Read Online An Obvious Fact by Craig Johnson - Free Book Online Page A

with their mouths agape, figuring they were being invaded.
    I paused at the only intersection in town, but I needn’t have bothered since the Gape and Awe portion of the exercise appeared to be holding sway. There were about eight bikers on one side and a pickup truck, sedan, and a few more bikes on the other, but they were all stopped, probably afraid that we were going to open fire. I glanced around, half expecting to see a turret and .50. “Is this thing armed?”
    Bill had broken out what I assumed were the copious manuals for the vehicle and was now studying the door in search of a window crank. “How do you think the windows work?”
    â€œThey probably don’t; that would compromise the Ambush Protected part of the MRAP title.”
    â€œHow the hell are you supposed to yell at everybody?”
    I pulled forward through the intersection. “That’s what the PA system would be for.”
    â€œOh, we gotta find that—”
    â€œOh, no we don’t.”
    He studied the manual some more. “In answer to your question, no it doesn’t have any guns on it. Hell, it’s just a big truck that’s hard to blow up, but you’d think we were trying to bring a tank in here when I was fighting with the county commissioners about the thing. There’s this one old hippie on the board from Sundance, and she’s sure we’re trying to militarize the police department. Hell, there’s only two of us, so I’m not so sure how much militarization we could summon up.”
    â€œWhat was the name of the guy that underwrote this thing for you?”
    â€œBob Nance—one of those computer whizzes from out of California—a specialist in acoustic something or other. He’s got a place up at the golf course. Comes out here in the summers to play and pretend he’s a cowboy. ’Course, I never met a cowboy with a log mansion on the ninth green.”
    Traveling at a majestic five miles an hour, we were approaching the Ponderosa Café at midtown, where I could see Corbin Dougherty leaning on his vehicle as he talked to a group of bikers, all of them pausing in their conversation to watch the rolling fortress pass by. “Hell, there’s Deputy Dog. You wanna stop, and I’ll figure out how to open the door?”
    I kept moving. “Why don’t we spare ourselves the embarrassment? I’ll get the information I need from him on the walk back.”
    Bill looked a little unnerved. “You’re not going to drive it back for me?”
    â€œWasn’t planning on it. Anyway, you’re going to need the practice.”
    â€œWhat if I run over somebody?”
    â€œYou’ll hardly feel it.” I made the left, careful to avoid Lola’s Cadillac parked next to the sidewalk adjacent to the motel, where I’d left it earlier, the keys in the ignition as she’d requested. We crossed the Belle Fourche bridge, and I was just glad the thing held. Amazingly enough, the MRAP had turn signals, and I clicked the stem down, indicating an impending left. The oncoming bikers had already stopped, never having encountered a great white whale like this one.
    I spun the wheel, goosed the accelerator, and the big truck leapt across the lanes and roared into the Dakota Gas Company lot, where I figured out pretty quick that it wasn’t going to fit under the awning. “Oh, ye whale, now what?”
    â€œThere’s a big-rig island in the back; just circle around there.”
    I did as instructed and pulled up to the diesel pump with the green handle, then hit the
N
button and subsequently the
P
. “There you are, Captain my Captain—she’s yours from here on out.”
    He reached around behind him, then began patting all his pockets with his hands. “Um, I appear to have left my wallet back at the office. You wouldn’t happen to have some cash on you, would you?”
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