OLD BEN and BOY
Chapter one
Harvey Long, Paul West, Dan Clawson and Martin Fuller were all seated on two sides of the gingham covered table near the street facing window in the Hard Luck Café having their second cup of morning brew, like just about every day at nine a.m. It was your typical diner one big room of tables, a counter with bar stools next to the cash register beside the front door to the sidewalk and two swinging doors at the back; one leading to the kitchen and the other to the small restrooms. The café was right in the center of Main Street across from the town’s bank. You might call these four, the town of Hard Luck’s unofficial leading citizens and then again you might not. Harvey Long is the town’s Sheriff; Paul West owns the Hardware store and is also the Mayor; Dan Clawson is the owner of Clawson’s Grocery and last but not least is Martin Fuller the manager of Valley Bank and Trust. Harvey, Paul and Dan were born and grew up in and around Hard Luck (in fact Dan is married to Harvey’s sister Donna and has been Harvey’s best friend for 35 years). Martin moved to Hard Luck over 20 years ago to take over as the bank’s manager.
The town of Hard Luck is one of those very quaint small burgs in the system of northeast to southwest trending mountain chains of eastern West Virginia, most West Virginians don’t even know it exists. Most of the people living in and around the town are quite happy with it staying that way too. No outsiders are opening shopping malls, manufacturing plants, building cheap housing tracts or disturbing the local life since it is just far enough removed from everywhere else to not become another bedroom town to anywhere else.
Everyone who lives here is either working on farms and small ranches close to here or in one of the local business’s here. Most of them have long family ties to the area and just enough children are born here to keep the town alive, some move away like anywhere else, but even some of them return after getting tired of the rat race in bigger towns and cities.
Jean Donnelson (Hard Luck cafes waitress/ bus gal/ owner) was just about to ask if anyone wanted another one, when she noticed the time on her backwards wall clock. One of the café’s few decorations and a real irritant to Martin, who just couldn’t remember that it read backwards and the hands moved in counter clockwise motion. Jean had just turned 45 two weeks ago, an average height woman standing about 5’6” and weighing 180 lbs. she had been divorced for several years and her grown daughter had moved away from Hard Luck two years ago. She was the Methodist Church choir’s soprano.
“Martin it’s five after nine, did you forget its Wednesday again?” a slight chagrin in her tone, even though she was smiling when she said it.
“No Jean I know it’s Wednesday, and before you ask, I know which Wednesday it is too. Go ahead ring up our tab, today is on me.” He chortled back, as he got up from his seat at the table. “I gotta go guys, see you later in the day. Need to run over some accounts before ten.”
“Just like every other Wednesday Marty, he’ll be here right on time at ten. You can set a watch by Old Ben, doesn’t matter what the weather is, that old man is nothing, if not punctual.” Dan added in.
“Truer words were never said, not even by Father Randolph during Sunday service.” Martin replied as he paid the tab and headed out the cafes front door, the little bell over it jingling as the door opened and then closed back shut.
“I better be going too guys, need to make sure Old Ben’s order is ready when he gets to the store. He always comes by there as soon as he’s done at the bank.” Dan said to the remaining two as he stood, chugged own the last of his coffee, pulled out two dollars for Jean’s tip and made his way to the front door. Once there he turned back to say his goodbyes. “See you later Paul, Harvey you too.”
“If someone had told me five years ago that one old, retired man from somewhere else with no visible ties to Hard Luck could have effected so many people here, I would have said they were crazy as a Loon.” Paul said to Harvey with just a slight shake of his head, as if amazed at his own words.
“I agree Paul, I remember the first time I met Old Ben. I was sitting in my office and Danny (Danny Stephens is Harvey’s 26 year old deputy) told me someone was there to see me. I walked out into the front office and there stood this elderly guy, long gray hair tied in a ponytail at the back of his neck, short cropped beard with an Australian cattle dog standing beside him, a dog not even on a leash. I looked him in the eye and asked if I could help him, but told him the dog needed to be leashed. He apologized, turned around took his dog to an old Dodge SUV parked out front, rolled the window down and then came back in.” Harvey took a sip of his coffee and then continued. “He told me, he never leashes Boy no more than he would leash a son. But he wanted to do what was right so Boy could just wait in the car.”
“Sounds like Old Ben for sure. He dearly loves Boy and treats him just as if he was his own kid.”
“Then he told me; he had just moved into the area and thought it was only right he came in and introduced himself. He went on to say that he had bought an acreage up Cherokee Ridge Road. Shoot, I didn’t know there was anything for sale up there. There isn’t much past Nat McIntosh’s place, right after you turn off the highway. The county doesn’t even maintain that gravel road, Nat keeps it drivable as far as his place.” Harvey took another drink of coffee. “But I told him welcome to the town and asked if I could help him in any way. He just said no, he didn’t need anything but to introduce himself properly. Then he thanked me, shook my hand and said goodbye. I gotta tell you I had two immediate thoughts though. First was I don’t ever remember anyone coming in like that, unless they had a reason and second after the grip that old man had in a hand shake, he must have been someone to reckon with when he was younger. That was just a little over three years ago” Harvey smiled and let out a quite chuckle at saying that.
“Yeah I know, Old Ben is quite a character. Still I would never have guessed he would alter the way so many people make allowances in their schedules for him. Well I better go too, Mary is probably wondering why I’m not at the store yet myself. See you around Harvey.” Paul got out of his seat, put a dollar on the table for Jean and left the café, turning to walk in the direction of his hardware store.
Harvey looked up at Jean and said, “Looks like I’m the caboose once again, gal.”
“You really don’t think I’m going to pass up the chance to say you’re more like the back end of something else do you?” She started laughing before she got all the words out.
Harvey laughed with her and waved as he walked out the door.
Ten o’clock came and went, then ten thirty and eleven. Jean Donnelson had started watching the street a little more furtively. She didn’t think she had missed it, but began to hope she had, because she still hadn’t seen the old Dodge SUV parked at the bank or Old Ben yet. There were more people now in the café, some having an early lunch and the rush would go on until one thirty or so. But Jean now kept glancing toward the window and through it at the parking spaces in front of the bank.
Just past eleven thirty Danny Stephens walked in and took a stool at the counter waiting on Jean to come over from a table and take his order.
“Hi Jean I think I’ll have,” he was interrupted in mid-sentence.
“Danny, have you seen Old Ben yet today?”
“No, why should I, why are you asking?” Danny answered her question with a question.
“Because it’s Wednesday, and because it’s now after eleven thirty. Old Ben is in his late eighties and has never not been in town by ten every other Wednesday as long as we have known him. That’s why.” Jean answered him in a slight more harsh tone.
“Okay you’re mostly right I guess, but that doesn’t mean anything is wrong especially.”
“Well it could, that old man doesn’t have anyone to miss him if the people in this town don’t. I don’t remember him ever being late coming into town right at ten every other Wednesday and this is the day he should be here.”
“Yeah, I’ll ask around and talk to the Sheriff right after I eat my lunch. Is that fast enough?”
“All right, but let me know what you find out. I really like Old Ben and Boy too. So what would you like for Virginia to whip up for you today?”
“How about a Bacon Cheese Burger with fries and I’ll take a strawberry shake to wash it down.”
“Good, it’ll take just a few minutes.” Jean said turning toward the kitchen door.
*****
Harvey was on the phone talking to Martin Fuller when Danny came back from lunch and Danny could tell they were talking about Old Ben. About fifteen minutes went by before Harvey yelled out his office and asked Danny to come on in.
“Did you need something Danny?” Harvey asked his deputy without looking up from his desk.
“Not exactly Sheriff, it’s just that Jean over at the café asked me about Ben Nicholson while I was having lunch and now it sounds like Mr. Fuller was asking you the same thing on the phone.”
“It was and not before Danny Clawson called wanting to know if I had seen or heard anything as well. I can guess how Jean more or less asked you.”
“She just sounded worried is all, but they are all forgetting this really isn’t the first time Old Ben wasn’t here right at ten on a Wednesday. There was that time almost two years back, with those hikers.”
“Huh, oh yeah, but that was a whole different situation that day. Sure enough he was a day late that time. But remember the whole countryside was looking for those two, when Old Ben drove them into town and to Doc Findley’s clinic.” Harvey reminded Danny. “Have you ever been to Old Bens place up on Cherokee Ridge Road?”
“Not me, Sheriff and actually I don’t remember anyone else saying they’ve ever been there either, not even Nat McIntosh and he lives closer than anyone. I’m not dead sure exactly where it is, just up past Nat’s is all I have ever heard.”
“Danny you hold down the fort a while. I’m going to ask around about Old Ben. Don’t worry about Jean either, I’ll talk to her myself.” As he finished saying this Harvey grabbed his hat and headed out the door to the street.
Harvey’s first stop was just around the corner on Monongahela Street at Doc Findley’s clinic. At first he didn’t ask for the Doc but stopped at the front desk and struck up a conversation with Deanne Singleton Doc’s Nurse and well known to be Hard Luck’s leading gossip.
“Morning, Deanne.” Harvey greeted her as he looked around the empty waiting room.
“Sheriff, any news about Old Ben yet?”
”You heard, I should have guessed that. I was hoping you might have heard more than he’s late coming to town today.”
“No and I don’t like it either. The last time Old Ben was late, was when he brought in that young couple everyone was looking for two years ago. And he was a day late then, but everyone was so concerned about those two hikers, they didn’t think about Ben being overdo as well. Do you remember what those two told the Doc?”
“Yeah, sure. They said they had gotten lost and her husband broke his leg. They had lost their back pack down the slope to South Branch when he fell and had been without water and food for two days. That was when Old Ben and Boy showed up. Old Ben bandaged the boy’s leg, got them to his truck and drove them here to Doc Findley.”
“Well, that’s the Readers Digest version.” Doc Findley said as he walked into the reception area. “Probably what you or your deputy found as substantiated between what they said and what Old Ben told you. Before he went back home that day. The full story is just a bit more than that.”
“What do you mean, the full story?” Harvey asked in a tone that befitted a detective or law officer wanting the complete details.
“I am sure we’ll never know exactly what all occurred, but I can tell you what the couple told me as I was examining the husbands leg. Seems they had started their hike out of Milam and everything went okay at first. But a couple of days out they got rather lost. Then the husband slipped on a moss covered boulder. During his fall, he not only broke his leg but lost their pack off his shoulder, seems he wasn’t wearing it on both shoulders. They were so far up the ridge that the wife couldn’t find it. The husband wanted her to leave him and go for help, but she was afraid she would get more lost and not be able to lead anyone back to where he was. So they agreed to wait until they saw someone or someone came looking for them. After a few days they were both getting dehydrated and the husband’s leg was getting worse. She had tried to bandage it up with a T shirt but he was getting worse and in a lot of pain.”
“That’s what happens when people go out and do things they’re not trained for.”
“Exactly. Anyway, she said she was about half drowsy when Boy showed up in front of her and Old Ben was bending over her husband. At first she was scared, visions of “Deliverance”. But Ben calmed her down. Gave her a canteen to drink and a couple of energy bars to eat, while he looked at her husband’s leg. Then, he got up and started looking around and came back with two small branches. Her husband came to and he gave him a drink from the canteen. He told the young man to bite down hard on a tongue depressor from the bag and told her to grab onto her husband’s shoulders to keep him as still as possible. Looked back at him and told him this was going to hurt like Billy Blue Blazes. Then jerked his leg forward and she heard a snap as her husband yelled like he had been shot. Her husband passed out again. Then Ben whittled on the two small limbs, and used them as splints for the leg, binding them with bandages from his bag. While they waited for her husband to wake up, Ben fashioned a crutch. When her husband woke he got them to his truck and brought them here to me. The wife told me Ben said Boy had found their pack downstream and scented back to where they were.”
“Yeah, that’s a bit more than I remember. No one knew Old Ben was even looking for them.”
“One thing more Harvey, when I was examining the boy’s leg. I can tell you they were very lucky, that splint and the resetting of her husband’s leg was as good a job as I could have done. I tell you there is more to Old Ben than he lets on.”
“I have no doubt, you are right Doc. But right now, I need to know why he didn’t show up in town like usual, it’s not like him. Hell I don’t even know anyone who knows exactly where he lives, other than out off of Cherokee Ridge Road somewhere.”
“I’ve never been there but I bet George Short does, or at least his carrier for that route would.”
“Right, they must be delivering his mail. I’ll go over to the post office next, thanks Doc.”
The walk over to the Post Office and chat with George Short didn’t give the Sheriff much more information, except to wait until Billy Nichols came back in from his route later in the afternoon. Billy would be the one who knows better just where he delivers Old Ben’s mail to on Cherokee Ridge Road. So Sheriff Long decided to drive out and talk to Nat and Marjorie McIntosh while he waited on Billy to come back in.
Harvey stopped by his office, told Danny where he was going and got into his Department SUV and headed east out of town. About a half an hour later he was pulling into Nat McIntosh’s driveway. Marjorie came out the kitchen door and waved at Harvey to come on in. Once in the door the sheriff saw Nat and Marjorie sitting at their kitchen table drinking sweet tea.
“Afternoon Sheriff, would you like a sweet tea?” Marjorie asked in that Grand Motherly tone she was known for.
“No thanks, Marjorie. I came by to ask you or Nat a question about Old Ben Nicholson.”
“Ask away, Harvey. But I doubt we know much more than anyone else in Hard Luck. He’s been out here for over three years now and I doubt we see him much more than anyone in town. Nice enough guy, but kinda keeps to himself.”
“Nathaniel McIntosh, you be nice. Ben Nicholson is a good old man who ain’t ever hurt anyone we know of. He’s been friendly to both of us and everyone we know of. Why are you asking Sheriff?”
“Well he’s late coming into town today and that’s not like him? Have either of you seen him recently?”
Both Nat and Marjorie looked at each other a minute, then Nat turned to Harvey and spoke first. “No can’t say we have, not anyway since two weeks ago. He stopped by as I was working in the field and asked he could pick anything up for us in town. I thanked him, but there was nothing we needed right then.”
“This may sound stupid, but do you know exactly where Ben lives? I was going to wait on Billy Nichols to come back in from driving his route, but thought I’d come and see you instead, seeing as how you closer to him than anyone.”
“Well I can tell you where his driveway is, or I can show you if you want.”
“I would appreciate that, Nat.”
“You two go on, I’ve got chores to do. If you see him tell him I said hi.”
“Will do Honey.” With that Nat got up from the table and motioned for Harvey to head out the door to the driveway. “You driving or me, Harvey?”
“I’ll drive. Get in and watch your head Nat.”
A few minutes later Nat told Harvey to pull over at widened driveway entry to a locked gate and an unusual looking mailbox.
“This is no rancher’s gate, Nat.”
“Never said it was, something to look at ain’t it?”
“I’d bet that gate would stand up to anything short of a tank. But where is his driveway?”
“Ain’t one. Once you get through the gate it is just rutted clearing.”
“Damn, those stone columns holding the gate are massive and tall and look at those lamps on top. Nat who built all this? And where is the house? The trees are so thick off the road, I can’t see a house?”
“Can’t tell you, Harvey, I’ve never been past this gate. I do know this, if you take a close look at his mailbox, it isn’t just a normal rural mailbox either. But you would have to ask Billy about that. I do know this, if you look there are no power lines going into his property. So where is he getting power from, I mean I can see solar cells on top of those lamps so that makes sense, if you look close you can see what looks like motion sensors high on the columns and maybe they get power from the same solar cells. But that gate has no lock to unlock, so it must be electric too and at that size it would take even more power to open and close it. With all this, there must be cameras somewhere. And away from the gate going into the trees look at the pipe fence, it runs as far as his property and then turns into it, away from the road.”
“That is one heck of a secure entry. That gate must be ten feet tall. I have more questions now, than I did before I came here. Come on I’ll take you back home, then I’m heading back to town. I need to talk to a few more people.”
Once Nat was back home Harvey drove back to Hard Luck Creek. His first stop was back at the Post Office. As soon as he had parked his vehicle, he was out and inside with hasty determination.
“George, its Sheriff Long, has Billy come back in yet?”
“I’m back here Sheriff, I’ll buzz you through the door.” Harvey heard the buzz and walked into the back. “George told me you were looking for me, something about Old Ben.”
Harvey rounded a rack of shelves with cubby holes for sorting the mail and saw Billy standing at a table drinking a cola. “I just came from Old Ben’s drive way, Nat took me up there and I gotta tell you Billy, I didn’t expect what I saw. Nat said there was something special about his Mailbox that you could tell me about.”
“Yeah, I guess. It’s different for sure, but there’s nothing illegal about it.”
“I didn’t mean there was. What’s special about it except that it’s massive for a rural mail box?”
“The box itself isn’t any bigger than most, it’s just that it’s made different. When you open the door, if you put anything in much heavier than a few letters, or say a magazine the bottom drops out and they fall inside that stone column its set into and the bottom swings back up into place. And if you look at the back there’s a locked door at the bottom of the back where Old Ben takes the mail out of. Heck I never know if he’s been there lately or not, unless I run into him on the road or something. He never sends any mail out from there.”
“So you mean that whole column is empty below the box? What do you mean he has never sent out a bill or letter.”
“Pretty much, I looked in once, held the bottom down so I could see where the mail went. It was dark but looked like the inside is lined with steel all the way down. Not once have I picked up anything going out, just drop off the usual mail, you know mostly the junk mail everyone gets. Never anything like a letter or bills that I can remember. I’d never say anything bad about Old Ben Though. Did you see how he graded his driveway so wide and back to his gate?”
“Sure did, and looked a lot at that tall gate with not much of a drive way past it.”
“Well he graded it that way so I could get completely off the road and use his driveway as a turn around. Sure makes my route easier.”
“Why’s that?”
“Heck Sheriff, I thought you would have guessed. Old Ben’s place is the end of my route on Cherokee Ridge Road. About a quarter of mile past his drive way is the county line.”
“You’re right Billy, I hadn’t thought about that. When Nat and I drove up there I didn’t think about how close it is to the county line with Grant County. Thanks Billy that answers my questions.”
“Sure thing Sheriff. By the way I don’t think he has been there in maybe a couple of weeks.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Well, I put in a couple of catalogues yesterday and they were heavy enough for the bottom to drop. So I looked inside and it was almost half full. It would take that long for it to get that full if he wasn’t taking anything out.”
“Thanks again Billy, that is helpful.” Harvey left the Post Office got into his vehicle and drove to his office. He didn’t go inside, instead he walked over to the café and went inside. As the bell dinged twice with the door opening and closing he said hi to Jean.
“Sheriff, want a glass of tea?”
“Yeah and how about a meatloaf special?”
“Coming right up.” Jean turned and looked through the door to the kitchen telling Virginia the sheriff’s order, then poured him a glass of sweet tea before she walked to his table. “Any news on Old Ben, Harvey?”
“Nothing concrete, and I’m beginning to think he might have been gone or something for a couple of weeks.”
“So what are you going to do next?”
“That’s what I’m considering right now. Maybe I’ll talk to the guys and Doc Findley again in the morning before I do anything rash.”
“Well I’d never tell you what to do Harvey, you know best about these kind of things. But I think you and the boys might talk to Judge Strong.”
“Why would we talk to the Judge? For one he’s retired and two there’s no crime been committed that I know of.”
“Maybe so, but although most people don’t know it, the Judge is Old Ben’s attorney. Let’s just say I overheard that one day a long time ago. He might know more than the rest of us.”
Just as Jean said that, Virginia came out of the kitchen with Henry’s order and brought it to the table. She and Jean walked back to the counter so the sheriff could eat in peace.
