Bridges to Burn

PROLOGUE

Ben Foster and Cindy Anson had met during the month of August two years previously in the small town of Davis,

Montana. Ben, recently widowed, was on a fishing trip from his home in San Rafael, California. He was accompanied by

his dog, Ruff, a 3 year old, lovable Golden Retriever. Cindy, after divorcing her husband, was in Montana to look into an

inheritance her mother’s deceased uncle had left her.

Shortly after they met Cindy was attacked and brutally beaten; Ben was thrown in jail and accused of administering the

beating. When the real culprit was apprehended Ben was released from jail and a romance blossomed between them

following Cindy’s release from the hospital.

After claiming Cindy’s inheritance, which was considerable, Ben and Cindy left for California. The two returned to Davis

on Valentine’s Day of the following year to be married by the judge who was instrumental in having Ben released from jail.

Their good friends, Hank and Toni Summers, who own a trailer park in Davis, were the best man and the matron of honor at

the wedding.

* * *

It was now July, two years after their dramatic meeting. Ben and Cindy had returned to Davis to revisit Hank and Toni

and other friends they had made during their first visit. The two couples had stayed in touch but it was the first visit of Ben

and Cindy to Davis since their marriage 18 months ago.

During those 18 months they had moved to a small college town in central Oregon where Cindy got involved in musical

theater and Ben taught TV repair to seniors. Here, they had bought a ranchette they had fallen in love with. For the next year

getting their new home into shape had kept them so busy no time had been left to do any traveling. Now, with that

accomplished and their volunteer work suspended to the summer they had returned to Davis to begin their travels in that

area.

Ben was no longer driving the 11 foot camper he owned two years ago; Cindy had found it too confining. They had

traded it in on an almost new 21 foot mini-motorhome with more floor space and more room over all for clothing and other

necessary gear.

Ben, good-naturedly, had accused her of bringing everything along bur her beloved piano. “You definitely brought the

kitchen sink,” he joked.

To accommodate all their fishing and hiking gear and for side trips in an area where they were camping they towed

along a small pickup with a shell on it.

Upon arrival at the trailer park they were greeted with warm hugs. Even Ruff was hugged as he showed he remembered

by vigorous tail wagging.

“Come in, come in,” said Toni. “Bring Ruff in too. You two are looking good, and look like you’re very happy.”

“We are,” Cindy replied. “It’s so nice seeing you two again.”

The two couples reminisced about their meeting two years ago as Toni got out a bottle of wine. After one glass Ben

said, “While I’m still sober I’d better go get our rig set up. You two gals sit and talk; Hank can give me a hand.”

While the men were unhooking the pickup and backing the motorhome into the site Hank had saved for it the ladies

continued their conversation. “Did I tell you the town council elected me mayor in June?” Toni asked.

“No, you didn’t. That’s wonderful, or is it? Do you think it’s wonderful?”

“I’m happy with it at present anyhow. If I find I can’t get things done that need to be done I won’t be happy. We’ll see

what the future brings.”

The three days Ben and Cindy planned to stay in Davis extended to a week as time flew by. They had other friends in

the area to see, notably Dr. Menard, the physician who attended Cindy during her hospital stay, and Judge Fell, who helped

clear Ben of the assault charges and later officiated at their wedding.

They also spent a day in Missoula having lunch with Chuck Stern, the attorney who had provided invaluable assistance in

clearing Ben of all charges. One disappointment was that Daniel Goodale, the attorney who had helped Cindy with her

inheritance, had retired and was no longer living in Missoula. He had gone to live with a daughter in Seattle.

During that week Ben talked Hank into fishing Elk Creek again, with the proviso that Ben would return with Hank to a

lake they has also fished two years ago. When they last fished Elk Creek Hank was not happy with the deep wading

required to reach the best fishing spots. On this occasion the water was not as deep and Hank declared the fishing to be

the best he had ever encountered.

The lake also provided good fishing but Ben remembered it best for the bone jarring ride to reach it in Hank’s pickup.

* * *

Following the week in Davis the two headed north and then west to pay another visit to the town of Libby and the nearby

ranch Cindy had inherited from her mother’s Uncle George. As she had signed the property over to the state of Montana

Cindy was curious to see how much, if anything the state had done with it.

The road to the old ranch was even more washboardy than Ben remembered. “Everything in the motorhome is probably

on the floor, or soon will be,” he commented. “I hope all our eggs aren’t scrambled.”

Cindy didn’t try to respond to Ben’s witticism except to grunt every time one of the wheels dropped into an unavoidable

pothole.

As they approached the ranch there were signs of it being inhabited. An old red pickup was parked alongside the

house and several piles of empty cans and other debris littered the area. Before they reached the house a scruffy looking

man appeared at the door, aimed a shotgun at them and yelled, “This is private property and we don’t want no visitors.”

Without hesitation Ben made a u-turn over a bumpy section of the yard. After driving less than a mile he pulled into a

clearing alongside the road and asked, “What do you make of that?”

“I thought of telling him, yes, it is private property but you don’t own it. Who do you think he is?”

“Good question,” Ben replied. “Maybe he’s one of the bank robbers.”

“Bank robbers?”

“You remember your uncle’s letter. He mentioned those young friends who left the trunk in his safe keeping. Maybe they

returned to claim the trunk and wonder what’s happened to George.”

“What should we do about it, if anything?”

“Maybe nothing, or maybe we should drive back to Libby and talk to the sheriff. On the other hand, I’d like to find out if

my speculations are true.”

Cindy grimaced and replied, “I don’t want to end up on the wrong end of that shotgun.”

“Neither do I.”

Ben pulled back onto the road and instead of turning toward Libby at the junction with the main road turned in the

opposite direction.

“Let’s go spend a few days at the lake before we decide anything.” The lake Ben referred to was a large impoundment

on the Kootenai River where the fishing was often excellent.

A small campground a short distance from the dam was soon reached. From the campground Ben had access to either

the fine kokanee fishing in the lake or the trout fishing in the river below the dam. Occasionally Cindy joined Ben for the

fishing but usually she was content with staying close to camp and sketching the scenes around her.

One morning, a few days later, Cindy brought up the subject of the ranch. “Should we just forget about it and let things

take their course?”

Before Ben could answer a sheriff’s car drove into the campground, presumably Ben thought to make a spot check. On

the spur of the moment Ben motioned for the driver to stop. The young deputy stopped and rolled down his window.

“What can I do for you, Sir?”

“If you have a few minutes there’s something we want to tell you about that you might want to look into,” Ben replied.

“I have all day,” the deputy said.

“Do you know where the old Cather ranch is on Still Creek Road?”

“I know there’s an old ranch there, I don’t know the name Cather.”

“My wife inherited that ranch two years ago and, after removing some valuable property, deeded it to the state. We

drove by there two days ago and were driven off by a shotgun wielding thug.”

“Oh,” the deputy replied, looking a little bored.

“Let me tell you the rest of the story,” Ben said, before the deputy decided to drive off. “The valuable property we

removed was more than a quarter of a million dollars that had been socked away in an old trunk. Her uncle left a note that

loosely tied the money with a bank robbery in Billings more than 25 years ago but that bank no longer exists. To make a

long story short, Cindy was able to legally claim it a part of her inheritance.

“The note also mentioned two young friends of her uncle, saying they had left the trunk with him for safekeeping. We

wondered about that when we first read the note and now we wonder if the current occupant or occupants of the ranch might

be those friends of her uncle.”

Ben definitely had the deputy’s attention now. “Are you saying they might be the bank robbers?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. My concern is they might be dangerous, find us here and somehow connect us to Uncle

George. One other point, they might have seen the newspaper spread that was written up two years ago and connect us to

that article.”

“I’ll talk to the sheriff and tell him your story; he’ll probably want to talk to you. Will you be here for a while?”

“Unless those bandits drive us off.”

Ben gave the deputy their names and addresses and were told his name was Bruce Kingman.

Before the deputy drove off he cautioned Ben, “You’ll need to keep a close eye on your dog; we have bears in the area,

and rattlesnakes.”

* * *

Late that afternoon the sheriff himself drove into the campground and stopped at Ben and Cindy’s campsite. A tall,

slender man about Ben’s age, he introduced himself as Sheriff Judd Shepherd. “My deputy tells me you told him a tale

about bank robbers at the old Calder ranch.”

“That’s what I told him,” Ben replied.

“Would you mind repeating the tale for me?”

“Not at all,” Ben then repeated the story as he had told it to Bruce Kingman, stopping to answer questions when the

sheriff interrupted.

“My office received information two years ago about the money your wife inherited and the procedure you followed in

Billings to clarify her claim. We didn’t learn, at that time, about the letter George Calder wrote and the implications that his

‘friends’ might be the bank robbers.

“Anyhow, that’s ancient history. There’s no way we can now connect them to the bank heist. However, if they threatened

you with a shotgun that tells us they’re not the most law-abiding sort. I think I’ll mosey over there and have a talk with them.”

“We’ll be here for a few more days. I’d be interested in finding out what you learn from them,” Ben said.

Cindy, during this conversation, had not taken part but had absorbed everything that was said. After the sheriff drove

away she commented, “It sounds like he doesn’t let anything get past him. I wonder what will happen.”

The next day the deputy, Bruce Kingman, was back looking agitated. “Have those bandidos been through here?

There’s nobody at your ranch now and our local bank was robbed yesterday while the sheriff was out here talking to you.”

“We haven’t seen them,” Ben replied, “but we’ll let you know immediately if we do. Give me the phone number at your

office and we’ll call you on our cell phone. We’re leaving this afternoon, though, so we probably won’t be much help.”

The deputy drove off like a man on a mission.

Early that afternoon Ben and Cindy drove further north along the lake, intending to drive to the north end and try the

fishing in that area. As they approached a primitive campground near the lake Ben stopped suddenly causing Cindy to lurch

forward and look at Ben questioningly.

“I just saw that old pickup we saw at the ranch,” he explained. “I want to get out of here before they see us and call Judd

Shepherd.”

Back on the main road Ben got out the cell phone and dialed the number Bruce Kingman had given him. He identified

himself and left a message that Judd should be called immediately to inform him of Ben’s sighting of the pickup. “Tell him

that I’m parked about 200 yards north of the junction of highway 297 and Panther Road and that I’ll stay here to watch for any

movement on their part.”

It was about an hour later before sheriff’s vehicles came into sight and turned onto Panther Road in the direction of the

primitive campground. Ben was anxious to follow but knew it was wiser to stay put. In due course he would find out what

happened.

Twenty minutes later Sheriff Shepherd drove up and announced, “They’ve out-witted us. Apparently that pickup was put

there as a decoy and they had another vehicle stashed away somewhere. They might have outsmarted themselves though;

that camp-ground is used frequently by my brother-in law’s family. If any of the family members were there recently they

might have seen our friends.”

“Or the other vehicle,” Ben threw in.

“Or the other vehicle.”

“We’re heading further north; we’ll keep our eyes open,” Ben said. “Not that it will do much good; I might not recognize

the man with the shotgun. And then, I might.”

“By now they’re probably 300 miles from here,” Judd replied.

A week later, Ben and Cindy were camped at a remote campground on a tributary of the Blackfoot River when they got a

call on their cell phone. “This is Judd Shepherd; I thought you would be interested in knowing hat our friends were caught in

Spokane, Washington. Apparently they ran a red light and the cop who stopped them didn’t like their attitude. He called for

backup and ran them in.

“There are two of them, both in their fifties. When their car was searched an arsenal was found; more guns than a

sheriff’s posse. And a bag of money that might have been lifted in Libby. We’ve sent two deputies to pick them up. Can

you be here tomorrow to help in the identification?”

“We’ll be there,” Ben answered.

The next day, after settling in a trailer park in Libby, Ben walked to the county jail where Judd Shepherd was waiting for

him. “We’ve already had a positive ID from the bank teller who was at the counter during the robbery,” Judd said. “We have

also found prints at the ranch that match both of them. All I need you to do is walk past their cells and take a look at each one

as you do. They’re in separate cells, #3 and #6, so they can’t discuss their situation with each other. After you take a look

continue on and out the back door, which is unlocked for you, then walk around the building back to here.”

Ben followed Judd’s instructions and walked through the cell block, looking into each cell as he did. In cell number 3 was

a man about Ben’s age with a gray-streaked beard. Ben had not seen him before. Cell number 6 was a different story; in

that cell was the man who had wielded the shotgun that day at the ranch. Ben had no doubts about it. This man was also in

his fifties but, unlike his partner, did not have a beard. He wasn’t clean shaven either, he had about a week’s growth of an

almost white beard. Clothed in a denim jacket over a dirty flannel shirt and worn-out jeans he looked as scruffy as when Ben

first saw him.

When Ben informed Judd of his observations Judd said it was confirmation, but perhaps not necessary. “We’re waiting

now to hear from the FBI to see if they have a record and any outstanding warrants. Want to come to my office to see if an

answer has come?’

“Sure,” Ben replied.

As they were driving to the sheriff’s office Judd asked Ben about the circumstances surrounding the trunk full of money

he and Cindy had found two years back.

“It’s a long story,” said Ben.

“I have lots of time.”

“To keep it brief,” Ben began, “I met Cindy in Davis while we were both doing laundry and we made a date to go hiking

two days from then. The next day, she told me, she had to go to Missoula to see a lawyer about an inheritance; I’m not sure

she said inheritance. She didn’t make it to Missoula; on her way there she was attacked and brutally beaten.

“I was the fall guy. The sheriff arrested me the next day and threw me in the brig, accusing me of being the attacker.

Excuse me for using the navy term brig; that comes from my being ex-navy. Anyway, I was cleared of that charge and, after

Cindy’s release from the hospital three weeks later we got romantically involved.

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