Introduction: What is discovery? Perhaps it’s finding something that you didn’t know existed. Maybe it’s finding a hidden treasure. Maybe it’s finding out something about yourself that many were aware of but you just didn’t know it.

In spite of a previous comment, the story continues.

It was the bike. He saw it and recognized it immediately. What he discovers after that wasn’t quite the surprise some would have thought. Mannie tells Steve about her uncle and what she suspects. Sheriff John is not happy at all about this tree hugger cutting in on the woman he fancies.

This work is copyrighted by the author and any publication or distribution without the written consent of the author is strictly prohibited. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of the characters to persons living or dead is coincidental.

Chapter 10

Steve Chavez parked next to the motorcycle he’d spotted as he was heading for the Kum & Go two blocks away. He was going to get some cheap fried chicken before he checked out the lay of the land around their new objective. He’d been meeting with some of his cohorts at a motel out on the main highway. Their objective was going to be to block some of the frack water trucks, also known as vacuum trucks, from getting to several of the well sites. They knew they wouldn’t have any immediate effects on the operations; however, their hopes were that they would get the federal government involved, and the only way they could do that would be to get the public involved.

He got out of his truck and walked to the maroon bike. It certainly looked like the bike that Manny had bought and ridden away on. It was in excellent shape, and there was the scrape he remembered. It had to be his bike unless he sold it. Well, there was one way he could find out. It was lunch time. He might as well treat himself to a decent meal.

The sign said “Please Seat Yourself”. On the back it said “Wait to be seated”. He found a chair at a table for two along the far wall.

“Good afternoon, I’m Mabel and I will be happy to serve you. Would you like a few minutes with the menu?”

“I think I’d like the three piece catfish lunch.”

“Good choice. Would you like onions with that? It comes with slaw, fries or baked potato, beans and hush puppies.”

“I’ll have the baked potato with a lot of butter, no cheese please.”

“To drink?”

“Ice Tea, no sugar.

“Say, does that bike belong to anyone here?” he said pointing out the window.

“Yes, that’s the owner’s.”

“I seem to remember that bike from a number of years ago.”

“Would you like to talk to her, she’s back in the office?”

“Sure.” Well, that’s that, he thought, Manny must have sold it. I’ll have to tell her that I know a little bit about its history.

“Mannie, there’s a customer out there who says he recognized your bike. You want to talk to him? He’s over against the south wall. Nice looking guy; needs a haircut.”

“Sure, I was just getting ready to leave. All the orders are in. They should be here tomorrow.”

Stevie looked up as the most beautiful woman he’d seen in a long time approached his table.

Mannie was in semi-shock. She had recognized Stevie immediately. Her face was on fire.

“May I sit here?”

“Please do.”

“So you recognized my bike?”

“Hard not to. You never fixed that scrape. Why not?”

“I never thought it was that important. Maybe I wanted that scrape to be seen by someone. I don’t know.

“Are you surprised?” She asked after hesitating a second or two.

“A little. Shocked? Not at all. So you finally let that beautiful person you’d been trying to hide come out. I must say you look quite nice, more than nice. Are you happy? Shit, that’s a stupid question. You radiate happiness. I could see it when you walked up to the table.

“May I ask what you’re doing here? This certainly isn’t wine country.”

“I’m still down at the winery in Arkansas. Look, finish your lunch. We need to go somewhere where we can talk. Do you have anything going on for the next hour or so?”

“No, we were going fuck with some frack water haulers later this evening.”

“I’ll get my coat. You wanna ride on my bike with me?”

“Why don’t you ride with me? I’m not sure if I want to ride on your bike. I wouldn’t know where to put my hands.”

“You are such a naughty boy. They are real by the way.” That was stupid she thought. Why in the hell would I say something like that?

He opened the door of his truck for her then went to his side. He was thinking how strange this was. Here he was giving his ex-college roommate a ride in his truck. The only thing was she was now a very attractive woman. There had been no kneejerk reaction when he first saw her. He knew who she was immediately, and he knew she had done the right thing. Yes, she’d obviously had some work done on her face, and he assumed elsewhere. My God she looked good in that leather suit. It was almost painted on her.

“This is a bit silly, but I don’t know your name.”

“I didn’t change it much. I am now Emmanuelle Allison Argerich. I go by Mannie with an ‘i e’.

“Go down to the ‘Kum & Go’ and turn left. We can go to the park.”

John Craig watched from his doorway as the woman he thought he loved rode off with a stranger.

“So that’s pretty much it. I’ve been up here a while trying to get the estate straightened out. Mom’s coming up in a few days. When I go back to Arkansas, I’ll take my Uncle’s truck and haul the bike behind it. There’s a nice camper shell. I’ll just sleep in it.”

“You said you had an idea who killed your uncle.”

“Yeah, I looked at the place where they found his body. It’s just outside the north boundary and a few yards from the creek that runs through the property. It’s a nice creek, full of fish, or at least it was. Now it stinks of rotting fish. There are some tracks left by some big trucks. They were eroded by some rain we had a while ago; so we can’t tell much about the tires other than they were big. I haven’t told the sheriff about them. Now it’s going to snow; not that it matters.”

“I know what you’re telling me. Somebody’s been draining frack water into the creek. The fish kill probably confirms it. We’ll get some samples from the creek and it will be easy to determine that frack water was dumped there. Those bastards killed your uncle. There may be a problem figuring out which one did it though.”

“I thought so.”

“There are at least six frack water haulers I’m aware of in this area. I might have to smoke them out.”

“Be careful, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill you.”

“We’ve had people try to kill us before.

“You said you think the drillers are drilling under your property. I think we can prove if they are. We have ways. If we can get the evidence, you can sue their collective asses. I think the most important thing is to get the people who killed your uncle.

The three piece band was warming up when Steve and three of his associates walked into the Antelope Bar & Grill. The silence was almost deafening. “Fucking tree huggers,” someone said in a not whisper.

“You shouldn’t have to worry,” one of the four said. “The trees aren’t fucking, and it’s too fucking cold to be hugging trees, anyway.”

Mannie watched warily at what was going on. She wasn’t sure what Steve had in mind other than he was probably going to piss a lot of people off. They’d had lunch together several times since their meeting the previous week. They’d had time to discuss quite a bit, including what the objective of Steve’s little group was. Things were going very well as far as Mannie was concerned.

“Hey sheriff,” one of the pool players shouted as Sheriff John entered. He was off duty.

“Yeah?”

“There’s a bunch of them fucking tree huggers. Why don’t you run ‘em out of town like you did that card cheat the other day?

“As much as I would like to, they haven’t done anything wrong. Just one slip up, though, and they’re as good as gone.

“I need a Scotch.”

“Coming right up, John,” Mannie said as she poured two fingers of Glenmorangie 18 Years Old Extremely Rare.

“Damn this is good. The well Scotch would have been fine.

“Mannie, why don’t you marry me and let me take you away from all this?”

Mannie knew he was only half joking. “Thank you for the offer, John, but I’m just not ready to make that sort of commitment.”

“Okay folks,” Jake Wallace said after thumping the microphone, “me and the boys had a little amp problem, but we’re ready to go. Remember, if you’re gonna dance, ya gotta stay on the dance floor up here. Wayne, my brother, got a little upset last week when someone bumped his cue and messed up his all-time best run at straight pool. I think he was up to eight balls.”

“That was 33, asshole,” Wayne shouted from the table where at the moment he was playing eight ball.

The trio, amplified guitar, bass guitar and drums wasn’t bad, and Jake had a pretty good voice. They went through a set of 8 country western standards and several couples had migrated from the dining room and were dancing. Sheriff John was sitting with one of his off duty deputies. He was not at all happy and kept glaring at Steve and his group. At one point, one of the patrons ‘accidently’ spilled a glass of beer as he walked by. Fortunately, most of it missed them.

“Okay folks, we’re gonna do a slow piece for all of you who can’t dance.”

Mannie was caught a bit off guard when Steve approached her. “The boys and I are getting ready to leave. I was kinda hoping I could have a dance with you.”

“I think I would like that.”

The truth be told, neither was a very good dancer. Neither noticed. She found it very easy to mold herself to him. It came very naturally. He smelled good. Her head rested on his shoulder. She could feel his erection growing, and it thrilled her. She had feelings she’d never had before. The thoughts kept running through her mind and had been since that afternoon when he showed up. She knew for certain she’d always been a woman. That problem had been solved. She had wanted the companionship of a lover, and now she realized who that person was. She had lived with him for nearly four years.

The music came to an end, but they hardly noticed. She looked up at him, and he said quietly, “I love you, Emmanuelle Allison Argerich.”

She smiled back, “I love you, Stefan Ricardo Chavez.”

John Craig was furious. He might not have been able to read lips, but he had a pretty good idea of what was going on. She had rebuffed him several times, and then she had taken up with a fucking tree hugger.

The tree huggers had been gone for a couple of hours, and John Craig had been sitting rather morosely at his table. Finally, his cell phone jarred him out of his misery. “John, Andy Bennett called into dispatch. He said someone broke into his truck yard, stole a tractor and painted graffiti on his trucks and trailers. He said he might have shot one of them. It was those damn tree huggers.”

They’d been apart for three years, but they’d lived together for four years prior to that. It didn’t take either one of them long to figure out why they’d been so compatible. The opera continues.