Poverty Hill
Copyright© 2026 by Asa Strong
Chapter 11
Lisa showed up at my place early. It must a been about eight in the morning. I was just finishin’ up with the horses and she found me in the barn.
“Hi. You going to be ready soon?”
I looked up to see her standin’ in the doorway. She had a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt on with a down vest over the shirt. I seen she’d found a good pair of boots too. Damn if she didn’t look good in them jeans. It looked like that shirt was filled out purty good too.
I got my mind out of the gutter and answered.
“Ayup, soon as I get this hay out to the pasture for the horses, we can get a goin’.”
She nodded her head and then asked, “Are we going to take the horses?”
“Nope, I figured we’d leave ‘em here. I just figure on takin’ a good look around where I found that dead guy.”
I grabbed a bale of hay from the stack by the back door and carried it out to the pasture, with Lisa foller’n behind. I cut the twine off the bail and spread the hay on the ground. By the time I’d finished, Dumb Ass and Li’l Lady were already samplin’ the goods.
Walkin’ back to my house, Lisa asked, “Amos, did you always have horses?”
I laughed, “Nope, kind’a hard to carry ‘em with yah in the Army. We always had a few when I was a kid though. When I got out of the Army, I bought Dumb Ass, then the other two.”
We talked a bit about horses as we walked back to the house. It were clear, Lisa didn’t know much ‘bout ‘em, but was interested.
I’d started carrin’ my pistol with me but wanted to grab my rifle. After I’d grabbed the rifle and returned to the livin’ room, I noticed that Lisa only had her service pistol with her.
This weren’t gonna cut it.
“Lisa, what caliber is you gun?”
“It’s a nine millimeter Smith and Wesson 908S. That’s what the county gives us.”
“You bring a rifle with yah?”
She shook her head. “No, the county doesn’t issue them unless your have a specific need for one.”
Well, that had to change; a pistol out here was useless less you got up close and personal.
“Holt on a minute,” I said, headin’ back to my bedroom.
My dad had always used an old Winchester 30-30, lever action rifle for deer hunting. I grabbed it out of the closet, along with a couple box of shells.
“Here, tote this along with yah,” I said, entering the living room.
Now my dad was somewhat of a purist when it came to huntin’ deer. The Winchester was a bit beat up, but had been well taken care of. It also didn’t have a scope on it. He sure kilt a lot of deer with them iron sights though. I opened the action and handed the rifle to Lisa.
Lisa took the rifle and looked it over, then said, “Amos, I’ve never fired one of these things.”
I nodded my head, “well, we’ll just have to give you some practice while we’re out.”
I filled up a plastic sack with some dried nuts, berries and dried venison, and we gathered our gear and headed out for my truck. Yah just never know what’s gonna happen in the backcountry. It’s best to be prepared.
The trip was uneventful. There was some snow on the back roads but it weren’t more’n four or five inches. I didn’t see any tire marks on the road, so more’n likely there wouldn’t be a reception party waitin’ for us.
When we were close to where I’d found the dead guy, I kept a close eye on the far side of the road and had no trouble tellin’ where the CBI folks had pulled the Chevy out of the woods. I parked my truck and Lisa and I grabbed our rifles and walked down the trail ‘til we reached the spot where the Chevy had been. There were still yellow crime scene tapes scattered around the site.
I didn’t expect to find much here, there’d been too many people walkin’ around. I did spend a good half-hour makin’ sure they hadn’t missed anythin’. I came up with nothin’.
On the walk back towards my truck, I remembered the spot where it looked like someone had made a trail into the woods. It might have been an elk out foragin’, or it could have been a person. I’d never checked it out.
I almost missed it as we walked back, but spied a few broken branches. The trail was hard to foll’er; the snow and wind had pretty well taken care of most of the sign.
After a few false leads, I finally managed to pick out the trail and foll’ered it ‘til it ended up against the mountain.
“Now this is strange,” I thought to myself, there’s nothin’ here for an elk or deer to forage on.”
Lisa was the one who spotted the rock pile first. Course, it looked like a small hill, maybe two foot high when covered with snow.
After we moved the snow off the top, we could see that someone had piled rocks up.
“Now why the hell would someone make a pile of rocks in the middle of the woods?” I said out loud, more to myself than Lisa.
She answered, “I don’t know, unless they covered something up with them.”
Sure enough, when we removed the rocks there was a green plastic bag, buried underneath the pile. I opened it up and removed four-square blocks of white powder, wrapped in clear plastic. All together, they might a weighed fifteen or twenty pounds.
Lisa looked at me and said, “Is that what I think it is?”
I’d seen enough of this shit in South America.
“Yea, I suspect so. More’n likely it’s cocaine.”
“What do we do now?” She asked.
I put the four white packages back in the plastic bag and then said, “I guess we take it with us into Steamboat.”
I threw the bag over my shoulder and we walked back to my truck. When we reached the truck, I could tell from lookin’ at the road coming down the other side of the valley that no one but Lisa and I were here.
I put the plastic bag in the back of my truck and then turned to Lisa.
“OK, now it’s time to see if’n you can shoot that rifle.”
Lisa looked shocked.
“Amos, we got a shitload of cocaine and you want to give me shooting lessons?”
“Might as well, ain’t no one here but us. Besides, might not get a chance later.”
We jawed a few minutes. Finally, I got it though her head that we were alone, and might as well get her familiar with shootin’ the rifle.
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