Chapter 13
In the motel room, I pulled out my laptop computer. It was one of the few things that I kept in my downsizing before leaving Cincinnati. I kept the computer, which was already paid for, but ditched Internet service, which would continue to cost me every month. I also kept my GPS and cell phone, though I went to the minimum service on the phone to minimize expenses.
I missed all the electronic capabilities. Internet whenever I wanted it, email, cable TV, texting on my phone. Things that I took for granted for so much of my life, dating back to my years in school. I thought they were indispensable, essentials to life. And to the younger set, they probably were essentials. Those gadgets had been around their entire lives, so they didn’t know a world without them. However, for me, they turned out to be luxuries when I had to choose between them and the basic necessities. Someday, when I could afford them again, I would welcome them back into my life. Yet there were advantages of living off the grid. There were no telephone solicitations, no sales people at the door, and no junk mail addressed to Occupant. I didn’t miss any of those.
I stared at the laptop, then decided not to use it tonight. If being a writer is where my life was headed, at some point I had to actually start writing. For me, creating a novel was an ambitious undertaking. While I had written a few newspaper and magazine articles on hiking and litter, and of course many arrest reports while a cop, all those were based on facts. Times, places, names, addresses, vehicle type, plate numbers, and on and on. I was surprised there was still an urge within me to write after all that paper work. But I looked at the task as creating a permanent record of what I did. Those served as statements that I passed through this world, left something of value behind, a contribution that out-lived me.
That thought about permanent records reminded me of the article that was stuffed in my pocket. At the library, I had searched for Hispanics in Willow Run, a search that had produced only four hits. Three of them were not relevant. Irrelevant hits happen with any search. But the fourth had seemed important. It was from last year, the September 10, 2008 issue of the local paper, the Teton County Observer. The front-page headline read, Illegal Immigrant Stirs Up Trouble in Willow Run by Joseph Custer. I read the story underneath.
Two Willow Run residents, in separate incidents, each fought off the same would-be car thief from stealing their vehicles. The unknown man, thought to be of Hispanic descent, is now in custody.
Yesterday morning, Megan White on Spruce Street had just returned home from shopping when an unknown male grabbed the keys from her hand and jumped into the driver seat of her pick-up truck. While he tried to start the vehicle, she grabbed a stick of pepperoni from a grocery bag in the bed of the truck and started beating him on the head through the open driver side window. When interviewed, Megan said, “I got him pretty good. I know he’ll have a black eye, and I hope I broke his nose.” The man apparently could not start the truck. Mrs. White offered, “This old truck is ornery. You have to treat ‘er right to get ‘er goin’.”
The man exited from the passenger side of the truck, and then ran down Spruce Street where he encountered Roland Barnes. Mr. Barnes had just come to a stop at the intersection with River Road. The man tried to pull open the car door, but Mr. Barnes jabbed him several times in the stomach and groin through the open window with his cane, doubling the man over into a seated position on the ground. When he tried to get up, Mr. Barnes opened the car door, hitting him in the head and sending him flat on his back on the ground. Mr. Barnes then got out of his car and started jabbing the cane at the thief’s head.
Deputy Powell, who had been called by Megan White, arrived just as the unidentified man got up. He started to run, but was tackled by Deputy Powell, handcuffed, and taken to jail. Dr. Bernard Keats was called to examine the thief, but he indicated that his injuries from the pepperoni beating, from the cane attack, and from Deputy Powell’s tackle were only minor scrapes and bruises.
Deputy Powell suggested he might be an illegal immigrant, perhaps Hispanic. The man carried no identification and did not speak English. Though residents in the area were questioned, no one had seen him prior to the attempted car theft incidents.
The unidentified man was not in the Willow Run jail cell for long. According to Deputy Powell, he was turned over to Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) personnel late in the day. INS handles processing of illegal immigrants, most of them being deported back to their countries of origin. There are approximately 1 million deportations from the United States back to Mexico each year, although deportations from Montana are not very common. The Hispanic population in Montana is small (only 2% of the state’s total population) and the estimated illegal immigrant population is much less than 1%.
Regardless of who this man was and where he came from, Mr. Barnes had some advice for any would-be criminal. “I may be old, but I’m a veteran. I still know how to fight.” Mr. Barnes fought in the Korean War, and was decorated with the Silver Star and a Purple Heart for his service. Sheriff Tyler, who was out of town during the incident, was reached by telephone. He commended Deputy Powell for his handling of the situation, and personally called Roland Barnes and Megan White to thank them for their bravery in fighting back against crime.
So an exciting day in Willow Run and an interesting find for me. Here was another Hispanic who seems to have appeared out of nowhere. How could I track what happened to him? I had no name to search. But perhaps Ed Garvey would be willing to help me on this.
Lying in bed, I thought a lot about the two men. One was sprinting through the dark forest, scared and pursued by bounty hunters. Then he ran off a cliff to die alone. The other one was captured. Enid was involved in both incidents. There indeed was a story here.