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Right in the ear this time
A chapter in the book Ben Paul Persons
Ben Paul Persons, Ch 3
by Wayne Fowler
In the last part, Ben Paul and Sylvia begin their trip only to be immediately waylaid by bandits. Slim turns up missing the first night of their Cerrillos stay.
Chapter 3
When Ben Paul and Sylvia returned from walking the entire town, talking to whomever they could, they found Mary tending to the motel records trying to figure out what happened to Slim.
“Ralph checked him in,” Mary said without preamble as Ben Paul and Sylvia entered the office. Ben Paul and Slyvia both knew that Ralph was Mary’s part-time help. “Something odd. Remember the truck in the parking lot a few doors down from yours? It was a pickup jacked up for those big, knobby tires.”
“I remember it,” Sylvia said. “Don’t see many of those except up Bachelor Loop at Creede. I checked the room, he’s gone.”
“The truck was gone when we came out at five,” Sylvia said. “You see a connection of him to Slim?”
“Funny. His name’s almost the same as one of Jackson’s cousins. I didn’t know him, but I knew of him. He and Jackson were ‘bout raised together, but I’d only met him once as I recall.”
Ben Paul asked, “Jackson was your ex, right?” Mary only nodded. Ben Paul looked at the name. “Bill Framer. Not too common a name, I’d say.”
“Bill Farmer was Jackson’s cousin.” Mary picked up the phone. “I’m gonna call Ralph and see what he can tell us. Maybe he wrote the name down wrong. Or maybe he didn’t check Framer’s ID.”
Ben Paul and Sylvia waited silently as Mary spoke with Ralph, understanding that Framer was the name given, but that he had no ID handy, so Ralph checked him in without it, a common practice by both himself and Mary. The description that Ralph offered could be the cousin.
“Revenge?” Sylvia said unnecessarily. “He knocked on your door, Slim answered it without waking you, went out to see about something or other, and got kidnapped?”
Ben Paul and Mary nodded.
“So…”
“We get in the car and scour the back roads. Maybe see tire tracks,” Ben Paul suggested. “Take our shotgun.”
“And Slim’s rifle. But we’d better take Slim’s truck, even if it isn’t as comfortable. Farmer might go a ways off the road with his rig.”
Their search took a decidedly more somber tone.
+++
“There! Up there to the right! See those tracks?” Mary was excited enough to jump from the truck before she got it fully stopped, jerking it to a hopping halt. She was in a hurry, to find Slim, but not so much to find a corpse. It was only the second back road they’d ventured, but over an hour into their search.
“Looks like it left the road and came back, too. See up there?” Another set of tracks cut the shoulder a dozen yards further on. Ben Paul continued, “It might be close that he turned around, or a mile on. I’m guessing just out of sight. Let’s drive as far as we can. Go slow, and if it gets too rough, we can walk.”
“There he is!” Sylvia shouted. They’d just rounded a small knoll, each spotting Slim sitting on the ground holding a blood-soaked bandana to the side of his head. They’d all seen him at the same time, but Sylvia was the first to shout and point.
As the women ran to him, trying to ascertain his injuries, Ben Paul fetched a blanket from behind the truck seat.
“Don’t recall a thing,” Slim managed as Ben Paul began to pick him up. “Ain’t that sumpin’, saved by Ben Persons agin.”
+++
Mary insisted that the emergency room doctor address all three of them in Slim’s presence: herself, Sylvia, and Ben Paul.
“Hypothermia and blood loss is the worst of it,” he began. “His memory of the ordeal will return, or it won’t. No way to know. Nothing we can do about your ear, Mr. Goldman. The bullet clipped your ear. Can’t help the fan tail look. And it grazed your skull. The good news is that there’s no resulting fracture, and no infiltration.”
Taking that all to be good news, the three nodded.
“Better’n getting’ shot in the eye,” Slim returned to a wide-eyed intern.
“That how you lost it?” the doctor asked.
“Shot right in the eye by claim jumpers.” Pointing to Ben Paul, he added, “His daddy rescued me.”
The doctor looked at Ben Paul, accurately estimating his age and how old his father must be, or have been. Shaking his head in confusion, he bade his farewell and left the room.
“Man must’ve been some kinda bad shot,” Slim said, “pullin’ hard to the right, my guess. Me out cold an’ bleedin’ hard.”
“The cold temperature might’ve saved you, helped wake you up,” Mary speculated.
“My guess is that he was somethin’ of a coward, scared to be sure with a second shot, wanting to get away quickly,” Ben Paul said.
“The law hasn’t been here yet,” Mary said.
Oddly, the County Sheriff’s deputy who’d first investigated Jackson’s death knocked and entered Slim’s room. Ben Paul, Mary, and Sylvia edged together, making room for him. “Saw yer name on the report,” he began. “Snatched the detail up for myself. You all right, Mister…Goldman?” His pronunciation of Goldman gave away his suspicion of the name.
“Not bad fer an ol’ codger shot in the head… agin. Left fer dead.”
“Any idea who did it?”
“Yessir. And nosir. Good idea who it was, but gonna plead forgettin’ everything.”
The deputy looked from one to the other of the four in the room.
“Can you explain a bit? So’s I can write a credible report?”
Slim cleared his throat before speaking. “Well, what if some relative of Jackson was out for revenge? And he thought he’d done it, that I was dead. What if we let him go on thinkin’ that? Might save me from getting’ bushwhacked another day? Maybe even save Mary from getting’ hurt in the doin’.”
The deputy slowly nodded, as did the other three. “So you don’t remember anything. I understand completely. Pretty common with head injuries. Folks,” he said, looking to Ben Paul, “but that only works if he was an outta towner.”
The three convinced the deputy with their looks and nods.
“If you would all write individual reports…” Winking he added, “Try not to copy off one another. Just be sure not to put any guessing about who might have done it.” Again, he offered a wink along with a modest grin. “Just drop them at the Sheriff’s office any time in the next day or two.”
The three promised that they would, bidding him his leave.
“We don’t need to mention the names Framer or Farmer, either one,” Ben Paul suggested.
“Doubt that rascal will ever even look for a report. Might figure critters and vultures’ll help keep his secret for years,” Slim said to solemn nodding heads.
With Slim's injury healing nicely and Sylvia's sprained wrist well enough for her to drive, the Galaxy equipped with power steering, she and Ben Paul were ready to begin their adventure, their only concern that Benji decide he preferred Slim and Mary to themselves.
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