The Crossland ShootoutA Novel by JOHN MYERS
Chapter 3
Off To Meet Jim Whoeverhewas, Green Beret Assassin,
or, How to Interview a Man Who Hates Photojournalists
Vietnam seemed as far way away as another galaxy as I talked with Bob Allenby, far from that senseless war in the jungle back in the land of the Big PX, as we used to say in Nam.
After we sat in his cool, dark living room and talked about the July heat for a bit, I got down to the business for my visit.
I told him about the full auto AK-47 down in Lowland and repeated what Chief Marks said about how its bullets could zip right through a cop's armor vest.
Bob agreed, commenting "It didn't do any good to wear a flak jacket either. It wouldn't even slow down an AK round. All they were good for was shrapnel, and not worth much for stopping that. And in the jungle those flak jackets were too heavy and hot to wear. They'd just slow you down and get you killed even quicker."
Then Bob got to his feet.
I'll be right back," he said and headed to another room.
He came out a few seconds later with an AK-47 in one of his big hands and said, "Let's go out in the back for a few minutes."
Bob lives far enough from civilization that he can step out in his back yard and cut loose with any of his weapons at any time.
And I say any weapon because God only knows what kind of arsenal Bob has sitting around in that house of his, war souvenirs and whatnot.
I'd hate to be the alleged perpetrator who dared to kick Bob's door in. He'd find a very nasty surprise waiting just inside.
You see Bob isn't just a survival expert. He was a Green Beret, who are the best-trained troops in anybody's army anywhere.
All Green Berets are cross-trained in at least three specialty areas and Bob's areas were survival, medicine and heavy weapons.
Heavy weapons start with .50 caliber machine guns and go on up to mortars and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft and anti-armor weapons.
Little piddly stuff like this high-powered .30 caliber rifle Bob was holding in one big paw is considered "light weaponry" by the Army because it generally kills only one person at a time, instead of bunches at a time, or aircraft and armored vehicles.
This AK-47 is considered a side arm, in the same category with a pistol, and all Green Berets are experts with such light weapons, both those of our army and our allies and enemies.
Bob stopped in front of a pile of cinder blocks behind his home and lifted the rifle to his shoulder and took aim at a block.
The air-shattering crack of the rifle as he triggered a burst of three quick rounds sounded a bit like a rolling thunderclap, and resulted in the explosion of a cinder block into fragments, cutting it into chunks.
If I didn't mind shooting up my pine trees I'd show you something more impressive than that," Bob added. "See that big pine over there?" he said, pointing to one about as big around as I am.
I'm not a little guy, 6-foot, 3-inches and 215 lbs., with a 40-inch waist, so I sort of cringed inside as he said he'd seen an AK-47 shoot through pine trees much bigger around than my girth.
If it could shoot through a solid pine, my flesh and bone wouldn't even hardly slow that bullet down, I suggested to Bob.
Yeah," he agreed. "I've seen three guys shot through with one AK round. It killed all three," he added with a deadpan stare.
But then Bob smiled slowly and told me another war story.
I remember one time we were on patrol up around Phu My, and the guy on point walked right up on an NVA patrol. The bad guys saw him first and one of them popped up and shot ol' Jim point-blank, right in the chest. And he wasn't wearing a flak jacket, none of us were. Jim hit the ground like a log and then the s--- really hit the fan. When the fight was over, we came back to get Jim and he was still laying there, but he was starting to come to.
I was the medic in the A Team and I figured he was dead for sure, but when I got to him, he was sitting up rubbing his chest.
That AK bullet hit right on top of a button in the center of his chest and tore a ragged hole in his tiger stripes where the button had been, but all he had was a big red spot on his chest.
How on earth a button stopped that AK round, I don't know. I guess it just wasn't his time to go," Bob remembered with a grin.
Whatever happened to that guy? Do you know?" I asked Bob.
He never did learn how to walk point," Bob answered. "He stepped on a land mine on the next patrol, but he was lucky that time, too. All he lost was half both legs and they sent him home."
Changing the subject, I asked Bob the question I came for.
Where would a fella get a full auto AK-47 if he wanted one?"
He paused a minute, then asked, "You sure you want to know?"
I explained my story idea to him then, as we walked back inside.
There's lots of ways to get full autos, if you know the right people," Bob explained. "You can buy a semi-auto assault rifle from any gunshop, then buy the parts to convert it to full auto. Buying the parts is perfectly legal. It doesn't get illegal until you install 'em. Any gunsmith can do the conversion, but it's illegal, so most won't do it. Of course, that doesn't stop some people.
And there's plenty of the genuine article in full autos smuggled in from overseas or stole from our armed forces and sold on the black market. We weren't supposed to bring souvenir weapons back from Nam, but lots of guys did anyway, particularly those REMF types who never saw a shot fired in anger back there in their air-conditioned offices in Saigon. They were all real big on war trophies, like AK-47s."
REMF, I knew from earlier conversations with Bob and other "grunts" who did all the actual fighting, stands for Rear Echelon Mutha F----ers. Even when I'm not writing for family newspapers, I'm still not comfortable at cussing like the sailor I used to be.
Since I became a Christian back in 1977, I quit that, too.
I know a guy who might could help you," Bob continued. "But I'm not sure he'll want to talk to you, not for a newspaper story."
I can probably get what I want off-the-record as a source," I replied. "Give me his name and number and I'll give it a shot."
I'll do better than that," Bob answered. "I'll let you talk to him right now, if he's home. This guy's on the road a lot."
He dialed a number, waited a minute, then started talking.
After a short conversation in which Bob explained what I was after, he hung up. "He said to send you on over, but I think I better go with you. He's not that hard to find, but I'll take you."
So we both climbed into Bob's pickup truck and headed off.
I thought maybe Bob would head down toward Fort Bragg in Fayetteville or over toward Camp Mackall closer by, but instead he turned in the opposite direction, talking as he drove.
I guess all of us who survived any real combat duty in Nam are at least a little bit crazy," Bob said. "But this guy we're going to see, Jim, he's more than a little crazy. He's a real nut.
And you'd better not let him see that," Bob said, pointing to my camera case, "or he's liable to shoot us both on the spot."
Why?" I asked. "Is he an Indian, too, and afraid I'll capture his spirit inside the magic box?" I know Bob well enough to make an Indian joke with him, but he didn't smile even a bit at this one.
Don't joke around with this guy. I'm serious. He's a nut."
When Bob Allenby calls somebody a nut, you can rest assured it's somebody the squirrels would consider a national treasure.
I like Bob and get along with him just fine, but I never forget that he's more than a bit odd himself. Being the Roadkill King is just the starting place for Bob's unusual lifestyle.
Bob has this thing about snakes, for one example. He likes to catch them and take them home and keep them in his house, particularly the poisonous kind. He lost the benefit of female company the time a nonpoisonous snake he was keeping in a cage in his home unexpectedly had offspring. Little green offspring that were small enough to crawl through the wire holes in the cage and scatter out all over the house. About 12 of the little critters.
Bob's lady wouldn't come back into his house until he caught all 12 of them and she counted them. He said he didn't tell her there were actually more that 12 of them, and he is still finding little green snakes loose in his house every now and then.
The day I saw him catch a rattlesnake was when I really understood just how different Bob is from most "normal" folks.
We were out visiting at a hunt club where Bob is a member, and I was sitting on a bench out front with some of the old guys who hang around there and swap tales. Bob was up walking around.
Sitting around listening is one of the best ways to pick up ideas for feature stories, which is why I had asked Bob to take me by the hunt club that day, after he told me some of their tales.
But as I was listening to the old geezers swap lies, I noticed Bob was crouching down behind a pile of lumber beside the hunt club building, picking up a piece of sheet tin covering the wood.
All of a sudden, I saw Bob jump back and stand up, holding something up. And when I did a double-take and looked again to make sure I was seeing what my eyes said I was seeing, yep, Bob was holding a snake, a big one, by the head, grinning like a 'possum.
Bob was doing the grinning, not the snake. Snakes can't grin.
As I ran over to Bob, he wore a look like a proud papa who had just delivered a bouncing baby boy and was showing him off to all.
Ain't he a nice one?" Bob asked, holding him out to admire.
Yeah," I agreed. "He's sure a big one. A rattlesnake?"
It didn't exactly take a genius to know this was a rattler. Just a pair of ears, because this dude was rattling up a storm.
Obviously, he was highly pissed that Bob had picked him up.
Would you drive me home?" Bob asked. "I don't want to let go of him and I didn't bring anything with me to put him in," he said.
So I drove Bob in his pickup truck back to his house, rather carefully I might add, as I didn't want to jostle him and perhaps make him lose his grip on the snake's neck, right behind its head with those deadly fangs.
And only after he was home and had put the snake into a wooden box, which I suppose he kept just for such guests, did Bob even bother to mention that, oh, by the way, the rattlesnake bit him.
As he picked up the piece of tin, he explained, there was that big ol' rattler lying curled up, enjoying the warmth of the tin picked up from the rays of the late fall sun that November day.
Just as I reached in to grab him, he woke up and struck at me," Bob explained. "He got me right here," he added, showing me the twin punctures where the fangs went into the web of skin between thumb and forefinger.
By then I already had him around the neck, so I figured I might as well hang on so he couldn't bite me again," Bob said.
So I drove Bob on up the road to the Pinehurst hospital, where he calmly told the emergency room doctor that he needed a shot of rattlesnake anti-venom, like he was ordering a burger and fries.
That wasn't the first time you've been snake bit, was it?" I asked Bob on the way back to his home after we left the hospital.
Nah," he replied. "It's no big problem, as long as you get a shot within an hour or two. Unless you get bit close to the heart or the brain. Then you better get something done in a hurry."
Like I said, when Bob calls somebody crazy, they're really crazy. So when he said this guy named Jim whoeverhewas we were going to see was crazy, I believed him.
And he's particularly crazy about getting his picture took," Bob continued talking about Jim whoeverhewas as he drove.
One time in Nam, he was getting off a Huey after a mission and some photographer took his picture and it ended up on the front cover of Time with his name and everything in the magazine story.
Jim didn't even know he had got his picture took until he found that cover of Time glued to a reward poster for him. The NVA had a price on Jim's head for being one of the shooters in the Phoenix program, but until that picture, they didn't know what he looked like. When he saw that poster, he went absolutely ape-s---."
I didn't know him in Nam, but I heard that he hunted for that photographer for a long time to kill him, because of that picture. I heard he finally found him and popped him, but I'm not sure.
You know what Phoenix was?" Bob asked. Not waiting for an answer, he continued, "It was run by the CIA, made up of guys from the Green Berets like Jim, plus Army LuRPs, Marines, Navy SEALs, hardnose types from all branches. Those guys had to be absolutely nuts. They'd go off on deep penetration missions way up into the north, then lay in the jungle for days, not even blinking an eye, waiting for some NVA general big-shot to come strolling by.
Then they'd pop him and walk all the way back home," Bob said, like he was describing a stroll in the park instead of fighting your way through mile after mile of enemy-infested jungle.
The stuff we did, I worked with A Teams in village pacification, what we called the Strategic Hamlet program, it was nothing compared to what those Phoenix guys did every trip out.
We'd make a patrol every now and then, just to keep the VC on their toes and let 'em know we were out there, but mostly we just worked with the people in the villes, treating their sick, helping them build homes and improve their crops. You know, win their hearts and minds. That's what the A Teams were supposed to do.
But those guys in the Phoenix teams, their motto was 'Get 'em by the gonads, and their hearts and minds will follow.' It was maybe a good idea at the start, pick off their leaders where they live, show 'em no place was safe, even over in Cambodia or Laos.
But by the time I went back for my third tour in Nam, that Phoenix program was way out of hand. It turned into just outright death squads that slaughtered thousands, even whole villages in South Vietnam. I'd say their motto had changed to another one of those t-shirt sayings, 'Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out.'
I met Jim after the war while I was at Bragg teaching survival. He was out of the Army then, working for the spooks, you know, the CIA. At least, I think he was. You could never be sure about stuff like that. Anyway, he wanted some help to set up a commando school down in Florida, and the colonel told me to take some time off to go down and give him a hand with his camp.
Jim had plenty of money to spread around and he set up a first class facility for a training camp on some property that was part of a nuclear reactor park on the edge of the Everglades.
I know at least some of the guys he was training were from Nicaragua, so I guess he was in on that Contra army deal, too.
That was federal land, but nobody ever so much as raised a peep about Jim's camp out there until some snoopy reporter from Miami found out about it and blew the whistle. Jim was pissed again at a reporter because he had to shut his camp down after that.
So you can see why maybe he don't like you reporter guys.
And if I told you anymore than that, I'd have to kill you," Bob concluded, this time breaking out into at least a small smile.
I don't want to know that much about this guy," I answered.
But then I plowed on. I never did know when to quit anyway.
You said this guy's name is Jim. He's not the same Jim who got both his legs blowed off with that land mine, is he?" I asked.
No," Bob replied. "This guy may be crazy, but he ain't stupid like that other poor dumb sucker was. I don't know how that other Jim ever got into the SF in the first place. Towards the end there in Nam the SF got to where they'd take just anybody."
As I said earlier, I've been knowing Bob for several years now, and today's conversation was the most I'd ever heard him say about his three war tours in Vietnam. I've learned over the years that the guys who are always talking about their war experiences, at least in front of guys like me who weren't there in the jungle with them, are usually the guys who didn't do much.
The guys like Bob, who went through the rough of it all and survived to tell about it, usually don't ever tell it.
When we get there, I'll introduce you to Jim, and that's all the name you need to know. Don't ask him for more," Bob continued.
I know. Anymore than that and he'd have to kill me," I replied. "Yeah," Bob answered, and we both smiled at that one. I wouldn't have smiled if I had known my bad joke was going to be on me.
As we talked, Bob made several turns and twists on the back-country roads we were traveling, and though I don't think he was intentionally trying to get me lost, I purposely wasn't paying a lot of attention to directions. I really didn't want to know, because I knew Bob wasn't kidding. I didn't ever expect to come back to see this guy again, and wouldn't if Bob didn't bring me.
After about half an hour of driving, Bob slowed and watched to his left for a bit, then turned into a narrow driveway that led through a tree-shaded lane down a red-clay road to a two-story, white-frame farmhouse.
He pulled up in front and parked, then sounded his horn twice.
Don't get out yet," Bob said.
Don't worry, I won't," I answered.
After a few minutes, the front door of the house opened and a short, slim white guy walked out on the front porch, shaded his eyes with one hand to the sun, looked us over for a minute, then waved to us to come on in. He didn't say a word as Bob and I got out of the truck and walked slowly over to the front porch steps. I didn't have to be reminded to leave my camera in Bob's truck.
Jim whoeverhewas had short, sandy hair, but his beard was fiery red, long, untrimmed and bristling like a pirate standing on a deck in a Force Seven gale. And as he strode over to the steps with his right hand out toward Bob, he walked a bit like a pirate, too, with the rolling gait of a sailor.
Hey, Bob, how they hanging, man," he said as they shook hands. Then Jim turned his gaze to me. He had slate-blue eyes and suddenly it turned chilly on that front porch in mid-July.
He didn't offer to shake my hand. I didn't offer, either.
He was short all right, maybe 5-3 at most, but he wasn't as slim as I first thought when I got a closer look. More like wiry, with big shoulders that strained his loose-fitting blue shirt and poked out of the cut-off sleeves, which were stretched tight to contain his big biceps as he clenched and opened both his fists.
He had a tattoo on each forearm, a skull and crossbones on the left one and some kind of tangled-up snake design on the right one.
He wore his shirt-tail hanging out loose from his jeans and it was flapping a bit in the breeze, loose as it fell from those big shoulders to his narrow hips. Loose enough that I wondered whether there might be a short gun tucked in his waist hidden by the shirt.
Beneath his jeans I could see a pair of heavy lace-up hunting boots on his smallish feet, small but still big enough to stomp a certain reporter.
He looked to be about my age, mid-40s, but younger and older both, if that makes any sense. Younger in the sense that he looked like he could take my 6-3 frame and toss me off that porch easily.
Older in the sense that he'd seen it all and survived it all.
I remembered one of my daddy's tales about getting into a fight with a little guy in a bar one time. My daddy was a bit shorter than me at 6-even, but he was a bigger and stronger than me, a compact 230 in his younger days, back when he fought in bars.
Daddy said, "I drew back to hit that little guy and all of a sudden I thought somebody hit me with a face full of marbles. He hit me so quick and so hard, I never had a chance to get a lick in and that fight was over. He knocked me out, cold as a cucumber.
Don't never fight a little guy, son," he advised me. "Those little guys have to learn how to fight to survive. You can't whip one of 'em unless you've got a baseball bat handy," daddy said.
And even if I had a baseball bat handy, I don't believe I would have tried to use it on this little guy, even if I hadn't already been warned by Bob about what kind of soldier he had been.
With just a single look from those steely-blue eyes, he froze my innards with the unmistakable air of danger about him.
He reminded me of another publicity-shy soldier I had met briefly, the late Chargin' Charlie Beckwith, who I saw when he was the founding commander of the Delta Force down at Fort Bragg. One of my Green Beret friends introduced me to the reclusive colonel in bar in Fayetteville one evening (back in my drinking days, shortly before I got saved). Back then the Army wouldn't even admit that the Delta Force existed, much less that the home base of this special elite anti-terrorist unit was at Fort Bragg. But it was an open secret shared by virtually everyone in the Bragg military community, including those of us in the media covering military news.
Chargin' Charlie quickly showed me how he earned his moniker, when he found out I was a member of the hated media.
Despite the friendly introduction made to him by my Green Beret friend as "an OK guy, even if he does work for the newspaper," the reaction from Beckwith was not friendly.
He came over and joined a group of us sitting around a table drinking beer and swapping lies, but as soon as he realized an interloper—me—was in the midst, he jumped to his feet.
Towering over me, Chargin' Charlie looked like a bull elephant about to stamp the life out of a lowly pissant. This was back in my wild and woolly days before I got saved, but that night I decided discretion was the better part of valor and I just sat quietly and let Beckwith rant and rave until he finished and stalked off.
I can't repeat here what he said, as it was unprintable. Suffice it to say he threatened me with bodily harm if his name should ever appear in print for any publication I was anywhere near.
His most graphic threat was should I ever commit such a grave violation of his privacy, he would "rip your (string of expletives deleted) head off and (expletives deleted meaning "to defecate") down your (string of expletives deleted) neck."
I was quite sure Jim whoeverhewas would do the same, or worse, should I incur his wrath for any transgressions.
Jim," Bob began his introduction, "this is the guy I told you about, Jay Barton. He's a newspaper guy, but he's OK. I've known him for a pretty good while and he's straight. If he says he'll do something, he'll do it. And if he says he won't, then he won't."
Jim made no reply, just looked at me with that steely stare.
If I'd been taking notes, Bob had given me a pretty good epitaph, and if I kept hanging out with guys like this pair, maybe I'd be needing one sooner than I anticipated. If I only knew then how close I would come to needing a tombstone for this story, I would have jumped off that porch and run all the way home.
I didn't even bother pulling my reporter's notebook from my back pocket or getting my pen out. I knew this was one interview I wouldn't need notes to remember, if I ever reported on it at all.
Anyway, Jim whoeverhewas invited us to sit down on the porch.
I wasn't too anxious to see what he had inside anyway, since Bob had already told me this guy could tell me about automatic AKs.
If I saw what he had in there, he'd probably have to kill me.
Ha ha.
Jim escorted us over to one of those white plastic tables and we sat down in some of those plastic chairs that kind of swallow you whole, which is what I was beginning to feel was very likely.
I never did much like that kind of chair. The high plastic sides with wrap-around armrests make them hot in the summer, and on that July day I was already sweating before I sat down. Or maybe it was the company I was keeping that contributed to my discomfort, but it didn't matter in this case about the chairs. I was pretty sure we wouldn't be here long enough to get comfortable, or uncomfortable in the case of these chairs.
And after Bob and I sat back in our chairs and were swallowed almost whole, I saw why Jim chose this particular seating for us.
Instead of sitting back in his chair, which would have allowed the close-fitting armrests on the sides to restrict his movement, Jim whoeverhewas just sort of perched on the front edge of his seat. But even that much restriction confirmed my earlier suspicion. His loose shirt-tail stretched tight enough across his stomach so I could see the outline of the square butt of a pistol poking through the shirt, probably some type of automatic.
Just what make and model of automatic, I didn't want to know.
And even if I had been carrying a gun, which I wasn't and never had, it being highly illegal for an honest citizen like me, by the time I could have wrestled out of that chair and dug out that gun I didn't have anyway, Jim would have shot me 14 times.
So what do you want to know?" Jim asked, skipping chit-chat.
I decided on the spot that this was not one of those interviews where I needed to establish any ground rules, such as "anything you say is on the record unless I agree it's off the record."
Without a word being said, I felt absolutely sure that if anything this dude told me ever appeared in print, on the record, off the record or off the wall, I would suddenly be off the record and in the graveyard, permanently and quickly.
Maybe I should have promised him that, maybe offered to write it in blood or something. Instead I just sat there like a dumb ox, trying to keep from taking to my heels in flight.
Where could I buy a full automatic AK-47?" I asked finally.
If I told you that, I'd have to kill you," Jim said.
He didn't smile, and neither did Bob nor me. We sat there a while longer in silence.
All right," Jim finally said. "There's a guy over in a little town called Crossland who might help you. You know where that is?"
Yeah," I answered. "I know exactly where Crossland is."
Bob sort of smiled to himself, but he didn't say a word and I was too dumbfounded to make any further comment on Crossland.
This was ironic, at the very minimum. Here I'd gone some 40 miles to see Bob in search of this story, he'd driven me another 30 or 40 miles further along on the quest, and now this guy, this Jim whoeverhewas, was sending me right back to where I started today, back where I was born and raised—well raised anyway.
I was actually born in Pinehurst, but I am not, very definitely NOT a native of Pinehurst, just because I was born there. Back eons ago when I was born, Pinehurst had the nearest hospital to Crossland. So my mother went there and since I was very young at the time and wanted to be near my mother, that's where I was born.
Now don't get me wrong. Pinehurst is a fine place, known far and wide for its sunny climate, sandy soil and zillions of golf courses. And on account of the latter, which were built there on account of the former, there's also now zillions of yankees there.
And I am a Southern boy, born and bred, so I would never, ever let anybody accuse me of being a native of Pinehurst. And even if I didn't talk slow like I've got a mouthful of molasses, I would never want anybody anywhere anytime to think that I'm a yankee.
I'm very much my daddy's son in that regard. He was raised in a household that included my great-grandfather, the first Jay Barton, named Jay James Barton, who was a veteran of the Civil War, or as he called it, the War of Northern Aggression, or just The War. And since he was from Anson County here in the heart of the Old North State, in the heart of Dixie, he, of course, fought on the right side of that war, the Southern side. Daddy even had some of great-granddaddy's Confederate money, worthless stuff.
Anyway, I'm not as bad as my daddy, who said he was 21 before he found out d--- yankee was two words. But please don't call me a Pinehurst native. Somebody might think I'm a Pinehurst yankee.
Over in Crossland, we also have a sunny climate and sandy soil just like Pinehurst, but so far as I know, not a single yankee. At least none that will admit it, or God forbid, brag about it like those yankees in Pinehurst do.
Of course, I don't know everybody in Crossland like I used to do when I was growing up there. I moved on to places far and wide in college, then in Uncle Sam's Navy, then on to photojournalism school at the University in Missouri at Columbia, where if I learned nothing else, I learned to appreciate the warm, sunny clime of Crossland.
The Missouri natives used to tell me there was nothing between there and the North Pole but a few barbed wire fences, and I found out they weren't joking in the winters I spent there in school.
Which is mainly why I got myself back to North Carolina after graduation. Home looks a lot better when you've tried elsewhere.
So that's why I passed up some other job offers and came back to North Carolina 19 years ago to start my newspaper career.
After living in several other places in central North Carolina working for various and sundry daily and weekly newspapers as a reporter, photographer, editor and whatever it took to skin the 'coon, I moved back in recent years to Crossland.
Then I rolled the dice and launched this curious career as a freelance photojournalist, which brings me up to date.
And now Jim whoeverhewas was sending me back to Crossland.
Sometimes life's twists and turns can be exceedingly strange.
There's a Mexican guy there in Crossland, name of Hector Cruz," Jim whoeverhewas said. "Go see him. Tell him I sent you."
OK," I said. Just how I was to tell this Hector Cruz who sent me, when I didn't know who sent me, I was not about to ask Jim.
How do I find this Hector Cruz in Crossland?" I asked Jim.
He lives in a subdivision on the edge of town, place called Sand-something-or-other Acres, on a street named Moonshine Road."
OK," I said again. "I know exactly where Moonshine Road is."
We sat there for another minute or two and when nothing further seemed likely to be forthcoming from Jim, Bob stood up.
Good to see you again, Jim," Bob said. "We'd better get on."
Jim didn't argue with that, and neither did I. We got on.
Interviewing Jim whoeverhewas was sort of like that horseshoe joke. This blacksmith pulled a horseshoe out of his fiery forge and hammered it into shape, then dipped it into a tank of water to temper it and tossed it on the ground to cool. Along came the town know-it-all, saw the horseshoe and picked it up. When he dropped the still-hot horseshoe quickly, the blacksmith asked him, "Did it burn you?" The know-it-all answered, "Nah. It just don't take me long to look at a horseshoe."
Well, it sure didn't take me long to do that interview. I couldn't get away from Jim whoeverhewas fast enough. That was one interview that started chilly and got downright frigid the longer we sat there. His parting look toward me as we got up and left put ice cubes in my gut. That guy really doesn't like reporters at all.
As we were riding away, I said, "Well that's a surprise."
When Bob made no reply, I asked him, "You didn't tell Jim that I lived at Crossland, did you?" But I knew the answer before I asked. I was sitting right there when Bob made the call to Jim whoeverhewas and he hadn't so much as mentioned Crossland.
And they had exchanged no words out of my hearing at any time.
No," Bob answered. "I guess it's just a coincidence is all."
Small world, ain't it," I replied, and there we let it lie.
After a mile or two, I asked Bob, "I don't suppose you know this Hector Cruz, do you? Is he one of Jim's old war buddies?"
Never heard of him," Bob answered. "And if I were you, I think maybe I'd just forget this story and leave this Cruz alone."
I chewed on that for a minute or two, but before I could answer Bob, he continued. "I figured Jim would help you out as a favor to me. He owes me one or two. But I'm not so sure now I did you any favor at all, taking you to see Jim. Just forget him.
He's even crazier than I remembered since the last time I saw him. And from the way he looked at you, I think he must hate reporters even worse than I thought he did. Just forget what he told you. He might be setting you up with this Hector Cruz."
Well, I didn't answer Bob on that one. I just sort of let that topic die out and we talked of cabbages and kings as we rode back to his place. Once there, it was getting on towards dark, so I saddled up my old Toyota Camry and pointed it towards home.
Chapter 4
The Yellow Brick Road Leads Home To Crossland,
or, The Search Begins For Hector Cruz, Bad Guy
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