part0034

HE watched from fifty yards away, crouched down out of sight in night shadow, and saw the giant figure, who would not have been out of place on a basketball court, being almost the same height as Kevin Durant; a player for the Brooklyn Nets. As the guy opened the rear door of the vehicle that he had already searched, to place a large bag onto the seat, another figure appeared, not quite as tall, but broad, muscular-looking, and holding a gun. He could probably have moved in closer and shot Samson and the stranger, but decided that patience was a virtue, and that he would wait to see how this played out.

“If you make one wrong move it’ll be your last,” Logan said as Jimmy made to close the rear door of the Caddy.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” Jimmy said.

“I’m the guy that saw what went down at the cabin, who you followed and attempted to kill at the motel, but wound up murdering three innocent people.”

“What’s in a name, Samson?” Withdraw your weapon with the finger and thumb of your left hand and drop it. Don’t give me reason to kill you, because from my point of view that would be a good result.”

“Let’s chill and come to a sensible agreement over this,” Jimmy said as he slowly withdrew his Glock and dropped it to the ground. “There’s the best part of a million bucks in the duffel bag. Let’s half it and go our separate ways.”

“That’s not even a tempting offer,” Logan said, “I don’t need or want your blood money. I’d rather call the law and let them deal with you.”

Jimmy recognized the sincerity in the other man’s voice. With ninety percent of people, greed was impossible for them to resist. But this guy was different. He was not someone that could be dealt with.

Jimmy reacted. Just darted forward, bent low. Three long strides and he headbutted his adversary in the abdomen, even as Logan loosed off a shot that whistled past Jimmy’s left ear.

Logan was winded. Samson had taken him by surprise, knocked him to the ground and had the advantage as the man he intended to kill lost his grip on the gun. Logan gritted his teeth, ignored the pain and twisted his head to the side as a booted foot scythed through the air, aimed at his skull, but missing it by an inch as he then sprang to his feet and faced the taller man.

Jimmy threw a fisted right hand at Logan’s head, which did not make contact as Logan avoided the blow. Jimmy spun round, lost his balance and stumbled forward onto his knees. It was all but over. Logan knelt behind him, put his left forearm around the man’s throat, up against his windpipe, and exerted as much pressure as he could, to choke Samson.

Jimmy felt paralyzed. He drove his elbow back into Logan’s side, but without enough power to cause the other man to lose his grip. He could not respond against the death hold, and felt his bladder void, scant seconds before he was rendered unconscious.

Logan could have let go as Samson became inert, but didn’t. He needed the threat to himself, Will, Rod and Ruth to be negated, permanently. There was no way that he wanted police involvement. He would make all evidence disappear, except for the bag of money, which for the most part would help the Gouldings’, and would also ensure that Will was well provided for.

He moved forward thirty yards, now with the perfect opportunity to approach the SUV, shoot the guy who was now climbing to his feet, unarmed, and take the bag that he knew contained the money from the bank heists. And then another guy appeared, armed with what appeared to be a pump action shotgun, and so he stopped and hunkered down again.

“You OK, Joe?” Rod said as he walked up to Logan.

“Yeah, but I thought you were going to stay with Ruth and Will.”

“Ruth and the boy are locked in a bedroom, and Ruth has a .38 pistol that she knows how to use. She told me to cover your ass, so here I am.”

He listened to the two men, and then waited and watched as they lifted the body of the big guy between them and put it in the cargo hold with the other corpses. They then walked away with the duffel bag, back down the driveway to the ranch house. No sweat. He now knew where the money was, and would have the element of surprise when he made his move. Jogging back to his car, he decided to wait at the nearby rest stop till daybreak before calling at the ranch, whacking whoever was there and making off with the dough.

“What do you plan on doing?” Rod said as they went into the kitchen and he switched on the coffeemaker.

“We can put the Indian in your pickup truck and transfer the body to the SUV with the rest of them. Do you know a safe place to dump the vehicle?”

“There’s a remote gold mine about five miles due west of here that was worked out back in the nineteen-thirties. We could drive the Caddy into the main entrance for a hundred yards or so before it becomes too narrow. There are a few tunnels, and some deep shafts that we could drop the bodies into.”

“Sounds good,” Logan said. “You’d better tell Ruth that we’ll be gone for a while, and then I’ll follow you out to the mine and we can put this episode behind us.

Rod reversed his truck up from where it was parked in front of a small barn incorporating stables for the half dozen horses that he owned, to park a yard away from the dead Indian and get out to lower the tailgate. Between them, he and Logan lifted the body by its arms and legs and swung it up and into the bed of the truck. Rod covered it with a tarp, secured the tailgate and went into the house to tell Ruth that the problem had been dealt with, but that he and Joe needed to get rid of a vehicle, and that they would probably be gone for a couple hours.

“Are we safe?” Ruth said.

“Yes, honey, but keep the gun and your cell with you, lock up tight behind me, and don’t answer the door to anyone. When we get back, I’ll give you a call from outside to let you know it’s us.”

“Be careful,” Ruth said as Rod kissed her on the cheek and left the house.

Less than a mile from the ranch, Rod turned on to a dirt road that had a rusted Dead-End sign affixed to a metal pole. The road appeared to come to an end after a few hundred yards. The terrain in front of them had once been gravel topped and used by trucks from the mine to ferry out ore to a plant that had long since been demolished. Weeds and ground-hugging bushes now carpeted the route through the almost barren desert, to eventually lead to the mouth of what had once been known as Carter’s Canyon, but was now nothing more than a forgotten patch of worthless land.

Rusted corrugated iron gates fronted the entrance to the mine, and a chain and padlock held them loosely together. Rod stopped to the side of them, got out and took a pair of heavy-duty wire cutters from the back of the pickup, cut through the chain as though it had less substance than butter, and opened the gates that had been closed to the world for more than eighty years.

Logan drove the XT4 into the mine, to park up when he reached a point where it became too narrow for him to drive any further. Leaving the headlamps on high beam, he stepped out and walked back to the pickup, to help Rod drag the Indian’s body out, to roll it on to the tarp and haul it along a tunnel to drop it down a shaft that was cloaked in darkness. They heard the thud as it hit the bottom, which Logan estimated was at least forty feet below them.

With the wallets and cell phones of all the dead men in their possession, Logan and Rod consigned the other three bodies into the same deep shaft. Logan then removed the plate from the Caddy and considered torching the vehicle, but decided that doing so would not destroy ID numbers that would be stamped on the engine and in other places.

Taking money and anything that could identify the men from the wallets, Logan then removed the SIM cards from the cells and destroyed them by simply hitting each of them with a rock. Another trip to the shaft, and he tossed the phones, cards and wallets over the edge. Returning to where Rod was waiting, he wiped the XT4s steering wheel, gear shift and the door handles inside and out. There was nothing that he had overlooked. Even if by some chance the vehicle and then the bodies of Samson and the others were found, then there was nothing to tie what had gone down to him or Rod. Like the majority of crimes, it would remain unsolved, just filed away, another cold case that overworked detectives would never have the chance to investigate, as current major crimes ate up every minute of their time.

Back at the ranch, Rod poured both Logan and himself a large shot of bourbon. Ruth asked them if they wanted a bite to eat, but neither of them were hungry.

“Is it over with?” Ruth said, addressing both of them.

Logan nodded. Rod said, “Yeah, honey, everything has been taken care of.”

“Fine,” Ruth said. “I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”

“One for the road?” Rod said to Logan as he unscrewed the top off the bottle of American Eagle.

Logan held his glass out in assent. He wasn’t a big drinker, but once in a while he enjoyed a couple of belts, especially after having been involved with what he thought of as serious shit. He knew that the danger was now behind them, so allowed himself to relax as he sipped the whisky and put the incident out of his mind. Had he known that the chain of events had not yet come to an end, then he would have been more alert, ready to deal with any further threat.