A lot had happened in the last week to Master Sergeant Charles E. Cobb, USMC, ret. On 30 June 2002, he had retired from the Corps. He had sold his property near Camp Pendleton. Pulling a trailer with all his belongings, he had made it to Lewiston, Idaho in time to sell his car, bid for, and get, one of the school buses the school system disposed of annually. Alone, since his wife, Shirley had left him for that fuzzy cheeked Navy Commander, he planned on living in his bus for a couple of years, mostly in the Idaho and Montana regions.
Just before he got to Orofino, Idaho on route 12, a sheriff flagged him down, thinking that he was a local school bus driver.
"Yes Sir. What can I do for you, Sir?"
"Emergency. The Bald Mountain forest fire is heading this way. Take your bus over to building C at the state mental hospital. They have some patients who have to be moved."
Three school buses full of patients passed him leaving the hospital, as he drove up. The sky was full of smoke and blowing cinders. Fire crews were hosing the buildings. As soon as he stopped, a nurse brought five women patients to his bus. A maintenance man brought a duffel bag for each woman containing her possessions. As he tossed those in the rear, the nurse returned with the paperwork about each patient. Handing the folders to Cobb, she instructed, "Get them out of her."
What to fuck, Charlie thought to himself as he pulled out onto route 12. Damn nurse must have thought that I knew where the other buses were taking all these people. I don't even have a two-way radio to ask anyone.
Traveling east on route 12, he came to the town of Kamiah. The school and the sheriff office were closed. It dawned on Charlie that he was stuck with his passengers. Well, a Marine Master Sergeant, if anything, is resourceful, not timid in finding a solution for any problem. He stopped the bus in a parking lot. Turning, he took a look at just whom he had aboard his bus. Beauties they weren't. Neither were they dogs. The women groggily stared at him with a look on their faces that betrayed the fact that each was heavily drugged to make her passive.
Ages? Between twenty-five and forty, Charlie guessed. Chuckling, Charlie murmured under his breath, ten tits, five pussies. It was at that moment that Charlie decided to take the ladies with him into Montana for an extended camping stay on Federal Forest lands that he had roamed as a boy. In Missoula, Montana, he stopped at a sporting goods store. Sleeping bags, pads, stoves, dishes, pots, pans, tarps, camp chairs, and porta-potties were all bought.
At an Albertson's grocery store, he added six hundred, sixty-seven dollars worth of staples. His guests were all paraded into a Penny's to be outfitted with the necessary garb for life in the wild. He drove to a dump. Took out most of the bus seats. They were off!
Just short of the Continental Divide, off route 200, Charlie proceeded north on the Roger's Pass road. He stopped in a meadow with a scenic view that extended for miles. A swift running brook cut through the meadow. "We are here, ladies."
It was 2:45 PM. The ladies had been without any medicine for eighteen hours. One, by the name of Sue Ann Brigham, who Charlie would later learn, when reading her file, that she had tried to knife her husband on two occasions when she discovered that he had spent all their rent money, spoke up to ask, "Just who to hell are you? And, where in hell are we?"
"I am Charles Edward Cobb. I am a retired Marine. You are in Montana. If you don't like it here, there is the road, Sweetheart. You might want a bite to eat before you go."
"I'll stay awhile. Did you mean it when you said that you would let me just walk away from here, a free person?"
"Sweetheart, you can bet your fanny on anything that Charlie Cobb tells you."
The other four women took in every word of the exchange. This man, whoever he was, was not their keeper. There were no waxed floors. No white walls, with stern nurses giving orders. No bars. There was the soft whisper of the wind, smell of the pines, gurgling of the brook.
Another women, Sandra Wilson, asked, "Can I walk around the clearing?"
"Hell, all of you get out of the bus. Explore the area. I'll get the stoves working. Get us some rations. Tonight, it will be oatmeal, with raisins, toast with marmalade, coffee, and Tang."
The oldest woman laughed. "Not quite the Outback, but it sure sounds good."
Each went off by herself, with her thoughts about this change in her life, this sudden freedom. What was one to think? Flowers were picked and smelled, as were pinecones. Shoes were removed so that one could wade in the cold mountain stream. Above all else, there was the whisper of the mountain wind.
"Chow down for the crew. Hubba-hubba, it's hot on the plate. Now."
After Charlie had washed the dishes in the stream, he set up a netted tent where they could read after dark without being bitten by the no-seeums flies.
He read their files. Sandra Wilson had visions of fantasy. She was thirty-seven. Husband had her committed, then divorced her.
Janis Powell, age thirty-nine. Kleptomaniac. Divorced.
Betsy Morse, age twenty-nine. Given to bouts of depression. Had wandered away from home in the winter wearing only her bedclothes. Never married.
Mary Lou Johnson, age 46. Has flashbacks from use of LSD. Will expose herself in public. Divorced. Known to be promiscuous.
Charlie looked up. Mary Lou was staring at him, with a come-hither smile on her lips. Charlie flushed for a second. It was the first time in his life that he knew that a woman was after him, before he was after her.
Their behavior was nothing new to Master Sergeant Charles Edward Cobb. He had just finished an eight-year tour as a Marine drill instructor. They can't be any worse then the snot-nosed, fat, lazy, mamma-boy recruits that he had transformed into United States Marines. You have to understand that Master Sergeant Cobb was not in the Marines. He was the Marines, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
At 0600 hours the next day, the ladies were rudely awaken by one Charles Cobb, who stood before them, dressed, cleanly-shaven, beating a stick on a trash can lid, screaming, "Alright ladies, take your hands off your pussies, grab your socks, five minutes to chow. Hit it Ladies, on your feet."
They were served. You guessed it. Oatmeal, with raisins, toast, with marmalade, coffee, and Tang.
Each had a down vest on, while eating. It is cold in the morning, high up in the mountains. Charlie spoke to them. It was the first of many gems of wisdom that he would impart to them. "Ladies, the enemy of fast, smart, and good-appearing is fat. I do not like fat. In fact, I hate fat. Each of you are fat. You will lose your fat. You will leave your fat behind you by hiking away from it. You will find that the more that you sweat, the more fat that you will leave behind you. This morning, right now, we will start to make you slimmer, faster, better looking. Fall out for a two mile hike up the trail to the top of the mountain in five minutes."
"I can't do that." Mary Lou, wailed.
