Chapter 41 – Christian
Chapter Forty-One
Christian
Montana
The patch of red sunburn on the back of my neck still burns despite the sunscreen I slathered on earlier.
I settled into a nice routine with Tylee, so I don’t think about her much outside of my routine.
I adopted another dog. He’s a good boy named Echo and spends most of the day by my side while I’ve worked the land around my new place.
Feels like home now. I never thought I would say that about Montana, but you fall in love with this place.
There’s a creek on the property past a thick patch of boreal forest where I spend some of my mornings fly fishing when I get the time.
I hate cleaning fish, so I don’t overdo it, but it’s nice to slip my boots on and take Echo out for a nice walk before I sit there and appreciate this beautiful country.
Twenty-seven days out in the country and I forget that I’m alone. I talk to the dog like he can understand me and most of the time he just whines and rests his head on his paws. Echo interrupts my shoveling with a loud alerting bark.
“What’s that?”
WOOF WOOF WOOF. His deep barking gets louder.
Echo rises on his haunches and faces the main road leading up to my property.
My next neighbor is over three-quarters of a mile away from me and Echo hardly has to bark at an old man who sits in a wheelchair on his porch whenever the weather gets over seventy degrees.
“Who you got? Is it some prairie dog or sum’n?”
There’s a shape coming along the road towards our house. It can’t be that neighbor in his wheel chair, even if he wanted to, the road is too steep and rough for him to come this way without more assistance.
The figure coming towards me must be hitting full tilt. Looks like they’re running and by the looks of the person running, they have a large tangled mass of black hair coming behind them. Some Indian kid?
“Echo, heel…”
Strangely, I don’t feel afraid. I just keep watching as the figure gets closer and I finally identify the black woman coming towards my place as just that – a black woman.
In Montana. Shit, you don’t see that every day.
She keeps running towards me, until she gets close enough that she can look me in the eyes but not so close I could grab her.
She stops running, looks me dead in the eyes and her mouth just rounds out like she’s trying to form words but none come out.
The woman gasps for breath. I just watch her curiously as her dark skin glistens in sweat and she struggles to get any breath in.
Where the hell did she come from running like that?
I want to give her some instruction to breathe, or calm down, but I keep my one hand firmly grasping Echo’s collar and just before I can say anything, she musters the start of a single word.
“H—”
She gasps again. “Help…”
The woman’s eyes roll back in her head and turn white.
My instincts kick in and I suddenly know what’s going to happen before I can possibly know.
She’s going to keel over, isn’t she? I dart towards her to catch her and somehow, it happens.
The woman swoons and I leave Echo’s side to stop her from hitting the ground.
I just barely get my arms around her in time.
Her weight sinks into my grasp inches away from the ground.
I grunt as her arms press against my chest and I have to push with my legs to grab her up off the ground.
She’s not too heavy, but it’s a bit awkward to hold a passed out woman like that without hurting her.
As I lift the unconscious, sweaty woman off the ground, I can’t help but notice how light and small she is.
Couldn’t be more than a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet.
Her skin is dark too – the darkest I’ve ever seen in person, especially not up close like this.
“Ma’am?” I whisper. I feel strange and dirty with her body pressed up against me like this. The woman hardly knows me and I have to grasp her thighs and arms to keep her from lying in the dirt passed out. I don’t like it. I’m not the type to put my hands all over a woman that isn’t mine.
What the hell am I supposed to do with her? I carry her towards the house. Doesn’t feel right to put her on the ground, I’m not a doctor and don’t know where to find one. The whole point of coming all the way out here is to be alone. I hope she wakes up soon.
I sit her on the couch and Echo runs into the house behind me through the open door, giving a couple excited yips before he sits attentively at the woman’s feet. I shut the front door and pace for a few minutes, calling out a couple times to see if that might wake her up.
Ten minutes pass and the woman doesn’t wake up.
I nudge her shoulder again then Echo starts barking.
Christ, this dog. I’m surprised the barking doesn’t wake her up.
I try to shush my dog, but he won’t stop.
I walk over to the windows facing the main road and see a few cop cars all the way up at the edge of the property. What the hell?
It’s Montana, everybody packs heat out here, so I don’t hesitate to sling my shotgun over my shoulder and whistle for Echo to follow me as I walk towards the main road to see what the hell it is bringing cops here.
Something about this doesn’t feel right.
When I draw closer to the main road, I realize that despite being white American-made cars, the vehicles parked at the edge of my property aren’t the local police force.
Only one vehicle has any markings on it.
Immigration & Customs Enforcement. I.C.E.
What the fuck does that have to do with me?
The boys standing outside by the cars don’t look like Montana boys.
You live out here long enough, you can spot a real country boy from a Walmart fashion bandit a mile away.
A quick scan of their boots and their hands tells me all I need to know about these men.
I’m not a fan of the masks and sunglasses.
“Can I help you gentlemen?” I ask them, flashing a broad, friendly smile. I’m already itching for a reason to put my hands on the shotgun, even if I am painfully outnumbered and visibly outgunned.
But I’m a tall white guy who owns this property and as far as I know, these men have no justifiable reason to be here.
“We’re looking for a fugitive from the United States government.”
I chuckle. “I would ask what Wyatt did, but if somebody was coming for him, I would have guessed the FBI.”
“Mind if I ask for identification, officers?” I try showing them a modicum of fake respect, although I am already running the mental calculations of what I’m going to do if these assholes try to get onto my property.
“We don’t do that,” the taller one says. “Have you seen a fugitive? Ain’t no other properties around here and she couldn’t have gotten far.”
“Haven’t seen anybody like that.”
“Do you mind if we search your property? She could be hiding out behind some of those trees or something.”
Echo sits at my side. Tense. He doesn’t like these men and neither do I. My hand reaches for the top of his head, which I pat tenderly.
“Echo here would have barked up a storm if there was somebody on the property. If you boys don’t mind… I have to get back to work.”
“So is that a no?”
“Yes, sir,” I respond with a good old boy’s smile. “If any fugitive woman comes my way, I’ll be the first to call you.”
They stare at me for about a minute. I can tell they’re trying to rattle me. But they don’t realize how transparent they are. I’ve been around bikers my whole life – even the women in my world were tough as nails and could scratch the eyes out of a bear once they got a little Rolling Rock in them.
I don’t know where these so-called agents of the government came from, but they both look painfully fat and out of shape, like they’re play-acting as some type of tough guy that doesn’t feel right.
“If you don’t mind,” I say encouragingly, keeping my face placid and possibly even smiling. “I’d like to get back to work.”
Echo barks a couple times and I watch them get a little nervous.
The shorter one reaches like he’s thinking about putting hands on his pistol.
I would worry if I wasn’t sure that I was quicker.
Sharpshooting was one of my hobbies as a kid.
I can shoot a plum off a fence at 500 yards with any firearm I put my hands on.
They’d better be careful.
“Give us a call,” the tall one says, giving me a cold stare. “If we don’t find her, we might come back tomorrow and see if you caught wind of her.”
“Good day, boys,” I reply. “Best of luck.”
Best of luck my ass. I wait at the edge of my property with Echo for them to leave before I return inside. That poor woman. She’s still passed out on the couch right now – her body scrunched up almost in the fetal position, a little different from how I left her, like she moved around in her sleep.
I glance over at her and consider my next move.
I’ll wake her up after I get Tylee some food.
I don’t like the thought of those men coming back over here.
It’s not just because of this mysterious woman they claim is some kind of fugitive on the couch.
I have my own business going on over here and really don’t need the government sticking its musty paws into my business.
Tylee grabs her food with intentions of leaving long scratches all over my forearms. She has just enough calories to survive but not enough that she can do much damage. I try talking to her, but she doesn’t say anything when I ask her how her day went or if she needs new reading material.
I wait for her to finish the plate. She slides it back to me through the opening in her prison door.
“Girl upstairs,” she says.
I don’t answer her. I double check the locks when I leave and shut the room with the basement door. We have multiple doors between Tylee and freedom for everyone’s safety. I look over at the woman on the couch when I get back to the living room. She’s still sleeping.
“Ma’am?” I call out to her again. If I wasn’t so desperate for answers, I would let her sleep more. It might also be the fact that Tylee isn’t good company in the slightest. She moves a little bit, like she heard me, but she’s not quite awake.
“I won’t hurt you,” I tell her. “And I won’t give you over to the pigs. But I need you to wake up right now and tell me who you are and how you got here.”
She groans and her eyes flutter open. Holy shit. This woman is drop-dead gorgeous. I don’t know how she got here, but I feel downright lucky to be in the same room with a woman who looks this good.