Armed And Dangerous

ONCE INSIDE, ideas firmly intact. She moves to her valise, finds hammer, nails, brackets, screw drivers, wire strippers, cutters, rolls of wire, lots of other stuff girls need when building stuff. Off comes the bomber jacket, shoulder holster and 44, under the pillow that goes.

Angel curious, whizzes in, circles her twice, sits in front of her, extends a paw, pant, pant, pant, yelp, yelp, yelp. Mandal smiles, takes her paw, says.

“What girl? You, want to help?”

In to her arms she jumps, licks on the face, lots of rough housing, lots of giggles shared by the two girl runaways.

“Go on now, I know, I love you to...Go on.”

On the floor, one more circle around, ZIP, back to her pillow as Mandal wonders just how smart her dog is.

Before to long she wil find out.

Those sweet feeling soon dissolve. She remembers that unwanted visitors may be arriving at any moment. Standing, she moves to the drawer, four tan TNT sticks, blasting caps, her new stolen 38 in her hand, back to ther heating vents, Phillipes head, she unscrews the four screws, opens the vent.

Out comes the can’s of gun powder, the seven hundred K, everything, tools and weapons, toys, spread neatly for inventory on the floor. She stands, hands on her hips, smiles, whispers. “Cool.”

Gathering lots of wires, tools and stuff around the bed, she lays down on her back, slides under the bottom mattress, on the floor, she looks around, grabs some tools and begings to go to work.

AFTER AN hour of dilligence, she crawls out, looks around, stands, squint’s her good eye looking at her work from different angles. Scratching her head, she is not entirely satisfied with her skullduggery.

She reaches out, places a pillow near a bed leg, steps back, better. Looking around, most of everything is now gone, 38, TNT stick’s, caps, gun powder, only the tools are left lying around.

She hears something outside, her heart misses a beat. Stepping to the door, she cracks the door, peeks out and nothing.

Why isn’t she armed?

Grabbing her 44, shoulder holster, she slips it on, pats her 38 in her boot, knife too, she feels better.

Something she’s missing, she is positive.

Oh yeah, couple of thousand, she counted it, dollars she stole from the Meth Lab. In the drawer, she grabs it, crawls under the bed. After a minute she stands, no money in her hands, nods her head.

“Perfect.”

Back to her hands and knees, she crawls to her stacks of cash, rubs her jaw, nods, crawls to her valise, grabs a plastic Hefty bag, pours the cash into it, stuffs it back in the heat duct.

With her Phillips head, she screws the four screws tight, gathers up her tools, and deposits them back into the valise. Instead of walking to the road and hailing a bus, valise, Angel on a leash, she figures the chance of the boys in New Jersey tracking her down in such an out of the way place, are between slim and rare.

Again, thinking things out to their conclusion has never been her strong point.

Again, wanting one thing and only one thing now, she dons some leather gloves, makes sure Angels water bowl is filled, pats her 44, don’s her bomber, moves across the room and out the door.

Down the porch, peek-a-boo around, coast clear, she moves directly to the corral gate. One horse, the other missing, raised eyebrows; she knows he’s out riding, perfect.

Stallion recognizes her, lopes over, lots of snorts, head bobbing, tail swishing. She shushes him, looks everywhere, kisses him on his great nose, more snorts, she takes a moment to roughing him up.

Walking through the gate, she begins her sneak forgetting one valuable lesson of survivial.

If you’re going to survive the visit from the bad guys, it certainly helps if you’re not fucking insane.