Free Starseed by Jude Willhoff Page B

can get the rotating lights to work right on the copter.”  Benny laughed again. “Let’s scare the crap out of him. Did you see the look he gave us the other day at the cafe. I didn’t like that one bit.”
    “ He’s a dickweed. Let’s do it,” said Lee.
    “ And maybe we should pay that psychic a visit as well. I wonder if she’s afraid of the dark like most folks in this pock mark of a town.”
    “ Nah, I doubt it. Being a psychic she can talk to ghosts and all that stuff.”  Lee sipped his coke and munched on potato chips getting crumbs all up and down the front of his High Mountain Array work shirt. “She’s harmless, nobody pays much attention to her. Everybody thinks she’s a nutcase, too.”  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
    “ You might be right, but we have too much at stake to take any chances. After all, she is the sheriff’s daughter. We’ll keep an eye on her as well, just in case she’s the real deal and knows something.” 
    He’d fought too long and too hard to let anything or anybody get in his way at this stage of the game . This hick town of Sweetwater, Colorado and the Array owed his family big time and he was making them all pay. Stealing the gold was just the beginning. Not being a man of many words, he let the subject of Elle drop. The only sound was Lee crunching his chips. He glanced in his direction. Sure, the man was a pig, but he was his pig. Not too bright, but he made up for it with his loyalty and brawn.
    In the gold mine he needed Lee’s strength . And besides all that, Lee was like putty in his hands, malleable if he should ever need him to do the dirty work. No way will I let that idiot Herman or that snip of a girl destroy all I’ve worked for. She’s just one more bug to squash . He tossed the stub out the window and drove out of the driveway and headed in the same direction as the black Jeep. He was curious to see where they were headed and followed at a safe distance always keeping a couple of car lengths between them. They didn’t have a clue that they were being followed.
    “ Where do you think they’re going, Boss?”  Lee crumbled his potato chip bag in a ball and tossed it out the window.
    “ What did you do that for?”  Benny’s voice shook with rage as he yelled at Lee. “You know how I feel about littering.”
    “ Oh sorry, Boss. I forgot.”  He hung his head in shame.
    “ Don’t let me see it happen again. You know we only have one Earth and we have to take care of it. There’s enough other people out there throwing trash around abusing our place to live. You don’t have to add to it.”
    “ Yeah, Boss, you’re right. It won’t happen again. I’m sorry.”
    “ All right, see that it doesn’t.”  He sighed. “I think they might be going out to Red Rock Canyon or the Array. They already passed the junction to Colorado Springs so they ain’t going there.”
    “ I wonder what they’re gonna do way out there. There’s nothing there unless they’re gonna take the tour at the Array.”
    Just then he watched the black Jeep turn off just above Red Rock Canyon . “So that’s where they’re going. I do remember that busybody waitress saying some guy was here from Denver taking pictures for some magazine.” 
    “ I bet that’s what they’re up to.”  Lee sucked the last drop of his drink through his straw making a slurping noise. He placed the empty cup on the floor of the van.
    “ Good. If they’re doing that, they’ll stay out of our way.”  Benny watched them getting out of the Jeep in his rear view mirror. Tonight would be soon enough to scare the daylights out of them all.
    * * *
    “I want to get some shots from a distance before we take the tour,” Kole said and pulled off the road. “From here the disks look majestic.”  Once out of the car, he started snapping pictures. All of a sudden the hairs stood on the back of his neck. His ancestors were calling to him. This was the right area. He stood on