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Tiffany Langenderfer-McMahon was the only child in Linda Clark's class with a hyphenated name, and it bothered Mrs. Clark more than it should have. As well as anyone in Spearfish Lake could, she understood the reason for it, but never the less, it bothered her.

First, it was a long name, and that caused any number of troubles any time there was a standardized form to fill out. There were plenty of those, since fourth grade was a time of testing. There were five different standardized tests that the children would have to take for various statistical purposes over the course of the year, in addition to three or four that they had to take every year. Every test had a computerized form, and each one of the forms had a block that allowed only sixteen letters for the last name. "Langenderfer-McMahon" counted up to twenty letters, counting the hyphen, which the computers ignored. If you tried to squeeze the extra letters into the form, then the results came back with "LANGENDERFERMCMA" printed out in dot matrix.

On the other hand, she you tried to send the test through as "MCMAHON, TIFFANY L", she'd catch it from Tiffany's mom, who she'd known since kindergarten.

That situation would only get worse, as the school was going to computerized grading the next year. Thank goodness some fifth grade teacher was going to have to be the one to have to come to grips with the school computer.

Linda had brought the subject up to her husband, Ryan, once, since he knew more about computers than she did. He hadn't been any help. "It could be worse," he'd said. "Imagine if she got married to someone else with a hyphenated name? I mean, how'd you like to have to deal with, oh, Langenderfer-McMahon-Caserowski-Clark?"

For that matter, if you were going to put the kid into alphabetical order for some reason or another, like in a grade book, where did you put her? Under "L", or "M", or maybe "Mc?" If you chose the last, did the "Mc" go ahead of or after the "M"s?

She'd had Tiffany in the classroom for seven months now, and still hadn't come to a working conclusion, but usually put her in with the "L"s, since the child insisted on the use of the full name. She, at least, didn't have to worry about it; that wasn't an issue that bothered her as a nine-year old.

Snakes apparently didn't bother her, either, although there were plenty of girls in the class and some boys that let go with a totally predictable, "Oooooh, yuuuuukkk! when Tiffany pulled the peanut butter jar containing the dead snake from her paper bag. "My Mommy found this snake crawling out of the bathtub drain this morning," she reported.

Trying to be businesslike, Mrs. Clark asked, "Tiffany, do you know what kind of snake it is?"

"I don't know," Tiffany said seriously. "I tried to look it up in the library, and it looks like a picture of a water moccasin, but the book says there aren't any water moccasins around here. Could you try and find out for me?"

Even though she had a biology minor, Linda Clark wasn't a whole lot more thrilled about snakes than Kirsten Langenderfer, although she had three reasons to be somewhat cooler: The snake was (1) dead; (2) in a closed peanut butter jar, and (3) hadn't surprised her by crawling out of the bathtub drain.

"Leave the snake and the sack here," she said. "I'll take it over to Mr. Pacobel, over at the high school, and see if he knows."

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Chapter 3 Videos

Busted Axle RoadChapter 93

November, 1987 A couple of weeks after the Halloween Party the annual miracle occurred, creeping in silently in the early hours of a Saturday morning, transforming the barren ugliness of the late fall litter, the dead weeds and barren trees, into a sparkling wonderland of white, pristine and clean even in the gray light of a November sky. The miracle couldn't last; early November snow rarely does, even in the northwoods country of Spearfish Lake. There would be snow enough in the next few...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 94

In an instant, twenty dog legs were transformed into an instrument of pure rocket power, blasting off up the slight hill. "HAW! HAW! Mike ordered, and Ringo took the team in a broad turn around the house, and out into the driveway. Mike was so excited at the sensation of running on the snow that he forgot to give Ringo the command for the Gee turn onto the road, but for more than a month, every training session had started with a turn up the road to Mark's house, so Ringo made the turn...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 96

George Lindquist was just getting ready to leave the Spearfish Lake Cafe when Mark and Mike came in, and he didn't need explanation of what had happened; he could tell from the big grins on their faces. "Been out mushing?" he smiled as he paid his tab. "Yeah," Mike admitted. "A little. Nice morning for it." Though it may have been near lunchtime, Mark and Mike both ordered big breakfasts. "Too bad I wasn't there to see Tiffany run your team," Mark said. "I'd have liked to have...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 105

It was midafternoon in Spearfish Lake when Jennifer and Blake were opening their Christmas presents in California. Mike was sitting in the office, almost alone in the building. Nothing was going on, and most of the staff was out doing their last minute pre-Christmas things, whatever they were. The weeks just past had been hectic ones, and they always were for pulling the Christmas issue together, but now that the issue was out, there wasn't much to do. The next week's paper, right after...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 115

About the only thing that Tiffany Langenderfer-McMahon didn't like about living in the country was the long bus ride to school. She and Henry were about the first children to be picked up in the morning, and that meant a long bus ride to school. For whatever reason, the bus driver ran the route backwards in the afternoon, so they were about the last ones off, too. That meant for a lot of riding the bus, almost two hours a day. Some days, if her father's schedule worked out, he'd take the...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 28

Negative results. Pam had worked hard every day since she'd brought her stuff back from the dorm in Athens, and even after ten days, it was getting dull, not finding much of anything. At least it was good exercise, she thought. And, she got to sleep in a little. After getting up and getting around, she got out into the swamps about nine or ten, when the sun was getting up a little, and the snakes were getting out. It wasn't as if she saw a lot of snakes, maybe three or four an hour on the...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 87

If there was one purely social event in Spearfish Lake that got talked about, planned for, rumored over, recriminated as a result of, or preached against, it was the annual Halloween Party at the West Turtle Lake Club. In other words, it was usually far and away the most memorable social event of the year. Like many things that get a reputation all their own, it started innocently enough, when Gil and Carrie Evachevski decided to have a few friends over for a little party the weekend before...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 2

When old man Sanderson died a few years earlier, and George Webb wound up owning the Spearfish Lake Record- Herald, Mike McMahon had become the news editor, and allowed himself to dream that he'd finally be able to quit grubbing around with the newspaper circulation on Wednesdays. Webb had long believed that newspaper front office people -- advertising and editorial and front office people -- needed to keep a sense of perspective by doing some of the dirty work. Since the paper was a...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 4

Another tough thing about being pregnant was that you had to pee every thirty seconds, Kirsten thought, sitting behind her desk at the Record-Herald. She bit her lip and tried to hold on as long as she could. She had managed to settle down a little from the shock of the snake crawling out of the drain, mostly because she had to deal with getting Tiffany and Henry off to school, whether she was up to it or not. And, she really hadn't been up to it. With an embarrassment that had been...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 5

By lunch hour, Mrs. Clark had suffered about all she wanted to of the fourth grade for one morning. She needed the break. The break that the elementary teachers got wasn't as good as the ones the teachers got over in the high school; there, they got a full hour of break time each day -- well, a fifty-minute hour, and that was close enough, and they got lunch hour, too. The elementary teachers only got the thirty minute lunch hour, and sometimes it wasn't enough to recover and get ready to...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 6

"It shouldn't have been that easy," Mike thought. "Something's wrong. What is it?" With Carrie gone to the Woman's Club deal, and with Webb at Rotary, they were going to be shorthanded in the back room, so Mike left Sally back at the shop once they'd finished with the Spearfish Lake and Albany River drops, offering to make the country run solo. At least no inserts this week, he thought. Even though they brought in part-timers to help with the inserting when needed, inserting on top...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 7

Linda Clark managed to get through two cigarettes in the high school teacher's lounge before looked at her watch, and realized she had to head back over to the elementary school. With those, she could hold out till two thirty, and she wasn't thinking about the snake, which she left on the table with Pacobel. The coach didn't realize it was sitting there for a while; he immediately went back to figuring out who to pitch in the season opener. Finally, he decided to go ahead and pitch the...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 8

It was getting to be along in the afternoon before Mike got the van back to Spearfish Lake. It was time for the kids to be home from school, so Mike thought he'd better swing by and check on them. Nine was perhaps a little on the young side for Tiffany to be home alone with Henry, but so far it had worked out all right. Still, if Mike or Kirsten were out in the late afternoon, they tried to swing by the house just to check on the kids. The situation was essentially normal when he walked...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 9

Pacobel left the snake sitting in the jar of formaldehyde after class, while he went to coach the softball practice. The season opener was only a couple of days off, and his mind was on that. The practice went pretty well. This was going to be a good team, even if it wasn't going to set the world on fire. There were several solid hitters there, and the pitching was adequate, if not spectacular. The one real problem was that there just was not a lot of speed on the team, so fielding and...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 10

"'Bye, kiddo," Mike said to Kirsten early Thursday morning. "See you at the office." "Before you go, would you check the bathroom for me again? I have to go." It was a miracle that Kirsten was using the bathroom at home at all, Mike thought. On their way back from Northwoods Realty the evening before, Kirsten had them stop at the office so she could use the bathroom there, rather than at home. "No problem," Mike said, and hustled up the stairs. He was back in a moment. "No...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 11

Mike figured that sooner or later, things were bound to thaw enough for the Henry Toivo Search Expedition to come off, even though each year that passed probably made any traces of Henry that much fainter. If, by some improbable chance they were to settle what had happened to the young Amboy Township PFC back in '70, then maybe the ghost of Henry Toivo could be gone from his life. It was a lot to hope for. The Toivo expedition had been "locked and cocked" for more than five years now,...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 12

Mark Gravengood got home early Tuesday evening. The lights were still on out in the shop, so it was pretty clear that Jackie was out there, working on a sign. It proved to be the case. The computerized vinyl cutter was singing as he walked in the door. "What's the situation on supper?" he asked. "At least an hour," his tall, brunette wife said. "Unless you want to make it yourself. Clark Plywood has been dinking around on this sign for their show booth for two months, and now they...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 13

Mike and Kirsten had gone right in to see Frank Matson the first thing Friday morning. They hadn't expected any problem; Frank had stuck his neck out a little ten years before, when they bought their house, and had never missed a payment. Frank was a friend, anyway, and his main comment had been, "About time you got a decent house." Still, he'd had to run it past the loan board, which didn't meet till Tuesday, so the two had decided not to break the news to the kids until they'd gotten...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 14

"I don't want that dog in the house," Jackie said. "The cats have never had a chance to get used to dogs." "Hadn't planned on it," Mark said. "We could use a good outside watchdog, though. It can't hurt to feed him for a few days, and see if he hangs around." "Well, I don't know," Jackie said. Mark hadn't broached the idea of a dog team to Jackie yet -- it wasn't really firm in his own mind. However, it would only take a little cheap dog food to see if the dog would hang...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 15

May, 1987 John Pacobel would rather have left for Athens on Friday night, but they'd had to play a rare evening double-header at Lynchburg to make up for a rainout of the home opener. Fortunately, the field was lit and it was light until late, anyway, but it made for an awful late evening to get back to Spearfish Lake. His appointment with Pam was for eleven, but that meant that he had to get up very early and drive hard to make it, but the alternative was driving all night and having to...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 16

Mike knew that Kirsten was going to be of a limited and lessening amount of help with the move as the date of the move drew closer. That was a problem, with having to move so close to her due date, but getting her to agree to move at all make it worth the extra effort. Now, she couldn't move quickly enough. As expected, Mike was still having to check the bathroom every time before Kirsten used it, but there still had been no sign of another snake. At least she didn't feel quite so uptight...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 17

"I don't know about this Spearfish Lake of yours," Gerjevic said. "Would there be a lot of favorable habitat for this snake outside of the sewer system?" "It's pretty swampy, especially south of town, and off to the north a ways," Pam said. "I haven't exactly spent a lot of time out in the swamps looking for water snakes, but I've never seen one that's marked much like this one. I think if I had, I'd have picked up on it." "John?" "Me, either. It'd be a good habitat for...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 19

Even though the days had been nice, the water in the swamp was still pretty cold, and Pam Appleton could only stand to slog around in it for so long before it started to get to her. She'd been back home for almost ten days, now; she'd only been marking time in Athens, hoping something would turn up to keep her going over the summer. There'd been a project down in Texas she'd been hoping to get funding for, but it just hadn't come through, and it had begun to look like her summer project...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 20

What with one thing and another, it was another week before Mark could get out with Cumulus for some serious training, even though he'd begun sooner. He'd begun with trying to teach Cumulus the difference between "Gee" and "Haw" -- right and left, respectively, in animal driving, although Mark had to call down to a guy near Albany River who had a draft horse team to confirm it for himself. Mostly, the training at this point came when Mark and Cumulus went for their runs; Mark would...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 21

The city of Spearfish Lake sits at the root of the north side of a point jutting out into the lake itself. The north side of the point is relatively high and sandy, with a broad, sandy ridge perhaps twelve or fifteen feet high not far back from the lakeshore. Point Drive runs out along this ridge to the tip of the point, then a little ways back on the south side of the point before it turns to a two-rut, then peters out. Close to town, Point Drive is lined with large beachfront houses, some a...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 22

Half a continent away from Athens and Spearfish Lake, Harris Harper looked out of the office window of the Los Angeles high rise at the brown LA smog. Pretty bad, he thought. He remembered when it had been worse, but it still had been pretty bad. When the smog was gone, it was a pretty nice view, but not today. He shook his head; there was work to be done. He went back to going through the mail. It had been pretty carefully screened before the mail got to him, of course. The Washington...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 23

About thirty miles from the Defenders of Gaea office, but not far at all from Harris' home, Jenny Easton lay nude on a massage table, while Blake kneaded her back. Blake's big hands on her back made her feel wonderfully relaxed, perhaps the best she'd felt in a couple of days. In addition to being her masseur, bodyguard, driver and housekeeper, he was her friend, perhaps the only real friend she had in southern California, but not her lover. It was a matter of a little pride for Blake...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 25

Due to the time difference, at about the time that the crew moving Mike and Kirsten sat down to lunch in Spearfish Lake Jenny Easton was on Santa Catalina island, shooting the spot for Defenders of Gaea. McMullen and the film crew had taken the ferry across the night before, planning on getting a little partying in before the early-morning shoot. That didn't interest Jenny, so she and Blake had chartered a single-engine airplane at an airport not too far up the coast, and flew across to the...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 26

June, 1987 After a three day weekend, the new house was starting to show signs of getting into shape for Mike and Kirsten, although there were still dozens of boxes that were strewn around the room, stacked in the front hall, awaiting unpacking. Mike had already had a big bonfire of used boxes, just to clear out some walking area, and they were beginning to see that there was a new home under all the clutter. The bad part of having a three day weekend to move was that they were bone-tired...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 27

"So how did the shoot go Saturday?" Harper asked as McMullen sat down on the couch by the window. "Slicker than swamp scum," the president of the Defenders of Gaea replied. "We could have gone with the first take, it was so quick. I've looked at the tape, and it's just beautiful. We're going to make a mint on that. Not only is that gal so beautiful that it takes your breath away, but she's a real pro. There's a temper under that pretty skin of hers, though." "How's that?"...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 29

One day, twenty years before, when Heather Sanford was nine, her mother turned to her father and said, "What are we going to do about Heather sucking her thumb?" Most children give up sucking their thumb at age two or so, but Heather had never quite broken herself of it. It was a matter that caused her mother a lot of concern, but didn't quite bother her father as much, although he agreed with his wife that it wasn't a good habit. However, since this was possibly the thousandth time that...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 30

"Hey, Mike," George Lindquist said down at the Spearfish Lake Cafe the next morning. "You still interested in those guys that used to run dog sleds around here?" "Yeah," Mike said. "You hear of one?" "I found one," George explained. "It took some asking around. You still want a story on him?" "Who is it?" Mark asked. "Old guy over in Warsaw," George explained. "Must be close to 80. Worked in the mill, but he ran a trap line on the side for maybe twenty years, all with a...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 31

One of the things that went without saying was that Heather Sanford, like all the other members and staffers of the Defenders of Gaea, was unaware of the innermost financial workings of the group. Those were left to McMullen and Harper, and the latter managed to fuzz and launder money so well that even a good auditing firm that regularly went over the books couldn't find the stashes where money had been hidden. In the years that Heather had been a staffer for the Defenders, McMullen hadn't...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 32

For weeks, when work hadn't called in the evenings, Mike had faced an endless sea of boxes: packing boxes, moving boxes, unpacking boxes, finding more empty boxes, finding boxes that had been filled and misplaced. It was getting to the point where the only joy he found with boxes was the bonfires he made of the ones that he was done with. With any kind of luck, he and Kirsten would never have to move again, and maybe boxes could quit ruling his life. Even now, there were boxes waiting for...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 33

Danny Evachevski and Josh Archer had been pals for years. Though a year younger and a grade behind Danny, they shared many interests and desires normal for teenage boys, and certainly, some of those involved the opposite gender -- especially those of the opposite gender, wearing as little as possible, preferable out at Turtle Hill, the local spot where the kids all went to get close. So far, it had been mostly academic for Josh, but this year, he had his driver's license and that might make...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 34

With the sun setting late, it was hard to get Tiffany and Henry to bed on something approaching the right time, but they had to be gotten up early so Kirsten could run them out to the day care at the club and still make it to work on time. The next day was a Saturday, but there was no point in letting them get too far off schedule, but it took some doing to get them put down for the night that was still some time to come. It was still light, though the sun was dipping toward the horizon, and...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 35

McMullen wished that Harper could be with him; after all, he was only about half a mile from Harper's house, but it was halfway across L.A. from his own home to the restaurant where Jenny Easton had agreed to meet him. He had been surprised at the speed with which he'd gotten a response; the letter was mailed on a Thursday, and Friday afternoon, he'd gotten a call from someone named Blake Walworth, setting up the meeting. That was damn fast work for the postal service, any way you cut it,...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 36

"It could have been worse," Mike commented in the cab of Mark's truck on Saturday, as they rode towards town. "Yeah," Mark agreed. "I think Jackie was expecting it, anyway. But, I'm glad we caught them all nice and mellow in the hot tub. How much did that thing set you back, anyway?" "Couple of grand," Mike said. "But, we wrote it right into the mortgage. It was worth it, though. Once Kirsten realized we could have it, she didn't have second thoughts about moving out from town....

Busted Axle RoadChapter 37

"I'll tell you, Harris, it isn't often that you get a check for twenty-five big ones and then get stuck for coffee," McMullen told Harper not too long after he said goodbye to the singer. Harper's home wasn't far away, and he wanted to share the news. "It's a pity that it's Saturday," Harper said. "We can't get that check to the bank before Monday, and we're going to lose some interest." "Really, it's kind of a consolation prize," McMullen conceded. "If I'd been able to...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 38

"So how many dogs did you come back with?" Jackie asked, looking up from the sign she was working on. She usually tried not to work on Saturdays, but orders were orders, and the customer was antsy about this one. "Just Cumulus, again," Mark reported. "But, something will turn up, sooner or later. Mike and I are going to get started on the sled." Jackie shook her head. "I know you two were all aglow with the idea last night, but I'd sort of hoped you'd sobered up by this...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 39

Josh Archer went home Friday night with the vision of Amy Ashtenfelter almost blinding him. He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, trying to keep alive the vision that had crossed his eyes, and when he went to sleep, he dreamed of Amy -- Amy playing volleyball out at her parent's cottage, in her natural state, naturally, going high for a spike, running back, bouncing and jumping, until he awoke in a cold sweat. How could Danny Evachevski not be affected by that? As far as Josh knew, Danny...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 40

The two new sleds, sitting side by side in Mark's shop, were starting to take shape by the middle of the week. There was going to be a lot of work to do, but it was going fast. While Mike may not have been much of a help with a hammer, there wasn't a lot of hammer work to be done, and his fingers, nimble from years of pounding on a keyboard, proved to be nimble at threading, lashing and tying the wet rawhide. Both of them knew that when the rawhide dried out, it would shrink, making for...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 41

Even before Jennifer Evachevski turned sixteen, years before, she'd started bugging her father about getting a car. It would be unfair to say that Gil was immune to Jenny's charms, well-developed even at that age, but as befits a green beret master sergeant, he could be hard-nosed when he wanted to be. After Jennifer turned sixteen, he'd called all the kids from Jennifer down to Danny together, and told them, "I want you kids to all get it out of your heads that your mother and I are...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 42

Sarah Archer could put up with Danny Evachevski, but wondered at the wisdom of that. She did wonder at times about what influence Danny had on Josh; it couldn't be good, but, he seemed to be a pretty good kid on the surface. There were a lot worse kids that Josh could hang out with. But there were limits. She wasn't sure that he liked the idea of Josh going out with Danny and a couple of girls from out there. That could lead to no end of problems. Over the years, she had rejected any...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 43

Unlike Mike and Kirsten, who weren't churchgoers, Mark and Jackie usually went to church on Sunday mornings, although they didn't let going to church get in the way of a nice day for flying or some other good reason, and with this Sunday morning beautiful and things to be done, it was considered a good reason. They were sitting at the kitchen table, nursing cups of coffee, and trying to guess whether the day would get good enough to get the 1-26 out when there came a knocking at the back...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 44

One of the nice things about not having anything to do for the summer was that Josh got to sleep in in the mornings. He was sawing logs pretty good, not thinking about the chance to sleep in, but taking advantage of it the following Monday morning. His dreams, predictably, were of Amy -- not even a naked Amy, playing volleyball, the vision at the Frosty Freeze, or even the meaty-tasting kiss they'd shared late Saturday night, but of Amy, bent over Mr. Sloat, trying to breathe life into his...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 45

Josh had gotten over his dream about Amy and himself giving Mr. Sloat CPR, and now his dreams were more involved with the vision of Amy at the beach -- Marsha, too, to a little degree, but mostly Amy, in that tiny string bikini. Needless to say, they were pleasant dreams, and it was hard to surrender to the reality of his father's voice: "Hey, sack rat! Get up, you got to go to work!" Unwilling to lose the vision of Amy in her bikini, Josh protested. "Mr. Evachevski said he wasn't going...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 46

July, 1987 "Look, I can still go to Chicago, or even to Camden with you, if you want," Blake told Jenny as he drove the rental car out into the Vegas traffic, which was heavy, even though it was after midnight. "I don't mind." It was Monday night, and Jenny's last show of the gig was over with. They'd been jam-packed, extra admission shows for the Fourth of July weekend, and they'd really gone well. She was exhausted from the show, glad it was over with, but glad she'd put on a...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 47

The redeye out of Vegas wasn't crowded at all; Jennifer had a three-seat window block all to herself. Predictably, she took a window seat; she liked to look out at the lights spread out below. Crossing most of the country on the flight to O'Hare, they tended to be scattered, and sometimes there was a nearly total blankness below them. She was on the plane's manifest as Jennifer Evachevski, and she only had to use the "Oh, Wow! Do you REALLY think I look like Jenny Easton?" gag once, in a...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 48

"You did an excellent job in Hawaii," McMullen said. "They've really got some problems there, don't they?" "We could concentrate our efforts there for the next ten years, and not make a dent," Heather said. "All those Japanese buying in with big bucks, and not a one of them cares. The Japanese still have whalers out, for pete's sakes. I took a day off and went through the museum at Pearl Harbor, and I found myself wondering how we could get our hands on a torpedo." "There's an...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 49

As Jennifer had expected, it was a lot of fun to walk into the Record-Herald office the next morning with her hair done up, wearing a pair of cutoff bluejeans and a T-shirt advertizing a rock concert ten years past. As expected, the mailroom crew was all smiles, and there was a lot of reminiscing and gossiping that went on all through the early hours, while the staff waited for Mike's return from Camden. Only Kirsten seemed out of sorts; and that wasn't surprising, as heavily pregnant as...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 50

Eight years, Heather thought as she warmed water for instant coffee in her grubby little apartment. Eight years, and what have I got to show for it? A few crummy sticks of furniture that's not worth hauling out for the garbage. Let the super do it, after she left. It wasn't going to take her any five or six days to pack up and close the apartment, she realized; she could do it today, if she wanted to. She'd done some good in that time, but it seemed like the good that she'd done didn't...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 51

Mike was still all smiles when he walked into the office Thursday morning. He was late; after he'd taken the kids out to the club for the day, he'd come back and spent some time at the hospital with Kirsten and Susan. It looked like Kirsten would be there another day, but Thursday and Friday weren't exactly real busy around the Record-Herald, anyway. It took Mike a while to work his way around the staff. It was, after all, his third kid and almost certainly his last, but there was still...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 53

Don Kutzley kept a scanner going in his office, not because he was any particular fan of the Spearfish Lake Police, but as city manager, he needed a way of keeping a finger on what the police department was up to. He heard the call, "Base, Six-Two out on a traffic stop," but it didn't have any particular significance; he never gave it a second thought. His attention was more on the mail, anyway. There was always a wad of mail, some days worse than others, and a fair amount of it came with...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 54

"Maybe we ought try and go back to the motel," Sherwin suggested, pulling in his thumb and turning around as the car flew past. He was bleeding from the elbow and knee, and his whole body ached. His skin felt like it was on fire. "No way, baby," Lenny said. He'd lost his glasses somewhere back in the swamp, and was even worse off than Sherwin. He was past swatting at mosquitoes; it didn't help any more. "You heard what those two said. If they caught us again..." "It was a...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 55

Jennifer lay on a chaise lounge in the quiet back yard of her parent's cottage. The sun was waning a little as the afternoon wore down, but it hadn't warmed up the cold feeling in her gut much. Jennifer had remembered seeing Jackie around town in the past, but somehow, she'd never quite remembered meeting her. Still, there had been a sparkle in her eye when she'd walked into the sign shop, and she'd known she'd found a friend. They'd flown south slowly, as Jackie related a little of...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 56

It didn't happen very often, but every now and then, Mike knew that when he sat down at the computer to write, it was going to ignite a fire storm, and he'd never had the feeling more strongly than he had at this time. The Spearfish Lake City Council met every second and fourth Tuesday of the month. For twelve years, now, every other week Mark had come back to the Record-Herald after the meeting, to do the council story and with it put the finishing touches on the paper. There were some...

Busted Axle RoadChapter 57

"Marjorie, I'm out of here," Don Kutzley told his secretary. "Don, you must have at least a dozen phone calls to return," she protested. "Right," Kutzley said. "I could just about follow the Record-Herald truck around town from where I was getting phone calls. They'll keep. I'm going to go over and see how they're coming with the sewer inspection. That'll get me out of here for a while, anyway." He was gone before Marjorie could protest. It wasn't as if he hadn't expected...

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