The truck carrying Jeff hit a corner too fast, causing his would-be coffin to slam against the side of the pickup bed. The impact woke him. He was in the dark, inside what felt like a cardboard box and rattling around like loose change in a cement mixer. The truck left the pavement and turned onto a dirt road, which Jeff figured by the washboard surface shaking his bones and banging his head against the box. He was bouncing hard enough that the corners started to tear a bit, a needle of daylight showing him the inside of his box. Definitely cardboard. Jeff rolled onto his belly and did a pushup, straining to tear open the box. Gradually, more and more light leaked in. “The dirt road was a mistake,” Jeff thought to himself, “It’s going to jackhammer this thing to pieces, and whoever’s driving is in for a big surprise.”
The truck was shimmying all over the road, the wavy surface vibrating it from side to side, but the driver didn’t slow. Jeff kept pushing against the box, dust roiling into it and just as quickly swirling out. He expected it to bounce out of the bed at any moment. The truck hit a washout and the whole vehicle was air bound; the rattling stopped and Jeff was weightless for just a moment. Then everything slammed back onto the ground, the truck skidding over the loose gravel as a long tear ripped through the side of the box. Jeff kicked his way loose, struggling to get free of the inch-thick cardboard as it slipped and bounced around the bed of the pickup bolting like a horse in a hornet’s nest. The driver was alone, a straw hat was all Jeff could see through the spray of sand and dust. He tried to climb to the passenger door but couldn’t get any purchase on the smooth metal. He finally put himself in front of the rearview mirror hoping that a newly alive corpse might inspire the driver to take his foot off the floor for a moment.The driver hit the brakes and Jeff went over the top of the cab, coming to rest on the hood. The driver stepped out “Get in, you stupid son of a bitch!” It was an old woman, at least Jeff was pretty sure it she was.
“Wait a minute lady, we ain’t goin’ anywhere until you tell me why I was in sealed in a box and you’re driving like it’s free sandwich day at Arby’s!”
“Get in the truck you asshole! We gotta get the hell out of here!” Jeff slid off the hood, and unsteadily made his way to the passenger door. It was locked. He rapped on the window to be let in. “You son of a bitch!” the lady yelled again as she struggled across the bench seat to pull the door lock button. Jeff slid into the seat and strapped himself in as she spun out and continued bouncing down the road, almost floating over the ribbed surface.
“What the hell is going on, lady? I need some answers or I’m gonna get real quarrelsome.”
“Do you know who you are?” she yelled over the sound of the tires pounding as she wrestled with the steering wheel, never taking her eyes off the road.
“What?” Jeff replied.
“Are you deaf or just stupid? I said, do you know who you are? Easy question!”
“Yeah, I know who I am!” Jeff thought about yanking the keys from the ignition, but given their speed was worried the old gal might lose control if the steering went out.
“Well, who the hell are ya?”
“I’m …” Jeff paused, “I’m … I can’t remember!” he yelled over the rattling of the chassis, the truck seeming like it might come apart at any moment.
“Look in the mirror! Tell me if you know who you are!” she pointed at the sun visor, and Jeff flipped it down to look in the little scratched mirror. He could see he had dried blood in his hair, and as he felt his scalp he noticed a goose egg on the side of his head. He recognized the eyes he was looking at but couldn’t put a name to the face.
“I don’t know! What the hell does it mean?” Jeff asked.
“It means–” the woman hit the brakes for a controlled slide that took them near the edge of a river bank, and then floored it to keep them from rolling over the edge. “It means that I know a lot more than you do so shut up and keep still and if we can keep going until dark we might be okay for the night.”
***
The woman pulled around the back of a cabin, unlocked the door and led Jeff inside. His head was throbbing and he felt dizzy.
“Sit down before you fall down.” the woman said. Jeff fell into a couch, leaned back and started to fall asleep. The woman kicked him. “You can’t fall asleep! Not yet, anyway. Sit up and drink this.” She handed him a half-full cup of cold coffee. It had been sitting out for a few days, marked by the dark rings around the inside of the cup. Jeff took a sip, realized he was thirsty and slurped it down. His gut twisted into a knot.
“Goddamn, that’s horrible! Tastes like the bottom of a boot,” Jeff complained.
“Rocket fuel boy, it’ll keep you awake all night. Once it kicks in you can get cleaned up,” the lady said handing him a couple aspirin and a glass of water. “Not too fast now, just sip it or you’ll puke it right up. You’ve got a hum-dinger of a concussion.”
The cabin was lit only with nightlights. Jeff tried to make out details but his vision was blurry.
“We gotta keep the lights off, and stay quiet. It’s dark as the inside of a bear out there, so nobody’s gonna sneak up on us without a light. We’ll see ‘em comin’ from way off. I doubt they followed us, too many unmarked roads. If it’s a quiet night we should be in the clear for a bit,” the lady said.
“Who are you? And what the hell happened?” Jeff asked.
“I’m your Mama, boy. But you can call me Irene until you get your head straight. Go get cleaned up. There’s fresh clothes in the bedroom across from the bath. I’ll fill you in once you get that blood outta your hair.”
***
The woman explained how Jeff worked for the Forest Service in the Sawtooth National Forest. He maintained the remote campsites in his region. On Monday, he’d unload his horse, work his way through a string of trails and campsites and return to the trailhead parking lot on Friday.
Because the campsites were hard to reach, most of the hikers he met were well-behaved. They cleaned up after themselves, were careful with their campfires, and mostly asked him about other trails in the area and how they could get a job like his.
That’s why, earlier that day, he was surprised to see two groups of men arguing in the parking lot as Jeff approached the trailhead. Several black SUVs were parked at skewed angles with the men in the middle. They wore jeans, track suits and street shoes; not a puffy jacket or hiking boot among them. Jeff kept an eye on them as he loaded his horse in its trailer, and thought about whether to interrupt them. There were at least six of them, maybe more in the SUVs. He had a sidearm, but was all alone. He got in his truck and radioed his supervisor Kenny, who recommended he take photos of their license plates and leave.
A Subaru with a family of hikers pulled into the parking lot, but couldn’t get past the SUVs. The driver rolled down his window and asked the men to move the SUVs.
“Fuck you, granola!” one of the men yelled, the other men laughing.
The driver honked his horn in protest. The man who yelled kicked in the headlight of the car, and started roundhouse kicking the car with his heel, leaving dents with every blow. He wore silver-tipped boots with a sharp stainless-steel spur on each heel.
The Subaru backed out and drove off.
“Pussy!” the booted man yelled.
“Goddamn it,” Jeff said to himself. Now he had to approach them, and give them a warning. He radioed his supervisor Kenny again and walked toward the group of men.
“What the fuck do you want Ranger Rick?” the man with the silver boots asked.
“I need to ask you fellahs to move along. This lot is for hikers and campers,” Jeff said.
“We’re camping! Look, we have backpacks and coats and marshmallows! Can’t you see?” The man gestured to the other men laughing at Jeff.
“Then I’ll need you to park in the designated parking spots, so there’s room for everyone.”
“Fuck them, and fuck you Smokey Bear. You need to mind your own fucking business,” the man was standing close to Jeff, bumping him backward with his chest. He was smaller, only coming up to his chin. Jeff kept trying to do his ranger rap, to calm the situation and the man kept bumping him harder and harder. Finally, Jeff shoved back with both hand and the man went skidding across the gravel parking lot. Jeff was suddenly hit on the back of the head, fell to his knees, and a second blow knocked him out.
The next thing he remembered was waking up in the back of the truck.
***
Jeff stepped out of the bathroom, holding an ice pack on his head.
“Thanks for the clothes,” he said.
“They’re yours, dumbass. Or did you not notice an entire closet of clothes that perfectly fit you?” Irene asked. “I guess they really did a number on you. You’re damn lucky Kenny called me, or you’d be six feet under someplace where nobody would find you. Damn lucky.”
“How did I get in the back of your truck?”
“That’s the kicker, but let me fill you in on the trouble you managed to cause in the meantime. Take a seat and I’ll heat up a can of soup.” Jeff sat at the kitchen table as Irene opened a can of Campbell’s extra chunky and plopped it in a pot on the stove.
“Kenny sent two rangers for backup but by the time they got there everybody was gone. Those honchos left your horse and your truck. And what the hell were you thinking talkin’ to those assholes after putting up your horse? That poor thing could’ve been there for days! You never do that! That’s just bad horsemanship,” she stirred the soup and reached for a pack of cigarettes on the counter.
“Anyway, the rangers looked around, found your phone on the seat and the license plates you photographed. And what were you thinkin’ leaving your phone in the car? How would you call for help? Good Lord boy, sometimes you don’t have the sense God gave a termite. They ran the plates with the Sheriff and they’re owned by some gangbanger wannabes from Boise. They all have records and a couple of them did some time. Not the sort of fellahs you want to argue with in the middle of nowhere. The little one with the boots is the worst. The Subaru family had one of them cameras on their dash and recorded the whole thing.” Irene shook a cigarette from the pack, popped the lighter and pulled deep making the paper crackle.
“The Subaru family went to the Sheriff just after the rangers called so he had lots to work with. He sent out an APB on those honchos and then called me,” she turned off the stove, took a bowl from the cupboard and poured in the soup. She it set and a spoon in front of Jeff. “Be careful, it’s hot. You always burn your damn tongue then you can’t taste the rest of the soup. You want Saltines with that?”
“Uh, sure,” Jeff said, “how do you know the Sheriff?”
Irene set a fresh tube of crackers on the table, “Now you’ve really got me worried. You went to school with Ben!” Jeff’s face remained blank.
Irene said, “Ben Franklin! How the hell do you forget a name like that? He calls me any time he thinks he might be getting’ in over his head. You want some water?” Jeff nodded. Irene turned the tap on her finger, put her cigarette in her mouth and set a glass on the counter. When the water was cool enough, she filled it and brought it to Jeff.
“So Ben fills me in and I get some addresses out of him and go after you,” she said, and took a drag on her Pall Mall.
“You went after the gangbangers? That sounds pretty dangerous.”
“Sonny, I do hope you get your brains back because I’m gettin’ tired of fillin’ in all the blanks for you. Your dad and me and his parents before ran the sheep ranch up in Blaine County along the river. I’ve had to deal with every kind of low-life ranch hand, banker man, horse thief, crooked veterinarian, feed store owner and cop that you can think of and I’ve always had the upper hand. People think raising sheep is easy but try runnin’ ‘em up and down a mountain without them breaking their necks fallin’ off a rock or getting eaten by a goddamn cougar. Shearing ‘em, not sleeping for weeks during lambing season, keepin’ the little ones alive, not to mention taking care of the horses, equipment, vehicles, buildings, the house and every other goddamn thing it takes to keep the thing from goin’ belly up.” She pulled out a chair and joined Jeff at the table. “My back hurts just thinkin’ about it.”
“What happened to it?” Jeff asked.
“Sold it. Once your dad passed it was just too much for one person to take care of. You and your brothers went off to college and I was glad for you! Ranchin’ has no future. Especially when you have a pecker-wood neighbor trying to buy up your land to build mansions for all them assholes from Hollywood.”
“Is that who bought it?” Jeff asked.
“Hell no! He’d been trying to buy it for years. If there was dip in sheep prices, or it was a bad winter, or he’d heard some gossip from one of our no-good ranch hands he’d call us with a low-ball offer figurin’ we’re desperate. Prick.”
“Then who did you sell it to?” Jeff asked.
“The goddamn Nature Conservancy! Ha! That bastard was fit to be tied when he found out. There was a wetlands at one end of the ranch, and we’d let bird watchers wander through but we never had any use for it. I got to talkin’ to a few of them one day, told ‘em I was thinking about sellin’ and they couldn’t write a check fast enough! Only made ten cents on the dollar of what it was worth, but it was the biggest payday I’d ever seen. The land is forever out of reach of my asshole neighbor. Best deal I ever made!” Irene looked into the middle distance, and took a few drags off her cigarette, then back at Jeff, “That’s when I bought this place.”
“So how did I wind up in a cardboard box in the back of your truck?”
“Refrigerator box, truth be told. But I’m sure they were plannin’ to use it as your coffin. I found you the same way I found lost sheep – some brains, some luck and my gut,” she ground her cigarette out in a glass ashtray and reached for another. “These boys are no strangers to the criminal justice system, so they probably figured out that assaulting a Forest Service Ranger is a federal offense. Plus, they know the Subaru saw them but was long gone. Now there was a witness. Naturally they had to get rid of you. But these sons of bitches are shorthorns; they’d never killed anybody, as far as the records showed. They shove you in an SUV and hightail it back to Boise. You done with that hon?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Jeff said.
Irene collected the dishes and set them in the sink. “The Sheriff gives me four addresses, so which one is right? Two of ‘em have ‘unit whatever’ on ‘em and the other is ‘one-oh-four-B’ which means they’re all apartments. These scumbags are green but they probably ain’t dumb enough to move a body with other people around. The last address looks like a house and sure enough it is. I drive by the place and see the SUVs. Lucky for me they were too dumb to park ‘em on the next block. I drive down the alley and I see these so-and-so’s bickerin’ as they carry a refrigerator box outta the house. It’s all taped up and they keep droppin’ it so I’m pretty damn sure my boy is inside. Movin’ a body is harder than it sounds.” Jeff’s mother chuckled as she thought about the gangbangers struggling to load Jeff into their SUV.
“Turns out the box was too big, so they leave you there in the alley while they go inside to come up with plan B. I knew I had to move fast because I figured plan B might involve nippin’ off your legs with a chainsaw. I backed up, shoved you in the bed and beat hell outta there,” Jeff’s mother took a satisfied draw from her cigarette.
“Wow. Thanks Mom. I really owe you.”
“You’re my baby boy, you don’t owe me a thing.”
A flash of headlights approaching lit up the cabin, followed by the crunching of tires on the gravel road.
“Shit! Those bastards found us. Dammit! Stay down!” Irene said. Three sets of headlights rolled toward the cabin, all with flashing police lights.
“Those look like police cars, Mom. Maybe we should turn on the lights,” Jeff said.
“It’s a trick! You can get those cop lights anywhere! That’s how they get you to drop your guard. God Dammit, I left my gun in the truck!” Jeff’s mom crawled along the floor into the living room, and told Jeff to follow. “We need to hide in your bedroom. It’s the only safe place!”
The cars outside stopped, one pulled around back to block the truck while the other two trained their headlights on the cabin. The Sheriff spoke on the loudspeaker, “Irene, you must release the Ranger. If you do, we can talk. If not, we’ll have to arrest you!”
“What does he mean, release me?” Jeff asked.
“It’s a trick!” his mother said. “Those gangbangers are tricky bastards!”
“Irene, this is Sheriff Ben Franklin. Please exit the cabin with your hands up. C’mon Irene, we can talk this out and nobody needs to go to jail.”
“He says he’s Ben Franklin Mom! Is it really him?” Jeff asked.
Irene sighed, holding her cigarette in her hand as they sat on the bed, “Yeah, it’s him.”
“Then you should go out there like he says, and explain everything to him,” Jeff said.
“No hon, I’ll stay here. You go on out there and tell them what you know,” Irene said.
“Are you sure?” Jeff asked.
“Go on, get!” Irene ordered.
Jeff walked out the front door, turning his face away from the headlights. With his hands over his head he walked toward the cars. The Sheriff told him he could drop his hands, and to watch his head as he got in the car. Ben Franklin then walked into the cabin, flipped on the lights and called out for Irene. He found her in the bedroom, still on the bed, sobbing into her hands, her cigarette still smoldering between her fingers.
“C’mon Irene, let’s get you home.”
Jeff sat in the back of the Sheriff’s car, unsure of what to say. He didn’t know if he was under arrest or what exactly had happened.
“How’re you doin’ back there?” the Sheriff asked.
“My head hurts, I don’t know who I am and I don’t know what happened,” Jeff said.
“Yeah, you’ve had a hell of day. I’ll take you to the ER and we’ll get your head checked. Old Irene really rang you bell.”
“Irene? She didn’t hit me, she rescued me from those gangbangers!” Jeff said.
“Don’t be too hard on her. Her heart was broke so bad she ain’t been right since. Her son died a year ago, he was a forest ranger like you. Freak accident, he was riding trail when his horse slipped, and rolled down an embankment with him still on it. Horse broke its leg on the way down and pinned him in a little stream no more than six inches deep. He drowned, and it tore Irene up real bad. I went to school with her boy and she’s almost like my second mama. Tough old girl, never figured she’d take it so hard, but it broke her. Turns out he was the only one of her babies that lived more than a few weeks. It being the one year anniversary of losing her boy she was gonna put some flowers in the creek where he died. Then she saw you walking out on the trail and something in her head snapped. She was all over you, callin’ you his name and acting like he was back from the dead. You thought she was crazy, tried to get away and finally had to push her so hard she went skiddin’ across the parkin’ lot. Some hikers in a Subaru caught the whole thing on one of those GoPro cameras. You went over to help her up, she apologized and said she was just a crazy old woman. She asked you to help her get something out of the cab of her truck, and when you bent down to take a look she cracked you over the head with an axe handle, twice. Then she went after the Subaru family and drove them off. Don’t know where she got the box, but I guess she was trying to hide you. But nobody’s gonna move a refrigerator laying face down bouncing the along the road like she was. You’d dent the hell out of it!”
“It’ll knock you around pretty good,” Jeff said. “But how did she know I didn’t know who I am?”
“Dumb luck, or maybe she was still thinkin’ you were her boy. Irene’s a crafty old gal, she’s just been goin’ through some hard times,” the Sheriff said. “You probably guessed that cabin was her son’s. She goes up there once a week, cleans it up, keeping it nice like she’s waiting for him to come home.” The Sheriff paused for a moment, looking in the rearview mirror. “You wanna press charges? There’s plenty of ‘em available.”
Jeff felt the lump on his head, and sighed. “A few years ago, I got kicked in the head when I was shoein’ a horse that got spooked. That hurt worse than this, and I didn’t press charges,” Jeff said. “Nothin’s harder than losing your kid. Maybe this’ll help her get over it somehow.”
“Well, I appreciate it,” the Sheriff said.
“Can you do me a favor Sheriff?”
“Name it.”
“Can you turn off those flashing lights? They’re makin’ my head throb,” Jeff asked.
“You bet.”