Chapter 10

Donny drove through the town talking the whole time.

“Here it is. You’ll notice that there are two churches sitting side by side. One is a Baptist church, and the other is a Lutheran church. You might think the preacher and the pastor wouldn’t be friends, but they are except when it comes to horseshoes; then watch out.”

“Horse shoes?” Pepper asked.

He looked at Donny out of the corner of his eye. Donny ignored his question.

“Over there is the gas station, general store, and post office all in one. It opens at six and closes at six. If you need bread and you aren’t there by six, you’re out of luck. Next to it, is the diner. They are open for breakfast and lunch. It opens at six and closes at two. The nearest place for dinner is sixty miles from here at the truck stop.”

“Truck stop?” Pepper asked.

“That big building is the school. We’ve got fifty six kids in it. Most of them live within thirty miles of here. Just about everyone you’ll meet around here went to school there. My graduating class was six kids.”

“Six?” Pepper asked staring openly at Donny.

“Over there is Doc Taylor’s office. He’s our doctor. Rose works for him.”

Rose said, “He’s got an x-ray machine. He also has a defibrillator, in case you make it to him alive while having a heart attack. He can also do some surgery. You know, take out an appendix, set a broken bone, sew together a cut, and take out your tonsils.”

“Oh boy,” Pepper said rolling his eyes. He asked, “Where’s the nearest hospital?”

“It’s only seventy miles away as the crow flies, but you have to drive nearly a hundred and fifty miles to get to it,” Donny answered. “We’re all worried about what’s going to happen when old Doc Taylor retires.”

“He’s been trying to bring in a doctor for years,” Rose said.

“I can’t imagine why you would have a problem bringing in a doctor,” Pepper said sarcastically.

“We’ll probably end up having to visit the vet once Doc Taylor retires,” Vincent said.

Thinking about waiting in an office full of dogs, Pepper said, “No thanks.”

Donny continued being a tour guide. “That building over there with the silos is the feed and grain store. If you need seed, that’s the place to get it. They also sell tractor parts over there. If you want to buy a new tractor, you have to drive sixty miles to the nearest place that sells them. That area over there is where we hold the monthly swap meet. You can get just about anything there, particularly if you let folks know that you need it.”

“Swap meet?” Pepper asked.

“That house over there with the two cars parked in front of it, is basically our only car repair place around. Although Hal doesn’t have a real tow truck, he can tow your car in case it breaks down in the middle of nowhere. He does all of his work out of the garage. The house next to it, is where the Baptist preacher lives. The house next to that is where the Lutheran pastor lives. The family that owns the gas station lives across the street there. The principal of the school lives next to them. About four miles down that road is one of the three vets in the area.”

Incredulous, Pepper asked, “You have more vets than doctors?”

“We’ve got more patients for a vet than we have for doctors. There are only a thousand two hundred people within thirty miles of here,” Donny answered.

Rose smiled and said, “Don’t worry. None of the vets around here would shoot you if you broke your leg.”

“That’s reassuring,” Pepper said thinking he was now in Hicksville.

Donny said, “That’s our home town. What do you think?”

“You don’t even have a traffic light,” Pepper said.

He was more than a little underwhelmed by the town.

“We don’t need one,” Donny said in a very serious tone of voice. “We do have a stop sign.”

“I didn’t notice,” Pepper said.

He was thinking that if you looked up hell in the dictionary that they would have a picture of this place next to it.

Donny said, “We’ll be driving along this road for another fifteen minutes.”

They hadn’t gone more than a mile when Rose said, “There’s Uncle Charles.”

Donny stopped in the middle of the road. Rose stuck her head out the window, and waved to the truck that was approaching them. The truck slowed down, and came to stop beside them.

The man inside said, “I see you guys are back. How was Los Angeles?”

Donny said, “Things are really messed up there.”

“Ugly,” Rose answered.

Charles said, “I always hate going into big cities. Those people are crazy.”

“You can say that again,” Donny said.

“Speak for yourself,” Pepper muttered.

He couldn’t believe that they stopped in the middle of the road to talk. He looked around but no other cars were approaching.

Charles said, “I’m glad to see you back.”

“It’s good to be back,” Rose answered.

“I was watching the whole thing on the news after Sonny took out those three guys in the hospital. That was a real mess,” Charles said. “Did Dan or Joe kill the guy that told the gang where Sonny was?”

“No,” Donny said. He gestured to his passenger and said, “We brought him back with us.”

Charles laughed and said, “I couldn’t believe it when I heard what you were going to do. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard anyone doing.”

“I’m sure we’re going hear that a lot,” Donny said with a laugh. “I’m sure that folks are going to look at Rose and think she can do better than me.”

“Boy, I’ve been meaning to ask you a serious question,” Charles said.

“What?”

“Are you ever going to propose to my beautiful loving niece?” Charles asked with a grin.

“One of these days,” Donny answered.

Rose gave him a love tap on the top of his head and said, “By one of these days, you can assume that he means tomorrow or the next day.”

Charles suddenly got very serious and said, “Don’t wait too long, Donny. I’m sure that Hank will want to know she’s finally gotten engaged. I’ve got a feeling that Hank and your uncles are going to create a big stir there in Los Angeles. It may be a long time before we see them again.”

“Why do you say that?” Donny asked.

“Sonny got a lawyer and turned himself over to the police this morning. The news folks have been having field day with this. The way they are talking, it’s like Sonny and the gang are going to have it out some kind of shootout,” Charles said.

“Did they put him in jail?” Donny asked.

That had been the one thing they were worried about. There was no telling what kind of connections the gang had inside the jail.

“The police arrested him, but they took him to a secure hospital room instead of jail, since he is still healing from his wounds. His lawyer was all over the television making it sound like he was a death’s door as a result of the ordeal that he had been through,” Charles said.

Donny had a feeling that the police were going to arrest Sonny. Dan and Joe had talked a lot about letting the police have their chance to do right by the Daniels family. He didn’t have the same faith in the police that his uncles did.

He said, “That’s better than a jail cell.”

“I figured Hank and your uncles wanted him out of the way when things hit the fan. They are giving him an alibi,” Charles said.

No one had to tell him their plans. He knew how all of the principals involved in this situation thought. He would let the law take its course, but he’d protect the kids as much as possible.

“What about Calvin?” Vincent asked worried about his brother.

“I don’t know anything about what’s happening with Calvin,” Charles said.

“Thanks for letting us know,” Donny said.

He had a feeling that Calvin was busy watching over Sonny. He would make sure that no gang member made it close to him.

“I’m sure your Mom is worried about you, Rose. You might want to get on over there,” Charles said.

“I’ll see you later Uncle Charles,” Rose said.

Vincent ducked down so that he could see his uncle and said, “See you later, Uncle Charles.”

“Take it easy,” Charles said before heading on down the road.

When they were finally driving off, Pepper asked, “Doesn’t anyone care that you kidnapped me?”

“We didn’t kidnap you,” Donny said. “You were given a choice to work for us or to die.”

“That’s no choice,” Pepper said.

“Sure it is,” Donny said.

Pepper didn’t want to argue the matter anymore. He shook his head and looked out the window at the country side. His personal opinion was that the view would have been nice on a post card, but he didn’t want to be there looking at it in person.