Chapter 15
Bill Jacobs stopped the truck short of where the front gate to the mill office once stood. The area beyond appeared deserted with a lone night-light shinning from the edge of a storage building thirty yards away. Blake was seated at the window with Gail between them, pointed to a huge pile of wood chips, “Is that the one, Catfish?”
From the jump seat in the back of the king cab, Catfish replied, “I think so. It seems about right. Let me and Clark out and we’ll go see. I don’t like it back here.”
Jacobs cut the ignition and his eyes scanned the area again. Blake opened the truck door and lifted the back of his seat to let the two men out. Jacobs also climbed out, helping Gail in the process. He could feel his heart thumping so loud he was afraid the others might hear it. They were all playing a risky hand of poker, a hand they could ill afford to lose.
Gail whispered, “Even if we find the safe and Blake’s papers are inside, it still might not be enough.”
“It’s a good start,” Jacobs said. The strain on his face was apparent. He noticed a distant light and asked, “Is that a house over yonder?”
Blake shook his head. “No. That’s a light from my place. It’s a guard light on top of the chipper stacks.”
Catfish came trotting back out of the semi darkness and pointed to a big yellow machine, a pay loader with a giant scoop on front. He said to Blake, “That one should do it.”
“Can you start it up without the key or wrecking the ignition switch? If we break into the office they’ll know somebody was here.”
“Shoot yea, Blake. I’ll have that rust bucket running in no time”
“Just be sure you’ve got the right chip pile and put that loader back exactly like you find it.”
Catfish disappeared into the darkness. A sudden flare of light splashed across the sky and Jacobs jumped, thinking it was car lights. Blake pointed upward, “That was lightning, and a good rain will wash out our tracks.”
“I was in a gun fight a few years back with a state trooper killed standing right beside me. That’s different from being here. On the firing line I can handle my own but as a thief, I’d die of a heart attack.”
Blake shrugged. “I’m here for Matt whether it’s right or wrong. Sometimes we have to take things like this into our own hands.”
Blake motioned for Gail, Clark, and Jacobs to follow. They crossed the rugged dirt road and walked through the gate opening onto the lumberyard. They stopped at the base of a huge wood chip pile. Gail looked upward, “God. That thing is fifty feet tall or more.”
Jacobs whispered, “It’ll take all night to move this thing.”
Blake shook his head. “Not with Catfish driving that loader. Have you ever seen him work one before?”
“Never thought much about it. When we were kids, old Catfish use to fix just about anything around that broke so I guess we just expected that of him.”
Blake pointed to the flashlight Jacobs had carried from the truck. “Let me use that thing a minute. I want to check the pile. Maybe it’s sturdy enough for Catfish to cut a furrow. If so then we don’t have to move the whole thing.”
Jacobs passed the light to Blake and stood with Gail. Together, they watched Blake disappear around the pile. He carried a holstered revolver stuck down the back of his pants and it was starting to feel heavy and uncomfortable. He wondered why he’d brought it in the first place. He worried whether he could use it here and now if the wrong persons confronted them. He finally decided that yes, in defense, he would use it.
“Where did Blake go? I don’t see him.”
“I don’t know, Gail.”
Clark spoke. “He’s checking the chip pile to see where best to start digging.”
A moment later Blake’s voice asked as he reappeared from out of the darkness. “I wonder what’s taking Catfish so long,”
“He’ll get it.” Jacobs said. “Catfish would make one heck of a car thief.”
The sound of a slow whirring engine starting filled the night air. “Never would it sound as loud in the daylight.” Jacobs thought. The engine hit, misfired, and fell silent.
Blake whispered, “Come on, darn you.”
The starter whirred again and the engine sputtered to life with a low, steady, rumble. Blake sighed, “There she goes.”
The engine speed picked up to a higher whine. Jacobs said, “That’ll send ‘em running if nothing else will.”
The pay loader jerked and started moving toward them. Blake used the flashlight to direct Catfish to the center of the pile. He well knew it was going to be a rough and dangerous job. He just prayed the safe was shallow, not too deep inside or it would be harder to work it out from beneath the hard packed wood chips.
“Clark? See if you can get that forklift going. We will need it to drag the safe out here if Catfish can find it. If you can’t hot wire it, then switch out with Catfish and he can get that one going too.”
“Shoot Blake, who do you think taught that boy in the first place?”
Watching Clark head off toward the machine, Blake turned toward Catfish and his machine. He signaled for him to cut a furrow, an open tunnel so to speak. The kid understood, and spun the machine into position. Blake cupped his hands to Jacobs’ ear and shouted, “Ya’ll take the truck and go stand watch way outside the main gate. Don’t let anybody in, not even Thompson...”
Jacobs nodded, took Gail by the hand, and raced for the pickup. He could always claim he had just arrived and was checking on all the late hour commotion. Then, he tossed the idea sheepishly, he was in all the way, and would see it through.
Catfish eyed the pile cautiously and then steered the heavy machine into the mound and set to work. One wrong move and the whole pile would collapse on top of him.
Blake kept one eye on Catfish and the other on Clark. Another lightning flash overhead meant the storm was getting closer. Could they beat it? “I darn sure hope so.” Blake prayed.
A second diesel engine came to life and Clark waved at Blake. “Good deal, Clark. Now get over here and help him.”
Catfish and Clark worked steadily. The front tires skidded once on a muddy section that sent the blade skidding into the newly created hole before Catfish. Ten minutes of work disappeared in a small avalanche of chips. A moment later Clark, in the larger machine, misjudged the width of the tunnel and the pan cut a deep gash into the delicate wall. He waited for several precious seconds to be sure the pile was stable again before continuing.
Blake didn’t complain. He knew that no other humans on earth could drive with the skills of Catfish and Clark. One accident for either was equal to fifteen for any another operator. Huge drops of sweat ran down Catfish’s forehead. Steam started rising from the exposed chips because such huge piles of wood would generate tremendous amounts of heat during the decay process and some areas deep in the pile would be hot. That didn’t make the job any easier for man or machine.
Blake tried to help guide Catfish and Clark along but more often than not, the wiry kid knew more about the business than he did and Clark simply followed Catfish’s lead. All Blake could do was stand watching and praying for the pile to stay put and not collapse on either man.
The seconds turned to minutes, fifteen of them before the blade of the Catfish’s machine struck something metallic. An angry wail of metal against metal screamed out across the dark night. Catfish was deep inside the tunnel with walls forty feet high on either side. There was little room to maneuver but Catfish tried to grab the safe with the scoop. The safe was too large and his attempts pushed it deeper into the pile. Clark whistled and motioned for him to move aside. His machine carried the larger scoop and might be better for the grab. Catfish backed his machine out then watched as Clark moved into the opening.
Clark deftly worked the controls on the loader getting its blade wedged underneath the safe. When he raised the blade and safe, a small avalanche set off around him but nothing serious. The machine jerked into reverse and slowly Clark backed out of the tunn
el.
Blake couldn’t see from his vantage point until Clark cleared the pile into the open space, then spun the machine around and rumbled over toward him. On the inside edge of the huge scoop was a dark black and silver, metal box. It was Matt’s safe.
Blake prayed that the machine’s teeth hadn’t damaged the dial or any of the internal mechanisms on the locks. Clark lowered the pan, cut back on the fuel control, and waited.
For Jacobs and Gail, waiting at the main gate, time stood still. They were worried that at any moment Sheriff Brooks would drive up and catch them.
“Bill? Have you ever considered running for Sheriff?”
“Me? I’ve been asked several times to run against Brooks but the problem is, the last two people who ran against him were defeated and then pretty much forced out of the county. The Pary influence is a decisive blow with the voters. Besides, I’ve never believed that politics and police work should mix. It is bad for everybody involved, especially West Creek County.”
“You’re an honest man which is something this County could use.”
“Now how on earth would you know that I’m honest? My straight innocent good old boy looks?”
“Your hands” Gail said sincerely. “A person’s hands speak volumes about them.”
They jumped when the angry scream of metal against metal echoed out of the mill and into the woods nearby.
“They found the safe or that machine just blew an engine.”
Gail said, “They found it.”
The safe, situated perfectly in the pan, seemed to wait for Blake to open the lock. He glanced up to the cab where Clark sat sweating and grinning like a proud little child, and gave him thumbs up.
The dial and tumbler appeared unharmed so Blake climbed up into the open scoop pan and squatted beside the huge box. Taking a deep breath, he held the light on the dial and started by giving it several free spins to clear loose dirt and wood chips away. Then with sweaty fingers, he rolled the first digit upward to the red mark at the top of the dial. The dial numbers were dirty and hard to read so he had to go slowly. When the last “4” appeared, he took a deep breath and tugged at the release handle. It didn’t budge.
“Come on, baby. You can do it.”
He tried to remember in which direction he’d spun the first digit. Was it clockwise or to the left? The flashlight slipped out of his sweaty hand and fell to the ground below the pan. Catfish picked it up and tossed it back.
He had to thump it several times before the bulb came back alive. “So where was I?”
He cleared the dial once again with several fast spins and started over. At the end of the sequence, the release handle again thudded against their inner metal locks. With a sinking fear he tried to comfort his nerves by remembering that if all else failed, they could still move the safe somewhere else.
Catfish grew weary and kept glancing to the leaning pile of chips and the narrow, threatening tunnel dug deep inside. The crest of the tunnel’s walls were fifty feet high in places leaned outward over the path he would travel in covering the safe back up. The whole job would take several hours if either ridge collapsed. “That is,” Catfish thought. “If either ridge collapses while the machine was outside and far away. If it collapsed while he or Clark was inside then there would be no worries about putting things back in place. Somebody would die.
Blake rolled the last number, four, to the top of the dial and decided that if this round didn’t work, they would load the safe on the back of the truck and leave. With a hearty jerk, he snatched at the release handle and felt it give upward. Something inside the box clicked and the heavy door opened a small crack.
A huge weight lifted from his shoulders and his legs were cramping from the strain. He stood and signaled to Catfish and Clark just as a heavy clap of thunder rolled off the southwestern sky. “It’s open.”
Bill and Gail listened to the pay loader’s idling engine and could only wonder. Had they found the safe? Did the combination work? Were all the papers inside? Maybe the machine had broken down. The thunderstorm was moving closer. Bill looked around at all the nearby, hundred foot tall pine trees. Each one could be an open invitation for a bolt of lightning. “Gail? Why don’t we go see what’s going on?”
She stood back as he opened the truck door. She climbed in and Jacobs followed. Then, an angry growl from the backhoe’s engine told them that the machine was moving again.
“Bill? They’re back at it again. Do you think they’re still searching?”
“I don’t know, Gail. We’ll give it a few minutes and go check.”
Clark returned the now empty safe to the approximate spot he had found it in the tunnel. The chip pile trembled when several short blasts of wind from the approaching storm whipped through. The whole mountain might collapse at any moment so they would need to work quickly. Clark backed the machine out and Catfish, his machine already loaded with chips to start covering things up, waited for him to clear the opening. Once Clark was out, Catfish used his machine as a battering ram several times along the outer edges of the pile. The tunnel folded inward, collapsing downward and covering up their invasion. Clark gave Catfish thumbs up. Now, to just smooth over the chips they had dug out and all would be back to normal.
The next sharp explosion of lights in the sky, followed by an instant report of thunder, meant the storm was directly overhead. There wasn’t much time left and a hard sudden rain might spell trouble in the soft dirt of the yard. The machines moved quickly to fill the last of the exposed chips.
Blake stuffed the papers from inside the safe into a cardboard box, including some cash he found in a bound packet. Chuck had told him to clean out the safe and that’s what he’d done.
Much like Catfish and Clark, Blake realized the rain was an immediate danger to bogging the machines into the mud. If only it could hold off for another fifteen minutes then a rain would be a blessing and wash away their tracks and signs of the pile being disturbed. He turned the flashlight toward the main gate and gave three short flips on the switch. After Catfish and Clark had each made another run with a pan full of chips, he signaled again and then fussed for not warning Gail and Jacobs to keep a watch back their way too.
Jacobs scanned the overhead skies and the approaching storm. He was conscious of the exposed position and the heavy metal fence that enclosed the mill. Gail said, “Over there.”
His eyes followed to where she pointed and he saw three quick winks from a flashlight beam. It was Blake signaling. “Let’s go.”
Starting the truck engine, he dropped the transmission lever into drive and spun the wheels. The truck made a snappy and harsh circle then nosed back toward the mill yard. As they barreled through the gate, Blake motioned and Jacobs pulled the truck up next to where he stood. He opened the door and shoved the box full of paper into Gail’s lap. Jacobs asked, “Are the right papers in there?”
Blake shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s too dark to tell and right now, Catfish and Clark are in a pinch. If that rain hits it’s going to sink those tractors up to the cabs.”
Gail asked, “Why are Catfish and Clark so anxious to risk their lives for something that doesn’t concern them?”
Neither Jacobs nor Blake would answer. A moment later, small drops of water started spattering on the windshield of the truck. “Darn,” Blake hissed. “Can’t the rain hold off another five minutes?”
Jacobs heard the Sheriff’s voice over the police scanner and he wondered what Brooks might be doing out so late. Had someone called about them being at the mill? Blake also heard the radio crackling with police lingo and thought he recognized the Sheriff’s voice but his mind was busy with Catfish and Clark.
Every muscle in his body was struggling to help push the last few loads of chips back into place. It took another anxious five minutes and that was when the downpour struck. While Clark returned his machine to where he’d taken it from, Catfish made the final touches to the pile then moved his own loader back to the spot where he’d found it.
He cut the engine then jumped down and raced back through the rain. Blake already had the door open and waiting. He crawled into the back cab next to Clark and said, “That’s got it. Now let’s skedaddle out of here, ya’ll.”
Clark said teasingly “We would have been gone ten minutes ago if your slow butt had gotten out of my way."