Skip Chase: A Noah Crawford Adventure
The following is the first chapter of Skip Chase: A Noah Crawford Adventure. This work is copyright TC Eckert, 2026. All rights reserved; may not be reproduced without permission; may not be used to train artificial intelligence systems.
Chapter One
Noah Crawford kept thinking about rattlesnakes.
He hadn’t seen one… yet. But he was in their territory and laying on the ground—an easy target should one happen by. He didn’t like rattlesnakes. He didn’t like any snakes, for that matter, but he especially disliked lethal ones. He was also resting on dozens of sharp rocks, each pushing painfully against various parts of his six-foot-two frame, compounding his overall disquiet.
Noah had worked his way to this position in the predawn light—a small knoll covered with an especially thick stand of sagebrush at its top. The location offered what he needed: a concealed view down to the weathered house, the rusted cars, and old trucks covering the Frasier brothers’ front yard—yard being a loose term. But the spot meant laying on rocks and risking snakes. Now that the sun was up, moving positions was out of the question for fear of discovery. Besides, it was unlikely a better spot existed. Even if there was one, there would still be dirt, rocks, and the possibility of snakes.
Noah shifted his position as much as he dared, moving the rock punishment from one body area to another.
Share the pain.
He reached to his side and pulled up his spotting scope. He put the glass on the Frasier house and scanned the dilapidated former ranch for the umpteenth time that day, hoping Danny, the youngest, would come out of the house alone and wander to a spot where Noah could capture him without his older brothers knowing.
Nothing.
He put the scope down.
Wishful thinking.
This would only work if his brothers left, and Danny remained behind. Danny he could manage. Big Bill and Roscoe? A death wish.
Noah took a deep breath.
Patience and logic.
How many times had his mentor lectured him? Countless. Fugitive recovery agents must be patient, think clearly. Put the odds in your favor with research, preparedness, and persistence. No unnecessary risks. Control the known variables as much as possible and stay alert for the unexpected ones.
One of several unknown variables was his truck. Noah parked Tricky Trixie, his blue pickup, down the hill and near the county road, camouflaged in a brush line. She’d hate that. Especially if left alone all day, which now seemed likely. He’d have to bribe her. A good wash would be his first offer, especially since he’d covered her in branches. If that didn’t work, throw in a wax. If things got desperate, an oil change. She’d take that, even though they both knew she didn’t need one.
Noah’s stomach growled. He had no enthusiasm for food at 4:00 a.m. when he’d gotten up to reach Frasier property before sunrise. He slowly turned over to his back, reached down, and rummaged through his surveillance bag until his hand found a plastic sandwich container. He pulled it out, then retrieved his insulated water bottle. Keep your liquid consumption to a minimum, his mentor warned. Water only. Coffee just rushes the bladder, then you have the distraction of having to pee. Noah didn’t know if that was true, but he followed the advice. Water, and sparingly, despite the afternoon sun beating down and the common guidance given by the medical community about dehydration. Well, the medical community didn’t conduct surveillance. At least that he knew.
Noah heard the bang of a door and rolled back to his stomach, abandoning the refreshments. He grabbed the spotting scope and put the glass on the house. Big Bill and Roscoe were making their way through the boneyard to an old rust-and-yellow pickup, one of the few among the horde with tires. They climbed in, doors slamming, the engine puffing out blue smoke as it raddled to life. The truck wheeled around and sped down the long, dirt drive, kicking dust high in the still air. Noah kept his eyes on them, watching as they turned left out the drive and onto the pavement. He held his breath. They’d pass by Trixie. But he’d hidden her well, and the Frasiers didn’t slow, gathering speed as they headed toward the town of Stage Stop.
Noah reached into his bag and pulled out his flashlight taser. It looked exactly like a flashlight and worked like one. It just had an added feature of completely incapacitating a grown man via electric shock. Another stun gun, disguised as a cell phone, always hung in a holder on his belt as a backup. Noah checked to make sure his handcuffs were still in place, as well as his pepper spray. He was set. He rose slowly, scanned the area around him, lingering the longest back on the road where Big Bill and Roscoe disappeared. Satisfied they weren’t returning, he adjusted his Kevlar vest, tugged his gray, flat cap tightly into place, and made his way down the knoll toward the Frasier house.
Their parents had passed years earlier, leaving the Frasier brothers to fend for themselves. Meanness had set up residence in Roscoe, the oldest, while Big Bill got size and muscle. Danny? He was the easy one. Neither mean nor physically intimidating. However, Danny had a drinking problem. And after being arrested for his third DUI, his driver’s license long suspended, he was jailed, bail set beyond what the Frasier boys could afford. When It Reins Bail Bonding stepped in. But Danny skipped his court date and the judge issued an arrest warrant. The two-day old document rested in Noah’s shirt pocket.
Noah reached the edge of the Frasier property and worked his way through the junkers until he faced the front door, several yards back but well within shouting distance.
“Danny,” he called.
No answer.
“Danny, are you in there?”
The window to the right of the door popped up and the barrel of a .22 rifle poked out. There was a sharp crack the same instant a bullet smacked the ground between Noah’s legs, blowing up a puff of dirt.
“Danny, what the hell?” Noah yelled, looking down at the small dust trench between his feet.
The rifle barrel retracted from the window.
“Noah? Is that you?” came a voice from inside.
“Yeah! And why the hell are you shooting at me?!”
The window slammed shut, and Danny Frasier opened the door and stepped out on the porch, his hands still clutching the rifle. He was in his late twenties, razor thin in worn jeans, a faded, red-flannel shirt, and scuffed cowboy boots. He had shaggy brown hair and large calf eyes Noah believed would have been the envy of all female peers had he been born a girl. Danny looked down, the wide eyes drifting off to the right. “Sorry, Noah. Didn’t know it was you.”
“And if it had been someone else, you’d have killed them?”
“No. I don’t think so. The rifle just sort ah… you know, went off.”
“Went off? On its own?”
“Kinda.”
“What are you thinking, Danny? You skipped out on your court date, and now you’re shooting at people. Christ, you want to go to prison for the rest of your life?”
“No.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know it was you, honest.”
Noah removed his hat, ran his hand back over his ash-brown hair, then snugged the flat cap back into place.
“I don’t want to go to jail, Noah.”
Noah took a deep breath and walked toward the porch, stopping a few paces away from the lower step. “I know you don’t, Danny. But here’s the thing. Eventually, you’re going to have to face the time. Dodging just extends your sentence. And if I go back and tell the sheriff you shot at me… you’re facing attempted murder.” Danny looked down at the rifle. “And if I come up missing, Danny, this’ll be the first place they look.”
Danny Frasier frowned. “I ain’t going to shoot ya, Noah. You’ve always been good to me.”
“Well… that… that’s good, because you did almost shoot me, and I really don’t want to get shot.”
“Sure,” Danny said, pressing his lips together tightly and nodding. He looked at Noah. “You goin’ to tell the sheriff I shot at ya?”
Noah gave Danny a long look. “No, Danny, I’m not. As long as you agree to come with me now, then we’re square. Like you said, you didn’t know it was me.”
Danny Frasier nodded. “Thanks, Noah.”
“You’re welcome. Now put the rifle away and grab your wallet. We need to get going.”
Danny disappeared inside and Noah waited, hoping Danny didn’t have a change of heart. But just in case…
Control the variables.
He eased up on the porch and stood by the door, his back against the outside wall. Noah couldn’t imagine Danny changing his mind, but he never expected Danny to shoot at him.
Unexpected variable.
Danny stepped back out on the porch without the rifle, pulled the door closed behind him, and looked out to where Noah had been standing.
“Here, Danny. Turn around, please, hands out.”
Danny turned and looked down at the handcuffs Noah held in his hand. “You don’t need those.”
“Sorry.” Noah placed the cuffs on Danny’s hands. “Protocol.”
It wasn’t always protocol, but Noah was controlling variables.
Noah led Danny through the boneyard and up the knoll. He grabbed his surveillance bag and scope and headed down to the brush-line where he’d left Trixie. He began pulling the loose limbs off his truck, Danny helping despite the cuffs.
“Good idea hiding your truck,” Danny said as they worked. “Roscoe and Billy? Would’ve been bad.”
“I know.”
“I ain’t tell ‘em it was you brought me in.”
“I appreciated that, Danny.”
“I’ll tell ‘em Hacksaw come and got me. They’re scared of him.”
“Everybody’s scared of the sheriff,” Noah said, grateful he was among the few people Sheriff Stonehouse respected and even liked. The sheriff wasn’t a man you wanted to cross. Even Roscoe and Big Bill Frasier stepped aside for Hacksaw, and they typically didn’t step aside for anyone.
Task completed, Noah put Danny in the passenger seat and chained his cuffs to a large O-ring bolted to the floor under the dash. The chain kept Danny’s hands between his legs and prevented him from reaching the door handle or the steering wheel. Noah went around and climbed in the driver’s door, pulling his keys from his pocket.
Moment of truth. How mad would she be?
He turned the key. Nothing. Not even the rapid clicks she usually used in protest.
“A complete wash.” Noah patted the dashboard. “Even shine your tires.”
Danny turned his head and squinted at Noah.
Noah ignored him and turned the ignition key again. Rapid clicks.
“And a wax.”
Noah turned the key a third time and Trixie roared to life.
“That’s my girl.” He patted her dash again before backing up and pointing her forward toward the post-and-wire gate leading out of the sagebrush and onto the county road.
“You talk to your truck?” Danny asked after Noah had them through the gate and out on the asphalt.
“Yup.”
“She’s a lady truck?”
“She is.”
“How do you know? I mean, how can you tell?”
“Just can. They choose.”
“What?”
“Cars and trucks. They’re all built the same. So, choice of gender is up to them. Think of this way. They assemble a car or truck in the plant. No life yet. Then, once all the parts are together, fluids filled, someone turns the key and the vehicle springs to life. Then it’s out the factory door like a baby leaving the womb. At that point, they choose. Am I male or am I female? Or am I non-binary?”
Danny frowned deeply and looked down at his cuffed hands. “Sounded like you was bribing her to start or something.”
“More like a negotiation. A quid pro quo.”
“A what?”
Noah looked over at his prisoner. “You scratch my back, and I scratch yours. You start, and I wash and wax you.”
“Tires too.”
“What?”
“You promised to shine her tires.”
“Tires too.”
“It’s sounds like she might just need a new battery.”
“Has one.”
“New starter?”
“Yup.”
“Ignition system?’
“New.”
“Electrical system?”
“Top to bottom. Checked and rechecked and all working.”
“Oh.”
“Yup.”
“She’s a stubborn lady.”
“She likes events to unfold in a certain way.”
They entered the town of Stage Stop fifteen minutes later. Noah steered Trixie up the main street, then turned her off on a side street and continued for the next three blocks.
“This ain’t the way to the sheriff’s department,” Danny said, looking out the windshield.
“If you don’t mind, Danny, I have some papers to serve. It won’t take long.”
“I don’t mind.”
Noah pulled in front of a tiny, one-story house with peeling yellow paint in a tree-sparse neighborhood.
“Okay, Danny, I’m going to leave the truck running. But don’t try anything. If you do, she’ll just shut off her engine and lock the doors on you.”
Danny looked back at Noah, his eyebrows raising above his huge eyes. “Really?”
“Yup.” Noah opened his door and stepped out. Danny continued to stare at him as Noah reached behind the seat and pulled out a nine-by-twelve manila envelope.
“She’d lock me in?”
Noah looked up. “Yup.” He swung the door shut and started toward the house.
“That’s a joke, right?” Danny called.
Noah turned his head back as he walked. “That was a joke, Danny.”
Danny smiled and nodded his head, seemingly pleased he’d come to the right conclusion.
Noah turned back toward the house and sighed. He was glad Danny would do his time in the county lockup. He’d never last in prison.
Noah knocked on the rusted screen door and waited. It wasn’t long before the door opened, and Clete Davis stared out through the screen.
“Oh, Christ, Noah, what now?”
“Order to appear.” Noah opened the screen door a crack and slid the envelope through. “This is a legal delivery, and I’m serving you with a summons.”
Clete Davis was in his mid-forties with receding brown hair, freckled hands and face, and thirty extra pounds challenging his belt to keep his pants up. He reluctantly took the envelope. “What does she want now, a kidney?”
“Two weeks from Monday next.” Noah pointed at the envelope. “Ten o’clock sharp in Judge Mattson’s court.”
Clete pulled the paperwork free. “She suing me? How much revenge does the woman need?” He looked back up at Noah. “She got everything. House, car, the camping trailer, got it all. She even took the dog. And look at this, Noah,” he said, gesturing around with one hand. “I’m renting this shithole of a house, working my ass off at the mill to pay her support each month in order to, and I quote, ‘keep her in the lifestyle to which she’s become accustomed.’ What about my lifestyle? Anybody care about the lifestyle to which I’ve become accustomed?”
“I can’t say, Clete.” Noah reached into his left jean pocket and pulled out his real phone. Then he reached over and pulled the screen door open. “Need to take your picture with the papers in your hand. Need to prove to the court you received them.”
“Fine.”
Noah aimed his camera phone, but just as he took the shot, Clete raised his middle finger up. Noah looked down at the picture: the blurry middle finger racing by Clete’s cheek. “Come on, Clete.”
“Sorry.” He gave Noah his best sarcastic smile as Noah snapped another shot.
Good enough. He could show this one to Beverly Cooke, the Clerk of Courts, without offending her. Like Hacksaw, you didn’t want to cross swords with Beverly. Not if you wanted your paperwork and county checks to flow smoothly, and Noah depended on smooth paperwork and county checks.
“I’ll see you around, Clete.” Noah stuffed the phone back in his pocket. “Good luck with it all.”
“It’s like they say, if it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”
Noah nodded, stepped off the small stoop, and headed back to his truck.
“Never get married, Noah,” Clete called after him.
Noah threw him a wave without looking back. That ship had sailed and sunk long ago.
*
Noah drove Danny to the newly built Nakoda County Sheriff’s Department, a one-story, brown, concrete-block building with offices on the first floor and a jail in the basement. He parked in a visitor’s space and steered Danny through a pair of glass doors and into a narrow hall-like foyer facing a wall made of the same concrete blocks as the outside. A single large window centered the wall, a prairie dog town of cubicles visible behind. The thick plexiglass held a round speaking grille embedded five feet up from the floor. Noah bent down and got Deputy Sergeant Marybeth Rodgers’ attention.
“Noah Crawford,” she said, swiveling her chair around. “What can I do for the handsomest man in Stage Stop? He of the startling eyes.”
Noah’s face reddened, eliciting a brief laugh from Marybeth—mission accomplished. He was self-conscious about his eyes. Noah had congenital heterochromia iridis, a rare but benign genetic condition resulting in different colored irises. His right eye was a stark blue, his left a pale green. Both worked fine, twenty-twenty, but more than one person found them disconcerting. He was told by some his eyes seemed to penetrate to their souls. Others said his eyes were a sign of witchery. He thought he could use some magical powers, but none had manifested.
Marybeth continued to enjoy his discomfort. She was a pretty woman with a round face, short black hair, and a marginally-stout physique. For twenty years she’d run the front office with an iron hand, but she was one of the most pleasant people Noah had ever known. And she was one of the few people not even slightly intimidated by the sheriff.
“When are you going to find a woman and settle down?” she said, wiggling her eyebrows at him. “Can’t stay a single man forever.”
“Oddly enough, I was advised to avoid marriage this very day.”
“Pish posh.” She waved at him. “Some woman’s going to grab your heart one of these days.”
“Been grabbed and burned.”
“There’s always a second chance, Noah. Okay, who’d you bring me?”
“Danny Frasier. Arrest warrant here. Turning him over to you.” Noah pulled the paper from his pocket and shoved it down into a half-moon space carved out of the counter below the window allowing items to pass through and up the other side.
Marybeth swept up the document, grabbed the phone, and punched a button. Moments later, Sheriff Stonehouse came to the window and jerked his head toward the electronic door leading to the vestibule. Marybeth hit the buzzer, and Noah grabbed the door and gestured Danny through.
Sheriff Harlen “Hacksaw” Stonehouse had been an offensive tackle for the University of Washington football team, destined for the pros until he damaged a knee. Although no longer at his heavier playing weight, he was still a massive presence: six-foot-six and hovering on one side or the other of 270 pounds; all of it broad shoulders, hard muscle, and an equally hard disposition and temper. He won his first election by promising voters the only way to bring order to Nakoda County and the town of Stage Stop was to have a sheriff and deputies tougher than any criminals. They believed him, and he’d run unopposed ever since. He always wore a tan khaki shirt and pants, and black laced cowboy boots. His grandmother was Blackfoot, and the descending heritage gave him olive skin, high cheekbones, deep brown, nearly black eyes, and black hair. He also sported a thick, black mustache. The dark eyes tended to narrow to slits when displeased—something most people in the county tried to avoid—and the mustache twitched from side to side when he was considering options, like whether to pile-drive you over the head with one of his huge fists.
The sheriff was short on pleasantries and impatient with small talk. He looked at the arrest warrant Marybeth handed him. “Roscoe and Bill?”
“Danny volunteered to come in on his own after we had a chance to talk. His brothers weren’t around.”
“Good timing.”
“I’m going to tell ‘em it was you come and got me, sheriff. If that’s okay,” Danny said.
The sheriff looked up from the paper and down at Danny. His large mustache twitched. “Fine. But you let them know I won’t tolerate any of their usual nonsense. You need to serve your time, Danny, and quit drinking. And until you manage that, stop driving. You’ll kill somebody otherwise and do life in Deer Lodge.” The sheriff scowled one narrow eye at Danny. “And if that happens, you’ll probably end up dead within a month or become some con’s bitch.”
“Think I can do my time here?” Danny whispered, eyes growing wide.
The sheriff looked back at the paper in his hand. “If you’re lucky.”
Noah removed Danny’s handcuffs. “He’s all yours.”
Sheriff Stonehouse nodded. “Marybeth has the paperwork for Bunny.” Then the sheriff yelled for a deputy named Olmsted. The deputy hurried from the back and took charge of Danny.
“Thanks, Noah,” Danny called back as the deputy led him away.
“You’re welcome, Danny.”
When Danny was out of earshot, the sheriff turned back to Noah. “I’d keep one of those eyes in the back of my head if I were you. Danny may keep his word, but you never know. Roscoe and Bill may decide to exact a pound of flesh if they find out who brought him in.”
Noah nodded. “I’ll add them to the list of people who want to kill me.”
The sheriff raised one lip that looked like a sneer, but Noah knew it was the man’s rare smile. “You do make your share of enemies, don’t you, Noah.”
“I do. See you around, Sheriff.”
“See you around, Noah.”
*
Noah’s next stop was the courthouse—specifically the Clerk of Courts. He parked Trixie and made his way up the broad steps and into the old, red brick, three-story building, circa 1920’s. He walked across the marble lobby, the sound of his boots echoing off the soaring ceilings, and headed up the long, narrow staircase—avoiding the elevator. The elevator was a slow moving, claustrophobic rattletrap and made noises as if bordering on machine-suicide, ready at any minute to detach itself and race its occupants down the shaft and to their mutual deaths in the old basement. Not the place Noah would choose to die.
He went to the Clerk of Courts office door on the third floor, then up to the counter once inside. Young Sheila Bear Foot stood behind the counter, and Noah asked her if he could speak to Beverly Cooke. Sheila, a diminutive Native woman and extremely shy, was one of the people who found Noah’s eyes disconcerting. She looked down, picked up a phone, and punched the intercom. Beverly came from her private office, walked up to the counter, and stared at Noah; eyebrows raised. She didn’t find his eyes disconcerting.
Beverly was the tallest woman Noah knew, equaling his own height when in her business heels. She had dark-blond hair and striking blue eyes to go with a Marilyn Monroe figure. She was somewhere in her fifties—exact placement unknown and un-asked if you knew what was good for you. She spoke less than the sheriff, if that was possible, and so Noah skipped the usual greetings expected in polite society and shoved the filled-out form across to her, indicating fait accompli on Clete Davis. She looked down at the form for a moment, then looked back up, eyebrows rising again. Noah pulled his phone out, found the sarcastic photo of Clete, and held it up for her.
“Email it to me,” she said.
Ah, words at least.
Noah emailed the photo to her address. “Done.” He raised his own eyebrows at Beverly.
“Sheila will cut you a check.” She turned and headed back to her office.
“Appreciate the business,” Noah called. Beverly threw up a hand of acknowledgement without turning.
Sheila printed out a county check, raced to the back to secure Beverly’s signature, and raced back, pushing the check across the counter to Noah without looking up.
“Thank you, Sheila.”
She nodded and turned away.
“It was certainly good to see you again,” he said to her as she drifted away down the counter. “I do so enjoy our talks.”
She didn’t acknowledge him. Noah smiled to himself, picked up the check and slipped it into his shirt pocket. Payment number one for the day. Now on to payment number two.
*
Elizabeth (Bunny) Reins was sole owner of When It Reins Bail Bonding. Bunny and Jack, her late husband, started the business and ran it together for sixteen years. Jack had been Noah’s mentor in the fugitive recovery business until killed by a bail jumper named Lucas Lingaard five years earlier. Noah had been with Jack at the time and captured Lingaard after the murder.
Noah parked in the small gravel lot on the side yard of Bunny’s two-story white house. The house sat at the end of a street once a residential neighborhood. The older homes now housed a half-dozen shops, two legal offices, and a dental clinic. Bunny lived on the second floor and ran her business from the first. Noah made his way around to the front, walked up the stone footpath, and climbed the three wooden steps up to the broad front porch. Motion-sensitive security cameras buzzed along the entire way, tracking his every move. Cameras covered the entire property from front to back, and a bank of monitors, never far from Bunny’s sight, ensured no one approached undetected. And no one could break in. Security bars covered every window on the first and second floors. Not an unfounded paranoia, Noah believed, given her business and what happened to Jack.
Noah stepped up and waved to the camera above the door. A buzzer sounded a moment later and the heavy metal door, painted the same green as the house-trim, popped open a few inches. Noah pulled the glass storm door back, pushed the front door open, and entered the house, careful once inside to close the door behind him. A click sounded signaling the thick, no-window, steel door had bolted shut.
Bunny Reins greeted him with a huge smile as he made his way to her desk at the far end of the house’s living room. Except for the huge desk and the visitor’s chairs fronting it, Bunny decorated the rest of the room like a normal home—couch, chairs, side tables with lamps, all resting on large area rugs over hardwood floors.
Given her profession, people about to meet Bunny for the first time expected a heavy-set, chain smoking, bleached blond, squinting a skeptical eye through a haze of smoke. They were not disappointed.
“Hello, love,” Bunny said in her deep smoker’s voice.
What surprised people was Bunny’s British accent deep in the bowels of western Montana. Jack had been an Air Force security police officer stationed at Lakenheath in England when he met and courted Bunny—convincing her to marry him and travel back to Montana after his enlistment was up. Jack spent the next nine years as a Montana State Patrolman until hit by a car while issuing a citation on the side of a highway. The injury cost him his career, saddled him with a limp, and triggered the idea of opening a bail-bonding agency. Ten years into the business, Noah joined the team and worked side by side with Jack until madman Lucas Lingaard crashed into their lives.
“Afternoon, Bunny.” Noah pulled the paperwork given him by Marybeth and handed it over. “Danny Frasier, signed, sealed, and delivered.”
Bunny’s smile broadened as she took the forms, ash balancing precariously at the end of her cigarette. Without taking her eyes off the form, she pulled the cigarette from her lips and got the bending ash safely into the ashtray before it detached.
“Grand,” she said looking up. “You saved me ten-thousand dollars.”
Noah gave her the same raised eyebrows he’d given Beverly Cooke.
“Twenty percent, as agreed. Given the Frasier brothers and all.” Bunny pulled her checkbook from the center desk drawer. “Did they give you a hard time?”
“Nope. All went well. Got Danny after Roscoe and Bill left for town. Danny did take a shot at me though.”
Bunny’s eyes jumped from her checkbook. “Bloody hell, Noah. Why would he do such a thing?”
“Claimed the gun just went off. Swore he didn’t know it was me.”
Bunny frowned. “You tell Hacksaw?”
“Danny and I came to a half-cooked, disarranged agreement, if you will. He agreed to come in peacefully after I promised not to tell the sheriff. Then on his own, no pressure from me, offered to tell Roscoe and Bill that the sheriff brought him in.”
“That was nice.”
“If he sticks to the agreement.”
Bunny went back to her checkbook and finished it, a stream of smoke forcing her to close one eye. She tore the check loose and handed it up to Noah.
“Two-thousand dollars, as agreed.”
“Thank you. That was your profit though, wasn’t it?”
Bunny shrugged indifference. “It’s a wash. Two-thousand to save me losing ten, and that two grand came from the Frasier boys.”
“Cash or property.”
Bunny laughed. “Cash and cash only with that bunch of cockups. Took a while, but they scraped it together.”
“I wonder how that scraping was done.”
“Not my business, love. Green is green. If it came from something dodgy, it’s none of my affair.”
Noah couldn’t help thinking Bunny may have forced the Frasier boys deeper into the dark side of their various and often nefarious enterprises. But, as Bunny said, it was their business. If the Frasier brothers wanted to play Russian Roulette with Sheriff Stonehouse, their choice.
Bunny turned her chair around and reached down to a cupboard door on the lower part of a waist-high credenza behind her desk. She pulled out a bottle of high-end gin, a shaker, and two martini glasses, balancing all as she turned back and arranged the items on her desk.
“A drink to celebrate,” she said.
Bunny snubbed out her cigarette, pulled herself from the desk chair, and disappeared back to the kitchen in the old house. She wore a long yellow dress with a black belt around her waist, white sandals, and bright-red toenail polish matching the paint on her fingers. Noah shortly heard the familiar sound of Bunny filling a silver ice bucket. She returned, filled the shaker with the small cubes, and poured the shaker half full of gin. Then she clamped on the lid and shook it vigorously before pouring the two martini glasses to their rims.
Noah raised his eyebrows, glancing at his watch. It was just a few minutes past four in the afternoon.
“It’s not as if you’re going to get pissed on just one,” Bunny said. “Unless you’re losing your edge.” Then she smiled and held up her glass. “A toast.”
Noah stood, carefully lifting his own glass, and held it up.
“To my lovely Jack,” she said. They always toasted Jack when they shared a drink. They touched glasses, then each took a sip of the expensive gin. “And may Lucas Lingaard rot in his cell until the day he dies.”
“Amen to that,” said Noah.
“Another toast.” Bunny held her glass back up. “To you, Noah Crawford, may you always get your man… or your woman. I’m the last to be called sexist.”
Noah nodded and took another sip, easing himself back down in his chair.
“So,” Bunny said after taking her own seat, “I assume Nyla and Burl are still after you.”
Noah took another swallow of the gin—it was tasting better and better. “They are. Their eager buyers keep raising the offer. As if it’s a matter of money.”
Bunny tilted her head to the side. “I understand your reasons, Noah, but that money would certainly put an ease into your life. You can see that.”
Noah didn’t answer. Instead, he took another swallow of his drink, and stared down into the gin as Bunny lit another cigarette.
“I’m not advocating you give in to them, Noah. Believe me I understand. Just saying.”
Noah looked back up. “I know, and don’t think I haven’t run the idea through my head a thousand times. But I always come back to the same dilemma. Am I going to be the one who yields to the money after 150 years? If I did, you can bet four generations of dead Crawfords would haunt me for the rest of my life.”
“Then there’s Johnny,” Bunny said.
“Then there’s Johnny.”
“Well,” Bunny said, taking a long drag from her cigarette and blowing the smoke straight up, “I’m glad it’s you and not me. I’d take the money, and Bob’s your uncle, be gone.”
“And where would you go, Bunny?”
“I know exactly where I’d go. To the island of Mykonos in Greece. Get a small villa on or near the water and become a Greek in all ways. Food, drink, lifestyle.”
“You’ve thought it through.”
“A dream I’ve nurtured for years.”
Noah raised his glass. “Maybe someday.”
Bunny smiled and raised her own. “Maybe someday.”
*
Trixie started easily, as she always did at Bunny’s—kindred spirits evidently—and Noah pulled out of the gravel lot, drove to the next intersection, and turned right onto Main Street, steering her toward the local bank drive-through. He deposited his checks, got a portion back in cash for Johnny, then turned back onto Main Street.
Noah had one final errand to run before heading home. He knew it would piss off Trixie, but he’d promised Johnny he’d pick up dog food. Johnny Jennings, his old ranch hand, collected unwanted dogs. He kept the number to no more than six. The current count was five. Johnny kept a fifty-gallon barrel filled with dry dog food, constantly replenishing with twenty-pound bags whenever dog food went on sale at Bentley’s Feed, Seed, and Sundries at the edge of town.
Noah swung into the turn lane leading to Bentley’s at the last possible moment, made the corner, and drove to an empty space in the parking lot. He sat and let the engine idle.
“I promised to get dog food,” he said to the truck. “I know you don’t like the dogs. They pee on your tires. I get that. But it’s a favor to Johnny. And I know you like Johnny. So, what do you say we let this irritation go and head home after this, no refusal to start or stalling in an intersection? Which, as we’ve repeatedly discussed, is truly dangerous. To both of us. And remember, I promised you a wash and wax tomorrow, including putting a shine on your tires. Okay?”
Noah waited for a moment to let his words sink in, then shut off the engine, a deep sigh escaping his chest as he reached forward and retrieved his keys. As usual, he repressed any thought of trading Trixie in for a more cooperative model. He was sure she could read his mind. He was also convinced one needed to be nice to machines as they would, at some point in their evolution, gain self-awareness and seek revenge for past treatment. By some ghost in the machine, it was possible Trixie had jumped the evolutionary ladder to that very rung.
He was just a step out the store, the dog food bag perched on his shoulder, when he heard the screech of brakes and the squeal of tires. He looked up and saw a rust-and-yellow truck, leaning heavily on two tires, swing across traffic to a bevy of honking horns. The old pickup barreled into the store lot: tire smoke billowing behind.
“Ah, crap,” Noah said. He put his head down and headed toward his truck, his pace just short of a run, all the way knowing his chances of reaching safety were slim. Then none, as the Frasier brothers cut him off, their old truck slamming to a halt in front of him, rocking on bad shocks and worn springs. Noah lowered the bag to the asphalt with a deep sigh and waited for his good day to become a bad one.
“Well, well,” Roscoe Frasier said as he stepped out of the passenger’s side. “What do we have here?”
“Dog food,” Noah said, pointing at the bag.
“No,” Roscoe said in his high, rust-edged voice. “Asshole is what I see.”
Bill Frasier exited the driver’s side and came around the truck, taking up a position beside his brother. The brothers presented an odd variance in terms of heritage, Noah thought as he stared back at the men. Wondering at the same time why his mind was electing to make this observation, given the likelihood of pain in the near future. But he decided to follow the train of thought. It was strange, the differences. Roscoe was a slightly bigger copy of Danny, minus the large, calf eyes. Roscoe’s eyes were angry slits, brown-black between the lids. Bill towered over both his brothers, a half foot taller and wider, beefy arms pressing out against his t-shirt sleeves.
“It was you got Danny, wasn’t it,” Bill said in a deep voice, matching his bulk. “When we got home, he was gone.”
“Might have been Hacksaw,” Noah offered, figuring it wasn’t quite a lie. It might have been Hacksaw. It wasn’t, but it might have been.
“Wasn’t the sheriff,” Bill said. “He ain’t got time for bail jumpers. Leaves that shit to you.”
Noah didn’t argue the fact and knew it wouldn’t do him any good anyway. “It’s a living,” he said, grimacing a smile.
Noah scanned the parking lot, then shot a quick look over his shoulder toward the store. He held a thin ray of hope someone might come to help, even the odds. As it was, the shoppers outside seemed to be heading inside quickly, and those starting out of the store, headed back inside. Noah turned back to the brothers. Bill was his only hope, the only one of the three brothers with an IQ above room temperature.
“You’re right, Bill,” Noah said. “There was an arrest warrant issued, and I brought Danny in early this afternoon.”
“After we left.”
“Yup. But think about it, Bill. Time was going to come, sooner or later. If it wasn’t me, then it would have been Hacksaw. And the longer Danny avoided court, the harder Judge Price would have been on him.”
Another odd thought darted across Noah’s brain. Roscoe and Danny had the same basic build and favored their demon father. Bill? He didn’t look remotely like the old man or his mother: a worn, diminutive creature. Did Clara Frasier have a dalliance, a tete-a-tete with a large man at some desperate time in the past? He decided to leave the question unanswered.
Bill frowned, staring back.
Noah jumped into the gap in the big man’s hesitation. “And let’s face it, Bill, you beat me up, Hacksaw’s going to know it was you, and you’ll be in a cell next to Danny in a heartbeat. You gain nothing by hurting me.”
“Let’s kick this fucker into tomorrow,” Roscoe said, sneering.
“And, and,” Noah said, trying to give his logic momentum, “Bunny won’t put up your bail if you hurt me. You’ll both be stuck in jail until your trial or you plead out. Then it’s jail time. Could be months. Then what happens to the business?” Noah didn’t know what business that would be and didn’t want to know.
The crease above Bill’s eyes furrowed deeper.
“The ranch,” Noah said, forcing a smile. “Or… or you know, your parts sales. From all your trucks and cars.”
“Come on Billy,” Roscoe said, nearly dancing with anticipation, “let’s stop talking and kick this motherfucker’s ass.”
A change came over Bill’s normally expressionless face. One eyebrow raised as his lips slipped to one side.
A dawning light?
“All this… it might help Danny,” Noah said, resting his left hand on the taser-phone on his belt. He knew from practice he could pull the phony phone in less than a second should either brother charge. If they both came at once…
Hospital. Pain. Hospital bills and more pain.
“He needs to stop drinking and driving, Bill. If he kills someone, it’s Deer Lodge. And Danny… in Deer Lodge?” Noah raised his eyebrows and nodded at Bill.
“We ain’t listening to you, asshole,” Roscoe snarled and lunged at Noah.
Noah had just begun to free the taser when Roscoe left the ground, his legs kicking frantically in the air. Bill, with the speed of a hungry grizzly, threw his big arms around his brother and picked him up.
“Not a good idea,” he told Roscoe as his brother kicked and swore. “See you around, Noah.”
“See you around, Bill,” Noah said, sliding the shock-phone back into its holder.
Bill turned, still holding Roscoe in the air, and put him down in front of the passenger door of their truck. With one hand on his brother, he reached out with the other, opened the door, and shoved Roscoe up and into the truck, slamming the door shut.
“What the hell!” Roscoe screamed.
Bill faced Roscoe through the open window, his face back to its usual expressionless state. “This is taking care of Danny. Don’t get out of the truck.”
Roscoe didn’t. Bill walked around the truck, got in, and started the engine, a puff of blue smoke signaling the engagement. Then he put the old beast into gear and drove out of the parking lot.
Noah let out a deep breath as he watched them leave, fighting back an urgent need to pee. He picked up the dog food and made his way to Trixie. He wasn’t sure if she was aware of his near-death experience or was holding to the promise of shiny tires, but she fired right off, and Noah left the parking lot and headed her home.
Eckert Writing 