21 comments/ 21934 views/ 6 favorites Don't Fuck With Me Again By: Justtoold Sorry I haven't written anything for a while. Some of you have e-mailed and wondered about me. Well I had a few health issues for a while but have been lucky to have good doctors. As anyone that has had major health issues will tell you it can turn your thoughts to be pretty dark. I think that's where this story came from. To those of you that want some more of the series Horse club it will be coming soon. When I started this story I wanted to write a revenge story. I know it will probably get lots of negative feedback just for the way it is written. I think this story was influenced by all those B movies I watched back in the 70's where there were a lot of vigilante justice movies where the hero of the story just blew away the bad guy. So be warned. ***** Even though I was a bit nervous this day was turning out to be one of the most satisfying experiences of my life. Just knowing my arch enemy was never going to be seen again, and I was the one that made him disappear felt great. I was sitting in front of my cabin, smiling like a Cheshire cat. For the last two days I had watched the top cop in the area, old Charlie, and his crew, search my cabin and the area around it. They were pretty methodical and even had brought dogs to assist in the search. They had not found what they wanted so they were getting ready to leave. The cops were pretty sure I did the crime, and they were looking for evidence to connect me to it. The main group of them had been searching the area for clues and while they did that, the top cop, old Charlie was questioning me and generally making a nuisance of himself. They were not accustomed to searching for things in the bush with all the mosquitoes and other hindrances so I'm sure they wanted to get out of here. That plus having to sleep outside in the cold on the ground for two nights because I wouldn't let them in my cabin to sleep at night sort of helped to get them upset with conditions. It was sort of funny seeing those guys freezing to death because as anyone around this area will tell you it gets pretty cold at nights in the mountains, especially this late in the fall. I've known old Charlie since I was a kid. Hell he was old back then and in my younger years he has caught me a few times doing things I shouldn't, so he knew I could cause a "bit" of trouble. Mind you this time was more than just a "bit" of trouble. I had to almost chuckle as I looked over the scrub bush at the large creek in front of the cabin and know that they would never find anything to connect me to the crime of Hank's demise. I was supposedly on my way to the cabin when Hank apparently disappeared so that was one point in my favor. Mind you I planned it that way. I just to have a good alibi of where I was at the time he disappeared. But still old Charlie had to cross all the t's and dot all the i's after all I was the guy that was the number one suspect, that's why he was here. After Hank had gone missing they figured someone had killed him, and because of the history Hank and I had I was the number one suspect. So I finally got the revenge on my old arch enemy. I had been dreaming of getting revenge on him for almost my whole life. After he pissed me off this last time it took me more than a half year to get all my ducks in a row to accomplish my revenge. That time was spent planning and organizing things and was worth every minute of it. After all is said and done, there is no way that he will ever bother me again. Not to mention ever be seen again. So am I happy? You can bet your ass on that. Who is Hank you ask? I guess some background information would help you understand. The guy I had a lifelong hate for went by the name of Hank Crankshaw. Hank and I had been at each other's throats since grade one. That's where we first started a hate for each other. It started in the playground one recess. He wanted my ball and glove in the worst way, and I wasn't going to let him have them. We put on quite a show for the school as we rolled around on the grass trying to throw punches at each other. The whole school watched and cheered us on until a teacher finally broke us up. Since that event whenever the two of us were in the same room there was a good chance that sparks would fly. Even when we were separated he was always trying to get me in trouble by accusing me of doing things that he had done. I tried to stay away from Hank but the only trouble with that was Hank and I kept running into each other, and he would always push my buttons. I tried to stay away from him but it seemed whenever he saw me he just had to go out of his way to get things started. My pride would always get the better of me and the show was on again. Hell there was even a bit of a pool going around in the town, where you could place a bet on when the next altercation would take place. Some guys are just born assholes and I figured he was the number one anal perforation and president of the club. There wasn't any way to change my mind on that. Through school he grew a lot faster than me so he was the bigger guy, which meant he usually wound up on top when we had some of our disagreements. I was just too stubborn and pig headed to give an inch where he was concerned though. He may have won most of the contests but he got more than his share of lumps for his efforts. In high school we both dated, but whenever he saw me with a girl he was soon after her too. People around town called him a pussy hound, and the rumor was that Hank was one of those go after anything that wore a skirt guys. He was the more suave talker of the two of us so usually ended up with the girl, whether that was my girl or another one. More often than not he soon dumped them after he got what he wanted, which was to prove to me he could take any girl of mine away from me. I was pissed over the first few girls he took away from me, but soon figured out there was a lot of fish in the sea and if the girls were that dumb and they wanted Hank more than me, they could have him. Fighting him over a girl that would rather be with him, was just not worth the effort. I did think about it though, and I confess I spent a lot of time imagining me putting a knife in his back. Hank and I finished school and went our separate ways. Just before he left for the city, he and I met on the street. Like always he had to lay it on thick about how he was the better man, and could take any woman of mine and use her. That was one of the rare times we never got into a fight. I just looked daggers at him and told him, "You and I don't get along, and never have. I'm tired of all the fisticuffs so just be warned, DON'T FUCK WITH ME AGAIN. You won't like the results and there won't be any fists involved." He just laughed as he strutted off. He went off to the city for a higher education, and because he was a jock he even played a bit of pro basket ball for a bit. I started working in the family business with my parents and older brother. Mom and Dad had a small trucking outfit and with the contracts they managed to get they were doing pretty good. I worked at just about everything learning the business. Dad had this vision of my brother and me taking over the business one day. All those plans changed when I took a holiday to Vegas. I was young and enjoying all the lights and action, not to mention the free drinks when you were gambling. To a young guy like me, Vegas was party city. One night I joined a few people as they watched a cute chick as she kept feeding nickels into a one-armed bandit. She was putting on quite the show. Every time she pulled that handle she would become so animated dancing about trying to will those dials into lining up for a win. Every time she lost there would be a string of profanity along with kicking the post beside her and lots of arm waving and cussing. Of course the audience was cheering her on, which just fueled the fire and made her actions more pronounced. She finally gave up. I was disappointed because the best show I had seen since I got to Vegas was over. I tried my luck at a few other one-armed bandits but was slowly losing my allowance for that day. I had about ten bucks left when I decided to get some sleep. As I walked through the casino I noticed the machine that girl had been playing was not being used, so I sat down and plugged in a nickel. Wow, talk about noise. There were sirens, bells ringing, lights flashing, and people cheering. I slowly realized I had won some big prize or other. Soon there were two big guys in suits escorting me to the manager's office. Two days later I was flying home with a cashier's check in my pocket that would keep me in more money than I would be ever able to spend in a couple of lifetimes. So I found myself at the ripe old age of twenty two not really having to work to survive. Dad wasn't happy I wasn't going to take over his company with my brother after he retired. My brother was happy for me though he would be the one taking over the company so he wouldn't have to split the profit. I still knew I would be spending a lot of time just helping out though. I decided to take life easy and bought a house on the edge of town to live in, and a section of land out in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. I figured that would be a good place where I could escape and not do anything but relax. When I say middle of nowhere I mean just that. There wasn't anyone within a day's ride on horseback close to me and the ones I'm talking about were the forest rangers that took care of the area. To get there I had to do a three hour drive to get to a dude ranch at the base of the mountains where I kept some horses. Then it was a two day ride to the ranger station and then another day from there further back west into the wilderness to get to my place. I loved the area and its privacy. No one would ever come out here just for a visit unless they came with me. The land I bought was raw wilderness when I bought it, but with some hard work I soon had a crude log cabin built. It was three rooms but I left some openings in the walls so I could expand later. Those first logs that I used to build the cabin were taken from an area that soon became a pasture for my horses. I had three horses, one I rode and two pack animals. They were the only way to get to my cabin short of using a helicopter. Those horses hauled in most of my supplies. Once I got that bit of a pasture cleared and fenced my friend Vern dropped some larger things for me. He owned a helicopter and I would bundle up some stuff I needed and he would fly them in, hung under his bird and drop them off in the pasture for me. I made sure those bundles were well tarped to keep out some of the critters, because Vern only brought those bundles out to me when he had nothing else to do and when he was flying this way. Sometimes it would be a week or two before I made it after the shipment was dropped off. I had it pretty good for a couple of years. I would spend a month in town helping out the parents and then I would take off to the cabin and spend a week or two just sitting watching the water flow past in the creek that was twenty feet from my front door. In the winter things were so quiet you could hear a deer fart on the other side of the mountain. The creek was about twenty feet wide and four feet deep in the deepest spot depending on the season. Another bonus was that the creek had some of the best trout fishing I had ever seen. Dad came with me once or twice a year and thought I had a piece of heaven in that little cabin. One time when I was back in town I met a girl by the name of Maggie. She was new to the area but the outdoorsy type so we hit it off and she became someone more than special to me. We dated for eight months and decided to move in together. In my eyes she was perfect and the one I wanted to share my life with. Being with Maggie changed me some. I became more possessive when it came to her and some friends used to tease me about it. That was a big change for me, but I was so in love with her that I wasn't going to share her with anyone. I loved Maggie to death and could live with her faults. Her faults were, she was gullible and would believe some of the weirdest things she heard. If someone she trusted said something, and added a fact or two to prove the idea, she would believe it unconditionally. No amount of talking or conflicting facts to what she heard could change her mind. Her biggest fault was her temper. When she got angry, she went off like a sidewinder missile, and because of her stubborn streak she wouldn't even think about handling things reasonably. After a bit people saw we were a couple and were wondering when we would get hitched. All my friends were constantly asking when we were going to set a date to get married. I knew she was the one, and after having known her for two years I figured it was time. One night as we watched TV at my place I asked her to marry me. She cried as she said yes and we started to make plans. One of those plans was that she was going to quit her job so she could have more free time with me. I had more money than I could use so I had no complaint with having her around all the time. Well wouldn't you know it? My life was as perfect as it could be, and that's when that snake in the grass Hank showed up in town again. I'm sure he had some internal radar that told him he just had to appear in my life just then so he could screw me over once more. To be honest I don't think he started out to deliberately piss me off again, but when he realized he had a chance to do that, that's exactly what he set his mind to do. Maggie was the head of a group that were raising funds for a charity. We met Hank at one of the fund raising dues, and even after not seeing him for a few years I didn't like the idea of him being back. Hank looked at me with disdain, and I returned the favour. The way he was looking at Maggie was like he saw another conquest and I could see the pure lust in his eyes. She spent a fair bit of time talking to him that night and when we got home I warned Maggie about him. All she had to say on that topic was she was all mine so there was nothing to worry about as far as Hank went. Yeah right. I believed that as much as I believed some of those fairy tales my parents told me when I was a kid getting ready for bed. One night Maggie came home real late from a meeting and was all bubbly about how Hank had joined the fundraiser team. She told me how she had gone out for a light meal with him after the meeting and he had all these neat ideas on how to raise money. I was shocked that Hank had actually moved in on her that fast. All I could think about was the way he would move in on all my girlfriends in high school, and I was worried where this would go with Maggie. That was when the rule I had about not fighting over a girl changed. I wasn't going to lose Maggie to Hank like all those past girlfriends. When my mind finally could think coherently Maggie and I had a talk. I told her about all the trouble that Hank used to cause me and warned her again about him. She'd laughed off my warning and told me he was harmless. Yeah, right! I knew better. He was harmless, like a slick gambler with an ace up his sleeve that knew under the table he had his derringer pointed at your stomach! Maggie being the gullible girl she was, couldn't understand why I was so upset about Hank. After all he was so charming and smart she was sure he had changed. No amount of talking could make her understand he was a conniving S.O.B. with the gift of the gab, and he would eventually try something to get to me through her. She was sure he wouldn't though, and when I told her to stay away from him she informed me that they would be working together on a plan for the charity and would be spending a lot of time together and she was looking forward to the changes he was proposing. Nothing I said could change her mind so I warned her again to watch herself and to be careful around him. She told me there was nothing to worry about and that she loved me and was going to be my wife. I had to settle for that answer and just hope she was right and would indeed be my wife. Since I had my talk with Maggie she just had to tell Hank about my concerns and what I thought of him, and me telling her to stay away from him. He turned on the charm and soon had her believing that I was the bad guy in our younger days, and that he was just a guy that was trying to stay out of trouble. I could see where this was going and it just had to happen. I met Hank one day on the street and it didn't take long for him to brag to me in front of a few of my friends about how much he liked my bride to be, and it wouldn't be long until he showed her what a real man was like when he got into her panties. That started a discussion between the two of us that four guys had to break up. For once he was bleeding more than me. Of course Hank had to run to Maggie to tell her about that episode and how I had attacked him from behind when he was just walking down the street. She wouldn't listen to my side of the story and that episode between Hank and I caused the first rift between Maggie and me. The plans were just about competed for our marriage in the early spring when I noticed Maggie was getting to be distant from me. I asked her about that and she blew up and accused me of all sorts of weird things like I had been seen in the next town with some bimbo, and was chasing the town bicycle Helen. Nothing I said could sway her mind even if I could prove her accusations to be false. That was the first time since our engagement we were separated. She told me she was going to a hotel for the night and off she went. The next morning I was sitting in the coffee shop still confused that she would think I would do something like that to her. An old friend Harry sat down with me and could see something was wrong. I gave him the short version and ended by telling him Maggie had even spent the night in the hotel. That's when things really took a turn. Harry worked covering the night shift for the owner of the hotel and with regret in his voice told me that they only had one room rented last night and it was to a salesman from down south. That fact connected the dots for me and I was scared that Hank had done it to me again. I went home thinking about what that meant and when I got there everything of hers was gone. All there was on the table was a note that told me she had found someone that wouldn't cheat on her like I was. So she was moving in with Hank who she could trust not to be a cheater. There was also a short note in big letters lying on the bed. Hank must have placed it there after Maggie cleaned out her stuff from the closet. The note was in capital letters and all it said was HA. HA. YOU LOSE AGAIN SUCKER. Mad. That doesn't begin to describe my feelings. All I could feel was a blinding rage. Everything was confirmed the next day when Maggie was seen on Hanks arm and the two of them looked pretty close. The news spread like wildfire to everyone in town and no matter who told her how Hank operated her mind couldn't be changed. Boy was I one sorry guy for a while. Her treating me like that took the life right out of me. Feeling sorry for myself abated over the next two weeks and that was replaced by a burning hate for Hank. Those first weeks were full of questions about myself. "What did I do wrong? How did I lose her respect? How did I lose her love? Was Hank that much better than me? "etc, etc. One day in my now favourite hangout, Jakes bar, my dad stopped my ranting by suggesting that I should head to the cabin and cool off. I took his advice and packed up and spent three weeks in the cabin and all that did was get my mind working on how to get my vengeance. Some would call me an unforgiving son of a bitch for wanting revenge. All I got to say to that, is Hank had always had it in for me and this time had shattered my life. Now I was going to extract revenge on him. No matter what I had to do, no matter what the cost I would make him pay. Don't Fuck With Me Again Payback! You betcha, there was going to be payback. I had nothing but time at the cabin to think about how I had warned Hank a few years ago what would happen if he screwed me over again. I knew the payback would have to be something that would end Hank's ever bothering me again... I promised myself that. About the fourth day at my cabin I had cooled down enough to think clearly so I started plotting. I thought of a hundred ways to get back at him. All those plans went out the window because they all had something major wrong with them. In the morning of the eighth day I finished my morning coffee and went to the creek with my pail for water. I stumbled on one of the baseball sized rocks that were everywhere and fell. I cussed at that rock, picked it up and threw it into the middle of the creek. Something clicked in my mind as I watched that rock hit the water. I thought to myself that I wish I could toss Hank into the creek and have him disappear like that rock. Eureka, that was it! All I had to do was get Hank out here and put him on the bottom of the creek where that rock went. That's when I did some serious planning. Once that first part of the plan was completed to my satisfaction, the rest just seemed to fall into place. I took my time thinking about every detail because I had heard my dad say more than once that in business deals it's all in the details. I spent a lot of time thinking about those small details. The last week at the cabin I worked on the first part of my plan. The water flow had scoured the rocks so any dirt or other stuff that tried to settle in it was washed away. So the creek was solid rocks of all sizes with water flowing over them. Let me tell you lugging rocks out of the creek is a lot of work. It didn't help that this creek was fed off a small glacier thirty miles upstream and the water was near freezing. I could only handle being in the water for about ten minutes and then I would stumble over to a fire I had built beside the creek right by the water's edge. Once I had some feeling in my extremities again I went back at it. I only got about a quarter of the hole dug in the creek. I wanted to do more but I was running out of supplies and had to go back home. It was a real empty house that I went back to. In every plan there are risks. It was time for me to take the first risk. I checked in with my family then headed out to a city five hundred miles away. Twice a year they held a gun and ammunition swap meet there. It was there I found one of the things I needed for my plan. A guy was carrying in some rifles and I saw the one I wanted. I stopped him before he entered the show. After some negotiation and me paying six hundred dollars for the rifle and shells, along with another two hundred for him to skip the paperwork, I went home with an untraceable rifle. That is untraceable as long as it didn't show up again which it wouldn't. That was one rifle no one back home was going to know about. After checking to make sure it shot where you aimed it, I hid it away in my attic under the insulation until the time it was needed. At the gun show I heard about a sportsman show in a few weeks in a city two hundred miles south of my town. That's where I bought the one thing I appreciated the most. That being a diver's wet suit for cold water. I got back home, checked in with everybody then stocked up on supplies and headed back to the cabin. I stopped at the airport and wrapped ten bales of hay in some tarps which then was wrapped in a sling that would attach under a helicopter. I left a message for my buddy Vern who as I mentioned before, has a helicopter that is usually hired out to whoever, but he had told me if he was flying out my way he would drop off packages for me. He could easily attach the harness he gave me for just this purpose and the load could be released from the cockpit without having to land. He would hover above the pasture and when the load touched ground he would release it. I needed the hay because that pasture wasn't that big and those three horses of mine had just about grazed it down the last time I was there. The baled hay was for them. Three days later I got to the cabin and like he said he would, Vern had dropped of that big bundle of hay for me. I spent some time untarping the hay and storing it away. Then I spent the rest of the day getting organized for my stay. The next morning bright and early I donned the wet suit by the water's edge and was in the freezing water moving rocks and hauling sand out of the hole. That wet suit was a godsend but I still needed a fire real close to the creek because I still got cold. It took me another four days to get that hole dug in that creek. Once that was done I sat back and spent another two weeks just enjoying the cabin, and thinking ahead about what I still had to do. Between the horses and the deer around the area that hay only lasted another two weeks so I headed back to town. Blind luck then came my way. Vern and I were at an auction and there was a small wood burning cook stove for sale. I immediately saw where this could save me some trouble latter on. I had never thought of a good way to get Hank out to the cabin and was just going to throw his body on the back of a horse. This stove gave me a better alternative. Now I wouldn't have to haul Hank's body on the back of the horses. Anyway no one uses those stoves anymore so I snapped it up real cheap. Damn that thing was heavy. I had to be about five feet long and a cast iron top. Vern was kidding me about the thing but when I told him it was for the cabin he could see the practicality in having it. At least now I would be able to cook inside instead of over an open fire. He helped me lug it home and set it in the garage. I told him that one day, after I got the thing cleaned up and workable he would be flying that stove out to the cabin for me. All he said was that I better wrap it up good so it would make the flight. I spent the next month tearing down that stove and made three trips to the cabin packing the parts of the stove on the back of the horses. I hid it under some brush right beside the horses pasture and covered it so I couldn't be seen from the air. It was there to be used as part of my alibi so I would look like Vern had dropped it in the middle of the pasture with his helicopter. On one of the trips when I was back at home I bought two body bags on line. I was perusing E-Bay one day and saw them. Why this guy had those, and was selling them I don't know. When I realized they would make it easier to hide the evidence of my work I knew I had a use for them. After all wrapping a body in plastic wasn't the best idea and these body bags were so convenient. That brought it to the end of summer and all I had to do was wait for the right time. The last thing I did was build a heavy duty box that would look like that stove when it was covered in tarps. The one thing I learned when I was with Maggie was that she always made two trips back east to visit her parents for two weeks every year. She always went about the first week in April, and the third week in November. The November trip she took always worked great for me because it was hunting season. It gave me a chance to get out and bag a deer or moose without having to worry about leaving her behind. This year I would be bagging something else. Maggie leaving just then was going to work just fine for me. I acted normal around town and just carried on as if nothing was out of the ordinary. The day before Maggie was scheduled to leave I watched Hank and her like a hawk. During a talk with Vern over a few beers one night, I found he was flying personnel out to a new mine past my cabin on Saturday. Wow talk about a plan coming together that was perfect timing because everyone figured I was going out of town on Thursday. Vern and I came to an agreement that he would drop of my stove sometime Monday. I spent some time the day before Maggie was to leave town telling a bunch of people I was heading up to the cabin. I even had my stuff loaded in the truck so they could see it. As far as anyone was concerned I was leaving bright and early Thursday. I hid out until the time was right. Maggie was predictable and left right on time. Now came the start of the messy part of the plan. I got out the gun I had got at the swap meet, checked it out and made my way over to Hanks place. I had scouted a spot a quarter mile from his drive and I drove my truck in there to conceal it. I took those body bags and after a short walk set myself down in the woods where I could see Hanks house. He had a place five miles out of town in a treed well secluded location with a small rise just off to the side of the house. That's where I went. I had some time to think. I wasn't sure I had the guts to pull this off, so I spent my time thinking of all the things that Hank had done to piss me off over the years. Doing that steeled my resolve to finish this. By the time Hank pulled in I was ready. I'm not proud of what I did next, but I leveled the gun, sighted in on him, and as soon as he stepped out of his car and was in the open, I shot him. Not very gentlemanly I know but I wasn't going to give him a chance to get away. I quickly ran over to his body and checked to make sure my aim was true. It was. There was now a hole right in the heart. I then swiftly got out those body bags and securely wrapped him in one of them. I didn't want too much blood to be seen here so any bleeding he was going to do I wanted in the body bag. Surprisingly there wasn't much blood. Just enough so when someone saw it they would know something had happened. I hurried back to my truck and when I got back to Hank's place I backed up close to him. I spread out that second body bag in the bed of the truck and put him in it and sealed things up. I noticed he had dropped his keys so I opened his door on the house and turned on some lights and scattered some furniture around to make it look like there had been a fight in the room. I pulled ahead and onto the road with my truck then went back to check that I hadn't left any tire tracks or anything else that showed I had been there. I had been wearing gloves and thick socks over my boots through the whole thing and was glad I planed that because there wasn't a visible trace that anyone had been there except for that small blood spot. I left that so people could see it and figure Hank had come home and been in a fight inside the house and the blood on the driveway would let people know he had been hurt. I was a bit worried heading home. I was concerned that I would get stopped for a random check, but I made it without any trouble. I backed into my garage and got my assembled box positioned. Just to be sure there would be no leaks I lined it with plastic. Dropping Hank into the box was easy and the rifle also went into the box. Then I nailed the box closed. The night had turned pretty dark when I pulled into the airport. I spread out my tarps and got the lifting harness from beside Vern's hanger and wrapped the box in tarps and that went into the lifting harness. For all intense and purposes it looked like the stove was wrapped in it. I attached the lift wires so it was ready to be hooked to the helicopter. I checked everything and everything seemed fine. I left a note for Vern telling him that the stove was all bundled and ready to be hooked up. Now I had to hustle. I drove like mad to get to the stables where the horses were. I arrived about one in the morning and quickly saddled and packed up and with the three horses headed out. I don't know how those horses never broke a leg or anything but we hustled like the wind to get to the ranger station. We usually took a couple of days to make the trip to the ranger station but this time we did in a day and six hours. The rangers always took off on Thursday to do their rounds of the park and never got back until sometime Sunday evening. I usually was there Friday evening and headed out again on Saturday, but here it was already Saturday and I had to do another days hard riding. I made the regular area where I camped the night look like I had been there, and left them my note which was dated Saturday telling them I had been there and was going to my cabin. That was a regular thing to do because if they saw smoke in that direction they knew it was me and wouldn't panic. I spent the night there and left early the next morning. Boy, were those horses worn out by the time we got to the cabin the next day. Vern had dropped off my package that morning and everything looked copacetic. Bright and early the next morning I was out getting that box opened up. I grabbed the rifle and it was the first thing that went into that hole where I had dug out all those rocks and sand in the middle of the creek. The gun was followed by Hanks wrapped up body. I had a bit of trouble with that because those body bags kept trying to float off, so I had to tie it to a tree with some rope and then put some rocks in with Hank. At least that made him sink and I spent the better part of the day filling in that hole with those rocks and sand that I had so painstakingly removed just a short while ago. I was worn out by the time I finished so I spent all night feeding the fire by the creek where I burned the box, and the diving suit. The last chore by the creek I did was to gather up all the nails from the burnt box then gather the ashes from the fire and add them to my ash pit. That fire location was one thing I didn't want to leave a trace of. Then using pails of water from the creek I washed the whole area down so there were no ashes to make anyone curious as to why there was a fire in that location. That done I went on a hike in the creek so I wouldn't leave a trail to dispose of those nails from the crate. They went into the creek about five miles downstream under some more rocks. The next morning I got to work putting some of that stove together in the middle of the horse's pasture where Vern had dropped off the fake box. Also some of that stove was assembled in the cabin making it look like I was disassembling it in the pasture and assembling the pieces in the cabin. I then sat back and wondered how long it would take until someone wanted to question me. I knew they were going to want to question me because everyone in town knew of the hate Hank and I had for each other and I'm sure more than a few people knew about Hank taking Maggie from me and how mad I was. I was a natural suspect. It only took a week for the law to show up. I figured it would be a couple of weeks so them coming early was a bit of a surprise. Four of them arrived by helicopter and almost scared my horses half to death when it landed in my small pasture. That's when the questions started and they did a thorough search of the area. Like I said, they were sure I got rid of Hank and were looking for some evidence. In the end things went the way I hoped things would go and they couldn't find anything. They left but I was sure they were going to keep an eye on me. That was OK because I wasn't planning on doing anything out of the ordinary and I was sure Hank's body would never be found. Epilogue To make a long story short, Maggie was sure I got rid of Hank, and I'm sure most of the people in town thought the same thing. Old Charlie the cop kept coming around and asking questions, but after a year he gave up. Hank's disappearance was never solved and every time I go to the cabin I sure smile when I go fishing in the creek. So that's my little tale. I hope no one uses my imaginary story to think they can try something like this.