drove a few more miles and started looking for another forest road to explore, this time on the west side of the highway.
In a couple of miles a motorcycle came south towards me and I noticed the logo on his jacket as he drove by. It was a member of the Death’s Door gang. I watched him in my side view mirror and was troubled to see him turn around and head back my way. I reached over and retrieved my handgun and made sure it was loaded. I set it on my lap.
The biker caught up with me quickly and began to pass, but stayed even with me instead of completing the pass. He looked at me and smiled, which was easy to see since he wasn’t wearing a helmet. The orange and black doo-rag wasn’t much protection, I said to myself. I thought he would move on ahead of me when a southbound car came towards him but he didn’t budge. The car had to slow and move over to avoid him.
The bike somehow managed to get a flip phone out and make a call with his left hand while still steering with his right. He flipped the phone closed and shoved it back into his jacket’s breast pocket. He looked at me again and smiled, then took his left hand off the handlebars to make a gun with it like a 6-year-old, firing the “trigger” with his thumb. I took my real gun out and showed it to him and the smile left his face. He sped up and pulled out in front of me, then slowed, but didn’t stop.
In a couple of miles another biker joined us, refilling the space in the oncoming lane beside me. Guy began to bark and I wasn’t able to calm him enough to stop. Another motorcycle came towards us in the oncoming lane, passed us and whipped a U-turn to follow. I was officially worried. In another mile or so, a line of bikes crossed the road from shoulder to shoulder, just beyond a small side road. I contemplated running the blockade, possibly killing or seriously injuring a biker or two and definitely damaging my RV and Malibu, and decided against it. No one had been hurt yet in our dealings and I didn’t want to draw first blood.
I slowed as I approached the biker line and saw that Mikey had stepped out in front of them. He pointed to my right at the side road and I took that to mean he wanted me to turn onto it. Again I considered my options. It was a paved road, which made me feel a little better about it and I slowly made the turn, Mikey walking on the road beside me. After straightening out, a yellow “Dead End” sign was standing nearby.
I pulled out my phone to call 911, but I had no cell signal, probably why the gang had chosen this spot, I guessed. After I drove a hundred yards or so away from Highway 47, he pounded the side wall below my window and I stopped. I still had the gun ready and showed it to at Mikey when I opened my window. Guy was still barking and I reached over to calm him somewhat.
“We want you gone. Understood?”
“No, I don’t understand. What’s the problem? Deputy Atwood seemed to think you …”
“Becky don’t know me, us. And she ain’t here.”
“You’re not holding a gun on me, and you’re not going to ‘smoke’ me, so she must know something. Where’s your buddy, the ugly one that had the gun on me before?”
“He’s … no longer a concern. Like I said, we’re not here to burn you, we just don’t want to see you or this hunk of tin in our mountains. You bein’ here is killin’ our rep.”
“How am I ‘killin’ your ‘rep’?”
“Word got around fast that you got off without a scratch in our last talk. That’s not acceptable.”
“So, what now?”
“So, you’re gonna get this thing pointed south and you’re gonna keep going ‘til you hit Arkansas.”
“I could do that, but … I’m investigating a missing person.” I picked up Jordan’s photo sitting on the driver’s console next to my bottle of water and held it up. “Have you seen that guy?”
He looked at it briefly before answering, “I don’ care what you’re investigating. You’re leaving here, now.”
“And if I don’t?”
Mikey smiled. “I was hoping you’d ask.” He stepped back and yelled to his gathering, “Do it!”
Through the side windows I could see the bikers get what looked like tools, axes, sledge hammers, crow bars, and the like. Then a deafening noise ensued as the bikers employed their tools on the side of the motorhome. The sound startled me and I crouched from sheer reflex. After a couple of minutes Mikey yelled, “Enough!” and the bikers slowed their onslaught to a stop.
“Come outside,” he told me and after some trepidation, I carefully opened the door without letting Guy out, then closed it behind me.
As I circled the motorhome I saw each side was battered and torn by the blows. I noticed one of the gang members apparently shooting video of the event on his phone and he was also taking note of the damage, I assumed to promote the attack as proof of my comeuppance. On the front, they had broken the turn lights and headlamps and dented the grill, but fortunately the windshield had only tiny fractures along its bottom. I assumed they were from striking the front wall above the grill. The sides were beaten pretty badly but, again, no windows were broken in. I was relieved to see the Malibu untouched.
“You’re lucky I’m a car guy,” Mikey said. “I couldn’t bear to wreck it. But, if you don’t leave Missouri, that’s the last time you’ll ever see it. We’ll part it out all over the country.”
I didn’t reply and stood there, wondering what to do. Mikey spun his fingers in the air to wave, “mount up” and all the bikers complied, taking their tools and strapping them in or otherwise placing them back on their motorcycles.
Mikey gave me one more stare and said, “Don’t let us catch you again.”
“Wait,” I replied. “There’s something here that just doesn’t add up. I’ve never seen a biker gang that didn’t kill or maim people. What are you, the first gang with a conscience?”
“We have our reasons, so you better thank God and get on outta here before that changes.”
“One of your guys wasn’t following me in the forest this morning, were they? Maybe protecting your vehicle stash?”
Mikey didn’t look happy that I mentioned the stash, but he managed to recover quickly. “We don’t have no vehicle stash.” He said it with a tone of finality, like the conversation was over. “Get moving, asshole,” he directed at me and climbed back on his bike.
The bikers with helmets put them on and the whole gang streamed away in a roar, doubled up in line. Mikey was the last one to leave. Silence didn’t completely return, though, until I let Guy out of the motorhome and he stopped barking. He sniffed all around but seemed to be satisfied that we were safe again and he hopped back in and onto the sofa.
I looked at the dog and asked, “What do we do now?”
Guy put his head down and closed his eyes.
“Thanks, buddy.” I said and commenced backing the rig and attached Malibu back very slowly until I reached the main highway. I got out to check for traffic, which was clear, then returned to the cockpit and backed out to the north, then drove south, remembering that the last RV resort I stayed in had a repair shop.
Chapter 13
“Three grand? For a little body work?”
“That’s what body work costs now, you know?” Ed, the mechanic, stood up from his terminal and reached for the printed copy. I knew he was Ed because of the embroidered name on his all-blue uniform. “I couldn’t get the turn signal frames,” he continued as he handed me the estimate. “You’ll need to find them on-line and have them shipped to me if you want me to install them.”
I remembered the similar model in the boneyard and said, “I think I can get you a pair. Give me a day or so.”
“No problem, it’ll take a couple of days for some of these parts to come in anyway. Are you leaving the RV here?”
“Well.” I replied, chuckling. “I live in it, so …”
“So, it will be in the campground?”
“Yeah, site …” I checked the resort’s paperwork. “… Site C 324.”
“Good enough. I’ll call you or come by when I need the rig.”
“Thanks, Ed,” I said as I shook his hand. I got in the motorhome and left his shop, arriving at C 324 in a couple of minutes. I had already uncoupled the car and left it in the site. I backed the RV in and set up camp. Then I let Guy climb in the Malibu’s back seat and took out my phone to set up the directions to the boneyard coordinates.
Before heading out, I decided to check in with the FBI. Gretchen wasn’t in when I called but another agent told me he could get a hold of her and to sit tight. In about ten minutes, she called.
“Hey, Patty. You rang?”
“Hey, Gretch. Just checking in. Any luck on that video?”
“Not really, but they did find the woman had a unique tat on her neck. Looks like a big black spider with an ‘L’ in it. Not sure what that means.”
“Her initial?”
“Maybe, but we often find that it’s a gang sign or other organization. We haven’t found this one yet, but we’re checking all over the country.”
“I guess that’s progress,” I replied. “Hey, I’ve got something else for you. Hold on while I send you some coordinates.” I fumbled through my apps until I found the GPS coordinates I had saved, “37.694326,-91.018202,” then copied and pasted them on a text to Gretchen. “I just sent them.”
“Okay, got ‘em. Hold on while I email them to myself. They’ll be easier to work with on my laptop.” There was silence for a couple of minutes, then she said, “Looks like these are in the middle of nowhere in the Mark Twain National Forest. What’s up?”
“I came across a military vehicle and RV boneyard at these coordinates. There were private property warning signs around it. Can you tell me who owns the property?”
“I should be able to … wait … okay, it’s BLM, not privately owned.”
“Bureau of Land Management? In Missouri?”
“I know that’s unusual. There’s no BLM office in Missouri, but there are small parcels scattered in many states without a state office. The national BLM administration takes care of them.”
“Interesting. I take it without a state office, oversight is mostly remote.”
She agreed and added, “They do make periodic visits to most of their parcels, I think, but that might not happen in decades.”
“Thanks, that’s helpful.”
“Talk to you soon, Patty.”
“Take care,” I replied and hung up. We headed out.
It wasn’t terribly easy to find the hidden boneyard since the GPS could only get me to the road closest by. I parked the car off the road and locked it, then grabbed a small tool bag out of the trunk and headed on foot to where I thought it was. Walking mode only worked so well in the woods. I made a couple of wrong turns but after about an hour of searching we finally came across one of the warning signs.
Guy was having a great time sniffing all the smells that apparently appealed to him from each of the abandoned RV’s. I paid no attention to him while I looked for my motorhome’s sister. After locating it, I examined the turn signal frames and they appeared to be the same as mine and in pretty good shape, though they might have needed a buff and shine. A noise interrupted me and I looked up towards it in time to see a maroon 4x4 pickup at the far end of the RV’s. It was pretty suped up with pipes and frames around the front, a roll bar in the bed and up over the cab, and fancy fog lights attached up top. I stood up to see better and the two men near the truck saw me. When they each picked up shotguns I knew I had to skedaddle, and fast.
I whistled for Guy and ran for the woods, leaving the tools behind. I heard the pickup rev up and spin out and knew that Guy would be on his own for a bit. I sprinted for a stand of trees I knew were too close together for a truck to follow, but they seemed to know their way through the forest and headed me off.
I changed directions and avoided the first couple of shotgun blasts, and the shooters were close enough that I heard one say, “We can’t let ‘im get away, Bobby.”
I ran as fast as I could to another dense thicket, and another, down a slight ravine and back up to a grove of aspens whose trunks were so thick I had to turn sideways to get between some of them. Looking back, I seemed to have lost them, so I sat to rest on a large boulder beyond the grove, listening for anything. The only thing I heard was the rustling of the aspen leaves in the breeze that came and went.
I brought up my phone and tried the GPS app’s walking mode again. It told me I was about three miles from my parked car and I needed to head S-SW to get to it. The problem was, the truck and shotguns were probably also in that direction. I decided to head directly west and circle back around to the car after a couple of miles. After a few more minutes of rest, I looked around and began moving west.
The forest floor became rocky and I turned my ankle slightly, quietly cursing under my breath. I stopped at a fallen log and sat down to rest and appraise my injury, which was minor. I knew better than to take my shoe off, just in case it was waiting to swell up. While sitting, I pulled out my phone and checked my position. The pointer took its time is showing up on the map and I looked up to see very little sky above me. Looking back at the map, I saw that I was now almost five miles from the Malibu. At two miles-per-hour or so, that would be at least a two-hour walk. I thought about Guy and wondered what he was doing. With any luck, I said to myself, he would be waiting for me at the car when I got there. In a few minutes I stood up and walked off the pain. After a few dozen yards of hobbling, it felt much better.
I continued west for what I estimated to be about a mile and a half through the forest and stopped to recheck my directions. My position on the map kept twitching left and right and I decided to find a meadow or clearing to get a better read. I came upon a small field, then noticed a sign similar to the private property warnings surrounding the boneyard. I walked past one sign and entered the trees again, then a bit farther and into another clearing, this time with yet another storage yard, but without the military hardware.
I moved cautiously and in a crouch through the RV’s, knowing that this collection might have surveillance on it. I combed through a few rigs, not really knowing what I was looking for. Like the first storage yard, there was a variety of campers, trailers, and both Class A and Class C motorhomes. They were in various conditions, but most were newer than those in the other boneyard, the oldest was only a decade old instead of some that were 20 or 30 years in the first lot.
There were only about 50 RV’s in storage here. I got to the far side of the stored rigs and stopped in front of a small covered-up trailer that seemed fresher than the others. I lifted the debris and netting from it and saw that it was a red and white teardrop trailer.
Chapter 14
A slam of a door made me drop to the ground. On the other end of the aisle of stored RV’s, a group of five people had exited a pull trailer. From my vantage point, it looked like three were armed and the other two looked like an elderly couple. The armed men were barking orders to the couple and they seemed to be hesitant to move.
I grabbed my handgun and got ready to make a rush, if needed, and started moving closer, crawling as quickly as I could between rigs and netting. I stopped when I could hear them. The woman was crying and the man stepped in front of her when one of the men lifted his gun and pointed it at them.
“Wait,” the older man was saying. “We’ll go, no trouble, please.”
“Alright, then,” the one pointing the gun replied. “Let’s get going.”
As they turned to walk I notice that one of the men was the gun-toting biker from my first encounter with the Death’s Door gang. He wasn’t in biker garb, just blue jeans and a loose white button-up shirt, similar to what the other two were wearing. I decided not to move against the three of them because of the couple. I might have been able to take them by surprise, but I couldn’t risk collateral damage.
