Page 60 of Final Ride

We ran back with the dogs and stood next to the bench and listened to the bikers trying to get something started with Travis.

They were young—all in their twenties—and they probably saw Travis sitting alone and figured him for an easy mark.

“Yep,” said Travis. “Y’all walk away while y’all can.”

The three of them laughed. “You trying to scare us? It ain’t working.”

“Nope. Just sayin’ I don’t want to hurt y’all for no reason.”

“What if we gave you a reason, cowboy?”

“Be stupid on your part.”

“Don’t see it that way,” said the tallest one. He seemed to be the leader of the three.

“You go ahead and see it anyway you want,” said Travis. “The result will be the same.”

Tall guy pulled his knife, and Travis gave a hand signal to Max. More of a flick of a finger.

A loud growl and one leap, Max had that biker pinned on his back with jaws of steel clamped around his throat.

“Trained dogs. We get it,” said one of the other guys. “Get your dog off Bruno.”

Travis whistled and Max released Bruno and let him up. “Get away from me and my boys and let us be.”

Without any more pissing around, they got on their Harleys and rode off.

Travis gave Max a hug. “Good boy.”

Watertown Trauma Unit. New York State.

Tammy opened her eyes and stared up at one of the ICU nurses. As soon as her eyes were open, she set off a whole chain reaction of activity.

The nurse ran to get the head nurse, who called Tammy’s doctor, who came running and then called in a specialist.

They all hung around Tammy’s bed in a group while the doctors made lists of tests they needed to run.

From the nurses’ station, the head nurse called Detective Carmichael to give him the good news.

“You won’t be able to speak with her until the doctors are finished running their tests. It might be two days or so. Would you like me to give you a call back when you can see her?”

“Yes, thanks for the call.” Carmichael wasn’t happy, but he called Tammy’s father to let him know his daughter was out of the coma.

“This is Travis Frost. Help you?”

“Detective Carmichael from Watertown PD. I just received a call from the trauma unit in Watertown and they tell me your daughter is awake. She came out of the coma.”

“Thanks for the call, Detective. I’m in transit and I can’t get to New York State for a few days, but I’ll keep in touch with the hospital. Appreciate the information.”

Super Eight Hotel. Buffalo. Wyoming.

We stopped driving at dark and pulled into the Super Eight in Buffalo—a place in north Wyoming. Took us all day to get out of Montana. The horses would be tired and cramped up and they needed to be exercised and fed before we got fed or slept.

That made Virge work harder and faster. While the two of us took care of the horses, Travis walked the dogs and got us a room.

We grabbed our luggage, cleaned up in our room and walked down the service road to the bar and grill next door to the hotel.

Cowboy Jack’s Grille. Buffalo. Wyoming.

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