Alone Again

Alone Again
 by Klick

Alone Again
 by Klick

Part 1

	Richard Keller stepped out of the cabin door and breathed in a lung full 
of crisp morning air. He looked down from the deck and out into the thick 
woods as he heard the sound of Zeke, his golden retriever, rustling around in 
the underbrush. "Zeke." he shouted at the dog, "Want some breakfast?" At 
the sound of his voice, Ned, a five year old, quarter horse stuck his head out 
from the door of his barn stall and snorted his morning greeting to the human 
that was his provider. "Good mornin' Ned, there's a little nip in the air this 
mornin', fall's not far off. Pretty soon we'll be butt deep in snow." The horse 
nodded his head up and down in pure horse fashion at the man's words and 
whinnied an agreement. "Guess you'll be wantin' some breakfast too?" The 
horse snorted again as the dog came up a narrow footpath towards the cabin 
and the man that was his best, actually his only friend if you didn't count the 
horse. "Ok you two, we'll have a bite to eat then there's work to do, we've got 
to go out and gather some game for dinner or you guys will be the only ones 
eatin’ tonight."
 Keller, technically, Dr. Richard Keller went to scoop some oats into 
the horse's feed bucket before going back into the five room cabin that 
occupied the center of a clearing in the trees of a hillside in southwest Idaho. 
He put a food bowl down and a cup of Purina Dog Chow in it for the 
retriever, then started preparing himself a breakfast of eggs, toast and coffee. 
With his morning meal ready, Keller carried it out to the deck and took a seat 
at a handmade table to eat and listen to the nature sounds surrounding his 
mountain retreat that had been his home for the last three years.
	Not a hermit, nor could one call Keller a recluse, the former researcher 
and world renowned leader in the field of artificial intelligence was on the 
frontier of perfecting a computer that could actually reason when he 
discovered that his research and successes were being used in weapons by the 
military. He protested but the government, which funded his work, argued 
that as long as it was paying for them, he had little to say about what they did 
with his developments. Keller, a brilliant designer of hard and software had 
other opinions. Instead of continuing his work and seeing it used to guide 
devices meant to kill people, he simply quit, walked away from a six figure 
salary, a position of prestige in the scientific community and divorced himself 
from the industrial complex that had been his life, his whole reason for 
existing for nearly thirty years.
 He moved to the log cabin that he'd had built on a hundred and fifty 
acres of land in the center of the state, surrounded on all sides by the majestic 
beauty of the undeveloped wilderness that he had grown to love. Unmarried 
and with no living relatives, the good doctor lived alone for half a year before 
adopting the dog from a city family when it was seven weeks old and a month 
later bought Ned from a rancher that owned land that bordered his. Now with 
the horse and dog as his only companions Keller lived a life of quiet solitude 
in the comfort of the cabin that although looked rather rustic on the outside, 
had within it's insulated walls all the modern conveniences of any home found 
in the city. He had made a lot of money in his career and had invested wisely 
and when he walked away from the work he'd been so deeply involved with 
for so long, Keller was financially independent and with sufficient resources 
to remain that way for the rest of his days. Not a young man, not unless one 
looks at fifty-two years old as young. He still had some good years ahead of 
himself and with his good health he intended to enjoy the time left to him and 
the existence he'd chosen for himself, the horse and dog for as long as the 
good Lord allowed. 
	Keller, or 'Doc' Keller as he was known to the town's people of the city 
of Spalding, the only real form of civilization within a eighty mile radius of 
his cabin, sat in a squeaky cane back rocker and drank his coffee, listened to 
a blue jay squawk in a tree fifty feet away and watched a squirrel scamper 
along an oak branch. Zeke saw the small animal too, raised his head from 
between his paws and made a low growl, wishing just once that the bushy 
tailed rodent would get just a little too far from a tree. "Zeke, those squirrels 
drive you nuts, don't they?" The dog looked up at his man with an interested 
expression then resumed his position of lying at Keller's feet and watching the 
area surrounding the cabin.
	Had it not been for the densely wooded surroundings, Keller would 
have been able to look out in any direction and see not a sign of humanity. No 
power poles, no buildings, no highways or bridges. His cabin was six miles 
from the nearest road and that was a narrow, two lane blacktop that ran for 
thirty eight miles before coming to the town of Spalding to the west. East of 
where he sat enjoying his strong coffee there was nothing but trees and grass 
meadows for over eighty miles. To the north the land got a little hilly and 
forty miles away was Interstate 84. To the south there was still more hills and 
the country got a little rougher, more rocky but still very few signs of 
civilization. All in all Keller was miles from anything that could even 
remotely be called an intrusion into his quiet lifestyle. But had he been able to 
see four miles over the ridge to the south on that crystal September morning 
he would have seen something that would have certainly drawn his attention 
from the squirrel that was again worrying Zeke. 
	Strewn for several hundred yards was the smoldering remains of what a 
few hours earlier had been a Piper Saratoga. A plane identical, except for it's 
color, to the one that JFK junior had perished in a year earlier on the East 
Coast. The most recognizable part of the wreckage was the vertical fin and 
half of the horizontal stabilizer which were wrapped around the trunk of a 
thick old pine tree fifty yards from what remained of the burned out cabin 
section of the fuselage. The engine, and twisted propeller, blackened by fire 
lay twenty feet away while the scorched wing panels lay scattered off to the 
sides, sheared off in the impact with the trees as the plane slammed into the 
ground at a gentle angle but obviously a high rate of speed.
	The Saratoga is not a difficult airplane to fly; on the contrary, it is a 
docile, very forgiving aircraft when in the hands of even a low time pilot. But 
put that inexperienced person in any plane and let him or her fly it into severe 
weather or in instrument conditions and that inexperience can quickly turn the 
Saratoga, or any flying machine, into a lethal vehicle, doomed to destruction. 
There had been heavy thunderstorms the night before that had kept Keller and 
his dog off the porch and sheltered within the cozy confines of the cabin and 
unmindful of the horror being experienced by three people in flight above 
where he and Zeke listened to Mozart. The young pilot who had just recently 
been checked out in the plane had elected to continue on into weather 
conditions that he was not qualified to fly in and had paid the price that so 
many before him had paid. The Piper had hit the top of a rocky ridge at over 
one hundred and sixty miles an hour, disintegrating on impact and the 
resulting fire had consumed most of the plane, the pilot and the front seat 
passenger. Miraculously, unbelievably, there had been a survivor. 
	A portion of the rear seat had been ripped away from it's mountings 
and hurled clear of the fire coming to rest in the rain softened muddy grass 
fifty feet away from the nearest burning piece. Still strapped to what remained 
of the seat was the plane's back seat passenger, totally unhurt. An agnostic 
would have seen nothing miraculous about the survival of the young woman 
who had been strapped in the seat at the moment of impact. He would have 
simply said that, the force of the crash had caused the steel and aluminum 
structure to fail with the inertia of her weight and had carried her and what 
remained of her seat forward and away from the main fuselage. On the other 
side of the coin would be the view of a more spiritual person who would have 
easily concluded that the divine hand of God had reached into that plane and 
plucked the girl out of harms way. Gently depositing her far enough from the 
flames that she would not be harmed by the fiery tongue of Satan. 
	Whatever one's beliefs might be, the results were the same, at that 
moment when survival was most unlikely, Melissa Croft was catapulted fifty 
feet into the soft grass of an Idaho meadow and had cheated death. So gently 
had she impacted the earth that she was uninjured and actually had suffered 
not even the loss of her shoes, which were still strapped on her feet. At the 
same moment that Zeke was standing, stretching and giving the squirrel one 
more verbal warning, four miles away Melissa was sitting in the wet grass, 
rocking herself and looking at what was left of the airplane that she had been 
a passenger in just hours before.
	Melissa Croft, twenty six years old, a graduate of Harvard, a computer 
and financial wizard for one so young and former vice president of the 
Farmer's Mutual Savings and Loan Association in Denver Colorado, watched 
the small remaining flames that had survived the rain and consumed the Piper 
leaving her alone in a condition that she wouldn't have seen herself, even in 
her worst nightmares. She was wet and cold, dressed only in a pair of jeans 
and light blue denim, short sleeved shirt. She shivered and looked away from 
the fires that she had stayed close to for warmth most of the night and glanced 
down at her hands. She tugged upward and like all the times before in the last 
hours, they didn't respond to her wishes to change their position. Around each 
wrist was locked a gleaming, polished nickel handcuff, joined by a hinge that 
prevented her from rotating her hands opposite each other and in turn linked 
to a chrome steel hoop that was securely attached to the front of a two inch 
wide, thick leather belt that snuggly encircled her waist. The transport belt 
had been applied just a notch or two tighter that it needed to be and her cuffs 
similarly closed a few clicks further than would have been required to keep 
her from slipping her small hands out of them. She worked her fingers to help 
keep the circulation going and turned her attention to the another set of steel 
restraints joining her legs and laying above the leather ankle straps of her four 
inch heeled pumps. Why she was made to wear leg irons in the plane she 
didn't understand but they had been applied after she had been seated and her 
seat belt buckled. She'd asked the woman that had chained her but the reply 
had been only a sarcastic, "Get used to them."
	Melissa shivered again, her body's movement caused the handcuffs to 
make a metallic, chattering sound against the steel hasp of the belt. She 
looked up at the sky and wondered how long it would be before the sun came 
up over the ridge of rock that had claimed the airplane the evening before. 
"That must be east." She thought to herself as she looked up longingly at the 
glow of the morning sun as it approached the point that it would finally offer 
her some warmth. She arched her back in an effort to relieve the stress of 
sitting in virtually the same position since she had been cuffed and belted at 
the jail in Eugene Oregon yesterday morning and driven to the airport for 
what was supposed to be an uneventful flight to Denver. She glanced down at 
her left wrist expecting to see the gold, lady’s Rolex that she was so 
accustomed to looking at, instead there was the gracefully curved steel frame 
of the American Handcuff Company's newest offering to law enforcement, 
their model N-550 hinged handcuffs. The prisoner made a mournful whimper 
and flexed her hands against the cuff's tight hold on them and remembered 
that all her jewelry had been taken from her at the jail and was now 
somewhere in the ashes of the plane in what had been a manila envelope 
along with her arrest records and whatever other paperwork the female U.S. 
marshal had been carrying with her. The though of the woman that had been 
her escort started her thinking about her handcuffs and the possibility that the 
keys to them might have survived the fire. She looked at what she knew to be 
the remains of the cabin section and the front seats of the plane and wondered 
if their was any chance that she could find those keys and decided to wait for 
some of the last small flames to die before attempting the search. 
	Melissa looked around her at the hills, trees and grass and thought that 
although the area appeared peaceful and serene, for a girl in her condition it 
could be quite hostile. As barren and foreboding to a helpless woman as a 
desert, without means of obtaining food or water the lush forested hills could 
be a terribly unforgiving environment. Her stomach growled as if on cue and 
reminded her that she hadn't eaten since the previous morning and she had 
hardly touched the breakfast offered by the Eugene city jail. A cardboard tray 
with a portion of something soft and brown and gooey, two slices of too dark, 
cold, hard toast and a small cup of warm juice. She'd drank the juice and tried 
the brown stuff only to spit it back onto the tray then consumed half of one 
piece of toast that she scraped the burnt crust from with a plastic spoon. That 
had been at least twenty-four hours ago and she had not had so much as a 
drink of water since. Her chin trembled as she began to realize that she was in 
very serious trouble. She had survived a plane crash but unless she was found 
or could walk out of this valley and be rescued, she stood a very good chance 
of starving to death. At that moment, a prison cell seemed very inviting to the 
helpless captive. "I’m sure jail won't be fun, and there's probably some 
dangers there, but starving or being eaten by a wild animal isn't among them." 
She thought, as she began to worry about things she had never given thought 
to once in her life.
	Melissa was no outdoors person, she'd never been in the Girl Scouts, 
never camped out, her idea of roughing it was a hotel with a soft bed, a hot 
shower and HBO. Not one night had she spent under a blanket of stars, never 
had she drank from a stream or cooked over a campfire. She had no idea 
where or how to even start looking for water but she did know enough, from 
reading something, somewhere, that as long as a person had water to drink 
that they could survive or at least prolong life even without food. She looked 
around her again and tried to think where would be the most logical place to 
find water. "Water runs downhill, right? Then if I walk down this valley, I 
should find water at some low point, where those trees close off the end of 
it." Her reasoning was sound and she felt better for at least making a decision 
on what she had to do next. But before she abandoned the crash sight she had 
to see if there was any chance of finding the handcuff keys.
	Melissa managed to get on her feet, not an easy task with her hands 
held so immovably to her waist, and walked slowly towards the burned out 
plane's cabin section. There was a stench that made her grimace as a waft of 
smoke came her way. She'd never actually smelled burned human flesh but 
instinctively she knew what the odor was and opened her mouth to breath 
through it instead of her nose. As she came near enough to the blackened 
wreckage she peered at what she believed to be the right seat area and 
suddenly wretched and turned away, gagging and nearly vomiting at what she 
saw.
	When she was a little girl of maybe ten, her father was cooking 
hamburgers on the grill and accidentally let one of the patties fall through the 
grill into the charcoal fire. She remembered how funny it had been and her 
dad's efforts to keep it a secret but she had humorously yelled to her mother 
who was in the house. "Mom, Dad just cremated a burger!" as she watched 
the beef curl and turn black in the heat of the glowing embers. The sight she 
had just witnessed reminded her of that childhood event however there was 
no humor in what she had just seen. She turned away, still nauseous from the 
sight of what remained of the once somewhat attractive woman that had been 
responsible for transporting the prisoner back to stand trial. She knew that 
even if the metal keys had survived the flames she didn't have what it would 
have taken to search in the remains of the body for them. Melissa walked 
away from the wrecked aircraft and began her journey towards the low end of 
the grassy meadow, her leg chains jingling softly as she walked.
	Rich Keller was throwing a saddle on Ned's back and was snugging the 
girth strap three miles from where the chained girl was slowly making her 
way down the valley. He slid a Winchester rifle into the scabbard, slung two 
canteens over the saddle horn along with a pair of binoculars and called for 
the dog before mounting the horse for a day's ride to shoot some game for his 
evening meal. "Come on Zeke, let's go get 'em." he reined Ned to the left and 
started at a slow walk down the trail that would take him to Nursery Valley. 
He had no idea why the piece of land had come to be known by that name but 
that's what all the local people knew it by and they were all aware when 
Keller bought the land that Nursery Valley had been part of the deal. It had 
been known for good hunting of small game for years and there was little 
chance that Keller would come home without a meal in his game bag. Zeke 
ran twenty or thirty paces in front of the horse, sniffing at every new scent 
that the previous night's storms had brought to his otherwise familiar territory. 
Keller serenaded himself and his animal companions with his rendition of an 
old Neal Diamond song as the trio descended the hill where they called home. 
"You don't bring me flowers, and you don't sing me love songs...." Ned's ears 
turned toward the man on his back as he listened and walked.
	She thought she had it all down perfect. With her knowledge of the 
banking business, how the security systems worked and the Federal 
Government's ineptitude’s at finding discrepancies in their insurance coverage 
of banks, Melissa Croft was sure that there would be no way for the losses to 
be traced to her or even where they had gone. She had covered her trail so 
completely, even gone way overboard in some areas to hide the paper and 
electronic paths the money had taken that it was more of a shock to her than 
being arrested that her thefts had been discovered at all. Her office was on the 
tenth floor and glass on three sides. She had looked up from her cherrywood 
desk one morning about a month before and observed two people, a man and 
a woman standing at her secretary's desk and looking in her direction. 
Without being announced or introduced, they came into her office, told her 
they had a federal warrant for her arrest and while the man read her the 
obligatory Miranda card, the woman had put her in handcuffs, behind her 
back and roughly ushered her out of the office in plain view of all her friends 
and co-workers, down the elevator and in short order she found herself 
locked in a hot, smelly jail cell in downtown Denver. The charge was 
embezzlement of Federally insured funds, to the tune of one point six million 
dollars. The FDIC wanted their money back; the FBI wanted her in prison. It 
took two days for her lawyer to get her out on bail and while she was free she 
boarded a United Airlines jet and headed for Eugene Oregon. She had placed 
the stolen money in six different accounts in the names of phony companies 
that she had set up to receive the funds once they had been laundered through 
various pathways and investment houses. The account's combined balances 
actually went over the two million-dollar figure and Melissa was intent on 
protecting her interest. She had no knowledge that the FBI already knew 
about Oregon and the half dozen accounts when she arrived at the bank when 
it opened. However instead of getting her money, she was greeted with 
another pair of handcuffs and the female investigator that had been working 
on the case for over two years.
	"You just weren't smart enough, and you got greedy." The woman told 
her as the cuffs ratcheted closed around her wrists for the second time in three 
days. Up to that point Melissa had never touched a pair let alone know what 
it felt like to wear them. Now she was being handcuffed every time she turned 
around. They'd cuffed her when she was out of her cell in Denver to talk to 
her lawyer, they cuffed her when she was taken before a judge to hear the 
charges against her read and when the FBI had again arrested her in Oregon. 
Now she was in those bright, hard manacles again, only this time there was 
no one around to take them off her. She knew that even if she located water 
that drinking was going to be a challenge and that she would probably have to 
get down on the ground to drink, "Like a dog." she said to herself in disgust 
as she trudged toward the low end of the tree thicket still a quarter of a mile 
from where she had stopped to rest and give her ankles a break from the 
constant chafe of the leg irons. Her high-heeled pumps were not intended to 
be worn in the wilderness either but she preferred them to being barefooted 
and made the best of what they offered in the way of protection for her feet. 
	The chained girl reached the trees about a half-hour later and 
welcomed the shade. The sun had come up above the ridge and at first she 
was happy that she was finally getting warm again but after the arduous hour 
long walk down the valley the coolness of the shade offered by the thick 
woods was refreshing. She stayed towards the lowest areas and it was a short 
time after leaving the meadow behind that she thought she heard something in 
the quiet morning that sounded like water running over rocks.  After a short 
search of the area found what she was looking for. "Oh, thank God!" She 
exclaimed aloud when she came to the stream that ran through the middle of 
the low-lying wooded ravine.
	Melissa stood for several moments looking at the water and watching it 
tumble over the rocks and sandy bottom and the sight and sound of it made 
her even thirstier than she had been before locating it. "Ok, now how am I 
going to do this?" she asked herself as she stepped closer to the shallow 
stream. She glanced around the area as if she would find a clean cup or 
something to use as a container then realized that even if there were a set of 
crystal glasses setting there, she would be unable to use them and looked 
down at her closely cuffed hands and how they were held at her waist by the 
belt around it. She was well aware that she was unable to reach her mouth 
given the combination of the restraints and the hinged link between them that 
wouldn't allow any degree of twisting her hands up toward her face. Tears of 
frustration welled up in her eyes as she stood, her heels sinking in the soft 
mud at the water's edge.
	A hundred yards up the wooded arroyo Keller, the horse and dog had 
just started down their side of the hill when Zeke stopped in his tracks and 
produced a low warning growl. "Whoa Ned," The man spoke as he eased 
back on the reins. 'What is it Zeke, what do you see?" thinking that the dog 
might have picked up the scent of a bear or bobcat that often frequented the 
area, Keller slung his leg over the saddle and lowered himself to the ground. 
He dropped the reins below Ned's head knowing the well-trained horse would 
not walk away as long as the leather trailed below him that way. He walked a 
few feet in the direction that the dog was looking, down into the ravine and 
saw a sight that was the last thing he had expected to see in this part of the 
land. "Who the hell?" he said as he recognized the unexpected intruder as a 
human. His eyesight wasn't what it used to be and he had to squint to see that 
the lone figure below him was a woman. Zeke growled again and Keller told 
him to keep quiet."Hush Zeke, it's just a girl. But what in the hell is she doing 
here?" he asked himself. The dog looked back at him for reassurance then 
directed his attention on the female who at that moment was dropping to her 
knees at the edge of the water. Keller frowned and from his vantage point 
could see that she held her hands oddly but not the reason why she didn't 
seem to want to use them to try to get herself into a position that would 
obviously allow her to drink from the rushing water. Not wanting to let his 
eyes leave her but desiring a better view, Keller stepped back to his saddle 
and took the binocular case down from the horn and walked back to the area 
where he could get a look at the oddity below. 
	Raising the glasses to his eyes he had just gotten his focus when she 
leaned forward in an attempt to drink, lost her balance and fell face first into 
the cold stream. Keller couldn't believe he was seeing what he was as she 
screamed loud enough for him to hear which despite his master's command, 
produced a loud bark from the dog. The woman thrashed and splashed in the 
water and kicked up mud from the bottom as she made several attempts to get 
back up and all during her struggles Keller saw that not once did she use her 
hands. He refocused the binoculars and took a better look and that is when he 
caught the glint of shiny metal at her wrists and he suddenly realized why her 
actions had seemed so strange and unnatural. "Well I'll be damned, she's 
handcuffed!" he said to the dog that was still staring down the hill at the new 
thing in his world. "Now what in the hell is a handcuffed girl doing out here?" 
Zeke whined a reply and looked at Keller for an answer. "Well, whatever, but 
she sure as hell doesn't need to be drinking from that stream, let's go down 
and help her Zeke." Keller said as he climbed back into the saddle and 
clicked at Ned to head down the hill.
	As he descended he kept the glasses trained on the girl that had 
managed to extricate herself from the water and was standing next to it, 
seemingly unmindful of the three coming toward her, that's when he saw the 
leg irons on her ankles and the high heeled shoes. "I don't get this, I just don't 
get this at all." he said to himself. Finally she heard the horse's approach and 
looked up to see the man across the stream from her and stopping a few yards 
from the water. She looked around as if for a way to escape but she didn't 
even try to run. She was all too aware of her leg irons and any progress she 
would be able to make would be much too slow to get away from the three 
that stood twenty yards from her and the man looking in disbelief at the 
helpless female that had invaded their usually sedate country. 
	"Morning Mam, hope you didn't drink too much of that water, ever 
hear of Giardia?" he said across to her. 
	Melissa was shivering again as she tried to think of something to say. 
She looked around again then down at her hands then finally at Keller. "Can 
you help me?" was all she could manage before the events, stress, and 
discomforts of the last few hours took their toll and she began to sob 
uncontrollably and dropped to her knees as Keller hurried across the ankle 
deep water to her side.     

Alone Again
 by Klick

PART II

	Rich Keller got his flannel-lined jacket off as he crossed the creek and 
in one swoop wrapped it and his arms around the shivering girl kneeling at his 
feet. "Hey now, everything's going to be ok, you're safe, nothing's going to 
hurt you." He knew that she must have been freezing cold. The air was still 
cool under the shade of the heavy foliage and after her headfirst fall into the 
water she was obviously uncomfortable. He produced a two-toned whistle 
and spoke loud enough for the horse to hear. "Ned, come here!" as he raised 
his hand and watched as the former rodeo performer started walking across 
the stream toward him dragging his reins off to one side so as not to step on 
them. When the animal was near enough Keller stood and removed the 
bedroll blanket that was attached to the rear of his saddle by two leather 
straps. He unfurled the soft wool and draped it over the girl's shoulders 
covering her and his jacket before kneeling next to her and began rubbing her 
arms and body to get some warmth back into her. 
	Melissa's handcuffs were visible to her rescuer as he sat next to her and 
he noticed the hinged joint between them. "I've never seen anything like 
those." he thought to himself, "I thought handcuffs were connected by a 
chain." He didn't speak for several minutes but kept up his rubbing and finally 
she broke the silence. "Thank you," she turned her tear stained face up to his, 
"Thanks for finding me, I was afraid I might starve to death out here." she 
said softly, sniffing back more moisture from her emotions. 	"That’s 
alright little lady, just relax now, you're going to be fine. Would you mind 
telling me how you got out here and who did this to you?" he asked as he 
reached and put his hand around her left cuff.
	Melissa didn't answer at first but raised her head and looked around at 
the dense overgrowth of trees above them then down at her hands finally 
turning her face to his again and spoke in a quaking voice, "I was in a plane 
crash, I survived." 
	Keller opened his mouth, closed it while he digested what she had just 
told him then opened it again to ask, "A plane crash? When? Where?" The 
helpless girl wrapped in his blanket looked around as if to get her bearings 
then moved her index finger of her right hand and pointed in the direction she 
thought she had come from before encountering the stream.
	"Up there somewhere, last night" she managed to guess. Keller looked 
at the direction she was indicating and asked, "Up Nursery valley? Your 
plane crashed, up there?" She nodded and said in a voice a little steadier, 
"There's a big rock sticking out of the hill just above where we crashed." 
Keller was fairly certain she was describing Anvil Rock. It's name derived 
from the fact that from most angles the outcropping looked like a giant 
blacksmith's anvil. Actually a huge crest of granite that had been thrust 
upward by some prehistoric seismic activity and marked the entrance to 
Nursery Valley at it's north end. Reaching skyward, Anvil Rock topped out at 
six hundred feet above the valley floor at that point and dominated the 
surrounding area with it's black, omnipresent shape.
	The man doubted that this young woman was making up her story. 
There was really no other explanation as to how she had come to be in this 
part of the country, unescorted, wearing handcuffs and high heels and trying 
to drink from a stream on her knees. "You’re somebody's prisoner, where are 
they?" he asked, still massaging her arms. 
	"Dead... Her and the pilot of the plane, they were burned in the 
wreckage." she said with a shudder as she remembered the sight of the 
blackened body in the plane's seat. Melissa began to cry again with the 
memories of the last few hours still haunting her mind. 
	"It's ok, it's ok, you're safe now, don't cry. I'm Richard, Richard Keller, 
what's your name?" he was curious but he also wanted to get her mind on 
something other than the horrors that she must have witnessed in the time 
after the crash. She sniffed and made a small effort to wipe her eyes, her 
cuffed hand couldn't reach high enough and her tears streamed down her 
cheek as she looked up at him and answered. 
	"Melissa... Melissa Croft."
	 "Well, glad to meet you Melissa," he touched the fingers of her right 
hand and offered, " I'll bet you're thirsty, I've got some safe water to drink, let 
me get it, I'll be right back." 
	Keller went to the saddle and brought back one of the canteens, opened 
it and held it for her to drink. Water dribbled down her chin after she had 
taken her first swallows of cool liquid. She looked up at him and grinned, 
"Thank you. I was so thirsty, I haven't had a drink of anything since yesterday 
morning." He held the canteen to her lips again and she drank from it until he 
pulled it away. 
	"That's enough right now, you don't want to over do it." Melissa licked 
her lips and tossed her hair back out of her eyes.
	 "Thanks Mr. Keller, that's the best water I've ever had." 
	" Oh please, don't call me that, you'll just make me feel older than I am. 
Richard or Rich will do just fine." he smiled at the young woman wrapped in 
his jacket and blanket. 
	"Ok, thanks, Richard." she said, returning his smile, but shivering 
again. Keller knelt next to her and continued rubbing her arms and back, he 
reached and smoothed a long strand of hair from the side of her face. He had 
no problem seeing, despite her disheveled condition, that she was in fact a 
very beautiful girl. Her eyes, large and brown looked at him and then down at 
her captive hands as she allowed him to massage some warmth back into her 
chilled body. 
	"Is there any way you can get me out of these?" She asked him in a 
voice that made her sound like a small child begging for a treat.
	Keller reached around her and touched the cuff on her left wrist, 
examining it's polished surface and the odd hinged feature between it and its 
mate. "I can't do anything for you out here Melissa, I'll need to get you back 
to my place and see what I can find that I might be able to use, but maybe I 
can get this belt off. " He offered, as he raised the blanket away from her 
back to inspect the buckle he expected to find there. "Whoa!" then whistled 
softly. "Whoever put theses things on you sure didn't want you getting loose 
did they?"  He said as he saw that the big roller buckle was locked closed by 
a steel hasp that folded down over it and the padlock keeping it from being 
loosened. "What, can't you just unbuckle it?" She asked, looking back at him 
	" I could if it wasn't locked." he told her. 
	"The belt is locked too?" she asked, trying to look back at what he was 
seeing. 	"Yeah, it's locked, but the belt is just leather, I should be able to 
cut it off of you, at least that will give you a little more freedom with your 
hands." he said, pulling a bone handled Buck knife from it's holster on his 
belt.  She looked back at the long gleaming blade and made a concerned little 
gasp as he lifted the blanket to give him access to the side of the thick 
transport belt. "Don't worry, I'm not going to cut you. I've just got to get the 
blade between you and the belt, they sure put this thing on tight didn't they?" 
he said as he selected the best place to accomplish the task. The girl nodded. 
"Hello, what's this?" he said. 
	"What's what?" she wanted to know. 
	"There's a metal tag riveted to your belt here, let me see what it says." 
He twisted the belt away from her side to give him a better angle to read the 
engraved message on the tag.
                                                    WARNING
                PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
                  UNAUTHORIZED TAMPERING OR REMOVAL IS
                     PUNISHABLE BY FINE OR IMPRISONMENT

	"This is government stuff," he said looking into those big eyes as they 
met his. "Were you being held on a federal warrant?" he wanted to know. 
	She hesitated before she nodded slightly, "But you're still going to help 
me aren't you, I mean you'll still get me out of these things?" 
	Keller smiled at her, "I'll do my best Missy, the government and I are 
not the best of friends." he said as he slid his knife blade under the leather 
confining her and sliced upward being very careful not to come close to her 
flesh. The blade was sharp, nearly as sharp as a razor from hours of honing 
on a stone that Keller used to pass the time as he and Zeke sat on the deck of 
the cabin in the evenings. The thick russet cowhide gave way immediately to 
the knife but there was a metallic, scraping noise as the leather parted and the 
blade encountered something inside it. 
	"Ah oh!" he said, looking at the sliced leather. 
	"What's wrong?" she asked, concerned.
	"Well, I'll say one thing for those Feds, when they lock a girl up they 
mean for her to stay that way. There's a metal band inside this belt, the leather 
is just a covering over a steel one that even this old Buck won't cut through." 
	"Oh no, shit, God damn it, I want loose, I've been chained up like this 
for over twenty-four hours!" she said in frustration. "Why did they have to put 
me like this, it's not like I killed someone?" the tears started again and her 
shoulders shook as she tugged ineffectively at her cuffed hands and began to 
cry.
	Keller's heart went out to the helpless girl sitting next to him. "Ok, take 
it easy Melissa, we'll get you out of those things somehow but we're going to 
have to get back to my cabin first. I don't have any way to get this stuff off of 
you out here. He looked at her leg shackles and up at Ned. "Did you ever ride 
a horse side saddle?" 
	She sniffed and shook her head, "I've never ridden a horse." she 
confessed, looking up at the animal. 
	"Well, you're going to ride one today but you'll have to sit in the saddle 
sideways cause there's no way you can straddle old Ned there with those leg 
irons on your ankles, and, you can't hold on either so we'll have to ride 
together. Lets get you on your feet and see how we can get you and me up on 
his back, then we'll head for home." He stood and reached down for her 
hands, pulling upward ‘tll she stood up next to her new friend.
	Getting a handcuffed and shackled girl up on a horse was going to be 
something of a challenge. Any horse would have presented a problem but 
Ned was a big horse. Standing nearly sixteen hands at the withers, he was 
considered very large for his breed and Keller wasn't sure how to proceed. He 
considered lifting her onto the saddle but he was concerned that once there 
she would not have the ability to balance herself or grab onto anything if she 
started to fall off before he could get mounted behind her. Ned was a well-
trained rodeo horse and he had never been ridden sidesaddle.  He'd been 
taught to lean or move in such a way as to help his rider maintain his balance 
when he felt the person's weight move off center. If the horse did as he was 
trained to do, Melissa would be at risk of falling from his back and Keller 
knew that a fall from Ned's high perch could be a serious one. 
	The girl stood looking up at the seat of the saddle then at Keller. 
"Maybe I should just walk." she said with trepidation in her voice.
	"Walk? Honey its two miles to my place from here. Your ankles are 
going to get mighty sore. No, you're not going to walk, we'll get you up 
there." He looked around for higher ground then spotted the fallen tree 
several yards down the stream's bank from where they stood. "Let's go down 
here a bit, I think I know how we can do this safely."
	The tree was actually a large limb, Keller realized, that had been 
broken from the oak tree that stood above where they approached. It lay at an 
angle starting at ground level and up to six or eight feet high where it rested 
against the trunk of it's previous owner. She stood and watched as he 
surveyed the downed limb and the heavy overhanging ones that were still 
healthy and attached to the tree. He reached up to Ned's saddle and took 
down a coil of rope. "Ok, this is how we're going to do it." He said, looking 
up at a particularly thick branch almost directly over the dead one. He was 
unfurling the rope that had a loop woven into one end. As he passed the loop 
between her arms and body, he explained. "I'm going to put this rope around 
you, under your arms. I'll get on Ned and you're going to walk up this limb 'till 
you're high enough for me to reach you and pull you up on the saddle with 
me. How's that sound?"
	"Oh great, first I get chained up now I'm going to get tied up." She 
answered in her best effort to add some humor to a situation that had seen 
little in the way of levity. She stood passively as Keller ran the other end of 
the rope through the loop he had passed around her then began to coil the 
rope for throwing. He laughed at her words.
	His first effort was unsuccessful, but on the next try the rope sailed up 
and over the branch and he gathered the end in his hand. He told her to stand 
next to the dead limb and to get ready to walk up it after he was on the horse's 
back. "I'll keep the rope snug enough that if you loose your balance you won't 
fall. Just take your time and step carefully." He said as he settled into the 
saddle." Guess we should have taken those high heels off first."
	"I'm pretty good at walking in heels, they're about all I wear." she said 
as she took her first careful steps up the inclined surface of the branch. She 
found it easier to step sideways and he warned her to not trip on her leg 
chains.
	"You can't fall as long as I have this rope on you but if you get tangled 
in that chain and loose your balance you're going to be hanging there 'till I let 
you down."
	Several steps later put her high enough for Keller to reach down slide 
his arm around her and haul her up onto the saddle. Ned snorted his 
disapproval of the whole affair but stood firm as Keller got her into place 
actually sitting sideways in his lap. With Melissa now safely where he could 
hold her he began getting the rope from around her and was coiling it as he 
clicked to the horse and touched his heels to the animal’s sides. "Ok Ned, 
let's go home. Zeke, come on guy." Dog, horse, man and girl began their 
journey back up the hill to the log cabin two miles away.
	There wasn't much conversation as the foursome made their way along. 
Ned's hoofs hardly made a sound in the pine needle covered path. Keller held 
onto the girl with his left arm, cradling her against him and could feel her 
body warmth through the blanket still draped over her shoulders. They had 
not gone too far when he felt her weight grow against his chest and her head 
settled back under his chin. He could smell her hair and feel her breasts where 
his arm wrapped around her under them. He looked down and saw her small 
cuffed hands as they rested on the crotch of her jeans and her leg iron chain 
jingled softly with the motion of the horse. "My Lord, what am I going to do 
with you?" he asked himself as they made their silent way home.

Alone Again
 by Klick

Part Three

	Through the trees Keller could see the cabin and Zeke ran ahead of 
them and bounded onto the porch turning to wait for his master and the new 
human that he was bringing home with him. It was the dog's custom to get 
home first and give three loud barks, which Keller assumed to mean, "Ha! 
Beat you home!" As he made his sound Melissa raised her head and 
murmured softly, "Oh, I went to sleep. My first time on a horse and I go to 
sleep. Is that your place?" she asked seeing the cabin as they came into the 
clearing surrounding it.
	"Home sweet home. I thought you were dozing off there, that's got to 
be some kind of record, sleeping on your first horse ride." He chuckled as he 
guided Ned toward the four steps leading up to the porch that the dog had 
moments before gone up for a drink of water from his bowl. He finished his 
drinking and turned to watch, perked eared, at the three remaining travelers 
approaching the porch. Water dripped from his mouth as he sat down with an 
interested expression, probably wondering, as was Keller, how he was going 
to get the girl down from the saddle and safely on the ground.
	"Ok, now this is how I think we can do this." He said as he 
maneuvered the horse close to the steps. Ned's training made it easy for 
Keller to get him to side step so that his hoofs were close to the bottom step 
and he told her to put her feet out and get them down onto the highest step 
she could reach. "Now, I'm goin’ to let you slide down, as soon as your feet 
are on the step I'll let go and you sit down or turn and put your hands on the 
railing."
	"Ok, I'll try but I can't reach out too far remember." she offered 
nervously as she felt him releasing his grip and herself start to slide down the 
side of the saddle.
	"Whoa Ned, whoa boy." Keller spoke to the horse as he felt his load 
start to slide off. The horse responded and stood his ground as Melissa's heels 
thumped down on the third step. Keller continued to hold onto her as she 
turned and got a grip on the handrail and held on tight. The hinged handcuffs 
made the position a little less than comfortable and she winced from the bite 
of the restraints around her wrists as she was forced to twist her hands at an 
angle that the cuffs just barely allowed.
	"Good girl, now you can either wait for me or if you think you can 
make it, go on up." he told her as he moved the horse away from the porch 
and dismounted. The girl took a step upward and was finally able to stand on 
the porch next to the dog that sniffed at her still wet jeans. "Alright, we're 
here, give me a minute or two to get Ned's saddle off an put him in the corral. 
I'll be right back."
	She watched him lead the horse away and turned to walk over to the 
cane back rocker. She looked at it then at the soft cushioned lounger near to it 
and chose the lounger. She sat down and Zeke licked her hand that was held 
conveniently at just his height. "Hi, good boy, you're a pretty dog." she said to 
him as he sat down next to her and probably wondered why she didn't reach 
out and pet him like Keller always did when he sat in that chair. "I'd pet you 
Zeke, but I can't reach you. These darned old handcuffs won't let me." The 
dog turned his head up and looked back at the newcomer. Keller walked 
around the corner and seeing Zeke so near to the girl made him smile.
	"You must be special, that dog doesn't give a hoot for other people, 
course he doesn't see many but when he does it's like pullin' teeth to get him 
to sit still long enough for a pat on the head. And there he is sitting next to 
you."
	"I think he wants me to pet him but I can't. Zeke, if your master can get 
me out of these things I promise I'll pet you. Is that a deal?" Zeke gave her a 
quite whine and looked back at her again. "See he wants me loose too." she 
said to Keller as he stepped up onto the porch.
	"Well, let me go find what I can and we'll see about trying to cut you 
loose. I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of tools. See, I'm not the 
mechanical type, I'm more of a designer but I never worked on the things I 
designed." He chuckled at his brand of humor but the girl didn't see anything 
too funny.
	"Do you mean there's a chance you won't be able to get these off?" she 
asked, looking down at her cuffs and giving them a tug upward against the 
belt.
	"Well, let's just see what I can do. I'm sure I can get that belt off and 
there's a pretty good chance I can at least cut your leg iron chain. I'll admit 
though, those handcuffs are going to be a challenge with what I have to work 
with here." She gave him a helpless little smile and nodded as he walked 
towards the door to the cabin.
	Melissa leaned back on the cushion and looked at the surrounding area. 
"He’s really got a nice place here." She thought to herself as she surveyed 
cabin and the clearing it occupied. Zeke continued to sit next to her and 
finally realizing that he was not going to get any petting, laid down
beside her chair. She was warm now and comfortable in the big, soft lounger 
and she closed her eyes. The soft breeze in the pines and her near exhaustion 
combined to set the stage for her to fall asleep. In the several minutes that 
Keller had been away, the girl dozed off.
	Rich stepped back onto the porch minutes later with everything he 
could locate that he thought might be helpful in getting her out of her 
restraints. A small, triangle file that he used to sharpen his axe, a bent and 
rusty hacksaw blade without the handle and a screwdriver. One pair of pliers 
and a claw hammer was the extent of the tools that he had at his disposal. He 
made a little noise seeing that her eyes were closed and not wanting to startle 
her. "Hey, Melissa, are you asleep?" 
	At the sound of his voice she opened her eyes and smiled up at him. 
"Sorry, every time I close my eyes I go to sleep." She apologized.
	"It’s ok, if you’d like to take a nap I’ll go to work on your belt. Maybe 
when you wake up, you’ll be out of it."
	It was no surprise that she found it hard to stay awake. She had been 
without sleep for nearly thirty hours. The night in the Eugene jail had been 
like a nightmare. Cell doors slamming, women yelling and crying all night. A 
hard and narrow cot and the lights that were never turned off. The Federal 
agents had insisted that she wear leg irons in her cell. Then had come the 
morning and the FBI woman that had seemed intent on making her as 
uncomfortable as possible by putting the transport belt on too tight and 
squeezing the handcuffs closed till she was barely able to turn her wrists in 
them. "I hope you have a good trip back to Denver." The agent had said. "I’ll 
be there waiting to take you to a new cell and then after you’re convicted, and 
you will be, I’ll make sure I see you in a Federal prison, for ten, maybe 
twenty years." 
	Melissa could not understand why that woman had been so cruel to 
her. She did learn that she had been the chief investigator on her case but that 
didn’t seem to be reason enough for her to be treated so rough. What she did 
not know was that the agent had seen what Melissa’s crimes had done to 
innocent people. People that had done nothing wrong or illegal were put in 
positions that they did not deserve. Some had lost their jobs others had their 
integrity questioned and quite probably would find it next to impossible to get 
employment in the banking or financial community again. Melissa’s greed 
had left a trail of destruction behind her and the female agent that finally 
tracked her down knew that she had used her pretty face and big boobs to 
further her surreptitious actions. "That little bitch, she didn’t care who she 
had to step on or ruin, all she cared about was money. Well, now she can set 
in her cell and think about what she did and if I have anything to say about it 
she’s going to have a long time to think." The agent had told her partner as 
they watched Melissa and the Piper Saratoga lift off from the Eugene Oregon 
airport.
	As Keller sat on a chair next to his sleeping guest and filed at the 
chrome ‘D’ ring on the metal band around her waist, thirty eight miles away 
in the city of Spalding, FBI agent Audrie Harris stood across from the police 
chief’s desk. "So tell me Chief, how many people live in this area?" She was 
pointing at a geological survey map of the area surrounding the city of 
Spalding for a hundred miles. In particular she was pointing at the land 
between the town and the crash sight.
The night before, shortly after the plane had been reported overdue in 
Denver, a small, orange box about the size of a pint milk carton had begun 
transmitting a distress signal. Activated by the impact of the crash, the 
Emergency Locator Transmitter, or more commonly, ELT, was the only clue 
that the plane was down and where. The intense fire eventually destroyed the 
device, but the signal had been received and it’s location pinpointed by the 
FAA. Rescuers had already arrived at the crash sight and determined that 
there were only two bodies in the wreckage. The agent felt she had good 
cause to be questioning the police officer.
	"Well, in that area, there’s only one house, that belongs to Doc 
Keller. He lives out there alone. There ain’t no other people, well, permanent 
people anyway, a few campers maybe, but we usually don’t know about 
them.
	The agent turned to her assistant, "Get the chopper ready, we’ll 
go check out this Keller’s place. Chief, I’m going to ask that you come with 
us." She barked out her orders in a way that said she was determined to find 
Melissa. The two bodies had been identified sufficiently to establish that she 
was not one of them. "I hope that little bitch is wandering around out there 
somewhere in those cuffs and shackles, I can’t think of anyone more 
deserving of it."
	"Man, the boss lady sure has it in for that girl, why do you think 
she dislikes her so much?" An assistant to the agent asked his partner as they 
approached the Army helicopter parked in an empty lot a half block from the 
police station.
	"I don’t know, but she doesn’t like her that’s for sure. Maybe 
it’s because the girl stole so much money from the farmers, you know 
Harris’s dad is a farmer. On the other hand, maybe she’s just jealous of the 
girl’s tits. You know how flat chested Harris is" Both men laughed as they 
approached the Army Warrant Officer who was in command of the chopper.
	Keller’s small, dull file made the work slow and arduous but 
after nearly a half-hour the quarter inch, thick steel ring was severed and he 
exhaled audibly and shook his head. "That’s one, now all I need to do is bend 
this ring out and she’ll be able to get those cuffs out of it and away from her 
waist." All the while he was working on the ring he was stealing glances at 
his guest. "Damn, she is good looking. I wish we’d met under better 
circumstances. Shit, what am I thinking, she wouldn’t have looked at an old 
fart like me twice if she wasn’t chained up like this. She didn’t have much 
choice as to who rescued her; I’m the only game in town. Any port in the 
storm, I guess." His thoughts alternated between her beauty and her 
restraints. " It seems almost a shame to cut these off of her, there’s something 
kind of sexy about her wearing these things. Although I might not have a 
choice about her handcuffs, I sure don’t have anything that’s going to cut 
through them." He determined, as he looked at the brightly polished manacles 
locked around her slender wrists.
	With the ‘D’ ring opened, it was time to try bending it outward. 
Keller got a grip on it and pulled backing up the effort by holding the belt in 
the opposite direction. His manipulations caused her to awake and she looked 
down at what he had accomplished. "Oh, wow, you cut it!" she said 
enthusiastically.
	"Yeah, but I can’t bend it, at least with my hands. We’re going 
to have to find a way to get more pressure on it." He looked around, saw the 
vertical slats of the porch railing, and then told her to stand up and to lean up 
close to the wooden slats. "I’ll be right back." He told her as he stepped 
down off the porch and went into the barn. Keller returned shortly with a 
leather and chain lead that he rarely used on Ned but kept handy just inside 
the door. Melissa was looking out at the surrounding area and Zeke was still 
close by his newfound friend that would not pet him.
	"Ok, I’m going to snap this lead on that ring and you lean 
against the railing. That way I won’t be pulling on your waist, the belt will 
butt up against your side of the porch." she did as he said and he started 
pulling on the ‘D’ ring from the ground below her.
	"It’s coming! Oh, it’s bending!" she exclaimed as the metal 
began to give way to Keller’s weight and within a few seconds she jerked her 
handcuffs clear of the steel ring that had held her hands at her waist for so 
many hours. "Oh God, Thank you, oh, that feels so good!" her reclaimed 
freedom was delicious as she raised her arms high over her head. The 
renewed abilities caused her to wince in pain at first as muscles so long 
denied free movement were once again able to respond to their owner’s 
commands. She endured the momentary discomfort feeling the relief slowly 
come and the lovely sensations of being able to move her arms normally. At 
least as normally as a girl can move them while wearing hinged handcuffs.
	"Be careful now, don’t put your hands down there and cut 
yourself on that ring. It’s sharp where I filed it through." He told her as he 
removed the snap from it and coiled the lead before coming up on the porch 
with her.
	"Richard Keller, you’re an angel." She said as she raised her still 
joined hands and placed them on his shoulders. Her lips pressed against his, 
she kissed him warmly, and when she withdrew her mouth from his, she 
whispered. "Thank you. Thanks for finding me. You know you probably 
saved my life. I’ll never forget you for this." Her lips touched his again.
	Keller was a little surprised at her attentions and a little 
embarrassed grinned and asked if she was ready for him to try to get her belt 
off and cut her leg iron chain. "I think my axe will cut it if you drape it across 
that old stump over there. I’ll be careful and not swing too hard. That axe is 
pretty sharp, it ought to cut that chain without too much trouble."
	"Sure, just lead the way." He spirits were better now that she 
had some use of her hands again and took his in them as they descended the 
steps to the ground.
	"Ok, let’s try that belt first. If I can break that little pad lock 
back there, then I can just unbuckle it for you. Sit down here on the ground 
and put your back up against the stump." She got into the position he had 
suggested and Keller placed the edge of the leather and steel restraining 
device on the stump. Two quick blows with the claw hammer and the shackle 
of the small lock snapped open. "Well, that wasn’t so hard." He said as he 
reached down for her hand.
	"You got it? You broke the lock?" She asked, grinning broadly 
as he turned her around and began to manipulated the big roller buckle, 
unthreading the belt out of it and in seconds it came free of her slender waist.
	The girl squealed as she turned toward him and saw the thing in 
his hand that had made life so miserable for her the last few hours. "Oh shit 
am I glad to be out of that thing. I don’t know why they had to put it on so 
tight. She looked at the belt then up to his eyes, "Thanks again Richard."
	"Don’t mention it honey, I’m glad it wasn’t a chain, I know they 
use chains for the same purpose and one of those might not have been so easy 
to get off. Ok, let’s try the your leg irons. Get back down there." He said 
smiling and pointing to the earth.
	Melissa did as he directed and sat on the ground with her chain 
across the widest part of the oak tree stump. The tree was already dead when 
Keller was having the cabin built and he decided to leave the stump just for 
what he used it for and that was to split firewood. He picked up the long 
handled axe and told her not to move. "Now just sit tight and let me get a 
good aim on it." She nodded and grinned nervously as she sat legs spread and 
her high heels pointing skyward.
	Keller took a couple of practice swings then came down with 
some force on the steel, twist-link chain. The first blow distorted a link but 
failed to cut through it. "That’s some tough stuff." He said, raising the axe for 
another try. His second attempt cut a link but not completely. "Now the trick 
is to hit the same place." He said, lifting the tool one more time. His third 
strike was successful and her feet jerked apart and fell on either side of the 
stump.
	Melissa squealed her delight again and with some effort 
managed to get to her feet with only a small lift from Keller. "I’m not good 
enough with this thing to try cutting those chains shorter. We’ll have to tie 
them up with something so they won’t hit your ankles when you walk."
	‘I don’t care about them, at least I can take full steps now. She 
demonstrated by walking around him and humorously spread her legs as far 
as she could. "Maybe Ned wouldn’t mind giving me another ride now that I 
can sit on him right."
	"I think that can be arranged, we’ll go...." He stopped in mid 
sentence as he listened to a far off sound. Zeke heard it too and made his 
customary warning growl.
	She saw his attention turned to the strange noise and asked, 
"What, what is it?"
	Later, Keller had to wonder why he did what he did next. As a 
rule, he was a law abiding citizen that rarely if ever broke the rules. To be 
certain he’d had his differences with the government over his work, but 
beyond that he hadn’t even had a traffic ticket in thirty years or more. Later, 
when he had time to reflect on the events that took place, he had to ask 
himself why, and the only answer he could come up with, when he was being 
completely honest with himself, "I was a lonely, old man and she, was a 
beautiful young woman that needed my help. Legal or not, she was relying on 
me to give assistance, so I did."
	"It’s a Huey, quick, get up on the porch. He laid the axe next to 
the stump, grabbed the transport belt from the ground and took her hands, 
hauling her at a fast pace towards the steps. Her newly cut leg chains jingled 
as she followed "Get in the cabin!" he nearly yelled as he opened the door.
	"What’s a Huey?" she asked, obviously alerted to his quick 
actions but totally in the dark as to what the emergency could be.
	To any Vietnam veteran the sound of a UH-1, affectionately 
referred to as a Huey, is unmistakable. They lived day and night with the 
noise created by those broad, flat rotor blades slapping the air and can discern 
one approaching miles away. The louder the ‘Whop-Whop-Whop, the closer 
the machine. Oddly the noise wasn’t near as prevalent if the chopper was 
passing at right angles to the listener and nearly silent once they had been 
overflown but if one was on the heading of a Huey’s line of flight, the sound 
was undeniable. 
	"A helicopter, a Huey is a helicopter and it’s heading our way. 
Get inside, keep away from the windows and don’t make a sound if you hear 
voices out here!"  
	"They can’t be looking for me, not yet could they?" she looked 
at him helplessly as she stepped into the cabin and he was closing the door.
	‘If that plane you were in had a locator on board, and it probably 
did, they know it’s down... and where. Choppers are something that you 
don’t see around these parts; he’s looking for something. Here, take this." He 
handed her the belt. "Now keep out of sight and quiet!" he told her in a firm 
voice that she had no intentions of arguing with.
	Keller ran back to the stump and placed a cut log upright on it 
and waited. He did not have to wait long. The ‘Whop-Whops were nearly on 
top of him as he looked up and saw the olive green aircraft appear over the 
tops of the trees surrounding his cabin clearing. The pilot was flying low, 
barely three hundred feet Keller surmised and when he was over the cabin, 
put his craft into steep bank, so steep that you could have almost called it 
knife edge flight. Zeke jumped off the porch and barked at the strange 
machine circling him and his master. Keller could easily see a person at the 
open side door looking down at him with binoculars. He looked again and 
could see that person was female. Her short cropped hair, blowing wild in the 
blast of the rotor and the passing wind.
	The helicopter made a full circle over him and he raised a hand 
and waved casually at it before it leveled and flew towards another clearing 
Keller knew to be a couple of hundred yards from where his home was. That 
other clearing was easily large enough to accommodate a Huey. The jocks 
that drove them in Nam put them down in much smaller areas everyday.
	Keller went back to his log splitting and waited for what he 
knew was going to be more visitors to his quiet domain.

Alone Again
 by Klick

Part Four
	
	Keller was taking aim on his second log when he saw four 
people coming down a narrow path that he knew led in the direction of the 
clearing where he assumed the helicopter had landed. He stopped his cutting 
and watched them approach. One of them was the Chief of Police of 
Spalding, Bob Marston, the other three he did not recognize. One was the 
female he had seen in the chopper, the other two were men wearing business 
suits. "FBI if I ever saw them." He murmured to himself. Zeke growled and 
Keller told him to go lay down.
	"Howdy Doc." The Chief said as they came within speaking 
distance.
	"Bob, what the heck got you out of that easy chair in your 
office?" Keller asked trying to sound casual. ‘Was that you in that chopper?" 
	"Doc, this here’s Agent Harris from the FBI. She’s looking for 
an escaped prisoner." The woman and Keller shook hands and she introduced 
her two companions. "This is Agents Saunders and Farmington. Nice to meet 
you. Nice place you have here. You live here long?"
	"About three years now, yeah, I like it, serves my purposes just 
fine." Zeke had cautiously came to investigate these newest invaders. "So 
you got an escapee, huh? Was he seen around these parts?"
	"It’s a she, and she was in a plane that went down about three or 
four miles from here last night." Harris said, looking suspiciously at the dog.
	"Oh don’t mind him, he just isn’t used to strangers. Zeke, go 
away. A plane went down you say? A big plane?"
	"No a small one, with three people on board. Two died in the 
crash but the third, my prisoner, must have walked away. There’s no sign of 
her at the crash."
	"Walked away, from a plane crash? Now that’s a little hard to 
believe. You sure a bear or bobcat didn’t get her. If she was injured the smell 
of blood would have attracted some of the more unfriendly residents of this 
area." Keller offered just to give the agent food for thought.
	Harris looked at the Chief. "Is that right, are there animals 
around here that could have seen Croft as a meal?"
	Marston nodded," Yep, there’s black bears, brown bears and a 
whole shit-pot full of bobcats and coyotes. I’d guess that anyone of them 
could have taken her if she was injured and helpless, or even if she wasn’t."
	"Well she was helpless alright. She was wearing handcuffs and 
leg irons when I put her on that plane in Oregon. If she walked away she 
didn’t get too far. Unless... somebody came along and helped her." The agent 
looked at Keller again. He looked back with an unwavering stare. "Doctor 
Keller is it? Are you a physician?  Keller shook his head; "I’m a retired 
physicists." He offered. She seemed unimpressed. "You haven’t by chance 
seen anyone today have you?" 
	"Not a soul, except for you folks. Tell you what, I’ve got to do a 
bit of hunting tomorrow up Nursery Valley way, if I see anything I’ll be sure 
and give you a yell. Where did you say this plane went down?"
	"We didn’t say, but since you asked, the crash sight is about 
three and a half miles north of here. Near a place called Anvil Rock, is that 
right chief?" Harris asked the cop, getting an affirmative reply.
	‘That’s right Doc. The planes right at the base of Anvil, in fact it 
looks like he hit it before he went down in the valley just at its base. I don’t 
see how anyone could have walked away from it though, it’s in a thousand 
pieces and burned to boot." Marston said.
	" Kelly, would you have any objections if we had a look around, 
you know just so we can say we’ve covered all our bases?" Harris asked with 
just a little too much sarcasm.
	There was a long, uncomfortable pause before Keller responded. 
"Well, I’ll tell you Agent Harris." He reached up and scratched his ear, "I 
don’t mind at all that you have a look around, what I take objection to is the 
fact that by doing so you call me a liar. Now unless you plan to come on my 
land and throw your government weight around, I’ll ask that you to be on 
your way. No offence Bob," he nodded at the policeman, "It’s just that Agent 
Harris here needs to learn some manners. Harris stared steely eyed at Keller 
as he continued. "I was a government employee for thirty years Harris and 
I’ve had enough of some of your tactics. Now I’ve got wood to cut for the 
winter, if you’ll excuse me?"
	Harris did not respond for several seconds then spun on her 
heels and told her two friends to follow her. She walked toward the cabin and 
was putting her foot onto the porch steps then stopped when Keller did not 
protest. She turned and looked at the doctor. "Keller, if you see anything that 
you think could be of interest could I expect that you’ll let us or the chief here 
know?" 
	"You can be assured that I will call the minute I see anything 
that doesn’t look Kosher. And, that’s Doctor Keller." He said with a firm 
tone that told Harris that the conversation was over. He picked up his axe and 
swung down hard on an oak log waiting its turn for destruction on the stump. 
The FBI men followed their boss and turned away from the cabin and headed 
back up the trail the way they had come.
	"I’ll be in touch Doc, sorry, they made me bring ‘em out here" 
Marston said as he turned to follow the federal agents.
	"You take care Bob, I’ll see you in town soon." Keller stopped 
his chopping and watched the four walk away. When they were out of sight 
he picked up a log that he had split earlier and beneath it on the ground was 
half of a chrome chain link. He smiled knowing that it had been laying there 
all during the recent encounter with the FBI agents.
	Ten minutes later, the Huey flew over and as he expected, he 
saw Harris again looking down at him as the helicopter disappeared over the 
trees. She didn’t see his grin.... or his extended middle finger.
	"Melissa!" he called out to her knowing she would be able to 
hear him. "It’s alright, they’re gone, you can come out now." He saw the 
cabin door open a crack and her pretty face peer out at him.
	"Who was it?" she wanted to know.
	"An old friend of yours, Agent Harris from the FBI." He told her 
and watched as a worried expression came over her face.
	"Oh shit, not her, she’s a real bitch. She’s the one that put me in 
these." She held her hands up to indicate the hinged cuffs still confining her 
wrists. "You asked who put me like this, well, you just met her."
	"She’s gone and I don’t think she’ll be back. At least not 
anytime soon. You can come outside. If that chopper comes back we’ll hear it 
before it gets here." He watched as she took her cautious steps onto the porch 
looking up at the sky in nervous apprehension. The prisoner walked onto the 
porch and leaned on the railing looking down at Keller.
	"Well Richard, I owe you again. You just saved my ass another 
time." She said. Keller looked at her still cuffed hands that she was looking 
down at too. "It’s too bad you didn’t think to ask of she had some spare 
handcuff keys you could borrow." Melissa said with a knowing grin.
	"Speaking of your cuffs, I hope you can stand wearing them for 
awhile longer. I don’t think there’s enough teeth left on that file to even 
scratch them. Can you make do till I can get to town?" 
	She walked down the steps and toward him taking the chance to 
again scan the sky as she did. When she was within a foot or so she raised her 
hands over his head and as before, kissed him. He could hear her handcuffs 
click behind his head as her lips pressed his. "You’ve got to be the sweetest 
man I’ve ever met. Every other guy I’ve ever known wanted nothing more 
than to get in my pants. But you, you just seem to care about me."
	Keller smiled at her and put his arms around her slender waist. 
"I just didn’t want anything to happen to you until I had a chance to find out 
the whole story. I’m not a big fan of the FBI’s methods anymore than I am of 
the government’s. You want to talk to me now or would you like to get 
something to eat first?"
	 She didn’t answer him but just stood there staring into his eyes. 
"So... do you?" she asked, brushing his lips with hers again.
	"Do I what?" he asked, confused.
	"Want to get in my pants?"
	There was a long silence as he looked down at the lovely young 
criminal that he had helped elude capture and was now apparently offering 
her thanks in the only way she had available. "You don’t have to do that 
Melissa, you don’t have to feel obligated." He finally said
	"It’s not obligation I’m feeling." She said as she pressed herself 
into him and placed one leg between his. "I hid in your bedroom awhile ago 
and I saw that huge bed you have. Take me in there, show me what you’d do 
with a girl who’s handcuffed and unable to defend herself." Her cuffs pressed 
into the back of his neck as she kissed him and the sound and feel of them 
was a turn on that he hadn’t expected. The combination of this lovely female 
offering herself to him and the eroticism of her being in handcuffs was too 
much for Keller to ignore. He reached back, took her hands in his, and 
walked with her toward the cabin.
	She stood before him and made a move to unbutton her shirt but 
the hinged cuffs made the effort more of a challenge than she had anticipated. 
"Shit, I can’t even take my own clothes off." She said, as she looked up at 
him with a "Help Me" expression on her face.
	"That’s ok, I’ll do it, in fact, I prefer it. "He smiled as he began 
unbuttoning the denim shirt. With the last button loosened he drew back the 
garment to reveal a snow white satin and lace bra that barely contained her 
breasts within it’s softness. Keller had been noticing those bulges in that shirt 
all day and wondering if it was all her. He inhaled audibly when the creamy 
smoothness of her breasts was nearly displayed in front of him. He pulled the 
shirt down and off her shoulders which made it a restraint of sorts in it’s own 
right, now that it was keeping her from reaching out away from her body 
much like the belt had done. The bra was of the front latching kind and he had 
little difficulty discovering how the closure worked and was quickly rewarded 
for his efforts as those magnificent breasts spilled out for his touch and 
approval. Her nipples were hard and pointing at him as he put his hands 
gently over them and massaged the twin globes of womanhood so perfectly 
displayed for his pleasure. "You’re so beautiful Melissa." He offered as he 
stared into those big brown eyes. She responded with an increase in her 
breathing.
	With her shirt off, or as far off as it would come because of her 
cuffs, Keller moved down to the snap and zipper of her jeans. Within 
moments, he had them open and she wiggled her hips to assist him lowering 
her pants to the floor. Under the denim were white panties that matched the 
bra and something Keller never expected to see. Melissa wore a garter belt 
and nylons instead of pantyhose that most women wear today. "Oh my Lord 
girl, you are something." He said as he knelt in front of her and moved her 
jeans away from her feet as she kicked out of them. "Does that mean you 
approve?" She asked, breathing hard as he ran his hands up her legs to the 
waistband of her panties.
	"Approve? That hardly describes what I’m feeling right now 
Sweetie." He told her as the wispy material was slid down her legs and over 
the leg shackle cuffs still locked around her ankles. As she stepped out of 
them the remaining pieces of chain jingled merrily with the movements of her 
feet.
	"At least I can spread my legs now." She said and demonstrated 
her ability for him as he ran his hands back up her inner thighs. "If you hadn’t 
cut that chain I couldn’t have even taken my pants off, I just thought of that."
	"Sorry about your handcuffs, wish I could have gotten you out of 
them too." Actually he lied, for some reason, those cuffs were sexy as hell on 
her right then and he was truthfully glad they were still locked around her 
wrists. "I’ll make a trip to town soon and get something that will cut them.
	She lowered her hands to behind his head and urged his face into 
her crotch. "These cuffs are the least of my worries Richard. Right now all I 
want is you, inside me." She made a hissing sound as he pressed his mouth 
against that part of her that needed his attentions more than any other. "Let 
me undress you, that, I think I can do." 
	Keller stood again in front of her and she was right. Despite her 
restraints, she seemed to have little difficulty unfastening his pants and 
lowering them to the floor. His shirt came next and finally they stood facing 
each other, the only material between them was her shirt that was draped 
behind her back and the bra that was tangled in her handcuffs. Keller 
wrapped his arms around the girl and drew her to him. They began a kiss that 
continued as they stepped to the tall bed and with their lips still together got 
on it and within moments she was rewarded with what she said she wanted 
most at that time.
	Some time later the two lovers lay cuddled together, Melissa on 
her side with Keller wrapped around her from the rear. They had not spoken 
since the coupling had ended several minutes earlier. Their breathing was 
returning to normal and she turned her head and nuzzled his cheek with hers. 
"Oh wow, what did you do to me?" she asked in a soft afterglow voice.
	"Enjoyed you, that’s what I did. Like I’ve never enjoyed making 
love to a woman before." He was being honest.
	"Oh yeah, is that what you tell all the girls?" she asked as she 
snuggled her bottom against him.
	"I’ve never told a woman that. I have never been with any 
woman that did for me what you just did, I mean that Melissa." He said 
without humor in his voice.
	She rolled over and faced him. It was necessary for her to put 
her joined hands between them, her arms folded and her hands where he 
could easily kiss them. "There was something very special about what we just 
did Richard. I’ve been with my share of men, young and old and what you did 
to me just now was something I’ve never experienced before. I don’t know if 
it is because of how we met, or the circumstances of why I’m here, in your 
bed, Hell, maybe it’s these." She said as she moved her cuffs making them 
click against each other. "I just know that you made me feel more like a 
woman that any man has ever come close to." She put her lips to his and the 
fire they had started earlier burned bright again and for the next hour till both 
man and woman fell asleep in each others arms.
	It was early evening when they climbed off Keller’s huge bed 
and walked to the bathroom together. "Ok Missy, now how are we going to 
get you bathed?" She looked down at her cuffs, shook her head and grinned 
sheepishly up at him. "Well, I could cut this shirt off of you and then we 
could take a shower but then you couldn't get dressed again. Not an entirely 
bad idea if I do say so." He joked.
	"Oh so you’d like me running around your place with my boobs 
hanging out?" she playfully poked at him with her finger.
	"As I said, not an entirely bad idea. But not too practical if we 
want to go for a hike or for a ride on Ned." He teased her in return. I’ll tell 
you what, I’ll bathe you, how would that be?"
	She looked up at him and smiled. "I’ve never been bathed by a 
man. Looks like another first for me in a long line of firsts. My first plane 
crash, my first horse ride, the first time I’ve made love locked in handcuffs. 
So why not my first bath from a man?"
	Keller bathed his houseguest. He stood her in front of him and 
gently ran the warm wet cloth over her body. First lovingly soaping her then 
rinsing then carefully drying her with a giant soft towel. He even powered her 
before drawing her shirt back up her arms and onto her shoulders. She had 
shown him how to unfasten the bra straps so it could be removed despite her 
cuffs and now she stood before him wearing only the unbuttoned shirt.
	"You must be starving by now, how about it if I put a couple of 
steaks on the fire and throw a salad together?" he asked as she shook back 
her long mane of brunette hair.
	"Oooooh, now that sounds like a deal, can I help?" she asked.
	‘Sure, if you think you can do it, you can break up the lettuce 
and slice some tomatoes. Just be careful with the knife. Would you care for a 
glass of wine?"     		  
	"I’d love some wine. Hey, Richard, you wouldn’t have a 
cigarette around would you?"
	"Sorry kiddo, I gave ‘em up about ten years ago.
	"That’s ok, this is probably a good time to try to quit anyway." 
She responded, as she took the wineglass from him. She held the big goblet 
as a person would hold a warm cup of coffee on a cold morning, with both 
hands and her fingers wrapped around it. It was the only way she could with 
those hinged cuffs dictating their strict confinement. Her eyes met his over the 
rim of the glass as she took her first sip.
	If there was one thing that Keller was good at, it was cooking a 
steak on a charcoal fire. Melissa, normally not a big meat eater had made 
short work of the porterhouse and boiled shrimp dinner. Keller did have to 
help her cut the meat when after she picked up her knife and fork and made 
her first attempt; it was apparent that cutting steak was something her 
handcuffs were not going to easily allow. "Here, let me do that." He said, 
when he looked over at her and could see that the hinged restraints would not 
let her twist her hands into the right position.
	"Sorry, you have to help me do everything."	
	He had smiled at her as he sliced her meat and confessed. 
"Actually, I’m kind of enjoying it. It’s nice taking care of you. I’m sort of 
glad you’re in those cuffs." 
She had looked up at him and grinned. "You’re so sweet."
 Afterwards they sat together in the lounger on the porch of the 
cabin. Zeke had taken a place at the girl’s side. "I just can’t believe 
that dog, the way he’s taken to you. Are you a dog person?" he asked.
	"I’ve never been around one for any length of time. My family 
always lived in an apartment in the middle of Chicago and we didn’t have 
pets. Zeke’s a sweet guy though, I could fall in love with him." She reached 
down and toyed with the retriever’s fur. Zeke was learning that for some 
reason he had to be close to her to get touched. He just could not figure out 
why she always seemed to use both hands whenever she did. He leaned his 
head closer, enjoying her fingers gently rubbing his ears.
	"I could do a better job Zeke if your master would get me out of 
these things." She said, looking at Keller.
	"Tomorrow, I’ll try to get ‘em off tomorrow." He smiled at her.
	"How? You said you didn’t have anything here to cut them 
with." She held her cuffs out in front of her examining the gleaming steel that 
had held her prisoner for nearly three days.
	"I’m going into town and buy something that will get ‘em
off. But I’m not going to Spalding."
	"You’re not? Where are you going then? I thought you said the 
next closest town was sixty miles from here.
	"Sixty five, actually. I’m going up to Hainsly, it’s a little bigger 
than Spalding and no one knows me there.
	"You’re going to ride Ned a hundred and thirty miles?" she 
sounded incredulous.
	He laughed. "No, I’m not riding Ned, I’m driving."
	"Driving? I didn’t know you had a car."
	"It’s a truck, a 73 Chevy pick-up. That’s what’s in the shed next 
to the barn. I don’t drive it much, just a trip into town once a month or so. He 
said, watching her run her fingers through her hair.
	"So why not Spalding? Isn’t there a hardware store there?" she 
asked in an off hand way, clicking her cuffs back and forth against each other, 
seemingly exploring the way the hinged link worked.
	"Yeah, there’s one there but I’m a little concerned about your 
FBI friend." 
	Her head snapped in his direction. "Why, do you think she’s still 
in town?"
	"That Harris woman is a smart cookie. She knows that Spalding 
is the closest town to the plane crash and she might have feelers out there for 
anyone buying tools that could be used to cut your restraints." He reached 
over and fingered the steel cuff on her right wrist. "I didn’t have a good feel 
for what she thought when she left here today but I know she was suspicious, 
but then maybe that’s just her nature. I do know she sure didn’t like me much. 
Anyway, it wouldn’t do for her to find out that I was in town buying 
hacksaws or boltcutters. She just might decide to come back snoopin’ around. 
Like I said, no body knows me in Hainsly and I doubt that Harris would be 
blanketing every town within a hundred miles of here."
	Melissa turned over to face him. She put her hands over his head 
and drew his face close to hers with her cuffs. "You really do care about me 
don’t you Richard Keller?"
	"I really do care about you, Melissa Croft." His lips met hers 
and stayed that way for several minutes.
	When she finally let her mouth leave his, she spoke quietly into 
his chest as she lay her head on him. "You’ve never asked why I was 
arrested. Do you want to know?" 
	"I figured if you wanted to tell me you would, otherwise, I guess 
maybe it’s none of my business. He waited for her to reply.
	"I stole some money from the government. I suppose truthfully, I 
should say it was from several banks but the FDIC had to make good on the 
losses so that made it a federal thing." She began her confession.
	"Can I ask how much?" he wanted to know.
	"Total, or how much they know about?" She said almost with a 
small giggle in her voice.
	Keller looked at her and saw the tiny smile on her pretty mouth. 
"Let’s start with what they know about." He said, curious.
	"One point six." She offered without flinching.
	"Million! One point six million dollars?" he sat up looking at 
her, eyes wide and mouth agape.
	Melissa giggled and nodded. "But they don’t know or will they 
ever, about the rest. It’s already laundered and out of the country." She said 
with a hint of pride in her voice.
	"The rest? And how much is, the rest?"
	She lost her smile and rolled her eyes to meet his again, 
"Another one point eight. And like I said, they have no way to trace it, or 
recover it. It’s safe and all mine, sitting in a bank waiting for me to claim it."
	"Holy shit Melissa, I know you’re smart but how in the hell did 
you ever get away with that kind of activity long enough to accrue almost 
three and a half million dollars?"
	She briefly outlined her scheme’s inner workings, explaining 
superficially the security systems that are supposedly designed to prevent 
such activity and the loop holes she had discovered in them. "It was really 
very easy, I could spent an hour on the computer and rake in two or three 
hundred thousand. I know now where I made my mistake but of course it’s a 
little late." She clicked her handcuffs together to make her point. "If I’d 
known three months ago what I know now there’s a good chance that I could 
have kept going for as long as I wanted without the slightest worry about 
being caught."
	"But you were caught, what now?" he asked, obviously very 
curious about her immediate plans.
	"I’m thinking... and planning, I’m optimistic that things could 
still work to my advantage. There’s always the chance that they could catch 
me again and if they do, then I’ll have to get used to wearing these," she 
jiggled her cuffs again. "And living in a cell somewhere. But I’ll get out 
someday and my money will still be there, just waiting, and making interest."
	A cool breeze stirred the pines surrounding the cabin and she 
shivered although she was curled against him. "Can we go in? I’m getting 
chilly."
	"Yeah, it’s late and that big bed sure is starting to look good." 
He offered as he helped her get up from the lounger.
	"Yes it is, in fact, I can suggest some exercises that should warm 
me right up." She said, holding his hand as they walked through the door 
from the porch. "Come on Zeke, we’re going to bed."

Alone Again
 by Klick

Part Five
		
	Melissa gave Keller reason to sleep very good that night. In fact, both 
of them slept well. Apparently, Melissa was getting accustomed to being in 
handcuffs; at least they didn’t seem to keep her from getting a good night’s 
sleep. When she woke up he was already in the kitchen making breakfast and 
she could smell the coffee brewing in his big Farberware percolator.
	"Oh wow, does that smell great." She said, as she padded barefoot up 
behind him, the severed leg irons chains jingling their announcement of her 
arrival. She raised her hands over his head and he let her place them on his 
shoulders then turned around to face her leaving her arms where they were.
	"Good morning sleepy head. I was wondering if I was going to have to 
come in there and haul you out of that bed." He said as she put her lips on his.
	"Good morning Richard Keller. How long have you been up?" She 
asked after the kiss.
	"Oh, ‘bout an hour and a half. I’ve already fed the horse and went out 
to see if that old truck would start."
	"And did it?" she queried with a cock of her head and a pretty smile.
	"Yep, just like it’s supposed to. The battery was a little low so I put it 
on the charger for a spell. How do you like your eggs?"
	She smiled at him and raised her hands over his head and back down in 
front of herself. She rotated the cuffs on her wrists where they had been 
digging in with her hands over his shoulders. "How are you having yours?" 
she asked.
	"Scrambled." He told her and took her hands in his. "We’ll get these 
off of you today.
	"Ok, and scrambled for me too. Can I help?"
	He had her set the table and pour juice and coffee. He finished cooking 
their breakfast, they sat across from each other eating, and Keller watched her 
awkward movements that the handcuffs dictated.
	"You know, It’s going to be strange to see you without those on."
	She smiled at him as she bit into a slice of toast. She chewed the bite 
then said. "So, leave me in them if that’s what you like. I can’t get them off 
without your help, it’s your choice."
	He made a small chuckle and shook his head. "I don’t know why but 
there’s something kind of sexy about the way they look on you. I’ve never 
seen a girl in handcuffs before, at least other than TV or movies. But it is 
unique, I’ve got to admit."
	"Maybe that’s why some men keep slaves, so they can see their 
women in chains." She said with a coy smile over her coffee cup. 
"May be." He smiled back.
	With the breakfast dishes were cleared away, he placed a note pad and 
pen on the table in front of her. "Here, make me a shopping list. Put down all 
the things you want or need. Oh, and write down your sizes too, you’re going 
to need some other clothes besides the ones you came here in."
	"Richard, I don’t want you spending money on me." She said as she 
looked at the pad.
	"Sweetie, you’re going to need some things and you sure as heck don’t 
have any money. Now be a good girl and tell me what you want."
	She looked up at him, smiled and began to write. Her cuffs made the 
task a bit of a challenge but she managed to jot down a list of things she 
thought would be good to have and gave it to him. "Ok, here, but that’s all I 
need. Don’t spend any more than you have to." 
	A little later he was ready to leave. "I’m going to leave Zeke with you. 
He usually goes everywhere with me, but he’ll be good company for you and, 
he’ll let you know if anyone is approaching the cabin. He called to the dog 
and knelt to scratch his ears. "Zeke, you stay with Melissa today, take care of 
her and don’t let her get into trouble." He grinned up at her as he talked. Zeke 
looked at her to as if he understood.
	Keller backed the old Chevy out of the shed and leaned out of the 
window as she stood next to him. "Watch Zeke, if he barks or acts a little 
strange I want you to get inside, Take him in with you, lock the doors and 
stay away from the windows. I don’t expect that anybody will show up but I 
want you safe. Ok?" I’ll be home around two or three this afternoon.
	She agreed and leaned through the truck window and kissed him before 
he drove away and headed down the six mile long, dirt trail to the state road 
that would take him into the city of Hainsly. He looked back at her in the rear 
view mirror and saw her standing, watching him drive away.
	Milissa watched till she couldn’t see the red truck anymore. She looked 
down at her handcuffs then turned back toward the cabin with Zeke at her 
side. Before he left, she was not worried at all about being alone but now that 
he was gone, she felt uneasy. "Zeke, you let me know if you hear anyone 
coming. I really feel vulnerable out here like this. I hope Richard isn’t gone 
too long."
	She stayed out side for awhile, playing with Zeke and exploring the 
area surrounding the cabin but she would not go too far away from it and 
never so far that it was out of sight. She could not help but keep her eyes on 
the dog’s every action and if he would do anything that made her think he’d 
heard something she would tense and ready herself for a sprint for the cabin.
She was surprised to find herself so tense and knew that it was the fear that 
Harris would return to find her there. After all her brave talk the night before 
about going to jail and getting out and having her money waiting, she was 
now realizing just how much the idea of going to prison frightened her. She 
did not know how afraid she was until she was alone and Richard was not 
there to protect her from the woman that had captured her the first time. As 
she moved around the clearing, she began to feel as alone and helpless as she 
had in those hours immediately following the terrible ordeal of the crash and 
her trek down the valley before Keller discovered her. She tugged at her 
cuffs, wishing she could at least escape from their constant grip and tried to 
get her mind off Harris and prison.
	The day passed uneventful and finally, at about two thirty, she saw 
Zeke jump to his feet and produce a quiet bark then his tail began to wag and 
he jumped off the porch and ran for the entrance to the clearing through 
which he knew Keller would be coming. At first she was tense again and 
called to the dog but then she heard the truck too and when she peeked 
around the corner of the cabin, she saw the old truck and Keller’s well-worn 
Panama hat. She almost cried with relief and ran to meet him, as enthusiastic 
as the dog had been.
	Melissa greeted Keller with a shower of kisses and he could see that 
she had been anxious for him to get home. "Sorry I was gone so long honey. I 
know you were probably a little nervous, being here by yourself all day. Here, 
take a look at these and maybe you’ll feel better." He offered, handing her 
three bags of gifts he’d purchased for her in town. 
	She had a little trouble carrying one of them but managed as he got 
some remaining things from the truck and walked with her back around to the 
porch. She squealed with each new discovery when she would remove them 
from the sacks. New clothes, surprisingly stylish and not what one would 
expect a man to buy for a girl he hardly knew.
	"Richard, these are lovely, you really have good taste. "She told him, 
as she held blouses, jeans and shorts out to look at them. She giggled at his 
selection of underwear and commented that she thought he had chosen some 
of it more for his enjoyment than for her to have something to wear.
	He grinned and confessed, "Well, a man’s got to have a little fun every 
now and then. I just picked out what I thought I’d like to see you in."
	She held out a particularly fetching pair of panties with high, French 
cut legs and a satin panel at the crotch with several small snaps that would 
allow them to be opened without removal. "Now, these are definitely for after 
you get me out of my cuffs and we can have some unhindered fun in bed." 
She said before kissing him again.
	"And speaking of your cuffs, here, you should like this." He said, 
offering her a small, brown paper bag.
	She looked at the sack and made a curious little frown at it but reached 
out and took it from him. It was surprisingly heavy for its size and she could 
not begin to guess what was in that small bag that would get her out of the 
handcuffs. She grinned skeptically as she removed the contents and saw a 
blue cardboard box then as she read the words on it her eyes widened and she 
looked at Keller. "Handcuffs, you bought me a pair of handcuffs? Sweetie, 
just in case you haven’t noticed, I already have a set." She offered her own 
manacles out to him and she was still grinning but obviously curious still.
	‘Sure, but I know how much you like yours, so I got you another pair." 
He watched for her reaction then continued, "Mel, when you buy a pair of 
cuffs, they come with Keys." 
	Suddenly comprehension flooded over her face and she opened her 
mouth. "Keys, oh shit yes, keys." She opened the box and in the process, a 
small wire ring with two, tiny chrome keys fell out and onto the floor. She 
reached down and retrieved them then looked at the handcuffs that were 
wrapped in a brown, waxy paper. "You really did buy another pair. 
Richard...will these open my cuffs?" she looked hopefully at him and offered 
the key ring out to him with shaking fingers.
	"Well, let’s just see." He said, as he selected one of the pair and 
inserted it into the hole on the backside of her left cuff. She watched in 
anticipation as he first rotated the key in one direction, which produced no 
results. He heard a small gasp escape her lips, he then turned the key the 
other way. At the end of its travel, there was a barely audible click and she 
reacted again as the cuff failed to open.
	"Oh, it didn’t work?" There was a look of desperation on her face 
before he turned the key back the other way again.
	This time the gleaming steel jaw of the cuff swung down and open 
which produced an immediate response from the nearly free captive.
	She squealed and raised her arm high above her and then let it drop 
down over her head. "Oh, God, oh Richard, thank you!" she looked down as 
he unlocked her right manacle and she was finally free of the handcuffs which 
had held her prisoner.
	Melissa jumped to her feet and bounced to the center of the room. 
Keller watched her, amused at her antics as she flung her arms in every 
direction that her restraints had prevented and yelped and squealed as she 
reveled in the freedom he had just awarded her. The short lengths of her leg 
iron chains clinked and rattled wildly with her movements. "Richard Keller, 
you’re my savior, my guardian angel!" She dropped to her knees in front of 
him and put her arms around his neck, planted her mouth on his and pushed 
him over backwards where he fell onto his back on the sofa with her climbing 
on top of him, kissing his face and holding it between her hands.
	"My Lord, its a wild woman!" he joked, as she continued to kiss him 
and wiggle her body against his.
	"Oh, Richard, you can’t know what it’s like to get out of handcuffs that 
you’ve had to wear for four days. Thank you my sweet man!" she kissed his 
mouth again and nuzzled his neck with her cheek.
	After several more minutes of her showing her appreciation for what he 
had just done he sat back up and told her to stand in front of him again. 
"Let’s see if we can get those shackles off now. The man at the store where I 
bought the cuffs said most of these things use a standard key, let’s hope." He 
said as he tried a key in the leg iron cuff on her right ankle.
	"Oh, neat!" she reacted, as the heavy cuff opened without hesitation. 
He removed it and placed it on the floor before unlocking the last remaining 
evidence of her recent capture and confinement. She grew silent for a moment 
almost as if she felt a loss. ‘I can’t believe I’m totally free. I know it’s just 
been four days but I was actually beginning to get used to wearing these." 
She said as she picked up the handcuffs that were still warm from her body’s 
heat. She turned them over in her hand and examined the things, which 
looked so simple yet had confined her so effectively.
	Keller reached out and took the restraints from her hand. "I’d like to 
keep these if you wouldn’t care. They’ll always remind me of you."
	Melissa grinned and nodded her approval. "Who knows, maybe you’ll 
have to put them on me again, if I misbehave." She bent down and kissed him 
again. "Now, lets go see what else you brought home with you."
	Keller had gone to the food store along with his clothes buying 
expedition and had a couple of bags of odds and ends that he thought she 
would like to have around plus the things she’d written down on his list.
"Here, are these the right brand?" he said offering her the carton from the first 
sack.
	"Richard, I only wanted a pack, this is a whole carton. Do you have 
any idea how long it will take me to smoke these?" she asked holding the 
cigarettes out at him. "I usually only have one or two cigarettes a day."
	"So... are you going somewhere?" he asked. Inwardly he was afraid of 
her answer but he made it sound like a carefree question. When she did not 
answer right away, he looked at her and their eyes met. There was no humor 
in the moment.
	She stood there staring into his eyes and trying to find an answer to his 
question.  Melissa knew that when he was around he made her feel safe and 
secure and being there with him was a place that she knew she would not 
ever have to worry about wanting for anything again. She also knew that she 
could not stay. For all the protection he offered her from the world outside of 
his cabin, she knew there would always be the possibility that someone would 
discover her presence there and that she would be identified as the fugitive 
that had disappeared from the plane. That fear, of being caught and sent to 
prison, was stronger than she had given it credit for and staying with Keller 
too long seemed to make the possibility that it could happen, real.
	"Richard, I will have to leave someday. I can’t stay here forever. You 
know that too, don’t you?" she turned her answer into a question.
	Keller looked away for a brief second then met her eyes again and 
simply nodded. "So, till that time comes, you’ll have cigarettes whenever you 
want." He grinned and she smiled back at him.
	For the next two weeks, their life together settled into a comfortable, 
although not routine existence. Keller took her fishing in a pond not too far 
from the cabin where she caught the first fish she had ever hooked in her life. 
He taught her how to shoot a rifle and she actually shot a squirrel that she 
watched him dress out and then fried for their dinner. "No, they don’t taste 
like chicken." He had told her as she watched the small animal frying in the 
pan.
	Melissa learned to ride Ned, this time she was able to straddle him 
instead of riding sidesaddle, as she’d had to do the first time. Keller had taken 
her for hikes in the woods and had shown and taught her things about the 
outdoors that she had never dreamed existed. One afternoon while he was 
busy cleaning Ned’s stall and she had taken a marking pen and a sheet of 
white cardboard that had come inside a shirt he’d bought for her and made a 
sign that he found hilarious. Neatly lettered, she’d placed her homemade sign 
on the mantel over the fireplace where he discovered it later in the day, 
"Richard Keller’s Summer Camp for Wayward Girls" the sign read, and 
Keller had laughed heartily at her wit.
	The days were full of discovery and wonderment for her, the evenings 
they spent sitting on the porch and talking or in front of the fireplace on 
cooler nights. He sat on the sofa her head in his lap. Sometimes they listened 
to music or he would read while she dozed comfortably near him. The days 
had stayed unseasonably warm but the nights were getting cooler and 
forewarned of the winter not far off.
	He had told her that he would have to go out to bring in some fresh 
game to augment the store bought meat that he had in the freezer. "The 
winters can be brutal at times here. I’ve been snowed in for weeks with no 
way to get into town. I always keep some rabbit and squirrel frozen for those 
times and in case I get tired of beef, pork or chicken. I’m usually gone for 
most of the day and I’ll need to take Zeke with me. I’d ask you to come with 
me but we both couldn’t ride Ned that long and it’s too far to walk. Will you 
be ok here alone if I’m gone for a full day?"
	Melissa assured him that she would do fine and not having handcuffs 
on would make the day a lot easier to endure than the time he had gone to 
town. "I’ll be ok, really Richard, you won’t have to worry about me. You just 
go out there, shoot the Easter Bunny if that’s what makes you happy and 
those poor little squirrels that look like someone’s pets." She giggled at his 
reaction to her kidding as he shook his head at her and flicked her on the end 
of her nose.
	A change had come over the girl right after his announcing his plans for 
a hunting trip. Keller had noticed it but the difference was so slight that he 
was not concerned. She became more serious, more thoughtful often growing 
quiet and she seemed to be deep in thought a lot more than usual.
Had he known her longer he would have recognized this difference in her 
demeanor as her way of planning her strategy. People that knew Melissa from 
her days as the vice president of the bank that she had stolen the millions 
from had at one time or other saw this same quiet, distant look in her eyes. 
Behind those eyes her mind was working, planning and plotting her moves 
with cold calculation. It was her way of assessing all the options and methods 
available to her and deciding her best moves. Keller did not know this and 
was completely unprepared for what happened on that cool, October day. 
	Ned was saddled and loaded with all that Keller would need for his 
hunt. Two rifles, food, water, and extra clothes in case of a weather change, 
which it was prone to do at that time of the year. Food for Zeke and empty 
game sacks that would hopefully return with enough small game to last for the 
better part of the winter season. When he was sure he had all that he would 
require, he kissed her and climbed into the saddle, whistled for Zeke and she 
stood and watched as they headed into the dense woods. She walked upon 
the porch, lit a cigarette, and from the higher vantage point could watch his 
departure through the dense trees. She folded her arms across her chest then 
rested her right elbow on her left wrist, walking back and forth on the porch 
taking nervous little puffs from her smoke then crushed it out in the ash tray 
he’d fabricated for her from an old hubcap. She looked at the chrome dish 
and recalled when he had presented her with it. "We don’t want to start a 
brush fire here near the cabin so I made this for you to use on the porch." He 
had bent the edges down in four places so she would have someplace to rest 
her smokes and she grinned as she looked at it setting on the round table that 
occupied the deck just outside the cabin door. "He was always thinking of 
me." She looked out at the spot where she had last seen him on Ned’s back 
and could feel a tear at the corner of her eye. "Good by, Richard Keller. I’ll 
never forget you." She turned and entered the cabin door.
	Keller’s hunting expedition lasted most of the day as he had predicted 
and he did not arrive home until late that evening. The sun was nearly down 
but there was still sufficient light for him to see the cabin through the trees as 
he was nearing the edge of the clearing. Zeke saw it too and sprinted ahead 
for his customary victory bark and jump onto the porch. The dog produced 
his usual three barks but instead of standing and watching Keller and Ned 
bring up the rear he turned to the cabin door and barked twice. He was 
obviously anxious to see the girl. 
	 Keller observed the dog and expected her to come out to greet them 
any second but as he approached the cabin, there was no sign that she knew 
they had arrived home. The door remained closed and he noticed there were 
no lights on inside. His first priority was to get Ned unsaddled and into his 
corral. He slung the nearly full game bags onto a fence post and began 
loosening the girth strap and as he slid the saddle off the horses back he kept 
glancing up at the door. "Where is she Zeke, get her out here, speak, get her 
Zeke, get Melissa." The dog barked several times and nosed at the still, 
closed door, but there was no response. "Hello in the house! The brave hunter 
has returned!" he yelled loudly. Loud enough that she should have been able 
to hear him from inside... if she was inside. Keller was by now getting 
concerned. He put Ned in the corral and walked up the porch steps to the 
door. "Hey, Melissa, we’re home!" he said it with authority and was 
wondering if there was some chance she could be napping. There was another 
possibility.
	Melissa had loved to surprise him at times. She would hide and jump 
out onto his back or do things she knew he would not be expecting then 
would laugh when he discovered her in some unlikely place, or, condition. He 
had been in the shower one night and came out to find that she had chained 
herself to the bed. She had tied the separated leg irons to the foot of the bed 
and using her handcuffs, the ones Keller had found her in, and the set he’d 
bought to get the keys, and secured herself, spread eagle on the big four 
posted bed wearing only the snap open panties that he’d purchased the day 
he’d gone to Hainsly. He had steeped out of the bathroom into a darkened 
bedroom and flipped on the light. He was greeted with a sight that he would 
remember for the rest of his life. She had also cuffed her hands behind her 
once and then called him into the shower. "Sir, would you mind washing my 
back? It seems I’m in handcuffs and I can’t quite reach."
	Keller was hoping this was one of those times as he opened the door 
and stepped into the still cabin. Zeke brushed past his legs and began 
exploring the rooms. "Melissa. Melissa?" there was no reply. Zeke made his 
rounds and came back empty handed, or pawed, and stood looking up at 
Keller as if to question the situation. "I don’t know boy, where is she?" Keller 
walked further into the room and from there he could see the foot of the bed 
through the open door and could see that she had not repeated her handcuff 
scene again. The bed was undisturbed. He spoke again though by now he was 
certain she was not in the cabin. "Melissa?"
	Keller and the dog went back out onto the porch and he cupped his 
hands and yelled her name as loud as he was able. The second time he did it, 
there was obvious anxiety in his voice. "Melissa....Melissa. He turned to 
direct his voice in another direction and yelled again. Zeke was running 
around the area surrounding the cabin in classic tracking form, His tail was 
up, his nose to the ground and he seemed to be exploring the dirt in a zigzag 
pattern, running, almost hopping back and forth across the clearing.
	Keller could feel the emotions building with the uncertainty of where 
she had gone. His first thought was naturally, of the FBI. Had Harris decided 
to make one more attempt to locate her quarry and drove up to find Melissa 
here, where she suspected she would find her? Keller had a mental image of 
the girl being dragged away, her hands cuffed behind her back and crying, 
pleading not to be put in prison. She had confessed to Keller that the threat of 
living in a cell was her worst fear. 
Maybe even worse than the FBI would have been some stranger, a 
fugitive himself maybe, and had happened along and decided to help himself 
to the beautiful young woman that he had discovered when he came to 
burglarize the cabin. That thought made chills run up Keller’s back.
	The FBI theory still looked like the most plausible. That is until 
Keller began to analyze it more. Harris had made it clear that she didn’t care 
much for him and if she found out that Keller was harboring a fugitive, her 
fugitive, she would have gone out of her way to arrest him as well as the girl. 
If Harris was the reason Melissa was not at the cabin, there would have been 
her or some of her cronies there to greet him when he had returned from the 
hunting trip. Nothing was really making much sense. But, there was one way 
to find out. Zeke had finally given up his nose search for the girl’s scent and 
had joined Keller on the porch now using his eyes to scan the trees for some 
sign of his friend. ""Let's go in Zeke, let’s see if her stuff is still here.
	Keller and the dog entered the cabin and he walked a little 
unsteadily toward the bedroom. After he’d bought her the clothes he had 
moved some of his things out of one drawer of the big oak dresser and had 
made room in the closet for those things she’d need to hang. He reached out 
for the brass drawer knob and slowly pulled it open.
	The drawer was empty. Gone were the panties and bras, the T-
shirts and the sexy lingerie. The fragrant cedar lining was all that was there. 
Keller exhaled loudly a couple of times before stepping to the closet and 
pulling open the door. There were four empty hangers on the side of the bar 
that he had given for her use.
	Keller stood, feeling helpless as he looked around the empty 
bedroom where she had brought so much life in the last few weeks. He turned 
to the mirror on the dresser and saw his own reflection. The lines on his face 
seemed to be deeper and more pronounced with the strain of loss that he was 
at that moment experiencing. Standing there, looking at the man in the mirror 
he suddenly felt older than he had ever felt before. He turned to leave the 
aging relic in the glass and exit the room when his eye caught something 
breaking the smoothness of the dark brown comforter that covered the bed.
He walked over and looked down at the pair of handcuffs, folded on 
their hinge and laying on top of a sheet of note pad paper from the one he had 
given to her to write her shopping list in. He reached down and picked up the 
cuffs and then the page. He began to read then sat down on the edge of the 
bed. In delicate print, she tried to explain.
"My dearest Richard,
	There are no words that will make this any easier but I 
need to try at least to let you know why I have to do this. I know 
that what I did was wrong and I know that if I am caught, I will 
be made to pay for my crimes. It’s that fear that drives me to 
leave you. I told you that the idea of living, locked in a cell was the 
worst thing that I could even imagine. I’ve been locked up, twice, 
and I know that if they put me in prison it will be for ten or 
fifteen years. I could never survive that; I’d go insane, or worse.
	The time here, with you has been some of the best I’ve 
ever had in my life and you have been much more than a friend. I 
owe you my life sweetheart, if you had not found me I would have 
surely died out there in the woods. You have given so much of 
yourself to me and for me but it’s not fair for me to stay any 
longer. I know you’re falling in love with me as I am with you and I 
fear that if we continue, I wouldn’t leave. If I stay I know my fear 
of being discovered will continue to grow and it will destroy me if 
not both of us. I have to go, start over fresh where I can live and 
not have to be looking over my shoulder every moment and not 
jump with every strange sound.  There is an old saying that my 
father used to use for so many things and it goes, "If you’re going 
to have a party, you’ve got to pay the band." Well, I’m paying that 
band now by leaving you and I might or might not ever have that 
party. Only time will tell.
	I will contact you some day if they catch me or not. If 
they do it will be from prison; if they don’t it will be from out of 
the country. I’m sorry that I’m taking your truck, it’s just another 
strike against me but I’ll leave the keys under the driver’s seat. 
	Please don’t hate me, Richard, but do try to understand 
me.
Give Zeke a kiss and Ned a hug. 
                                                                 All my love, Melissa

		
 	Keller looked down at his shaking hand and reread the letter as Zeke 
came into the room and sat next to his master’s leg. Dogs have the ability to 
discern the emotions of the humans that they live with and Zeke could easily 
see that Keller was pain. He rested his chin on the man’s leg and looked up at 
him with large brown and understanding eyes. He felt the loss too. Melissa 
had become almost as much a part of his life as his master’s and now she 
wasn’t there. Keller put his hand gently on the dog’s head and sniffed back 
some emotion. "Well, Zeke, here we are... alone again."

Alone Again
 by Klick

Conclusion

	The next day Keller was just finishing his daily chores around the 
cabin, doing the breakfast dishes, sweeping the porch of the fall leaves that 
had cluttered it overnight and cleaning Ned’s stall. He poured himself a cup 
of coffee and was walking around the clearing that served as his yard when 
he heard Zeke bark and run toward the opposite side of the cabin where the 
trail that was his driveway ended. For a brief moment he thought that maybe, 
just maybe when he went to see who the dog was hearing, he’d see the old, 
red pick-up trudging toward him. He was hopeful but also realistic. That 
would be just too good to be true. 
	Keller walked to where he could see up the trail and was greeted with 
the sight of a blue and white Ford sedan slowly approaching. On it’s roof was 
the traditional light bar with it’s red and blue strobes and when it turned to 
stop twenty feet from where he stood he could easily see the large word 
"Police" on the door. He recognized the driver as Bob Marston, chief of the 
city of Spalding’s eight-man department. Marston got out tossing his uniform 
hat on the seat before closing the door. For some reason, the dog liked 
Marston and ran up to meet him as the man took a moment to kneel and pet 
the retriever before standing and looking across the space between them and 
said. "Morning, Doc, are you alright?"
	"Morning Bob, I’m fine, thanks. What brings you all the way out 
here?"
	Marston walked toward his friend and stuck out his hand. "The state 
patrol called this mornin’. Said they found your old pick-up by the side of the 
road, ‘bout ten miles this side of Hainsly. You didn’t answer your phone so I 
thought I’d better drive out this way and see if you were ok." 
	Keller was quick on his feet and without a hint of hesitation, lied to his 
friend. "Yeah, darned old pile of shit just died on me yesterday. Wouldn’t 
start again for hell, so I just hitched back home. I thought maybe I’d get in 
touch with Burt Dole, see if he could go out and tow it to his place, find out 
what’s wrong and if it’s worth fixin’. I was probably out and around 
somewhere when you called, sorry you drove all the way out here for 
nothin’."
	"Oh that wasn’t no problem, I needed to get out and see some of the 
trees turnin’ anyway. Fall’s always so pretty out this way and I always seem 
to miss it. You wouldn’t have any more of that coffee would you?"
	The two men sat on a bench at the edge of the yard and talked as Zeke 
explored the area. Marston didn’t pay any attention to what the dog was 
doing but Keller knew full well that he was still trying to pick up Melissa’s 
scent. "She’s long gone, boy, no use sniffin’ around here." He thought to 
himself. 
	"The weather man says we’re due for a long Indian summer this year. 
That is if you believe what they say." Marston said, making conversation.
	‘Well, to tell you the truth Bob, that wouldn’t hurt my feelin’s any. I’m 
not looking forward to the winter this year. It seems the older I get, the less I 
like the cold."
	‘I suppose I know what you mean Doc. Sometimes I wish I could just 
crawl in a hole like old Yogi does and sleep the winter by. Yep, those bears 
know how to do it, I’ll tell ya."
	The two men were silent for a minute when the chief spoke again. 
"Speakin’ of bears, Doc. I don’t suppose you ever saw anything of that girl 
that was in that plane crash did ya?"
	Keller hid his reaction, just sipped at his coffee and shook his head. 
"So they never found her huh?" he asked in an off-handed way, looking out at 
the reds and gold of the leaves that colored the spaces between the greens of 
the pines around them.
	‘Hell no, and they won’t either. If ya ask me, old Yogi came along that 
night and figured he’d found himself a free meal. Hell, Doc, there ain’t no 
way she survived that crash. She was dead, maybe she didn’t burn like those 
other two did cause she was thrown clear of the fire, but she was dead just 
the same and a bear took her, or a cat maybe, but for my money, it was a bear 
that got her."
	Keller smiled inwardly and thought about Melissa. ‘What did the FBI 
think? Did they spend any more time looking for her?" he was fishing for 
information but made it sound like casual curiosity. 
	Marston laughed quietly. ‘Well, I’d say that Harris woman is probably 
‘bout as convinced as me that it was a bear that got her prisoner. They was 
back up at that crash sight a day or two later and while they was pokin’ 
around, lookin’ for Lord knows what, along comes old Yogi and chases them 
back to that helicopter of theirs. She came back to town and I heard her 
talkin’ to one of her partners, she said that she, "was going to chalk that one 
up to Mother Nature." She was pretty sure after that little scare that she 
wasn’t going to find that poor girl. Oh, someday, if a man had a mind to, he 
might search around up there in one of those caves and come across 
something that would prove she was dead, no bones, bears eat the bones, but 
maybe a rusty old pair of handcuffs. But who’s goin’ to go pokin’ around in a 
bear cave I ask?" He finished by sipping at his coffee.
	"I always have liked bears." Keller grinned again and said softly.
	"What’s that Doc?" Marston asked, sounding a little surprised at 
Keller’s words.
	"Oh, I was just saying that I’ve always kind of liked the bear. At least I 
like them a whole lot more than I liked that Harris woman." He finished with 
a quiet chuckle, a private little joke that the chief did not get but had to agree 
with Keller’s assessment of the FBI agent.
	‘Doc, thanks for the coffee and the conversation but I’d best get back 
to town. If you’d like, I’ll give Burt a call and see if he can go out there and 
get that truck for you?"
	‘That would be fine Bob, hell maybe I should just let it sit there and 
buy me something new, maybe one of those new SUVs that everyone seems 
to be so excited about these days. I wouldn’t want for that truck to act up and 
leave me stranded on one of those twenty below days that we get around here 
in the winter."
	The men shook hands; the chief departed with a wave and Keller went 
back to his quiet morning. Zeke watched a squirrel and occasionally looked at 
the cabin door.
	It was a little later that same day, that Keller went into his closet for a 
heavier shirt when he saw the transport belt that Melissa had worn hanging on 
a hook on the back of the door. He looked at it and recalled the day he cut its 
lock and freed her from it. He ran his hand down the leather and then noticed 
something. He took the belt down from its hook and looked closer at the two 
holes punched through it near the buckle. Surrounding the perforations was a 
rectangular area that looked like something had been attached there then he 
remembered the Government warning tag that he’d seen when he’d first tried 
to cut the belt with his knife. The metal tag was gone, missing, and leaving a 
trace that looked cleaner, less worn under where it had been attached by two 
rivets. Keller studied the belt and tried to figure why she had taken the tag 
off. It was apparent that the rivets had been pried out with a sharp tool that 
had left obvious gouges in the leather around where they had been. ‘Now 
why would she have taken that off?" he asked himself. The belt and it’s 
missing tag with the dire warning against tampering, was a curiosity for some 
time to come but the answer did come, and in a most unexpected way.
	It was late January and cold, very cold. Keller and Zeke were in 
Spalding for their monthly shopping trip and enjoying the warmth of the 
heater in the new Ford Expedition that had replaced the old Chevy after Burt 
Dole had told him, "Doc, it ain’t worth fixin’, why don’t you jest buy you a 
new one?" Keller did and with its state of the art heater, the cold was being 
kept at bay. He had already made his stops at the grocery and feed store and 
had gone into the post office to pick up his mail. Keller never got much mail. 
There were few that knew how to contact him and those that did seldom 
wrote. He had a couple of old colleagues from his research days that he kept 
in sporadic touch with but other than a couple of magazine subscriptions he 
rarely received much more than some junk mail that seems to find it’s way 
into everyone’s mailbox, no matter how remote their lives. One of his friends 
that had retired soon after Keller had walked away, spent much of his time 
traveling around the world and it was not unusual for him to drop Keller a 
card or letter from one of his globe trots. One of the pieces of mail was 
apparently from him as Keller looked over the things he had taken from his 
post office box. He backed out of the lot and onto the road for home and 
looked over to where Zeke rode, watching the passing buildings and people. 
"Let’s get out of here boy, it’s too crowded for me. The dog looked at him 
then began sniffing at the bundle of mail that Keller had dropped in the seat 
next to him. It was Zeke that first alerted Keller to the uniqueness of the 
envelope. Zeke kept sniffing at one piece in particular and that prompted 
Keller to pick it up and examine it. It had a strange postmark that he did not 
recognize and there was no return address. He turned it over in his hand as he 
drove and at the next stoplight, he tore the flap open and something dropped 
out and fell in his lap, between his legs. He reached down, felt for whatever 
had fallen out, and looked closer at the postmark.
	"Rio de Janeiro? Brazil? I guess old Swenson is down there this time 
Zeke." He said as he dug in the seat for the elusive contents of the envelope. 
As he continued to search he looked in and saw there was no letter or card, 
What ever the contents had been was under his butt and it took him several 
moments of feeling before he got it in his fingers and brought it up to see 
what had been sent to him from South America.
	When he saw what he was holding he came to an abrupt stop and 
turned into the lot of a store to make sure of what he was seeing. He looked 
at the small, rectangular metal tag with two holes and the engraved message 
that he had read so many months before. A broad grin came over his face and 
he reached over and hugged Zeke. "Our girl is Ok Zeke, she’s ok..." 
Keller read the tag and grinned...
                                                  Warning                        
                    Property of the United States Government....  

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