"Well, if he is, it's all between the ears," the girl replied. "You'd
think that after a year I would have realized that nothing could
penetrate that thick Canuck's skull. He gets me so mad sometimes that
I want to forget I'm a lady." She paused thoughtfully. "Come to think
of it. No one ever accused me of being a lady in the first place."
"Sounds like love," Ben smiled.
Hunched over on the jump seat with her elbows on her knees and her
chin cupped in both hands, Kelly gave the senior officer a quizzical
sideways look.
Ben was watching his monitors and missed the glance. Kelly sighed and
stared out into the light streaked night of the thruway. The heavy
surge of football traffic had distributed itself into the general flow
on the road and while all lanes were busy, there were no indications
of any overcrowding or jam-ups. Much of the pattern was shifting from
passenger to cargo vehicle as it neared midnight. The football crowds
were filtering off at each exchange and exit and the California fans
had worked into the blue and yellow--mostly the yellow--for the long
trip home. The fewer passenger cars on the thruway and the increase in
cargo carriers gave the troopers a breathing spell. The men in the
control buckets of the three hundred and four hundred-ton cargo
vehicles were the real pro's of the thruways; careful, courteous and
fast. The NorCon patrol cars could settle down to watch out for the
occasional nuts and drunks that might bring disaster.
Once again, Martin had the patrol car on auto drive in the center of
the police lane and he steeled back in his seat. Beside him, Kelly
stared moodily into the night.
"How come you've never married, Ben?" she asked. The senior trooper
gave her a startled look. "Why, I guess for the same reason you're
still a maiden," he answered. "This just doesn't seem to be the right
kind of a job for a married man."
Kelly shook her head. "No, it's not the same thing with me," she said.
"At least, not entirely the same thing. If I got married, I'd have to
quit the Patrol and you wouldn't. And secondly, if you must know the
truth, I've never been asked."
Ben looked thoughtfully at the copper-haired Irish-Indian girl. All of
a sudden she seemed to have changed in his eyes. He shook his head and
turned back to the road monitors.
"I just don't think that a patrol trooper has any business getting
married and trying to keep a marriage happy and make a home for a
family thirty days out of every three hundred sixty, with an
occasional weekend home if you're lucky enough to draw your hometown
for a terminal point. This might help the population rate but it
sure doesn't do anything for the institution of matrimony."
[Illustration]
"I know some troopers that are married," Kelly said.
"But there aren't very many," Ben countered. "Comes the time they pull
me off the cars and stick me behind a desk somewhere, then I'll think
about it."
"You might be too old by then," Kelly murmured.
Ben grinned. "You sound as though you're worried about it," he said.
"No," Kelly replied softly, "no, I'm not worried about it. Just
thinking." She averted her eyes and looked out into the night again.
"I wonder what NorCon would do with a husband-wife team?" she
murmured, almost to herself.
Ben looked sharply at her and frowned. "Why, they'd probably split
them up," he said.
* * * * *
"Split what up?" Clay inquired, standing in the door of the cab.
"Split up all troopers named Clay Ferguson," Kelly said disgustedly,
"and use them for firewood--especially the heads. They say that
hardwood burns long and leaves a fine ash. And that's what you've been
for years."
She sat erect in the jump seat and looked sourly at the young trooper.
Clay shuddered at the pun and squeezed by the girl to get to his seat.
"I'll take it now, pop," he said. "Go get your geriatrics treatment."
Ben got out of his seat with a snort. "I'll 'pop' you, skinhead," he
snapped. "You may be eight years younger than I am but you only have
one third the virility and one tenth the brains. And eight years from
now you'll still be in deficit spending on both counts."
"Careful, venerable lord of my destiny," Clay admonished with a grin,
"remember how I spent my vacation and remember how you spent yours
before you go making unsubstantiated statements about my virility."
Kelly stood up. "If you two will excuse me, I'll go back to the
dispensary and take a good jolt of male hormones and then we can come
back and finish this man-to-man talk in good locker room company."
"Don't you dare," Ben cried, "I wouldn't let you tamper with one
single, tiny one of your feminine traits, princess. I like you just
the way you are."
Kelly looked at him with a wide-eyed, cherubic smile. "You really mean
that, Ben?"
The older trooper flushed briefly and then turned quickly into the
galley. "I'm going to try for some shut-eye. Wake me at two, Clay, if
nothing else breaks." He turned to Kelly who still was smiling at him.
"And watch out for that lascivious young goat."
"It's all just talk, talk, talk," she said scornful. "You go to bed
Ben. I'm going to try something new in psychiatric annals. I'm going
to try and psychoanalyze a dummy." She sat back down on the jump seat.
At 2400 hours it was Vincennes Check with the density reports, all
down in the past hour. The patrol was settling into what looked like a
quiet night routine. Kelly chatted with Ferguson for another half hour
and then rose again. "I think I'll try to get some sleep," she said.
"I'll put on a fresh pot of coffee for you two before I turn in."
She rattled around in the galley for some time. "Whatcha cooking?"
Clay called out. "Making coffee," Kelly replied.
"It take all that time to make coffee?" Clay queried.
"No," she said. "I'm also getting a few things ready so we can have a
fast breakfast in case we have to eat on the run. I'm just about
through now."
A couple of minutes later she stuck her head into the cab. "Coffee's
done. Want some?"