Chapter I, part 3

Thinking of his wife, Mike pulled out his phone and brought up her contact info. She's going to love this, he thought. She answered on the 3rd ring.

"Hey, babe." She sounded a bit harried.

"Hey. I got popped by SO outside Idaho Springs. 6 over..." Might as well get that out of the way.

"Why are you on 70? Oh, Mike.... how much?"

"$340. I'll find a way to make it up. And, there's a fatal or something north of the Springs. I just wanted to get home - that'll be the last trip to Jimmy's, probably ever."

"Yeah, I'm seeing its not working out anyways." Now, she was sounding exasperated.

"Look, I know you just got home. I'll be there in a few hours. Don't worry about it, OK?"

"How much cash do you have on you?"

This caught him by surprise. "I've got the money from Jimmy, and maybe another $200. Why?"

"The post office, remember? They dropped Friday....You can't afford to send in the fine - it probably won't get there in time." She paused. "We can't afford..."

"Yeah, I get it.", he cut her off. "I'll stop in Georgetown. I'll be home as quick as I can." Now, he wanted to chuck the phone out the window.

"I love you.", she said, expectantly, almost sympathetically.

Mike sighed. "I love you, too." He skipped the "bye", and hit the end tab.

Georgetown is going  to be fun, he thought. The town had no police, and hadn't for years. More recently, the Sheriff had tried to increase the fees for a county patrol unit to cruise through town a couple of times a day. The town was beyond broke, and just nixed the whole deal. The end result was a "citizen patrol", which amounted to a few unemployed, overly anxious locals self appointed to "uphold the law", or more accurately, stick their noses in places they didn't belong. Running into one was somewhere between a joke and life threatening encounter. Not being a local didn't help.

Of course, it didn't take long to get the attention he really wasn't in the mood for. No sooner than he exited the highway, turned toward "downtown" and passed the only gas station still in business, headlights flooded the side of his car. Black F-150, parked in the lot of the defunct state rest area. Here we go, he thought.
Mike stopped  at the fourway, then made the right onto Argentine. The pickup followed, closing the gap to his rear bumper to around 5 feet. "Its not like you can run me", Mike muttered to himself. The only contact these wannabes had with "real" cops was their personal phones, and it was a crapshoot as to if the county dispatch would even bother airing the call.

He tried to just ignore the pickup as it followed him to the county courthouse. There was no lot to speak of, only angled spots with meters off the street itself. Since it was almost 11 pm, the spaces were mostly open. The exceptions were two older vehicles, covered in dust, with wheel boots attached. Mike would have sworn the white pickup on the end was a county truck. The F-150 stopped directly behind him, effectively blocking him. As he got out of the car, he glanced over to the pickup and nodded his head, as if to acknowledge his presence. With that, he turned toward the court building itself in search of the after hours drop box. He made it maybe 5 feet before he heard the squeal of the PA.

"Whatcha doin', bud?" Yeah, this guy's a pro, Mike thought. He started to turn back toward the idling truck, then, deciding against confrontation, kept going toward the entrance.

Maybe 20 feet down the path, he heard the truck's door open noisily. He just kept walking.

He had figured on finding a drop box, with some instruction on how to leave a payment, but there was nothing aside from a narrow slot cut into the concrete adjacent to the entryway. It looked as thought he was going to be losing another day to come back up and pay in person. Too bad nobody took checks anymore....

The driver of the F-150 was leaning against his Honda when he got back. Mike looked at him, and said, "Excuse me".

The guy didn't budge. "I was taking to you a minute ago, bud."

"Yep"

The guy was overweight by 30 pounds, and had some of his dinner on his jacket. There was a large frame semi-auto in a camo thigh rig, with the leg buckle cinched down too tight. He was a few inches taller than Mike's 5'9", and was sporting a dark watchcap with an embroidered star on it. The fact that it was crooked on his head didn't help that professional image he was shooting for.

"So watcha doin' here? Court's closed" The local folded his arms over his paunch, as if to indicate that he wasn't going anywhere soon.

Mike just looked at him. "I was going to pay a fine. I've changed my mind, and I'll come back later." He enunciated each word, trying to keep his temper. "So, if you'll excuse me..."

"Who pays a fine at, what, midnight?" The local checked his watchless wrist, and looked back up at Mike.

"You're an hour off, and you're in my way. I'm leaving. Now." Mike stepped forward, closing the space between them to about a foot. He was trying a last ditch effort at avoiding an altercation, hoping the local would back off. He kept his stance loose and stared at the guy, who just stared back.

"You must not be from around here, bud."  Nothing got by this guy.

"Nope", Mike said, not breaking eye contact. "I'm aware that you are trying to protect your town. I'm not here to do anything but pay a fine from the last shakedown, which was just down the road, just a little while ago." Again with the enunciation. "Are we done here?"

"Just drive straight back to the interstate." With that, the local backed up to his truck, and got in. He made a point of leaning out window and glaring as Mike got back in his car. Mike got an escort back out of town, with the beat F-150 right on his back bumper until he turned up the ramp for 70 westbound.

After passing Silver Plume, Mike breathed a sigh of relief. He had spent much of his adult life avoiding situations like back in Georgetown, after spending his youth looking for them. He had always kept to himself, even back in high school, but he'd learned the hard way that one couldn't always resort to violence to resolve their issues. When his high school assistant principal had grabbed him by the arm, and ended up on the floor with two broken ribs for his efforts, Mike had ended up in juvenile detention for 6 months. That hadn't really helped control his temper, as he figured out how not to get taken advantage of in lockup. Several of the fights in there had ended up on his adult record, thanks to a fling with the county prosecutors' daughter when he was 16. They had actually sent him to the county jail, but he had talked his way out of anything long term with the judge. He completed his probation, barely, thanks to a less than stellar relationship with the town cops, and then left the next day. Now, at 39, he was still plagued by his misadventures in his youth. He never went back to his hometown in Texas, either.

Mike had bounced around the western US for the better part of 2 decades since leaving Texas just before his 19th birthday, rarely staying anywhere longer than a year. Most of his employment came from construction, which meant he went where the work took him. He had attempted settling down in northern Idaho back in '05, even getting married and buying a small house. It didn't work out - she had bigger plans, and he had hated his job at the time. They split, and he kept the house, unoccupied, until dumping it just before the housing crash of '08. Unfortunately, selling that house was the one standout decision he could look back on with any amount of pride in all those years. He'd made a little, just enough to pay his taxes, and took a job in Gunnison, Co. The project he had moved there for had run out of money within 4 months, with the bond holder fencing down the site overnight. A mechanics position an hour away was the best he could come up with for the short term, and he moved east, with his few possessions in his pickup towing his 22 foot travel trailer, better known as "Home", with him. He had never intended to stay. If it wasn't for meeting Darcy, God only knows where he'd be now.