Incident in San Francisco

“Sorry, I don’t usually talk about the ranch, and I guess I got carried away”, Monty apologized sheepishly.

“No, no, it’s all new to me and I love hearing about it. It seems so much more interesting, so much more real than what I do”, Laura exclaimed. “But if we’re getting near the rest stop, what do you think we should write as a message?”

“I’m thinking maybe the license number of the truck, then something like “S F killer in truck”. Does that sound like anything you’ve been thinking of?” Monty said thoughtfully.

“Yes, the license number is good, because they can track down quickly who that belongs to and where you live. It will also alert the police to watch for that truck. Maybe if there’s time and space on the paper I could add the make and color of the truck”, Laura replied.

“I think there are probably a half dozen stalls in the place, sine it’s a women’s restroom, and I don’t think you’ll have time to write in every one – he’ll get suspicious if you’re gone too long. How can we get around that?” Monty mused.

“I’ve got it!” Laura suddenly exclaimed. “I have lipstick in my purse, too, and I can write on the mirror. Then anyone coming in will see it for sure – women can’t help looking at a mirror”.

“Laura, you’re great. That’s a perfect solution. Maybe it would help avoid suspicion if you could hide the lipstick somewhere so that you don’t need to carry your purse inside, and he can see that both hands are free.”

“This skirt does have a small pocket, so I won’t need to hide it in my bra” Laura laughed, then blushed suddenly as, unbidden, her mind pictured herself unbuttoning her blouse in front of Monty and secreting the lipstick in her bra between her breasts. Had she turned her head, she would have seen that Monty, too, was blushing because he was picturing exactly the same thing.

“Better get ready, because it’s coming up in about a mile. I sure hope he falls for this”, Monty worried.

He started slowing as they approached the entrance to the rest stop, and then swung in, relieved to see that there were no other vehicles this late at night.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Ranny yelled angrily from his hiding place. He, too, had seen that the parking lot was empty so he wasn’t afraid to yell loudly.

“She really has to go – she can’t wait any longer” Monty yelled back. “She’ll only be a minute, but she’s got to go”.

“Dammit, I should just let her piss her pants” Ranny said furiously. “All right, get in there, do it, and get back out here. You stay right where you are, cowboy, and both of you remember this rifle has 30 rounds”.

“Thanks, mister” Monty called, as Laura jumped down from the truck and walked quickly, pretending that she did really need to go, letting her arms swing at her sides to show that her hands were empty.

Only a minute had passed when Ranny yelled, “Hey, I’m going to check on her. Get out, walk around the front of the truck, and come open this door, and remember that an M-16 will go though this thin metal like paper”.

“She’ll be out in a minute” Monty protested, trying to stall.

“I don’t care, I don’t trust you two. Now get me out of here before I count to 10, or you’re dead”.

Reluctantly, Monty did as ordered. While Ranny was getting to the ground, his M-16 in his hands, Monty tried desperately to think of a way to warn Laura. Nothing came to mind. Whistling or singing would seem out of place, seeming to accidentally blow the horn would also be suspicious. As they got near the door to the women’s restroom, he started talking fairly loudly to Ranny, telling him that Laura would be out and they’d be on their way in a minute, but just then Laura emerged from the doorway. She seemed surprised to see them heading towards the women’s side, and asked “Aren’t we going? I’m ready to leave“.

“Not until I check this place out” Ranny snarled. ”I started thinking maybe you two were up to something with this stop here. Get in there, both of you” and he waved the gun to herd them inside.

Reluctantly, the couple walked fearfully inside, expecting the worst when the gunman followed them. But to their surprise, he started laughing when he saw the message written in red lipstick on the central mirror.

“I knew it” he crowed. “Everybody always thinks they’re smarter than me. But I was suspicious right away when you stopped here”.

Then his mood changed, and he snapped angrily, “Now grab a handful of paper towels and rub that crap off that mirror. And both of you stand against the washbasins where I can see you while I check out the stalls to see if you did anything stupid in there”.

He held the M-16 on them as he backed into each stall in turn, glancing quickly at the back of the door, the walls, and the toilet paper to see if any additional messages had been left. Satisfied that none had, and that the mirror now had just a reddish tint with no words visible, he motioned the guilty two out the door.

“We’re a long piece from the city now. Just so you won’t be tempted to try any more tricks, and so you can’t be plotting, I’m going to ride up front from now on” Ranny said, and Monty and Laura felt their hearts sink at this news. When they got in the truck, Laura slid as far away from Ranny as she could, and as close as she could get to Monty so that their thighs were touching. This time, she swung her legs toward him, tucking them under and behind his so that he could handle the truck’s stick shift. Her fringed short skirt left her knees and a few inches of leg above the knee exposed, and she wished desperately that she had worn jeans again tonight. She was proud of her legs and happy to show them off for Monty, but she definitely didn’t want this uncouth man sitting against the passenger door to be ogling her. Maybe besides being a killer, he was a rapist.

Normally, Ranny would have been very interested in her legs, and in the rest of her beautiful body, but the enormity of what he’d done had finally settled in during the long trip, cramped up in his hiding place. He did glance occasionally at her legs as her skirt crept up in spite of her attempts to keep it patted down, but he was so distracted that he didn’t really take in how beautiful this woman was, nor did he get aroused. Laura needn’t have worried. Ranny had far too much on his mind to think of women.

So they rode in silence, Ranny asking once, “How much longer until we get to your place?”

Monty replied, “Less than a half hour now, and we’ll be there”.

Ranny reached over without asking and turned on the radio. He turned the dial past Spanish stations, Christian stations, and syndicated canned national talk show stations until he found one playing music. But when the DJ broke in with an announcement about a shooting at the Cow Palace, Ranny snapped the radio off and sat in sullen silence. Monty and Laura were silent too, each thinking their own thoughts and wondering how this would all play out. They had been reassured when he didn’t explode at the rest stop incident, but they had no assurance that he would always treat them that leniently.

Shortly, they turned off the freeway onto a 2-lane county road, which meandered along the edge of the foothills, the road builders not wanting to cover valuable flatland with a road. Monty had to drive more slowly here, aware of the long trailer behind and its valuable cargo of bulls. Then they turned off onto an even narrower road, which butted against the county road in a T. This road had no painted line to divide lanes. It hugged the edge of the hills even closer, so that it wound in and out, the straight stretches rarely as long as a hundred yards until the next curve appeared.

They bumped over the steel rails of a cattle guard, and Ranny broke the silence by asking impatiently, “Are we ever going to get there?”

“We’re on the ranch now – it’s on both sides of the road. We’ll be at the house in a few more minutes”, Monty replied.

Laura was impressed by the apparent size of the ranch, but didn’t say anything. Ranny, however, sneered ”So you must really be a rich bitch to have this big a spread”.

“No, it’s just a little place” Monty lied. “And I inherited it, and there’s no money in raising cows”. He didn’t want this man to get any ideas about robbery or kidnapping.

In another minute, they swung off that narrow paved road onto a dirt driveway and stopped in front of a metal gate. Monty reached out the window and pushed a button mounted on a fencepost, and the gate slowly swung open with the hum of an electric motor. They drove through and Monty swung the rig around in front of a corral, then backed the trailer up to the corral gate.

“I have to unload these bulls, then we can go up to the house” Monty said.

“OK, give me the truck keys and when you’ve unloaded the bulls, unhook the trailer too” Ranny ordered.

Monty didn’t see any alternative, but he wasn’t happy about this turn of events. He handed Ranny the keys, then Laura joined him and helped him by opening the corral gate and the end doors on the trailer. She watched as the big black bulls jumped out of the trailer and seemed happy to trot around the corral, enjoying freedom after their long ride. She saw that Ranny wasn’t watching closely as Monty fiddled with the trailer hitch, and she noticed that he didn’t do everything he’d done before. He lowered the supports used to hold the trailer up when it was unhooked, locked them in place, and turned the handle which cranked the trailer up so that it cleared the big hitch ball in the middle of the pickup bed. But Laura noticed that, while he appeared to be working strenuously at the crank, he had only raised the trailer enough to clear half the height of the ball. Anyone trying to drive the truck would find the trailer being dragged, and the support stands would be digging into the ground. A small thing, but she thought maybe Monty had some plan in mind.

The three of them trudged up the path to the ranch house, each of them wondering what would happen there.

CHAPTER 22

The moon, which had been full 2 nights ago when Monty was saving his haystack from the pair of marauding wild boar, was still shining brightly in the clear country air, but had moved further down the sky toward the west. Through 9-power field glasses or rifle scope, colors could be distinguished faintly, but with normal eyesight everything appeared white or shades of gray. Where a solid object like the barn, or the huge oak tree halfway between the barn and house, blocked the moonlight the shadow was pitch black. Monty motioned for Laura to lead the way up the path toward the long, low ranch house sitting on a slight rise a hundred yards from the barn and corrals. He followed her, and Ranny brought up the rear, still cradling the M-16 since he knew it was far more useful than the snub-nosed .38 if these two tried anything.

The house was a traditional ranch style, a long one-story structure with wooden clapboard siding and a metal roof. In the remote country areas where fire was a constant threat, shingle or shake roofs were an invitation to disaster. A shaded porch ran the full length of the south side, with several comfortable wicker seats which gave a view of the river below and the mountain range beyond. The main entrance was gained from the porch, and the trio headed towards the few steps leading to the entrance. When they were still about 20 feet from the steps, a motion-sensor light came on and the faint moonlight was replaced by brilliant electric light.

When they stepped onto the porch, Monty stepped ahead of Laura and, opening the door, stood aside to let her enter.

“Hold it!” yelled Ranny. “Who’s in that house?”

“Nobody. I live alone. There’s no one here” replied Monty.

“Then how come you didn’t have to unlock the door, if there’s nobody inside?” sneered Ranny. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“No”, said Monty. “But I guess you’re not familiar with the way things are in the country. Nobody locks their door out here – everybody knows and trusts their neighbors”.

“Well, you yokels sure wouldn’t last long in the city” opined Ranny. “Okay, go ahead in, but if there’s anyone here, I’m warning you that you’re going to be sorry. Now, take me through the house so I can check it out”.

Laura, although she didn’t say anything, was as surprised as Ranny at finding that Monty had gone to San Francisco for 2 days and had left his house unlocked. Surprised, but also pleased that the favorable opinion she’d been forming about this man and his way of life was proving to be an accurate one.

The room they entered was obviously the most-used space in the house, a combination living room and family room. A large stone fireplace, with a pile of split oak logs laid ready for a fire behind the mesh fire screen, showed by smoke-blackened traces on the thick oak mantel above that it was not just ornamental. The only object on the mantel was a framed photo of a good-looking couple on their wedding day, both wearing wide smiles, and Laura guessed correctly that these were Monty’s parents, killed in that tragic accident years ago. She could see where Monty’s good looks came from, and she felt a pang of sorrow for his loss.

Above the fireplace was a gun rack with several spaces, but only one gun hung there. To each side of that were mounted heads, a buck deer with a huge rack of antlers, and a massive wild boar with mouth menacingly open and long, razor-sharp tusks curling from both upper and lower jaws. Laura guessed, from the quality of furnishings in the room, that those trophies were the contributions of the men folk, while the rest had been selected by Monty’s mother. The furniture was Western-style, inviting one to sink into the leather sofa and armchairs, both dark brown on the rear but well-worn to a light tan on the seats and back. A coffee table of pine, stained a medium brown, was large enough to serve both armchairs and the long sofa. It, too looked inviting, and gave the impression that the host wouldn’t really mind if someone, relaxing after a hard day’s work, rested his or her cowboy boots on that table. A half-dozen magazines were loosely stacked in the middle of the table. As Laura passed the table, she glanced at the titles of the magazines she was able to see, and was surprised at the range of subjects. But she knew instinctively that these magazines were actually read by Monty, not solely placed there to impress, like those in some of her friends’ houses. This was one more thing that confirmed her opinion of this man she’d met by mere chance of seat assignments at the Cow Palace. He was unlike any preconceived notion of what a cowboy was like, and unlike the men she was familiar with back home.

As they moved through the house, Ranny herding them along, Laura could see that their captor was not impressed by the house. Laura, on the other hand, spent some of her leisure time perusing magazines devoted to interior design, and had admired some of the featured houses with a Western theme: log houses in Aspen, several houses in Montana owned by movie stars, and the like. She appreciated the way this house had been decorated and the furniture selected, but she also sensed that it was Monty’s mother who had been responsible, and that not much had changed since her death. The house had a definite feeling of being one inhabited by a single man, without a woman’s touch.

From the main room, they passed through a clean, neat, and functional kitchen and then a dining area with a long, distressed-wood table and six dining chairs, the backs and rungs made of sturdy tree branches with the bark still on, all varnished and polished to a high shine. The chair seats were of thick tanned cowhide, each cut from a piece of the hide where the brand had been placed so that each chair carried a different brand. Ranny may have sneered at the rustic appearance of this furniture, but Laura knew the source and the price, and she revised upward her estimation of Monty’s net worth. He may have given Ranny the impression that he was just a poor dirt farmer, but Laura could tell from the house and it furnishings, and from what she had been able to see of the size and condition of the moonlit ranch, that Monty was quite well-off. He just didn’t feel it necessary to bring attention to that fact, again unlike some of Laura’s friends in the city.

The first bedroom down the long hallway had been converted to an office. An oak roll-top desk held a computer, printer, and phone. The shelf forming the top of the desk held a dozen books, held in place by bookends in the form of well-molded horse heads. Mostly hard cover, some books were from Monty’s college days, others acquired more recently, dealing with aspects of animal husbandry, veterinary topics, and accounting practices.

The next bedroom appeared unused and was obviously a guest bedroom. Laura guessed that it had always been used as such, and probably had not had anything changed since Monty inherited the ranch. But it, like the rest of the house, appeared clean and neat. Laura wondered if Monty was really that conscientious about housework, or if he could, in fact, have someone do that work for him. She realized, with a sudden touch of jealousy, that she was wondering if he had some woman come in to do cleaning, and if that woman was young.

The master bedroom was on the far end of the house, and was much larger than the other two. It was simply furnished, with a large queen bed, the headboard and footboard made of large pine logs, the color matching the pine dresser and end tables. A hard-back book lay on one of the end table. The table lamps used bronze sculptures of cowboys on horseback as bases, and the shades were cream parchment with depictions of an assortment of ranch brands in a faint brown. The walls were adorned with several Charles Russell Western scenes, and Laura noticed that one was not a print but an original. An older house, this had been built before large walk-in closets were deemed necessary, but the closet was a lengthy one along one wall.

Ranny had just glanced at the other rooms in the house as they passed through, but in this one, he took much more interest for some reason. He slid back the closet doors and glanced in, appearing to see if something he was looking for was in the closet end, or on the shelf above. He then went to the nightstands and checked inside those. Disturbed by this invasion of his privacy, Monty asked, keeping his voice level despite his feeling, “Are you looking for something in particular? Just ask and I’ll tell you if I have it”.

“Yes, I’m looking for something in particular”, sneered Ranny. “I know you cowboys have guns, and I only saw that one shotgun above the fireplace. Where’s your handguns and rifles? And don’t lie, because if you don’t tell me and I find them, I’ll shoot you both, your girlfriend first”.

“I don’t have a bunch of guns, only what I need to manage varmints on the ranch”, Monty replied, biting back the comment that he’d like to take care of this 2-legged varmint who had invaded his ranch. He decided that the threat by this man who had already killed several people tonight needed to be taken seriously, and he did have a card up his sleeve. “My handgun is in a cupboard in the mudroom next to the kitchen, and I’ll give that to you. You already know where the shotgun is. I loaned my rifle to a neighbor who doesn’t have one because coyotes were getting his sheep, so there are only the 2 guns”, Monty lied.

“Okay, you’d better hope you’re telling the truth. Here’s the plan. We’re all going to go back to the kitchen and I’ll collect the handgun and shotgun. Then you two are going to be locked in the back bedroom out of my way while I get something to eat and figure out where I’m going after this. I need a map of California, too”.

“I have maps in the office”, Monty said, hoping that this would hasten the departure of this murderer, and hoping that he would leave without them as hostages.

Ranny waved the M-16 to indicate that they should head back to the front of the house. They paused at the office while Monty fished a state highway map out of a cubbyhole in the rolltop desk, and handed it to Ranny. Just beyond the kitchen was the small mudroom where people who had been outside in bad weather, or working cattle, could enter through a back door and shed their boots and coats. A tall cupboard against the wall had the shelf where Monty kept all his ammunition boxes and his .357 magnum revolver. Ranny reached up into the cupboard and took out the gun, showing surprise at it size and weight. Monty’s need was for a heavy-duty, accurate handgun when he was close to a wild boar, or needed to put down a sick or injured cow. Concealment was not an issue, so the 7” barrel made this gun appear huge compared to Ranny’s snub-nosed .38. Without comment, he dropped this gun too into a capacious pocket of his long duster, now well weighted down with the spare carbine clip and two handguns.

When the cupboard door was opened, Ranny noticed a few basic tools like screwdrivers and a hammer on the shelf below where the handgun was kept. There was also an open box with an assortment of nails and screws of various lengths. After he pocketed the big gun, Ranny picked through the nails and took 3 or 4 of the longest, then took the hammer.

“Alright, let’s get you two lovebirds settled so I can think without having to watch you. Head for that back bedroom”, Ranny ordered, and they returned once again to that end of the house. Once inside, he ordered Monty at the point of the gun to hammer a nail through the side of the old-style wooden window sash, securing it to the window frame so it couldn’t be opened.

“That’s going to damage the window, and it isn’t necessary. We won’t try to get away”, Monty protested.

‘Sure you won’t. You really do think I’m stupid’, Ranny snorted. “Now, drive that nail in until the head is sunk into the wood so you can’t dig it out. And don’t let that hammer slip and break the glass, either – I can tell what you’re thinking. You two are going to stay in this room”.

So Monty carefully hammered the long nail in as ordered, knowing that there was no way he could dig it back out easily. It would probably mean chiseling away some of he wood around it, and then repairing the wooden frame. Maybe, he thought, this would be an excuse to actually replace all the old windows with more efficient modern ones, as he had been planning to do for years. As he was thinking that, he put out of his mind the possibility that his future might be totally under the control of this stranger instead.

The windows secured, Ranny scooped up the portable phone on one of the bedside tables, and backed to the doorway, the gun still pointing at the pair in the room.

“Now, get into bed and stay right there. I’m going to tie the door handle to something out in the hall, and if I hear the slightest sound, you’ll see what an M-16 can do through a wood door. I’m going to the kitchen to get something to eat and make me some coffee. Then I’m going to look at the map and figure out the best way south, and how I can get out of this godforsaken place”.

He waved the gun at them, indicating that they get into bed, and they complied. Somewhat stiffly, they lowered their bodies onto the bed on top of the comforter cover, Monty on one side and Laura on the other, neither looking at the other and with a lot of space between them. Both had thought fleetingly at various times since meeting about being in bed together, but this had never been the scene they had pictured.

Ranny left, pulling the door closed behind him, and they were left alone, locked in a bedroom.

CHAPTER 23

For a minute, when the door had closed, the two just lay there staring at the ceiling, wondering at what had happened to them tonight, and what would happen before morning. Then simultaneously, they rolled on their sides to face each other. Laura laid her head on the pillow, and asked worriedly, “Monty, what do you think he’s going to do?”.

Monty had raised himself slightly on one elbow, and said quietly, “I really don’t know what to make of this guy, Laura. Sometimes he seems OK, as though he might leave by himself and maybe leave us tied up here. Other times, he really seems dangerous”.