Chapter 31
THE FIRST LEG of the annual ride wound uphill about three miles on a highway going west out of Sturgis. The three teachers were now settled in about halfway up the hill – locked and loaded.
Reuben and Larry sat on the rear bumper of a white USPS truck they’d borrowed earlier in the day from the parking lot of the Sturgis Post Office. In all the hullabaloo of the forthcoming stamp celebration nobody had paid attention to the two men in Postal Service-looking uniforms fiddling around with the truck. And nobody bothered them as they hot-wired it and drove out of town.
Now pulled off onto the shoulder of the road, Reuben and Larry slid open the rear door and rigged a pair of 2x8 planks to form a makeshift ramp into the back. A good eight-foot high and wide and 14 feet deep, there was plenty of room to park at least a half dozen nice motorcycles – if a person had a hankering to do, which they did – without fear of scratching the chrome.
An old Forest Service dirt road intersected the highway just a couple hundred yards down from them. That’s where Buster was stationed behind the wheel of a long logging truck he had similarly borrowed from a nearby sawmill. It was just far enough off the highway to not be overly noticeable and among enough trees so as to not appear out of the ordinary if it were noticed.
Larry sipped a Diet Coke and Reuben a spicy V-8 as they listened to the muffled sound of dignitaries speaking sweet nothings into a microphone in town below. They couldn’t make out what they were saying but weren’t concerned that they were missing out on any great enlightenment.
The ceremony droned on for about 45 minutes before a sustained applause signified its conclusion. The sound of belching Harley’s shaking off the morning dew began to arise from Sturgis as more and more bikers kicked their hogs to life.
Reuben had a pair of binoculars set to his eyes. He would be able to see the first riders as they came around a curve a half mile down the hill. That incline, combined with the amateur riding status of those leading the way, would make for a slow procession of what was usually about two hundred motorcycles. That played well in the teachers’ plan.
Earlier reconnaissance had confirmed what Reuben thought and that was that the governor and mayor would be leading the snakelike procession, followed by the four collectors’ motorcycles. The vintage bikes were not intended to make the entire tour through the hills, only the first leg to show that not only were the cycles old but they were operable even in their senior status. Behind them would be the less important people and tourists, just along for the ride so they could say they had done it. “Whoop-de-do,” Reuben thought.
As the rumbling grew louder, Reuben kept his binocs set on the road. When the first cycle appeared around the bend, he gave Larry a nod.
Larry, still in his USPS uniform, pulled his Sturgis Rally baseball cap down to his ears with his hair stuffed inside the cap, and he pulled a red bandana from around his neck and up and over his nose – looking like Jesse James readying for the approaching stagecoach.
Larry walked down the road, past Buster in the logging truck off to his side and waited along the shoulder as the motorcycles approached. He bent over like he was tying his shoe. The cycles drew nearer and he peeked up as the first two approached. He assumed it was the governor and mayor, then two more pairs followed closely behind them. He gave them a quick wave as if to say “move along, nothing to see here.”
As soon as the vintage bikes got past him, he jumped into the middle of the driving lane and began waving his arms wildly and screamed: “Stop! There’s been an accident! Stop! An accident!” Since the bikes were traveling only about 30 miles per hour, those behind were able to stop without causing a real accident. Larry kept waving and hollering as the six previous cycles continued on, oblivious to what was happening behind them.
When enough space separated the small group from the remaining throng, Buster torqued the logging truck into gear and pulled across the road, perfectly blocking it from any Harley rider being able to cross without going down into the ditch – like any self-respecting Harley rider would ever do that.
A similarly-bandana-sporting Buster leaped from the truck with double-barrel shotgun in hand. Larry was tight on his heels as the twosome raced up the hill to the awaiting USPS truck. Reuben, doing his own version of the wave, was bringing the first group of riders to a halt. He grabbed his own shotgun from the back of the truck and began barking orders from beneath his kerchief.
“Get off your bikes! Get off them now and lay on the ground!” But the mayor wasn’t a very good listener, as many of his city councilmen would attest. He hopped off his motorcycle alright and set the kickstand, but instead of lying down, he sprinted into the woods and over a hill.
The alarmed riders of the antique cycles were pretty much scared spitless and followed orders much better.
Buster tossed his shotgun to Reuben who caught it so as to have a weapon in each fist. Buster hopped on the 1918 Cleveland, revived it to life and effortlessly drove it up the ramp and into the truck-bed, while Larry began to do the same with the 1965 Harley-Davidson.
It was two down and two to go, but the dense Governor continued to sit on his newer borrowed bike and even revved it in antagonistic fervor with a smirk on his face. Reuben continued to scream and threaten him with the guns just feet away, but old Arnie wasn’t proving to be the wimpy wallflower Selma had led them to believe.
Buster jumped back down and drove the 1940 Indian into the truck, with Larry right behind on the vintage 1970 Chopper. The four cycle-less riders huddled together, cursing South Dakota hospitality, while the Governor and Reuben exchanged shouts and gas.
With everybody finally out of the truck-bed and the cycles inside, Larry started to run around to the passenger side of the cab and climbed in. Reuben had had enough and hollered “Screw it! We got what we need!” Nobody wanted the governor’s rented ride anyway. He ran around to the driver’s side, tossed the shotguns behind the seat and hopped in behind the wheel, waiting for Buster to conclude his final duty and throw down the ramps and slide the back door shut. But it wasn’t that easy for Buster.
As he grabbed at the first plank, Gov. McCall menacingly revved his cycle again, let loose the clutch and shot up the ramp into the rear of the truck. Buster was stunned, perplexed and just generally at a complete loss for ideas as the truck continued to idle.
So he said what Reuben had said: “Screw it!” He kicked down the planks, pulled down the door, locked the lever, ran around to the front and leaped in next to Larry – with four motorcycles securely in the back, give or take one.
“Yee haw!” Larry screamed, slapping the middle of the dashboard as Reuben throttled the truck up to speed on its way to their escape route. “I can’t believe how well that went! Just according to plan!”
Reuben turned and grinned at him as Buster sat stone-faced.
“I don’t get what that stupid governor was trying to prove,” Reuben said, shaking his head. “There I was staring him down with two 12-gauges in his face and he’s just revving his bike like a teenager at a drag race. What the hell was he thinking?”
“I guess you could ask him,” Buster muttered.
“What?” Larry asked.
“You can ask him. He’s in the back.”
Reuben almost slammed on the brakes but resisted the urge at the last second.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Well, he kinda slipped past me.”
“He slipped past you!?” Larry screamed.
“Yes. He flew up the ramp before I could close the gate.”
Reuben as stunned. “So you mean to tell me we have five bikes and the governor of South Dakota in the back of the truck?”
“Yup,” Buster croaked.
Driving along in dead silence for a few minutes, the three teachers gave new meaning to what Native Americans of old termed “pale faces.”
Chapter 32
REUBEN HAD FIGURED they would only have ten minutes tops to switch vehicles before every local yocal with a tin badge would descend on the area looking for postal trucks. So he had scouted out a backwoods Forest Service road that was closed to the general public. It was just ahead on the right. Waiting a quarter mile up the path would be Selma. “Boy was she in for a surprise,” he thought to himself.
He punched in her number on his cell phone to give her a heads up and about two minutes to calm down before they arrived. She was waiting with his car for the boys to escape in and a cattle truck she had borrowed from the University. Fortunately, most all the SDSU faculty had Commercial Drivers Licenses. Heck, it was practically a hiring requirement.
The gang intended to transfer the bikes to her non-descript truck and she was going to drive it to Sioux Falls for delivery to her buyer coming up from Sioux City. The extra passenger posed a new problem for everybody, so it was on to Plan C. They hadn’t had a Plan C, so Reuben just thought it up on the fly.
Selma answered on the first ring, panicked already because the phone call had not been in Plan A or Plan B.
“What’s wrong?” were the first words out of her mouth.
“I have some good news and some bad news,” Reuben said.
“What is it?” she exhaled.
“We have the bikes and are just turning onto your road now.”
“And the bad news?”
“Your ex-husband decided to join us.”
The stone-cold silence caused Reuben to wonder if she had hung up on him again. She had not. She was just catching her breathe for a good scream: “What the hell are you talking about!?”
He told her the story as the Postal Service truck approached and told her to stay out of sight until he gave her the thumbs up and not to speak so as to give away her identity.
Reuben rehearsed the others as well: “And who are you Buster?”
“I’m Zeke.”
“And you Larry?”
“I’m Snake.”
“And for Christ’s sake don’t say my name. “I’m just Bub.”
“Okay, Bub,” Buster practiced.
They stopped the vehicle and jumped out. “Zeke, you open the trunk of my car. We’ll tackle the governor and throw him in there for now. Then we’ll transfer the Harleys.”
The three teachers pulled up their bandanas again and stood at the back of the USPS truck. Reuben gave Larry the high sign to open the door.
No sooner did Larry slide the door up than the governor revved his Harley to life and came flying out on a wheelie ala Evil Kneivel. The back tire hit the ground and Buster dove at the Governor, tackling him hard and sending the motorcycle spinning into the trees. But Buster was the pancake and the Governor was the griddle. It would have made Buster’s high school football coach proud. Sprawled on the ground, Buster laid on the governor’s back and pushed his face into the pine needles covering the forest floor – just because he could.
In a risky move, Reuben pulled off his own bandana and tied it around the governor’s eye, without him getting a peek at his perpetrators. Buster did the same with his and quickly hog-tied the governor’s hands behind his back and stuffed another in his mouth. They pulled him up and carried him under his arm pits to the waiting car. This was certainly no way to treat the good governor, but, frankly, he hadn’t been a very good one anyway.
Dropping him in the trunk and slamming down the lid on the white 1978 Cadillac, both spoke loud enough to penetrate the warm metal.
“Good job, Zeke!”
“Thanks, Bub!”
“Alright, Snake, let’s unload those bikes.”
While Buster and Larry rode the bikes down another make-shift ramp and up another into Selma’s truck, Reuben looked inside the Caddy to see Selma lying down on the front seat. He waved her out and held a finger to his lips to remind her not to speak.
It was killing her not to rip loose with a string of profanities, but she obliged and quietly followed him further up the road out of ear shot of the kidnapped governor.
“Don’t worry,” Reuben finally half-whispered to her as her eyes shot poisoned arrows at him. “I have a plan.”
“What is it?”
He told it to her and added: “Just finish your job and we’ll get this all taken care of.”
“And he’ll look like a fool, won’t he?” she asked with an evil grin.
“He will.”
“I can live with that,” Selma added.
“I bet you can. Oh, and do you have our money?”
“It’s in the backseat.”
They walked back just as Larry was driving the last hog into the cattle truck. Larry was the only one appreciating the irony.
Reuben opened the back door of the Cadillac and pulled out an SDSU athletic bag.
“Nice touch,” he said.
She smiled.
He unzipped it and looked at the stacks of rubber-banded Benjamins. “Nice touch indeed.”
They shook hands and she waved at Buster and Larry as she climbed in the truck.
The teachers hopped in the Caddy and followed her out the main road. She headed east. They left the USPS truck where it was and went west to Deadwood for a sit-down and beer.
Chapter 33
THEY PARKED IN THE ALLEY behind the Mine Shaft in case the Governor decided to get cranky, though they suspected correctly that by now he would just be content to live and work on his breathing.
Shorty saw them come in the back door and was Johnny-on-the-Spot with three beers and whiskey shots. “How’s your day been?” he asked the trio.
“Every day is Christmas,” Reuben said. “And how long have we been here in case anyone asks?”
“Oh, I’d say since I opened at 9 or so,” Shorty answered.
Reuben handed him twenty $100 bills. “You’ve always been an observant one,” he smiled.
“It pays to pay attention to details,” Shorty said, shoving the greenbacks into the pocket of his overalls and returning to his station behind the bar.
“Okay boys,” Reuben began. “Before you pepper me with questions, I have to make a call. Listen closely and you might learn something.”
They would not admit it to him, but Larry and Buster had total faith in Reuben’s off-the-cuff plans. They knew Reuben always had contingency plans that went from B to Z, so they watched and listened intently as he pulled a phone number from his wallet and dialed.
Though they only heard his side, the conversation went like: “Is this Zeke?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Your motorcycle trainees. You got something we want.”
“And do you have what we want?”
“A hundred thousand of ‘em,” Reuben said.
“That’ll work.” Zeke didn’t haggle this time. Obviously, Candy was getting on their nerves too. Heck, if they waited a few days, the Lords might pay THEM to take her back. “I’m listening.”
“Who is playing at the Buffalo Chip tonight?” Reuben asked already knowing the answer.
“Kid Rock. Why?”
“When he takes the stage there will be a man in a wheelchair at the front of the stage. He’ll have your money with him in a gym bag. You walk with Candy and go over to him and have her open the bag to show you what’s inside. Then you take the bag and leave the girl.”
“Who’s in the wheelchair?” Zeke asked.
“Buster got the short end of the straw.”
“But why’s he in a wheelchair?”
“He had another mishap with another motorcycle. The bike survived, but he’s got road rash from his toes to his nose.”
“So why don’t you come?”
“It’s his wife you took. He wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, he happens to be Kid Rock’s biggest fan.”
“Okay, but he better not cause any problems.”
“He can barely walk. He won’t.” And Reuben hung up.
“Did they take the bait?” Larry asked.
“As Buster would say: Hook, line and sinker.”
“But I’m guessing there’s more to the story than what you gave him,” Larry said.
“Yep,” and, in his best Paul Harvey impersonation, he told them the rest of the story.
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