upon further review

Chapter 16

2006-06-12T16:57:00.000-04:00

Michael Hunt had just received some good news and bad news. His doctor had just informed him that they would not have to put a pin in his wrist. He had decided to just put the arm in a cast and see if the bones would mend on their own.

He felt confident, but gave no assurance. Michael was fine with that. He just wanted out of the hospital. Sandy had snuck him in some food, but he needed something other than hospital and fast food. The bad news was the OSBI agents were not through with him. They were hinting about arresting Michael, who maintained his innocence.

He had just about convinced them to release him without any kind of arrest. Chief Arnold had been in contact with the OSBI agents and told them Michael did not shoot the guy and was not any risk of flight.

That seemed to help, although they seemed to have their doubts.

Michael was just glad that he wasn’t going to have to go to the slammer upon release. He still had other worries, though.

------

Big Uns seemed a little disappointed. Squiggy had kept her from dancing for the shooter. She really didn’t understand how her dancing would get somebody to talk, but apparently it had.

“Quit that dancing, Big Uns,” Squiggy said again. She couldn’t help herself. That old country music got her a moving and a grooving.

She continued to jiggle a little, but stopped with the whole clothes removal. “What for?”

“For a while,” Squiggy said. “We need to talk to this here feller that was wanting to shoot my buttocks.”

Albert looked a little relieved. “Whoo, thanks.”

“Don’t be thinking me,” Squiggy said. “Now why was you wanting to kill me?”

“I was told to kill you.”

“By who?”

Albert started to clam up. One wrong word and he would be toast.

“Best start talking, boy,” Squiggy said. Albert continued to hold his silence. “Mule, switch that CD to the eighth song.”

Mule walked over to the CD player and stared at it. “How do you do that?”

“Easy, you just keep hitting the button until it shows eight on it.”

Mule turned the power on and off several times. Then he turned the player over to the radio, followed by switching between AM and FM. After that, he messed with the tuner and the volume.

“What the crap?” he said. “I can’t find no eight.”

“That’s cause you’s ate up with it,” Squiggy said. He walked over to the player and set the track. Within seconds, a Backstreet Boys song came on.

“Please, no!” Albert said.

It was too late. Big Uns was controlled before. Now she was spinning around all through the cellar. Her hair was flying through the air and her breasts were bouncing hard enough that she almost blacked both eyes.

Mule was amazed. “Hot dog! She must like that song.”

Big Uns nodded and continued to do dance moves that likely had never been seen before. “I like to dance!” she said.

She twirled over in front of Albert and shook her head, letting her hair whack him in the face. Some of it got lodged in his mouth and he spit it out.

“Please, somebody stop her!” he said.

“You ready to talk?” Squiggy said.

“I can’t! They’ll kill me.”

Squiggy walked over to the CD player and switched the song. Slowly, the Bette Midler song Wind Beneath My Wings started playing. Big Uns stopped in her tracks. She tilted her head back, closed her eyes and started singing.

There was a good reason why Big Uns never made it big with her singing. Mainly, it was because she couldn’t. She was loud and screeched enough that everybody covered their ears.

“Crap fire,” Squiggy said. “That’s almost too painful for me!”

“Squiggy, I’d rather you let the feller go instead of hearing her sing,” Mule said.

Whatever Big Uns lacked in talent, she made up for in enthusiasm. She was belting out the song with all her effort. Inside the cellar made it even worse.

"Please stop!” Albert said again.

“You talking?” Squiggy said.

“Yeah, I’d rather die than hear her sing.”

-------

Chief Arnold was still not moving all that great. He was still limping, even worse when somebody might see him walking, of course. He was worried about his town. Langford used to be a peaceful place and all he had to worry about was arresting Mexicans and breaking up domestic disturbances.

Not anymore, though. Now people were getting killed in his town. And buildings were getting blown up. That just wasn’t right. Chief Arnold always thought he was a decent lawman. But never had to worry about people actually shooting at him before.

The chief knew he was in over his head. He could either quit or change. What he had decided was to change. Gone would be the friendly local cop. Instead, Langford was about to see the second coming of Buford Pusser of Walking Tall fame.

He stopped his cruiser in front of the Last Call. The chief doubted any of the new people would be in town or at the bar, but this would be good practice. Unlike Buford, the chief decided a 2x4 probably wouldn’t work. He had never mastered baseball and struggled to even hit a whiffle ball thrown slow and underhanded.

The chief thought long and hard before deciding on his weapon for intimidation. He got out of the car, grabbed his weapon and walked toward the entrance. Three drunk cowboys were sitting on the ground outside the entrance, trying to sober up enough to get home.

One of the three looked up and blinked. That was right before he snorted. “Hee hee,” he said. “Is that a jump rope you’re carrying?”

The chief hoped people would think it was a whip. He had even painted it black. “No, it’s a whip,” the chief said. “Watch this!”

He snapped the jump rope and made a loud pop. The second cowboy laughed. “That wouldn’t even leave a scratch.”

“You wanna find out?”

“Sure, if you don’t mind a butt kicking.”

The chief decided they were not worthy and walked inside the bar, making sure everybody saw him limping. The bartender watched him enter and stand in the center of the tables.

Nobody was paying any attention to the chief. That certainly wasn’t the plan. Chief Arnold was a little insulted. He grabbed the whip/jump rope off his shoulder and popped it on the ground.

He nipped one of the waitresses on the leg. “Watch it, you dork!” she hollered. “I’ll be sticking that jump rope where the dadgummed sun don’t shine!”

“It’s a whip!” the chief said. “The crap’s gonna stop!”

“What crap would that be?” asked a drunk cowboy who was halfway falling out of his chair.

“You’re fixing to see!” the chief said and stalked away toward the dance floor.

Chapter 15

2006-06-09T15:57:00.000-04:00

The two men were not the talkative types. They had been by themselves way too much and really didn’t much like dealing with other people.

Jimmy Don didn’t have much trouble finding the man. He had a pretty good idea where he would hide and searched that area. The other man was hidden well and probably wouldn’t have been found by ninety-nine percent of the people.

The man was a little shocked that anybody could find him. He was hidden well, not great but he didn’t expect company. Especially since he was in a little opening on a hill overlooking the property owned by the men.

His name was Sonny Windham. He had a problem with these men and planned on stopping whatever they were trying to do.

He still wasn’t sure what was going on, just knew it wasn’t good. Sonny had rescued Jimmy Don when the dogs were after him. They were hard shots for most people, but not for Sonny.

He hated to kill a dog since his best friend was a mixed breed dog named Maggie. If anybody ever shot her, they would soon find out if the bright light really shined when a person passed away.

After the initial greetings, the two men watched the men below and talked things over. They both had some ideas on what was happening.

They were both wrong.

--------

It was the remote location and the low cost of land that originally attracted the leaders of the group to set up in this location, some ten miles out of Langford.

They had hoped that nobody would notice. Most of them were from larger places and had no idea how people in rural locations shared information.

The first few tracts of land were rather easy to buy. But after that, the price continued to rise. Now, it was almost ridiculous. But the price was still less than most location. Plus, they had spent so much money now, it wouldn’t be feasible to relocate.

But it wasn’t like money was an issue. They had all the money they could possibly need. To accomplish what they were going to do did not come cheap. Fortunately, there were some deep pockets behind this venture.

The property they had purchased so far was deeded TechIK, Inc. Nobody really knew what that stood for aside from the main leaders. TechIK was buried under enough Nevada corporations that it would take a long time and a smart attorney to figure out who actually owned all this.

If everything worked according to plans, they would be out of here in six months. The land and all the improvements would be left behind. Somebody would get a good deal out of a tax sale in a few years.

These men didn’t care. By then, if they were still alive, they would all be scattered and wealthy enough that they could live wherever.

-------

The two men carrying him bumped his head against the concrete step, waking Albert up.

It took a few seconds for him to figure out where he was and what was going on. Two men were carrying him down the stairs to something dark. He figured that out quickly. After the taller man hit the light switch, Albert realized that it was a storm cellar.

This just wouldn’t work, he decided. Albert and enclosed places did not get along. He started bucking and trying to pull away, not that it did much good. The big guy was strong as an ox and wasn’t letting go.

The smaller man kneed Albert in the side, making him calm down.

“What’re you doing?” Albert asked. This was not good. The person he had been hired to kill was now holding him captive. Albert expected a good beating from them in hopes of coughing up information.

They didn’t have any idea what they were going against. Albert wouldn’t give up information. It didn’t matter what these men did, it couldn’t even come close to what his boss and his people could do.

They threw the man on the bed, still with each man holding on to one arm and a leg.

“Sit on him, Big Uns,” Squiggy said.

“Do what?” Albert said.

“Uh, on his face?” she said. Now that wouldn’t be a bad deal, Big Uns decided. The little guy was kind of cute.

“Crap no,” Squiggy said. “I don’t reckon he could handle the smell.”

“What’d you mean by that, Squiggy?”

“Nothing. Just sit on his chest.”

“I don’t wanna sit on the dude’s chest. Why me?”

“Cause you’s the biggest,” Mule said. He regretted his entry into the conversation after she glared at him.

“What Mule meant to say was we need you to hold him down while we tie him up,” Squiggy said.

“We’re gonna tie him up?” Big Uns asked. She was feeling a little better about this captivity thing now.

“Why’re you smiling?” Squiggy said.

“Uh, no reason.” She sat down on the man, making him grunt loudly.

“That hurt?” Mule asked.

Albert nodded. He was having trouble breathing. This woman’s rear was staggering. “Can’t breathe!”

“It’ll just be a second,” Squiggy said.

That was no consolation for the man. He expected one of his ribs to break any second. The two men were tying his wrists to the bedpost. After they finished, they each grabbed an ankle and tied it to the other bedposts.

After the man was secured, Squiggy said, “you can get up now, Big Uns.”

“Oh,” she said, looking a little disappointed. Big Uns slowly stood, her head getting in close proximity to Albert’s privates.

“Watch your hand, woman!” Andrew said.

“Oh, sorry,” she said. Big Uns was still smiling as she stood and looked the man over.

“What’re we gonna do with him?” Mule said.

“We need to find out what he was doing here,” Squiggy said. He leaned down and slapped the man across the face. “Hey, why were you wanting to shoot me?”

Albert clammed up and wouldn’t say a word. Squiggy grabbed hold of the man’s nipples and pulled and twisted really hard. The man groaned, but still would not talk.

“Crud, he wouldn’t talk even after I gived him a titty twister,” Squiggy said.

“Let’s stick a bottle rocket up his rear and light it,” Mule said.

“Now how in the crap would that make him talk?”

“I don’t know if it would. But it’d be kinda funny, eh?”

Squiggy giggled. Now that would be cool. He tried to remember where his fireworks were stashed. But then he thought of something better. “I know what’ll make him talk!”

“What’s that?” Mule said.

“Turn on the music, Big Uns!”

“Why?” she said.

“Cause you’s gonna dance for him!”

Big Uns turned on a CD player to some country music. Slow, old timey country music. She started dancing to the music.

“Hee hee,” Squiggy said. “Look, he can’t handle it!”

The man was squirming and grimacing. This was indeed tough to take. “Don’t let her do that,” he said.

“You gonna talk?” Squiggy said.

He shook his head.

“Okay, Big Uns, start taking your clothes off!”

Albert watched as Big Uns moved closer and started to remove her bra. “No!” he said. “I’ll talk!”

Chapter 14

2006-06-08T15:09:00.000-04:00

Squiggy would have thought this was hilarious if Mule wasn’t in such pain.

“Pipe down, Mule,” he said. "You's gonna wake the dead."

“I’s hurting, Squiggy!” Mule said. “I done think he broked my leg again.”

“It’s broke, not broked,” said Big Uns, who realized Mule was staring at her chest and crossed her arms to cover up, like that did any good.

“Whatever,” Squiggy said. “Big Uns, go get a dadgummed shirt on before you get Mule all excited.”

“It’s not like he ain’t seen em before, Squiggy,” she said.

“Do what? When’d Squiggy see your hooters?”

“I ain’t never seen them jugs,” Mule said. “Best I can recall.”

“I thought you was there in the bar that night when that guy paid me to flash em.”

“I must’ve been drunk,” Mule said.

“How much’d you get paid?” Squiggy said.

“A six pack,” Big Uns said. “I didn’t have no money.”

“Not a bad deal,” Squiggy said. “Did you get any tips?”

“Yeah, somebody said I needed a breast reduction.”

“Naw, I meant did anybody else pay you anything.”

“One guy offered me a dollar to put my shirt back on,” she said.

Squiggy nodded. He recalled hearing about that night. He’d paid a whole lot more than a six pack to see those babies. “What should we do with him?”

“Probably need to take him to the doctor,” Big Uns said.

“This guy?” Squiggy said, pointing at the man laid out on the ground. He had a big gash right on the forehead and blood was pouring out.

“Naw, I was talking about Mule. Let’s put the other guy in the storm cellar with all the bugs and spiders.”

“Yeah, that’d work. Mule, that leg broke?”

“I don’t know. It does hurt badly,” he said.

“Would it help the pain if Big Uns took her bra off?”

“How the crap would that help?” she said.

“Take his mind off the pain.”

“Naw, I’d still be hurting. But you can take your bra off if’n you’d like, Big Uns,” Mule said.

“I ain’t gonna just show you my boobs unless I get to see your…”

“Naw,” Squiggy said. “Ain’t nobody gonna get naked. Go help Mule up, Big Uns.”

“Do it yourself,” she said. Big Uns was a little irked. She had a pretty good deal working until Squiggy messed it up.

Squiggy shook his head and walked over to where Mule was lying down, moaning and staring at Big Uns.

“Boy, they’s big,” Mule whispered.

“You reckon that’s why I call her ‘Big Uns’,” Squiggy said. “Duh!”

Mule accepted Squiggy’s hand and was pulled him up. He had just about decided his leg might not be broke. It hurt like the dickens, but there wasn’t a bone sticking out of the skin this time.

“I’d like to kick him in the leg,” Mule said.

“Go ahead,” Squiggy said. “Might as well kick him in the growing while you’s at it.”

“The what?” Big Uns said.

“The growing, you know, his private area,” Squiggy said.

“It ain’t ‘growing’, you idiot,” she said. “It’s groin.”

“Naw, I think it’s called his ‘willy’,” Mule added.

“I was trying to talk proper, Mule!” Squiggy said. “They’s a female here.”

“Yeah, but it’s just Big Uns.”

Big Uns stuck her lower lip and glared at him as Mule limped over to where the man was laid out. He noticed a puddle of blood forming on the ground. He kicked the man in the leg, but all it did was stub his toe. “Doggone, I think I broked my toe!”

“Shouldn’t kick him in the bone, Mule,” Big Uns said. “Kick him in the sack!”

“Okay,” Mule said, smiling at Big Uns. He was in the windup when the man groaned.

“Hold up there, Mule,” Squiggy said. “Let’s haul him to the cellar fore he wakes all the way up. It’d be easier to do it now.”

“Okay,” Mule said. “But can I kick his testiculars then?”

“Fine with me,” Squiggy said. He grabbed one arm while Mule got the other and they drug him toward the cellar, Squiggy’s home after his mobile home got repossessed and his new house was built.

------

Police Chief Arnold was still in a lot of pain. He’d never been shot before and decided that was not something he wanted to experience again.

He was laid up on his couch at the house, drinking beer and watching Jerry Springer. Chief Arnold didn’t much care for Springer, but liked listening to the guests get after each other. Plus, COPS came on after this.

The doctor had told him not to drink alcoholic beverages, but Chief Arnold decided a little beer wouldn’t hurt. The little beer quickly turned into a lot of beer. The wife and kids were gone and the bottom drawer of the fridge was filled with confiscated beer.

The chief was helping himself to all the beer he could drink, courtesy of some drivers who made the mistake of getting caught while drinking and driving. They had decided to fork over the beer instead of getting a ticket. Chief Arnold was pleased with that little trick. Some of the beer was the good stuff, not the cheap crap he usually had to buy.

He was enjoying the time off from work. The chief wasn’t exactly a hard worker and would much rather spend his days doing this. The thought of an early retirement due to a disability had gone through his mind several times, but his attorney said it would be tough to say the chief was disabled from a wound that should heal in two to three weeks.

A guy and his girlfriend were about to get into it when the dadgummed doorbell rang. “Crapfire,” the chief said. “Who the crap is it?”

“It’s Mrs. Hunt,” said the person at the door. “I’m Michael’s mother.”

“Who?”

“Mike Hunt,” she said.

The chief spewed his beer. “What about it?”

“What about what?”

“Never mind,” the chief said. He sat up on the couch and turned the television off. “C’mon in.”

The chief realized he was wearing a pair of boxers that were flaring open in the front. He also decided that Mrs. Hunt was going to see a little more of him than she would probably prefer so the chief covered himself with a blanket.

He was wearing a sleeveless tee-shirt that was a little tight. Half his gut was showing and his boobs were almost coming out of the sleeves. The chief also got a whiff of his latest outburst and wished he had not let go gas just a few seconds ago.

Mrs. Hunt came walking in the front door. Immediately, her nose crinkled up. “My word, what is that dreadful smell?”

The chief knew exactly what caused the smell but shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t smell nothing.”

She pursed her lips and almost gagged. “Chief Arnold, you might need to call the exterminator. I think something must’ve died in here.”

“Yeah, I’ll look into that.” He needed to fire off another round but decided Mrs. Hunt had been through enough trauma lately without experiencing his flatulence. “What can I do for you?”

She was dressed in her best clothes, as usual. The dress was a flowered one that almost reached her ankles. The shoes were polished and shined. Her hair was in perfect shape, thanks to a trip to the beautician this morning. Most of the grey was gone, for the most part. In her right hand, she carried a legal-sized envelope.

“Michael received this in the mail and asked me to give it to you,” she said.

“What the crap…excuse me. What is it?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said and avoided eye contact. “I don’t open Michael’s mail or go through his things.”

That’s not what Michael had said, the chief recalled. “Hand it here.”

Mrs. Hunt looked around the room. It almost looked like it deserved federal disaster aid. There was no way she was coming one step farther into this place.

“You need to come get it,” she said.

“I can’t get up,” the chief said. “I got gun shot in the foot. Can’t walk.”

She looked down at the beer bottles on the table. “How’d they get there?”

Dang woman! She was smart. “The neighborhood kids check in on me ever so often. When they do, they get me a brew.”

She nodded but showed a little skepticism. Mrs. Hunt leaned closer and tossed the envelope on the couch next to the chief’s bandaged foot.

The chief caught himself trying to look down the front of her dress. He realized that it wasn’t cool to try to sneak a peak on an old widow woman, but it had been a long time. After she stood, the chief reached out and grabbed the envelope.

“It has something to do with the shooting,” she said.

“How’d you know that?”

“Oh, never mind,” she said, opened the door and walked out.

The chief read through the material in the envelope. He didn’t know what some of the words meant, but did pick up enough to know there was some bad stuff coming down in Langford.

Chapter 13

2006-06-08T06:21:00.000-04:00

Michael Hunt was speechless. He often got tongue tied, but never before because law enforcement officials had just told him that his prints were on a gun that had been used to kill another human being.

He wasn’t the killing type. Michael knew somebody was trying to frame him and had a pretty good idea who was behind it. But he was clueless as to how they did it.

Michael had borrowed a pistol a couple of months earlier when he was shot at and threatened. But he barely even knew how to use the thing and had forgotten where it was.

Somebody would have had to steal the gun, use it to kill the man and sneak it back in while all the excitement was going on.

Very creative, Michael decided. But his main concern was figuring out a way to get out of this.

“Why did you do it?” asked Agent O’Donnell.

“Do what?” Michael said. He was so perplexed that the question did not sink in.

“Shoot the man,” Agent Jennings said. “Did you…”

“I didn’t shoot anybody.”

“Then how did your fingerprints get on the gun that was used to shoot him?” This was O’Donnell. Michael already didn’t like him.

“I borrowed a gun for a while after people were shooting at me but I put it away and haven’t seen it in weeks.”

The agents looked at each other. “Did you not know that all firearms are supposed to be registered?” Jennings said.

“No, I don’t own the gun. I don’t even want the gun.”

“Hmm,” Jennings said. Michael disliked Jennings almost as much. He never cared for the “hmm” answers.

“You realize that you’re in trouble, right?” O’Donnell said.

“Yeah, but I didn’t do anything. Give me a lie detector test or whatever. I was in my office when the guy was shot and…”

“Did anybody see you there?”

“Not until the cop and Squiggy and Mule showed up. That’s when I saw the guy running away. You know, the guy who shot the police chief. Why would he do that?”

“We do not know. But back to you…did you have a problem with the man?” Jennings said.

“I didn’t know him. I found him.”

“Right,” O’Donnell said. “And you knew where to find him. Right?”

“Wrong. Ask the sheriff. We looked all over the building before…”

“Well, nobody who had just killed somebody would want to take the police right to the body,” Jennings said. “Right?”

“I guess. You’ll have to talk to somebody who actually killed somebody. I wouldn’t know. I didn’t kill the guy.”

“Hmm.” This time it was O’Donnell. Michael wanted to growl. “And what about Mister Anson? Did you kill him also?”

“No, I didn’t kill him. I also didn’t trip over him and break my wrist just to cover it up. Everybody who looked at that said he was shot from across the lake. I was just meeting him.”

“Then how did the rifle wind up in the back of your truck?” O’Donnell said.

------

The window to the cabin was quickly fixed. In fact, it was done within thirty minutes after Jimmy Don broke it.

By seven the following morning, heavy equipment was clearing an area surrounding the land. As soon as one area was cleared, men would start working on digging holes for a fence that would keep out trespassers. The fence was built of pipe welded together. There was also a gate built at the front of the property.

While all this was going on, work commenced on a new building. The men roughed in the plumbing and started laying down the forms for the foundation. More guards were brought in to make sure nobody else would try and cause any problems. These guards were both armed and knew how to use them.

There were now over fifty people in place. That total would double as soon as the building was finished and there was room for everybody.

------

High on a hill to the east, a man watched all this activity through the best binoculars that could be bought. He was the one who had saved Jimmy Don from the dogs. He didn’t have any allegiance to Jimmy Don, just felt like anybody who was opposing these people could use as much help as possible.

He had been watching for weeks, positive that nobody knew where he was located. The man could feel the presence before a word was spoken.

“So there you are,” the man heard somebody say from behind him. There was something poking in his back. Something much more dangerous than a stick.

----

It was almost too late before Mule saw the knife arcing toward him. He was offended by this. Mule jumped to the side as the knife sliced into his favorite shirt.

“Hey, butt munch!” Mule said. “You cut my shirt!”

Albert switched the knife from one hand to the other and back and forth. He was trying to catch the big lug off guard and was doing a pretty good job. He lunged at the man, who stepped away from the knife and grabbed Albert by the arm.

Mule used Albert’s arm to toss the man to the ground. Albert was stunned. He didn’t expect the man to know how to defend himself.

Albert brushed the dirt off his pants as he stood. “Not bad,” he said.

“Yep!” Mule said. “I watch the pro rasslin!”

“Is that right?”

“Yep. I learned a lot of moves from the little guys.”

Albert tried to circle around Mule. “The midgets?”

“Yeah, they’s exciting.”

Albert plunged again. This time, Mule grabbed the man’s wrist and quickly twisted it behind Albert’s back. His arm was twisted bad enough that the knife dropped to the ground. Mule applied enough pressure to drive Albert to the ground.

“That’s my favorite move,” Mule said.

Albert knew he had underestimated the man. He relaxed, hoping the big guy would follow suit. Mule did, for just a second.

It was all it took. Albert kicked Mule in the leg, the same one that had been broken earlier in the year. Mule fell to the ground, holding his injured leg.

“Ouch!” he said. “You done kicked my broke leg.”

Albert regained his footing and grabbed his knife. He was tired of messing with this idiot. It was time for a little slice and dice and then get back to business. He was within a yard of the man when Albert heard the click from behind him.

He knew that sound all too well.

“You just best stop right there,” said Squiggy, who had his gun pointed right at the man’s head. Albert turned around to see Squiggy standing only a few feet away, wearing only a pair of boxers and boots that looked like they were made of snake skin. Standing next to him was the woman, wearing the biggest bra Albert had ever seen. He noticed her belly fat lapping over a pair of granny panties.

Albert about got sick. Mule continued to writhe in pain. “He done busted my broke leg, Squiggy!”

“That right?” Squiggy said. “Look what you done to my bud.”

He waited until Albert looked down at Mule. Squiggy wheeled his gun around and used the butt of the gun to ram it in the man’s face. Albert saw stars for a brief second and then darkness.

Chapter 12

2006-06-05T16:35:00.000-04:00

The shooter’s name was Albert Jenkins. He was about as they come with a gun, especially at long-range shots.He had always liked shooting, going back to his childhood in eastern Texas where his father taught Albert to shoot almost as soon as the little boy could walk. Albert still practiced almost every day, never satisfied until he could place his bullets inside a small circle from hundreds of yards away.

Albert was rather fond of his new job. He didn’t really care for his past one because of all the bureaucracy involved. This one was great. He had one boss who told him when and who to take care of.

He knew from the past that as long as his boss was happy, things would be good for Albert. His boss didn’t like failed missions. Neither did Albert.

That’s what was so frustrating to Albert when the gun didn’t fire after he pulled the trigger.

“What the heck?” he said and looked down at the gun. Albert quickly realized that he had failed to take the safety off, a mistake he usually couldn’t afford. He took the safety off and looked back through the scope, but the man named Squiggy was no longer standing at the window, looking out. Neither was the big-chested woman. “Crap!”

Albert knew he would have to wait a little longer, not that he minded. Most of the bugs were gone for the winter, along with the snakes that made his skin crawl. For a man who had been in the woods so much, Albert had never gotten comfortable with snakes. It dated back to his early days when a copperhead struck him. The only thing that had kept the bite from being serious was the snake got him on his hunting boots, right above the ankle.

That incident had scared him and Albert had never overcame it. Some of his buddies liked to mess with him and hid fake snakes in his bed and boots. They got a kick out of it. Albert didn’t much care for it.

He settled back in for the next opportunity, looking through the scope at the windows in the house, only wanting a brief sighting of the man. Albert had nothing personal with this Squiggy guy. His boss apparently did, though. Maybe this would be enough to convince people to stop butting in their business, at least this coupled with the shooting earlier in the night.

Albert caught movement in one of the rooms. He put the scope on the room and waited. The shadow was approaching the window slowly. Albert took a deep breath and concentrated on his target.

The man walked into Albert’s sight. Albert started to fire off a bullet when the woods rustled behind him.

-------

Jimmy Don Anson stood back as the chair crashed through the window. As soon as the glass broke, lights came on from all around the cabin. The whole grounds were lit up like it was day.

He looked inside and saw that in addition to the two men, there were now five more, all heavily armed. Jimmy Don heard loud voices coming from all around him. He had just stepped into a beehive that was swarming with things much worse than stingers.

While he wanted to strike back at these men, Jimmy Don knew this wasn’t the time. There were too many men, much more than he expected. This is what happens when you react out of anger, instead of doing proper planning, Jimmy Don realized.

He slipped off the same way he came, past the body of the man who would be sporting a serious headache for the next few days. The dogs started barking, coonhounds that could track him almost anywhere.

Jimmy Don slipped alongside the wall of the cabin, not that it offered much protection. This area was lit up, just like the rest of the area. He had no choice and took off sprinting for the tree line, some fifty yards away.

They had spotted him and Jimmy Don heard the bark of something much worse than a coonhound. It was at least two Dobermans, coming directly at him from the back. Every step brought him closer to the woods that would provide some cover. But the dogs were catching up much faster than he was advancing.

He could hear their snarls and growls, practically felt them about to pounce. Jimmy Don knew this was a lost cause. These dogs could do serious damage to anybody, even him. There was no way to turn around and shoot the dogs. He might get one, but the other would be on him before he had a chance to defend himself.

Jimmy Don finally gave in and turned around, his gun aimed at the nearest dog, only a few yards away. Before he could get a shot off, Jimmy Don heard a gun fire, followed by another. He expected to feel the bullets hitting him, but instead, the two dogs dropped. Jimmy Don paused long enough to look at the dogs, both shot through the head.

He wanted to look around and see who rescued him, but Jimmy Don knew that he didn’t have time to wait around. He owed somebody a big favor, but whoever helped him would have to get thanked some other time.

---------

Michael wasn’t a big fan of hospitals. He also didn’t like being laid up, but there wasn’t anything that could be done. His left wrist was broken and the doctor said they might have to put screws in it.

He had a big gash just above his nose that had required stitches. Luckily, his left knee was only sprained badly, nothing broken or that would require an operation. Michael wouldn’t be running any sprints in the near future, not that he planned on doing any.

Sandy had just gone home and he was trying to go to sleep when somebody knocked on the door.

“Come in,” he said, expected it to be his mother and maybe little Michael, the boy who was staying with them until his mother, who was big Michael’s second wife, recovered from some medical problems.

Instead, two men walked in. They were both huge, the kind you would want on your side in a fight. They both had badges showing over the front of their belt. Both men had short hair, wore white dress shirts, jeans and boots

Michael noticed they each had guns in holsters on their belts. Neither man was smiling, which didn’t surprise Michael. He knew from experience that most men involved with law enforcement weren’t all that happy.

“Mister Hunt,” the first man said. “My name is Agent Jennings and this is Agent O’Donnell. We’re with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.”

Michael nodded. He didn’t know what to say.

“We are here about the shooting,” agent O’Donnell said.

“The one at the lake?” Michael said.

Agent Jennings shook his head. “No, the one that happened in the building across the street from your office.”

“Good. Has that guy admitted to shooting the man?”

The two agents looked at each other, then back at Michael. “No, we don’t believe he was the one who shot the man.”

Michael was puzzled. He had seen the man run from the building and then shot Chief Arnold. “Why do you say that?”

“The gun he had wasn’t the one that shot the man,” said Jennings.

“Wrong gun, different shells,” said the other agent.

“Well, then who shot the man?” Michael said.

“We found the gun from the shooting,” said O’Donnell. “Matched the slugs to the bullet that killed the man and even found some good prints.”

“We think we know who shot the man,” Jennings said.

“Okay, who was it?”

“The prints off the gun matched your prints, Mister Hunt,” O’Donnell said. “We believe you shot him.”

--------

Albert shifted around to see what was happening behind him. He expected it to be some dogs or maybe a deer. But whatever it was distracted him long enough to give this man a few minutes longer to live.

Instead of an animal, a man emerged from the woods. The man was somewhere around forty years old, had long hair and a beard that needed a bad trim. Despite the cool temperature, the man was wearing a shirt with both sleeves cut off, short pants and hunting boots.

Albert would have laughed if the situation wasn’t so ridiculous.

“Put the gun down,” the man said.

“Who are you?” Albert said. He smelled an odor that almost burned his nostrils. "You need a shower, dude."

“My name’s Mule and you ain’t shooting Big Uns! I don't take a bath till the weekend. You need a buttock kicking.”

“I'm not shooting the chick. I’m going to shoot the man.”

"Squiggy! Bull crap!” Mule came closer and assumed his unique fighting position. He was at an angle with one knee aimed straight ahead. His left arm was held up in the air while his right hand covered his privates.

Albert laid the rifle down and slowly stood, dragging a big hunting knife out of his boot and up the back of his pant leg in the process. “You going to kung fu me?”

“Naw, I’s gonna Mule Up on your butt!”

He jumped toward the man, never seeing the knife coming in his direction.

Chapter 11

2006-06-02T14:47:00.000-04:00

Jimmy Don Anson was usually the type of person who didn’t like being messed with and wouldn’t mess with anybody else.

At least until somebody was messing with him. It was time to send a message to whoever these guys were that were buying up all the land and trying to run the existing neighbors off.

Since they started moving in and paying ridiculous prices for the land, most of the people living in this valley had sold out and moved. Only Jimmy Don, his brother and a cousin, Sally Mae Williams, still owned land here.

Jimmy Don was born in this valley and planned to die here. He liked things just the way they were. He never had any problems with any of the neighbors, until the new people moved in. His brother also didn’t plan to move.

Sally Mae was a shrewd little woman and would sell once the right offer came along. She had probably saved every penny that had ever made it into her purse. Sally’s land was not all that great as most of it was on a hill side.

Most land around here was worth less than a thousand an acre, but the price was now going at five thousand an acre and old cabins and cruddy trailers were getting over ten times their worth.

They had approached Jimmy Don and Bubba several times about selling their land, but had gotten no luck, even though the price went up every time.

Bubba had been snooping around too much, even wanted to get the law and the newspapers involved. Jimmy Don didn’t think that was the way to handle the situation and told his brother not to mess with them, but Bubba didn’t listen and was probably in deep dookie now.

Jimmy Don didn’t bother with them and minded his own business. The new neighbors hadn’t been doing that and he was tired of them spying on him and trying to run him off.

They wouldn’t run him off. He had fought a lot worse. They might get him, but it wouldn’t be without a fight.

Jimmy Don snuck over next to one of the rockers. He picked it up and threw it through one of the windows at the front of the cabin. As soon as the window crashed, he was breaking through the front door.

------

It seemed to take forever for the authorities to arrive at the lake. They called in an ambulance and loaded Michael up for a trip to the hospital, after the sheriff and his deputies interviewed him for way too long. He couldn’t understand the need for them to get his fingerprints, but Michael just wanted to get out of there and away from the body of the dead man.

The detective kept asking Michael why he was here and why he was meeting Bubba. Michael repeated the same answer several times, finally getting irritated. He didn’t have a clue what Bubba was going to tell him. Apparently whatever it was would be kept a secret forever because dead men don’t speak.

The ride to the hospital seemed to take forever. He told them to take him to one of the Fort Smith hospitals. There was no way he was going to stop off at the local county hospital first.

When he got to the hospital, Sandy was waiting for him. The look on her face bothered him much more than any pain he had gone through.

She was scared, worried and almost looked sick. They took him into an examining room and she sat down in a chair next to the bed to wait with him.

They waited until everybody left before. “How’s it going?” Michael said.

He hoped to get a smile out of her, but she wasn’t in a smiling mood. “Michael…”

Michael saw she was crying. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be joking around.”

She stared at him with a look he had never seen before. “Michael, I’m not upset about you joking around. You disappear in the middle of the night after somebody calls and threatens me and your building is blown up and you don’t tell anybody where you are going and then I don’t hear anything from you until some cop calls to tell me to meet you at the hospital.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Yes, I know you are. You scared me. I’ve finally got a chance to be happy and marry a man I love and it’s to the point where I don’t know if we’ll even get married before you get killed.”

“I’m not going to get killed.”

“How do you know that?” she said while wiping away some tears. “You’re working at a little newspaper. Just write the obituaries and put the pictures of the kids in the paper. Nobody cares.”

Michael was a little upset. Here he was in pain and his future wife was on the attack. That hurt, but so did the “nobody cares” comment. Surely somebody cares.

“I’m not going after them,” Michael said. That wasn’t necessarily the truth. He had been checking up on some things, but had not written a word about them. “They’re coming after me, Sandy.”

“Yes, they are. But why?”

Michael shrugged his shoulder. He thought of something that had almost slipped by. He stopped thinking about Sandy and all the other troubles.

------

In the woods just outside of Langford, a new house overlooked a ridge just to the north. It was one of the nicer homes in the county with a view that people would die to have.

Only one light was on in the house, near the back. Roughly one hundred yards down the road, a man was hidden in the woods, waiting for a chance to see the person inside. The man was the one who had ended Bubba Anson’s life earlier in the night. Now, there was another man who needed taken care of.

This man’s crime was butting in downtown Langford earlier, helping to catch a friend who didn’t need caught by any law enforcement, even one as unsophisticated as the ones in this county.

Their plan was not going as smoothly as they expected. They didn’t think there would be any obstacles, but more were popping up almost every day. He didn’t know the person’s name inside the house, just knew he was a country guy who drove a monster truck and was sharing the company of some ugly woman with a massive chest.

He had been out here for almost two hours. The man was visible for just a few seconds earlier, talking on a cell phone. Since then, there had been some hollering and some other noise that almost sickened the man. It sounded almost like coyotes howling.

His instructions were simple: take out the man who owned this house. That was fine with the shooter. He didn’t mind killing somebody. It was his job. If his bosses told him to knock off somebody, that person would be knocked off. He had done it many times before and hoped to get more chances.

The pay was good with a bonus every time he took care of business. It was getting cooler but the man did not notice. He blended into the woods and thought somebody could walk right by without seeing him.

He saw a light come on in the house. At first, he only saw the shadow. But a person walked past the window. It was the man, wearing a pair of boxers that were at least three sizes too big.

The man was scratching his privates while walking through the house. He better enjoy it, the shooter decided, because this was the last time he would do it. The shooter waited a few seconds until the man came and stood right in front of the window, looking outside while drinking a beer.

This was almost too easy, the shooter decided. He liked a challenge, like the one of knocking off the big country hick from across the lake. In the dark even! The shooter got a kick out of that one. The hick didn’t even take a step, just dropped right where he was when hit with a single bullet from the Remington Model 700 .308 caliber rifle.

He looked into the scope, a D-145 Generation 1+ Compact Night Vision scope, one the man had used many times before. It almost made the darkness of night seem like day. It wasn’t really necessary with the man standing in the night. The shooter aimed right at the man’s head, directly above the beer bottle. The shooter took a deep breath and started to pull the trigger. “Time to die,” he said and applied the final pressure to send the bullet screaming through the night, through the glass of the window and into the man’s head.

The shooter didn’t know the man’s name. Most people just called him Squiggy.

Chapter 10

2006-06-01T16:26:00.000-04:00

Michael lunged at the man standing nearest to him and tried to tackle him. The large man didn’t budge, just stood in the same spot looking down at his friend.

“What’re you doing?” the man said, speaking in a real slow tone.

Michael swung at the man, hitting him in the thigh. If it hurt, the man didn’t reveal it.

“Little feller’s got some fight in him,” the other man said.

The other man shook his leg and Michael slid off, falling back to the rock.

“You aren’t going to get me!” he said.

“Why the crap would we wanna get you?” the other man said.

“You killed him and now you’re here for me!”

The first man laughed. “We didn’t kill nothing. Heck, we ain’t seen nothing tonight.”

“Yeah, we didn’t shoot that feller,” said the second man. “We’s looking for deer.”

Michael scooted back. “You aren’t here to kill me?”

“Heck no. We don’t kill nothing unless we plan on eating it.”

“Cept for crows. We’re pretty fond of shooting crows.”

“Then how’d you wind up here?”

“We was down at the boat ramp and heard a shot,” the first man said. He looked at the second man, who was nodding in agreement. “I figgered somebody was shooting at this buck we been chasing and I was hoping we’d get here first.”

“Yeah,” the second man said as he leaned down to look at Bubba. “Dadgum, he’s got a big old hole in his gourd!”

“Right 'tween the eyeballs,” said the other man, who was also leaning close to look. He turned back to Michael. “You ain’t gonna try and tackle me again, is you?”

Michael shook his head. “No. We need to call the authorities.”

“The what?” asked the first man.

“You know, the cops.”

“I don’t much care for the law,” said the second man. “I got like five warrants out for me.”

“I only got three,” said the other man. “That fat cop in Langston is on me like stink on a fresh dog log.”

He wouldn’t be for a while, Michael thought. “Can you guys get service?”

“I ain’t in a while but old Ben got some last weekend at the bar,” the first man said.

“No, not that kind of service. I meant on your cell phone?”

“Ain’t got no seller phone,” said the second man. “We do got a CB in the truck.”

“Yeah, we can talk clear to Hodgen on it,” said the first man. He looked closer at Bubba. “Durn, he got whacked a good one.”

“Yep, he pee’d all over hisself.”

“I think he dropped a load, too.”

“Can you try and get hold of somebody with your CB?” Michael said.

“I reckon. Who you want me to call?”

“Anybody who could call the sheriff.”

“Can’t you do it?” the first man said. “The sheriff said he’d lock me up the next time he saw me.”

“I can’t move very good,” Michael said. “I did something to my knee.”

“Looks like you hurt your wrist, too. That thing’s bent like a chicken wing.”

“I'd like me some chicken wings 'bout now,” the second man said.

“I’m mighty partial for the breasts,” the first man said.

“Yeah, but that’s cause you can’t get none!”

They laughed for way longer than Michael thought was necessary. “Why don’t you just get on the CB and call for somebody? Don’t tell them your name.”

“That’d work,” the first man said. “Hike up there and tell em to call the cops.”

“Why can’t you do it?”

“Cause I figgered you could make better time. I got that hemorrhoid problem.”

“You is a pain in the butt,” the other man said. He did start walking up the steps. Michael could hear him huffing after a few steps.

“Why're you out here?” the other man said. “You and him got something going on? I hear there’s a lotta homo stuff that takes place out here.”

“No, he needed to tell me something. I’m not gay.”

The man nodded, his beard swishing against his clothes. “The dead dude didn’t much look like a girly guy.”

Michael wanted to say he wasn’t a girly guy either, but let it drop. This wasn’t the type of conversation he wanted to engage in.

They sat in silence for a few minutes until the other man hollered. “I got hold of somebody. They’re gonna call the cops!”

-------

He moved in silence through the thick woods, just like he had done so many times before. Some of the tricks he learned in the service, most of them were taught by his father back when they went hunting when Jimmy Don was a young boy.

Jimmy Don knew these woods like the back of his hands. He knew all the areas to avoid and the ones that were easy to move through. Up ahead, the lights in the cabin were blaring. It was a new cabin, much nicer than any other one that could be found around here.

There was a big porch on the front with three rockers on it. Nobody was using them at the moment. He knew the men liked to sit in the rockers and drink their fancy drinks. There was one man standing on the porch, leaning against the rail.

The man was supposed to be a lookout, but was not paying any attention. He didn’t expect there to be any trouble. Nobody would want to mess with them, Jimmy Don figured the man was thinking. Jimmy Don planned to change that opinion. He moved up next to the house and looked inside the window.

There were two men sitting at the table. One was the guy who Jimmy Don had shot at earlier. They were talking and laughing about something. Another man came out of a back room. This was a new one Jimmy Don had not seen him before. It was a face he would remember, one of pure evil and meanness with just a touch of shrewdness.

Jimmy Don wasn’t sure, but figured he had just seen the leader of this group. He wasn’t sure what they were doing here in this valley, but planned on finding out. He moved silently against the wall, ducking down at every window until he reached the porch. The man was smoking a cigar and looking down the road.

It was almost too easy. Jimmy Don reached out and grabbed the man, never letting a sound escape. That part was easy. What was fixing to happen wouldn’t be such a breeze.

----------

In the OSBI office, the lab tech came into the office where two agents were discussing the college football game coming up on Saturday.

Oklahoma was playing Oklahoma State. OU was favored as usual, but since the game was in Stillwater, they were both a little concerned. The Cowboys had surprised a lot of people by losing only one game this year, to Texas, and would like nothing better than to knock the Sooners from the rank of the undefeated.

The lab tech was a young man, only twenty-five, making time here until something better opened up. He knew his stuff. Since the agent found the pistol in the office of what used to be the Langford Review, surprising both him and his supervisor, the tech had been working on the gun.

The two men stopped talking and waited for the report. “The bullets match. Guess who the fingerprints go to?”

He told them and the two men forgot about the football game for a few minutes

Chapter 9

2006-05-31T16:14:00.000-04:00

Michael Hunt was as horrified as he had ever been.

Only inches away from him lay the body of Bubba Anson. His eyes wide open with a large hole centered just above his eyes. His prone body still lay on the steps and was what tripped him.

He was still screaming, but finally stopped. It wasn’t because of the pain shooting up Michael’s arm or from whatever injury had happened to his face.

It was from seeing this man’s body before him, the person Michael had come to the lake to see and try to help. Michael used his good hand to scoot farther away. There was a big rock formation to his right and he moved up against it.

The realization suddenly hit him that he might be in danger, also. Michael didn’t know much about guns, unlike ninety percent of the county’s population, but could tell from the size of the wound and the accuracy that whoever did this had a big gun and knew how to use it. He grabbed for the cell phone attached to his belt. Michael opened it with his good hand and tried to make a call. Nothing was happening. He started worrying that the phone had been damaged in the fall, before noticing there were no bars.

No signal. Michael sighed and wondered what to do. The pain was getting worse, now joined by something on his left knee. He tried to stand and figured out that was a no go. His left leg would not offer the needed support so Michael sat back down against the sloped rock.

This wasn’t a popular time to camp and he saw no lamps lit or fires burning at the camp sites on this side of the lake or the other. He thought for a second that he saw lights across the lake, but if there were any, they quickly disappeared.

There was no way to make it back up the steps. He regretted not telling anybody where he was going, not a smart move. There probably wasn’t anybody around for several miles, back to the few houses on the side of the road heading into the lake.

“Help!” he hollered, quickly deciding that was a waste of time and energy. Michael looked back at the corpse and wished the eyes would stop staring at him. Lifeless eyes that showed no horror or anything. Michael touched his left knee and was not surprised to find out it was already swelling, easily twice the size of the other knee. He had hurt this knee years ago playing softball in a recreational league in Tulsa. He tripped rounding second base and wound up with torn ligaments and a face full of dirt. The second baseman laughed while applying the tag to end the inning. Michael saw nothing humorous about that, or this. He knew this was bad and getting worse.

--------

One of the agents from the OSBI was looking through the debris left over from the fire at what used to be the Langford Review. Most everything was destroyed, from the desks, the computers, printer, chairs and everything.

This was not a plum assignment as far as Mel Hudlow was concerned. His instructions were to find anything that looked like it might either come from a bomb or ignite a bomb. Like Michael Hunt, Mel was a fan of CSI. They always found the stuff, right before a commercial break. It didn’t take them long to find the good stuff.

Mel was striking out. At least he was until he moved aside a chair and saw something that looked out of place. The agent was a rookie and didn’t know what to make of this.

“Hey, Harry,” he said, calling over his supervisor. “You might want to come look at this.”

--------

Sandy was the first one to grow worried. Michael had not called or stopped by after leaving to meet with somebody earlier in the evening. He had told her about the meeting, but not the location or who Michael was going to see. She would have gotten worried anyway, since it was not three hours later, but with the threats, bombs and dead body, it was enough to make her do something she would have never done under any other circumstance.

Sandy got her phone, looked through the address book and finally found the name of the person she never expected to call.

She pushed the send button and waited. On the fourth ring, the person answered. “What?” the man said.

“Squiggy?” she said.

“Uh, yeah, who is this?”

Sandy heard another person in the background. “Who is that?” the woman yelled.

“This is Sandy,” she said. “Can you talk?”

“Sandy? Yeah, we was just getting busy. What’s up?”

“Who’s Sandy?” the other person hollered.

“It’s Mikey’s chick,” he said.

“Why’s she calling you?”

Sandy was already regretting this.

“If you’d shut your trap I’d find out.”

“Don’t tell me to shut my trap!”

Sandy heard some thud and then heard Squiggy grunt.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“Yeah, Big Uns just hit me over the head with my dadgummed boot.”

"What's Big Uns?"

"You know...Big Uns! The chick I been..."

“I hate to call you,” Sandy said, which was the definite truth. “But I’m worried about Michael.”

“He ain’t here!” Squiggy said. “It’s just me and Big Uns. Mikey don’t go for the weird stuff.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. Where’s he at?”

“If I knew that, I’d go find him. Have you seen him?”

Squiggy thought about it for a few seconds. “Yeah, about six foot, got a little belly and not much hair on his head?”

“I know what he looks like,” Sandy said.

“Yeah, I reckon you do…in more ways that I ever hope to see.”

Sandy didn’t have a clue what Squiggy was talking about. She decided that was a topic that could fade away. “Have you seen or heard from him in the last hour?”

“Naw, me and Big Uns, we been kinda getting after it…until she hit me in the head with the dadgummed boot. Crap, I think I gotta knot!”

“You deserve it!” the woman hollered in the background.

“I’ll hit you with a boot and…say, you eating blueberry wafflers?”

“Yeah, but you can’t have none.”

“Squiggy!” Sandy said.

“Oh yeah, sorry. Boy, them wafflers sure smell good! Got some syrup dripping and..what was we talking about?”

“Michael.”

“Oh yeah. I gets confused at times. Where’d you say he was?”

Sandy hung up and grabbed her car keys.

--------

Jimmy Don Anson was also growing a little worried. He had not seen his brother’s truck come back up the driveway since Bubba left earlier. His brother could take care of himself against most people. The people they were dealing with weren’t most people, though.

He decided to check things out and took off walking through the pasture. But not in the direction of his brother’s house.

---------

Michael wasn’t aware that he had fallen asleep. He felt somebody shaking him and opened his eyes. The pain was bad, growing worse every second. He shook his head and tried to clear the cobwebs.

There were two men standing above him, guns propped up on their shoulders. They both had thick beards, camo clothing, hunting boots and hats that were tilted off to the sides of their heads.

Michael stared at the guns and the men. They were both young, barely in their twenties. Both of them had the look so many young men shared, that they would rather fight than do anything else other than hunt. Michael didn’t care anymore. They weren’t going to take him out without a fight.

Chapter 8

2006-05-30T17:01:00.000-04:00

He heard the thud first, then the gunshot. At first, Gary Reynolds thought he had been hit. He backpedaled backwards several steps before falling on his rear. Gary looked around at his body and patted all over, looking for any entry hole.Finally, he was satisfied that no bullet had entered his body. Gary was not amused. He figured out the bullet hit the tree, not by accident. Jimmy Don Anson didn’t miss. This was a warning for Gary and his buddies to leave the property.

Gary raised his binoculars while peering around the small tree and looked down in the valley at where Jimmy Don was sitting on a stump with the rifle laid across his lap. The dog was sitting beside Jimmy Don, also looking toward Gary.

He noticed Jimmy Don was not smiling. For some people, this would have been funny. Jimmy Don didn’t seem like the type to smile. But neither was Gary, who planned on sending a message back to this country hick. It wouldn’t be now, but soon.

------

Michael Hunt was working at home in his old bedroom, trying to salvage a paper for the week. It wasn’t going that great and for the first time ever, the Langford Review’s publishing date would be set back at least one day.

He heard the knocking at the door and hoped it would quit. Michael knew who was pounding on his door, it was his mother. She was persistent.

The pounding didn’t work so she opened the door and poked her head in. “Michael!” she said. “I have been knocking at your door.”

She was a little upset. When somebody knocked on a door and a person was inside, that person should answer. Especially when she was the person knocking.

“I’m kinda busy here, Mom,” Michael said.

“Do you want anything to eat?”

Michael gritted his teeth. If he wanted something to eat, he knew where the kitchen was located. The same place it had been since he lived in this old house as a child.

“I’m not hungry,” he said.

“But Michael…”

“Not now, Mom. I have to work.”

His mother could not imagine anybody skipping a meal. His father sure never missed one in all the years he was married to the woman interrupting Michael.

“I can heat up some casserole!”

“Casserole makes me throw up.”

She started to say something, but paused. “You used to always like my casserole!”

“No, I ate it cause you made me.”

She looked hurt. Mrs. Hunt was proud of her casserole cooking skills and had never thought somebody, especially her son, wouldn’t love it.

“How about a salad?”

She was on him constantly about his weight. Michael could stand to lose some, but it wouldn’t be from eating salad.

“No thanks, Mom.”

“It’s good for you, Michael.”

He looked up from his laptop toward his mother. “I am aware of the nutritional value of salad, Mom. I just don’t want any.”

She started to say something, right before the phone rang. She looked at the old phone on his desk, at Michael, then back at the phone. She quickly pounced on it, before Michael could get it. The caller could be one of her network with big news. The news about the man dying downtown and the Review burning was making the rounds tonight. Somebody might have new information!

“Hello, the Hunt residence,” she said. Michael shook his head. He didn’t think anybody answered the silly phone like that in this day and age. His mother did, though, and took great pride in her etiquette. She listened to the caller and the smile slowly worked into a frown. “Hmph!” she said. “It’s for you.”

She handed the receiver to Michael. The cord wasn’t long enough so he had to get up from his chair and grab the phone.

“This is Mike,” he said. She shook her head. Her son didn’t even offer a greeting! How rude. She started to say something, but he was already waving her off.

He recognized the caller’s voice. The tone suggested it was important.”I needs to talk to you,” the caller said. It was Bubba Anson.

“Okay, go ahead,” Michael said. His mother slowly walked out of the room, doing her best to hear every word.

“Not on the phone. It ain’t safe.”

“Okay, where do you want to meet?”

“The dock at Cedar Lake. Thirty minutes.”

Michael started to protest that he couldn’t meet tonight, that he was too busy, but heard the click and knew the call had ended.

---------

He had mixed emotions on the drive out to the lake. This place always brought back memories of the night he and Sandy shared together. That was the night when everything changed. Before, they were just really good friends. As they sat next to each other on their graduation night, both of them realized they felt different about each other. They only kissed and held each other, but that was the last time. After that, they both knew things had changed and didn’t know how to handle it. Michael went off to school and Sandy stayed in Langford.

He remembered the way the wind sounded as it went through the pine trees that night, the cool breeze of late spring before the onslaught of summer heat. Michael had avoided the dock for so many years because of the bad memory. Now, it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as he and Sandy were together again and planned to get married.

Michael parked his truck in the parking lot and saw Bubba’s old truck parked off to the side. He got out and started walking down the steps toward the dock and the lake. It was dark as clouds covered the thin slice of the moon. Michael heard the wind howling through the pines and the call of some bird that sounded like a shriek.

He stopped halfway down the steps. Every nerve in his body was alive. Not because of the bird, but something else. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing at attention. Michael looked around, but could not see anybody or anything that looked out of the ordinary. But something was wrong. He knew that without any question. Michael had never been scared of the dark or the woods before, but it seemed like the trees were too close. He heard the wind lap against the dock and the beach and almost jumped.

“Bubba?” he said, but got nothing back. Michael proceeded slowly down the steps, constantly looking around. He was so busy looking around that Michael didn’t watch where he was stepping.

Michael tripped over something and went face first, hitting the rock step in front of him. He heard the crack and knew something wasn’t right. A sharp pain went up his left arm. Still laid out on the ground, Michael reached over and felt of his wrist. It was angled in a position that it had never been before, broken back enough that it almost felt like a bone was sticking out of the skin.

He felt something on his face and realized that blood was gushing out of his nose and mouth. Cradling his broken wrist, Michael sat up and looked behind him to see what tripped him.

What Michael Hunt saw on the thin path made him forget everything about the broken wrist and other injuries.

“Oh my gosh!” he screamed, loud enough that a person on the other side of the lake could clearly hear. That person smiled, walked back to his truck and drove off into the darkness.

Chapter 7

2006-05-11T12:34:00.000-04:00

John “Bubba” Anson was a huge man, there was no doubt about it. He stood six feet, five inches and weighed just a tad over three hundred pounds.

Bubba gave the impression of a man who could lose some weight and there were a few extra pounds gathered around his middle, but most of his bulk was courtesy of a life spent hauling logs.

His family had been in the business for as long as anybody could remember, acquiring contracts for timber, cutting the trees, hauling them off and selling them. There had been good times and bad times over the years. Now was a bad time as the timber companies had more wood than they needed thanks to good weather.

Bubba was standing down the street, leaning against a building that once held a lumber and hard wood company that sold products for half a century before closing some eight years ago.

Now the building was filled with stuff that the current owner acquired at auctions and would sell to the public.

Bubba was wanting to talk to the newspaper man, to see if he might be able to help. Somebody needed to help him quick. He didn’t know who the other man was, but automatically didn’t trust the man since he was an outsider.

Bubba didn’t much care for outsiders. He also didn’t care for people he didn’t know well, but knew the newspaper man had once lived in Langford and would understand his situation.

He had been waiting for a long time until the two men parted company. The newspaper man was now standing between two other guys that Bubba knew from The Last Call, Langford’s most popular bar.

Bubba didn’t know the other two that well, just knew one of them was crude and would chase any girl who could breath while the other was rumored to be well equipped.

He slowly walked down the sidewalk. Bubba wore an old pair of overalls that time had turned and wear had turned almost white. The pants had holes on both knees, not that Bubba cared about his appearance. His work boots were also worn, especially at the toes, exposing some of the steel that had protected his toes on more than one occasion.

Bubba didn’t come to town much. He preferred working and staying in his small cabin and twenty acres in the hills just south of Langford. Bubba watched the firefighters still trying to get the blaze under control.

He knew this probably wasn’t the best time to talk to the guy from the newspaper, but Bubba was out of options. It was either now or never.

------

Michael was still blown away by the story the FBI agent just told him. Squiggy was trying to get the information, but wasn’t having much luck as Michael was sworn to secrecy.

This was the kind of information that could get a person injured or killed and with the way Squiggy blabbed around town, word would get around. Michael had his problems with Squiggy’s behavior, but still didn’t want his friend to be in jeopardy.

Michael didn’t really want to be in jeopardy himself. Apparently he no longer had a choice in the matter. He saw the large man approaching. Michael stepped back, but could tell this man didn’t seem like the type to hurt anybody.

He had a rough appearance, but a kind face. The man stopped just short of Michael. “Excuse me,” Bubba said. “I needs to talk with you.”

Squiggy turned around and saw the newcomer. “Hey, whadda you say, Fatty?”

The man’s face turned for a second. Gone was the kind look, replaced by a look that showed he was not a person to be messed with. “I don’t like you calling me that.”

Squiggy also noticed the reaction and shut up. The man could probably crush Squiggy with one hand.

“Hey, you got any beer?” Mule said. “We’s about out.”

The man shook his head, causing his long beard to sway against the overalls. The beard was still brown for the most part, mixed with a few speckles of grey.

“Sure,” Michael said. “What can I do for you?”

The man walked away and Michael followed. They stopped in front of the next building, the second part of the old Burroughs Building. This one was also empty with large glass windows across the front that so far had escaped the vagrants that seemed to enjoy destroying other people’s property.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Bubba said. He seemed a little antsy, constantly looking around.

“It’s okay,” Michael said. “What can I do for you?”

“I gotta get some help. They’re after me.”

“Who’s after you?”

“They are.”

Michael was afraid he knew who “they” were without hearing it from this huge man. “What can I do for you?”

“I can’t get no help from the law,” Bubba said. “If I don’t sell my place, they are gonna get me.”

“Okay, but what can I do?”

“I don’t know…maybe write up a story about what they’s doing.”

“What are they doing?” Michael said.

Bubba started to say something, then saw something across the road that caused his face to go white. “I gotta go!”

“Hang on,” Michael said. The man had already turned and was walking back where he came from, his eyes never veering from the location across the street. Michael looked in that direction and saw a man standing at the corner. He was also a large man, wearing a white dress shirt, jeans and boots that were similar to the man who had shot the police chief earlier.

The man was watching Bubba stride down the sidewalk. He stayed in that position until Bubba got in his old truck. It took several cranks to get the old Chevy running. After getting the engine going, Bubba flew off down the road, going so fast that he almost drove like the teenagers.

Michael looked back. The man had vanished into the darkness. Within seconds, a newer truck pulled out from behind a building and took off in the same direction as Bubba had gone.

--------

Jimmy Don Anson was Bubba’s brother. Like his brother, Jimmy Don was also a huge man. But unlike his brother, there wasn’t anything peaceful about his appearance or demeanor.

He had calmed some over the years, but was not a person anybody in the county would want to mess with. Jimmy Don was bad before he entered the service and worse after his discharge. He did jobs with the military that nobody else would consider doing.

Jimmy Don was a little irked at the moment. He was sitting in a rocker on his front porch in front of a cabin that was much like his brother’s. It needed some work, but Jimmy Don didn’t have painting high on his list of to-do’s.

His bird dog, Spike, was lying next to him. A pretty dog, mostly white with some brown over parts of his head and black dots on his body.

Spike knew his owner was upset, so he was also. Jimmy Don’s patience was about up. He had never run from a fight in his whole life and didn’t intend to start now. Jimmy Don had a pretty good idea what was going on in this valley and didn’t like it one bit.

They could intimidate his neighbors and his brother, but Jimmy Don was a different story. He got up from the rocker and walked into his house. The living room was not one that would impress many people. There was a wood-burning stove over in the corner. On one wall was an old couch that was on its last legs. The dog usually slept on the couch while Jimmy Don sat in a recliner that worked less than half the time.

Jimmy Don bypassed the living room and went back to the only bedroom in the cabin. There was a mattress on the floor with sheets scattered about. He reached the gun safe, entered a combination and grabbed a gun that Jimmy Don knew well.He grabbed some shells, put some in the rifle and a few others in the pocket of his overalls. Jimmy Don put a hat on his head and walked back outside. This time, he didn’t stop at the rocker.

Instead, he walked over to the old barn. Spike accompanied him, trailing exactly two steps behind, just like he had been taught. Jimmy Don pulled up just short of the barn. He knew exactly where they were, all four of them.

One was hiding behind an old stump on the hill that separated his property from his brother’s land. The second man was behind an oak tree next to the creek that ran behind Jimmy Don’s house. A third man hid in a ditch that ran parallel to the driveway.

The fourth was the one that attracted Jimmy Don’s attention. This man was good, but not good enough. He had concealed himself behind some overgrown shrubs roughly two hundred yards into the trees.

Most people wouldn’t have a clue there were people watching him. Jimmy Don knew and was ready to put a stop to it. He was at least as tall as Bubba, but moved with a brisk pace. Jimmy Don sat down on the back tailgate of his old truck and took aim.

The other three men quickly abandoned their post and high tailed it back into the cover. Jimmy Don had the fourth man in his scope. He could see the man’s face. The man smiled back at Jimmy Don, almost taunting him.

Jimmy Don was not amused. He slowly applied pressure to the rifle’s trigger and noticed that the man’s smile had faded away.

Chapter 6

2006-05-10T15:32:00.000-04:00

It was a rather quick conversation between the caller and Michael.

But the words shook him in a way that few things had ever done.

“You got lucky this time, paper boy,” the caller had said and hung up quickly.

Michael pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the number. It was a private caller, just as he suspected.

One thing he was sure of, whoever these people were, they didn’t want him around. That was fine with Michael. For a long time, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be around Langford.

That had all changed one night a few months earlier with the phone call from his mother urging him to come home, that his father was sick. For Michael, that wasn’t that big of a deal. His father was frequently sick, or at least thought he was sick.

But for his mother, he had returned home. This time, his father wasn’t faking. He was sick. Prior to the old man’s death, Michael learned many things about his father and family that he never expected to hear.

Things such as because of poor money management, he was about to lose the Langford Review and his house to the Bank of Langford. At the last minute, Sandy had stepped in and helped Michael save the paper.

Now, that was all for waste. The Langford Review was no more, at least the building. The newspaper could carry on, but this week’s issue was ready to be taken to the printers tomorrow. There was no way Michael could redo the whole newspaper and get it ready for the printers by noon the following day.

He was still standing across the street, watching the building burn. Squiggy and Mule had joined him, sitting down on the sidewalk drinking beers and throwing the bottles underneath the various law enforcement vehicles parked in front of the Burroughs Building.

They seemed to think this was great fun, not that it surprised Michael. Squiggy and Mule were a little different than most people, not that they seemed to care. For the last few minutes, they appeared to be having a farting contest. Michael wasn’t paying that much attention. Apparently Mule had gotten too intent in the contest and had to run off in search of the nearest bathroom.

“Ooh!” Mule said, as he got up. “A convict is about to sneak past the Guard Shack!”

Michael watched Mule go down the sidewalk, looking much like the speedwalkers you see in the Olympics and the local track.

Squiggy was trying to talk to some girl, but she was showing no interest.

“Hey, baby,” he said, “how bout you and me go for a trip?”

“I think not,” she said. The woman was very attractive, young and seemed a little out of Squiggy’s league, not that he would let something like that bother him.

“Why, you a lesbo?”

The woman shook her head and looked around for help. “No, I think you are disgusting.”

Squiggy nodded and spit a huge wad of spit on a police car. He watched it slide down the front bumper and drip to the ground.

“I ain’t that bad,” he said.

She had left by then, gone in search of a safer environment. The fire department was doing its best to get the fire out. The wind was whipping up and that didn’t help matters.

A man slipped in beside Michael. “Aaaarrreee yyyooouuu Mmmmister Hhhunt?”

Michael looked around and saw a huge man, wearing a long sleeve shirt with a massive badge on his chest. He was also carrying a pistol on his belt. But what caught Michael’s attention was the huge growth on the man’s neck.

“Wwwhhhooo wwwwaaaannnnt’s tttooo knnnnoooowww?” Squiggy asked, making Michael wish his friend would go away.

“Shut up, Squiggy,” Michael said, hoping that he didn’t start stuttering or stare at the man’s growth. “Yes, I am. Who are you?”

The agent answered by saying he was special agent Moody from the FBI. Almost every word was a struggle.

“Hey hoss, you got a speech impotency?” Squiggy said.

The man frowned at Squiggy. “That’s impediment,” Michael said.

“Whatever,” Squiggy said and tossed his latest beer bottle under the front tire. He looked at the agent and squinted his eyes. Michael had a fear of what was fixing to happen. “Dude, you got like some big growth on your neck!”

The agent was not amused. Michael half expected him to pull out his massive gun and blow Squiggy away.

“Is that why you talk like a retard?” Squiggy said.

The agent started moving toward Squiggy. Michael could see the blood vessels on the agent’s forehead sticking out. “You ever been arrested?” the agent said, not stuttering nearly as bad since he was so angry.

“A few times.”

“Ever been busted by the FBI?”

“Naw, but them Arkansas cops must like to do cavity searches. I couldn’t walk for a week after the last one. Looked like a dadgum bronc rider.”

The FBI agent looked puzzled and backed off. He had handled hundreds of criminals in his service career, but never handled anything like this. Agent Moody walked back toward Michael, trying to shake his head but having a tough time with the goiter.

As he looked down the road, a huge man was jogging toward them. The man seemed awful excited about something. Mule skidded to a stop, staring at the FBI agent’s neck.

“Wow, is that one of them goiters?” he said.

The agent took a step back. He nodded, his hand poised inches above the pistol.

“Cool! Can I touch it?”

“No,” the agent said, offended beyond words.

“Please? My gradmammy used to have one and she’d let me play with it for hours. I like the way they feel.”

The agent was a little sensitive in the first place, thankful that most people were sensitive enough not be make a big deal about the growth. But that certainly wasn’t the case here.

Squiggy was laughing so hard that he laid back on the sidewalk and rattled off several poots, sounding almost like a machine gun going off.

“Let’s go over here and talk,” Michael said, moving away from Squiggy and Mule. He turned around and saw Mule following. “We need to talk in private, Mule.”

Mule’s smile slowly faded away. “Dadgummit!”

Michael and the agent stepped into a recessed area of the entrance to the Burroughs Building, right above where an advertisement for some pharmacy that had closed years before.

“What can I do for you?” Michael said.
The agent looked around to make sure nobody else was listening. “Do you have any idea who you are messing with?”

“No,” Michael said. He wasn’t aware of messing with anybody. But somebody was sure messing around with him.

The agent told a story that was almost hard to believe, even for Michael.

Chapter 5

2006-05-05T16:16:00.000-04:00

The Langford Review had been one of the mainstays of downtown Langford since 1928, when the building was first built.

It was the third building from the end of the block, located on the north end of a block that featured many buildings of the same age and structure.

The Langford Review building had an upstairs on it, one distinguishing feature that only the former bank building at the end of the block shared.

The years had not been kind to many downtown buildings in Langford. Neglect, variances in weather and failure to update marked all the buildings, including this building, although it was in much better shape since it had been occupied all these years.

Nothing much had changed with the Review building, until the last two months. Since Michael Hunt took over the Review, he and Sandy with some help from Squiggy and Mule, at least when they weren’t so drunk they threw paint everywhere, had painted the walls a bright white and the concrete floor a shade of grey.

It helped, but there was still a smell in the building of oldness, combined with decades of smoking cigarettes, pipes and cigars. Michael had instituted a no-smoking policy, which didn’t set well with his cousin, who now had to go out back to toke on her generic brand of smokes.

Michael had also purchased three new computers, complete with new software, along with modern printers. He planned to get new desks and chairs, but had yet to do so.

Inside the building were books with every edition printed since 1918. There were also boxes of pictures the newspaper had used through the years. Most of them weren’t all that good, but they were a key part of the history of Langford, the good and bad through the years.

At one time, Michael hated this building and the newspaper it hosted. A lot of that had to do with his father forcing him to work since Michael was old enough to walk. While other kids got to play sports and participate in other activities, he was writing stories and taking pictures with an old Pentax camera that his father had just recently retired.

Michael still had mixed feelings about the Langford Review, but since he took over for his father, he had tried to make the environment a lot better.

As he stood on the second story of the Burroughs Building across the street, seeing the building explode from the inside took away a lot of him.

His first worry was if anybody was inside. His other workers, Nancy and Teresa, had left for the day and as far as Michael knew, nobody else would be inside. He had left the door unlocked in the excitement, but at least if somebody did disintegrate, it wasn’t his responsibility.

It was a little amazing to see history go up in smoke like this. Michael was too stunned to move for several seconds, at least until Sheriff Patterson came up beside him.

“What the heck?” the sheriff said.

“It just blew up,” Michael said.

“Boom, huh?”

Michael broke his attention away from the burning building and looked at the sheriff. He wanted to say something about the sheriff’s intelligence, but didn’t feel up to it.

Instead, he shook his head and walked out of the room, down the stairway and out the back of the building. As he rounded the corner, Mule and Squiggy were advancing at a quick pace.

“We caught him!” Squiggy said.

Michael could only nod. He had been there and taken pictures, of course.

“You reckon there’s any reward for capturing the man who shot Porky?”

Michael shrugged again. He started walking away from them, but they quickly caught up.

“What was that noise?” Mule asked.

“Somebody just blew up the Review,” Michael said. He remembered that was talking to Sandy when the building exploded and would probably be wondering if he was still alive. “Let me use your phone, Squiggy.”

Squiggy frowned. He had to buy minutes for the phone and didn’t want to waste any. Big Uns, his sometime girlfriend, got awful fussy whenever the minutes were out and she couldn’t talk to him.

“Uh, I don’t got many minutes,” he said.

“I’ll buy some,” Michael said. “I need to call Sandy.”

“Where’s your phone?”

“I left it upstairs after the building exploded.”

“You could always go get it,” Squiggy said.

“Just let him use your phone,” Mule said.

Squiggy rolled his eyes and then glared at his buddy. “Just keep it short, okay?”

Michael nodded and accepted the phone. He started to dial but didn’t have any luck. “How do you use this dang thing?”

“You gotta use the code.”

“Well, what is it?”

“Here, let me have it. I’ll do it.”

“You fraid Mikey’s gonna steal your phone?” Mule asked.

“Uh, no.” Squiggy grabbed the phone and entered the code. He handed the phone back to Michael. “Here you go.”

Michael dialed Sandy’s number and waited a few seconds. Finally, she answered. “Somebody blew up the Review.”

“Are you okay?” Sandy asked.

“How’d you get out?” Mule asked.

Squiggy pulled his hat off and popped Mule with it. “That don’t make no difference. Let him get off the dang phone.”

Michael covered up the phone. “I wasn’t in there.”

“I guess that’s why you ain’t extra crispy, eh?”

They walked along the sidewalk next to the Burroughs Building. Michael was telling Sandy what happened when the phone beeped. “This thing’s beeping,” he told Sandy.

“Must be somebody calling,” Mule said proudly.

“Duh, you think?” Squiggy said. “Hang up! It’s probably Big Uns. She’ll think I’m talking to some other chick and pluck my back hairs out again.”

Michael told Sandy that he would call her back and handed the phone over to Squiggy, who quickly hit the button.

“Hey, baby,” he said. After a brief pause, Squiggy was quickly defensive. “No, I wasn’t talking to the redhead…Naw, she’s butt ugly…I was drunk!...Mikey was using the phone to call his chick…Naw, you’re the dadgummed idiot!”

Squiggy hung up the phone and shook his head. They rounded the corner and saw the fire was spreading to the adjacent buildings. The first fireman had just arrived on the scene and was standing in the middle of the street, dressed in his yellow outfit.

The Langford Fire Department was used to fighting house fires and grass fires. Twice before, part of downtown had burned. The old theater had caught on fire in the late 1970s while the funeral home burned in the 1990s. Sadly, like many volunteer fire departments in small towns, they didn’t have the equipment to fight a fire of this intensity.

A call had already gone out to the fire department in Poteau, requesting help. The Poteau Fire Department had the equipment necessary to battle a fire like this, but they were tied up at an apartment fire.

Within a minute, the first fire truck showed up. The firemen went to work, trying to keep the block from burning to the ground. Most of the buildings were empty and some thought it would be an improvement, but their job was to get the fire under control.

In the next few minutes, downtown was filled with onlookers. It was one of the worst traffic jams in Langford history. As Michael, Squiggy and Mule stood on the corner watching, Sheriff Patterson walked up beside them.

He held out Michael’s phone. “Here, somebody wants to talk to you.”

Michael grabbed the phone and answered. His blood soon turned cold.

Chapter 4

2006-05-05T06:21:00.000-04:00

Sheriff Leroy Patterson had just taken over the position after the previous sheriff retired. Sheriff Patterson was a tall, angular man, standing almost six and a half feet tall. He was rather skinny, weighing only one-eighty soaking wet.

He wore a white cowboy hat anytime outdoors, so the one on his balding head was not worn for show. The sheriff had the two top buttons of his dark shirt open, revealing a mass of hair sticking out that could easily cover the baldness.

The sheriff was in another room, just off the one Michael Hunt was looking in. Sheriff Patterson had just walked to the back of the room and found the motherlode, a collection of dirty magazines that were in two stacks and almost reached his waist.

A smile formed on his wrinkled face. These weren’t the fluffy magazines available in the local convenience stores, but the hardcore stuff, the kind he liked. He grabbed the top one off the cover and pointed his flashlight at it.

BIG MOMMA’S! was the name of the magazine. He glanced inside and realized that was an accurate description. Now the sheriff didn’t have anything against plump women, but it just wasn’t his cup of tea. He tossed that one aside and was about to pick up another one.

“Sheriff!” came the call from the other room.

“What?” he said in an irritated mood. Whatever the newspaper guy had found could wait. The sheriff had hours of fun waiting here.

“You better come here.”

The sheriff sighed heavily and walked out of the room, making sure he remembered which one had the goodies inside. He stuck his head in a couple of rooms before seeing Michael just inside the doorway, staring at something at the other end of the room.

“Look there,” Michael said.

“Hang on, check this out,” the sheriff said and thrust the magazine out.

Michael wasn't positive, but thought the sheriff was breathing awful heavy. He turned his attention away for a second to see what the sheriff wanted. It was a magazine entitled BLUE-HAIRED BABES! Michael looked at the magazine and back at the sheriff.

“So?” he said.

The sheriff opened up the magazine to the centerfold. “Now that’s a hot filly right there, eh?”

Michael couldn’t make out much of the woman, not that he really wanted to see her. “There he is.”

He pointed toward the far side of the room. Aaron Sanders was lying on top of the desk that he had once hid behind. There was an open wound in the middle of his forehead. His mouth was wide open. What used to be his tongue was cut out and placed in the middle of his chest.

Aaron’s throat had been slashed from one ear to the other. The blood had formed a large puddle on the desk and was dripping off the side and to the floor. Several rats were scouting out the body. One had walked through the blood and left little foot prints on Aaron’s shirt.

“Bummer,” the sheriff said and turned his attention back to the magazine. “Whoo!”

Michael looked at the body, back at the sheriff and toward Aaron Sanders. “Shouldn’t you do anything with him?”

“Aw, he ain’t going nowhere.”

------

In a large house on the west side of Langford, Sandy Daniels had just walked into her bedroom when the house phone rang again. She was wearing a pair of baggy black shorts, a white Langford tee-shirt and ankle socks on her feet.

Her dark hair was put up in a bun. It had been a long day for her and a night of relaxation was on the agenda. Just minutes earlier, the phone rang but nobody was on the other line when she answered.

Sandy looked at the caller I.D. and saw the number was from a private caller. That normally meant somebody trying to sell something, but sometimes her fiancée, Michael Hunt, would call her like this because he knew how much those kinds of calls bothered her. She really didn’t want to mess with them, if it was a sales person,but also didn’t want the phone tied up so Sandy answered the phone.

For a few seconds, there was nothing coming through the phone. Slowly, somebody started breathing, slowly at first but the pace increased quickly.

“Michael, this isn’t funny,” she said.

“This isn’t Michael,” the caller said. This voice was much different, for sure.

“Squiggy, Michael isn’t here.”

The line was dead for a few seconds. “This isn’t Squiggy.”

Sandy removed the phone from her ear and stared at it for a few seconds. “Who is this?”

“That isn’t important.”

“I kind of like to know who I’m talking to.”

“All you need to do is pass on a message.”

Sandy waited for a second. This was a strange one. She was used to strangeness from living in Langford all her life, but this was a topper.

“I’m waiting,” she said.

“Tell your little boyfriend he’ll never see the sun rise.”

-----

The shape of Aaron Sanders’ body had finally loosened the sheriff from his admiration of the magazine. This was a new one for him. From some forty years of law enforcement, he had seen many dead people.

Even some that had been shot. But never one that wound up looking like this. The sheriff knew this was beyond his grasp and he needed help. The OSBI, Oklahoma’s version of the FBI, had been called and two agents had been dispatched.

He didn’t particularly enjoy dealing with the OSBI, but this was too much. The sheriff was from the northern part of the county and didn’t know many people in Langford or further south.

“You know him?” he said.

“Never seen him before,” Michael said. “I bet Squiggy knows him. Maybe he’ll show up after they quit gloating over capturing the shooter.”

He pulled his cell phone from the holder on his belt to call Squiggy. As he dialed the number, his phone went off. He answered, but whoever the caller was could not be heard. Michael looked at the bars and saw reception for his cell wasn’t good in this building. It actually wasn’t all that great anywhere in downtown Langford, so he walked toward the front of the building.

Michael stopped near the front window and looked out over downtown Langford. He had a good view of the Review and noticed the lights were still on inside and the front door was unlocked.

“Can you hear me now?” he said.

“Yes!” the caller answered. It was Sandy and she sounded rather frantic.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just got a call from somebody and...” she paused for a second.

“Who was it?”

“He wouldn’t say.”

“What did he want?”

“For me to tell you that you won’t see the sun rise tomorrow!”

“Do what?” Michael said.

Her reply was drowned out by a huge roar that shook the window and made Michael jump back.

He looked across the street and dropped the phone. “Oh no!”

Chapter 3

2006-05-03T16:54:00.000-04:00

Two years earlier, the Bank of Langford had spent over two hundred thousand dollars to tear down some buildings and build a parking lot that many citizens thought was a joke.

At the front of the parking lot, right under the big sign that could easily be seen from the highway, there were several planters with shrubs in each. When Mule saw his friends take off across the street, he went the long way around the block.

He had just made the block when several gunshots were heard behind the old hardware store. Mule started walking in that direction and was by one of the planters when the man rounded the corner, running toward him with a pistol in his hand.

Mule slipped back in the planter right next to a newer model Chevrolet truck, decked out with bug shield, tire flaps and fancy wheels. He saw the man stop just short of the truck and turn around. Mule looked out and saw Psycho and Squiggy running toward the man.

When he saw the man raise the pistol, Mule left his hiding spot, moving at a speed he had not matched in many years. He forgot about the pain from where he broke his leg the year before.

As he neared the man, Mule heard Squiggy shout. As the man started to fire, Mule dove, hitting the man right under his raised arms. The gun blared again, but was pointed up in the sky.

It was a tackle any pro linebacker would have admired. The shooter crumpled up and crashed to the ground, right next to his truck with Mule on top. The man was knocked silly for a few seconds. Just as he started getting his senses back, there was another problem.

The hit from this giant lug hurt, but not nearly as bad as the crazed dog. Psycho went for the gusto, right for the man’s privates and got a good bite that caused the man to scream.

He had never known pain like this. He had been a good running back in his high school some thirty years before and taken some hard hits, but nothing like the one he had just received, one that was made even worse when the mutt bit down.

There was a loud crunching sound and the man knew one of his nuggets had just ruptured. He was fighting to get loose and aim the gun at either the big man or the gun. Just as he almost completed this action, the other man stepped on his wrist, causing the gun to fall free.

“Howdy,” Squiggy said. “How’s it feel for a pit bull to bite your goodies?”

The man was too busy screaming to answer.

“Psycho, let go!” Squiggy said. The dog was jerking its head back and forth, but quit and released his hold on the man. “Nice hit, Mule.”

Mule smiled at his friend. He didn’t realize it, but a cut had opened between his eyes and blood was streaming down over his nose. “Hee hee, I hit him a good one!”

The first officer from the county came flying over the railroad tracks and pulled up next to where Mule had the man held.

The deputy came out of his car with a gun pulled. He ran over and pointed his gun at Mule.

“Get off the man!” the deputy said and pointed his weapon about one inch from Mule’s head.

“Huh?” Mule said, looking at Squiggy in confusion.

“Naw, you idiot,” Squiggy said, pointing at the man grimacing in pain. “That’s the bad dude.”

“Oh,” the deputy said, then noticed the dark spot on the man’s pants. “Did he pee himself?”

“Naw, Psycho got him,” Squiggy said with proudness. “I think he lost a nugget.”

“Cool,” the deputy said. “Where’s the chief?”

“Probably still in his car. He got shot in the foot.”

“Well dadgum,” the deputy said. “The way he was going on, I figured he was gutshot.”

Squiggy looked down at Mule. The blood was dripping down on the man’s dress shirt. “You can probably get off him, Mule.”

Mule slowly climbed off, making sure his knee landed near the man’s injury. Psycho was sitting back, watching the man’s every move. Another car from the county came pulling up behind the man’s truck. This was the head cheese, the sheriff.

He and Mule explained what was going on and the sheriff informed the OSBI, the state organization for criminal activities.

----

After getting the police chief settled down and convinced that the gunshot wound to the foot wouldn’t kill him, Michael left to go see what was happening. He had heard the screaming and wondered what could cause a person such agony. After finding out what did cause the pain, Michael fully understood why the man was hurting.

He slipped back to the office and got his camera. Michael got some good pictures of the man getting cuffed and stuffed in the sheriff’s car, right before an ambulance arrived. The EMTs determined that the man could make it to the hospital without their assistance and went searching for the injured police chief.

Squiggy was confusing the issue more than helping so Michael translated what happened, starting with the initial gun shot in the Burroughs Building.

“Reckon somebody else got shot?” the deputy asked.

The sheriff glared at his deputy and shook his head. “Why don’t you let me ask the questions?”

The scolded deputy moved off to the side to pout. Michael and the sheriff walked back toward the Burroughs Building, passing by the old hardware store that was now the third pawn and gun in Langford. They cut in between the buildings and found the EMTs working on Chief Arnold, who seemed to scream every time anybody got close to his foot.

“You gonna be okay, Chief?” the sheriff asked.

“I’m hurting…bad!” the police chief said and howled again. “Am I gonna lose my big toe?”

The EMTs tried to keep from laughing, no easy task. “You’ll be wigging that bad boy in no time,” the bigger EMT said.

Michael took a picture of the scene, complete with the chief howling. That would be a good one, he decided, but doubted the chief would appreciate it.

They walked across the street and walked around the building. The front door was locked so they went around to the back. That door was ajar. The sheriff started to open it.

“Aren’t you worried about fingerprints?” Michael said.

The sheriff stopped, slowly turned and glared at Michael. “What are you, one of those CSI nuts?”

Michael shrugged. “I like the real one. Don’t much care for the Miami or New York versions.”

“I’m more of a Law and Order guy,” the sheriff said. “I know how to deal with a crime scene, newspaper boy.”

The sheriff used his foot to open the door. Michael got a little satisfaction out of this. They entered the building and walked around downstairs, finding nothing out of the ordinary. After searching downstairs for a few minutes, they found the stairwell and walked up the stairs.

They looked through most of the small rooms without finding anything. They split up to save time. Michael was entering one of the rooms near the back when he smelled something.

Michael got a little farther in and stopped, seeing something he would never have thought possible.

Chapter 2

2006-05-03T07:27:00.000-04:00

The man who just ended Aaron Sanders’ life hid beside a storage building in the alley behind what used to be the hardware store. If he had to worry about a professional police force, the man would be halfway to the state line by now.

But based on his findings concerning the Langford Police Department, the word “professional” should never be used in the same sentence.

He was afraid the guy from the newspaper might have seen him, but also knew that it would be impossible to identify a person running away from the building.

It was kind of fun to watch the reactions of the cop, the newspaper guy and the two men who showed up shortly after the gun shot. Something had them concerned with the big guy’s chest. Every few seconds they would look back toward the building, but had not made any move to check it out.

The man did not get any enjoyment out of killing. It was simply his duty for a cause that many people did not believe in. But that was fine. He knew one day the tide would turn and one of their enemies would have him cornered.

He knew tears would never flow from his eyes and no babbling would happen. He had to hand it to the Sanders guy. He took it like a man. Just closed his eyes and clenched his body.

Some of the blood had splattered on him. He planned to burn these clothes later, not that it mattered. The man just hoped none of the blood got on his boots. A year ago, he wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing something this garish. But the boots and western attire had helped him and his friends fit in here in hickville.

Now, he actually liked the boots and the snakeskin cover. Plus the women seemed to like them, even the ones with all of their teeth. As he slowly escaped into the shadows, the man’s phone rang. He had forgotten to turn the ringer off and it sounded loud enough to wake the dead, a necessity for him to hear the ringer after too many gunshots in too many tight quarters. He grabbed the phone before it rang a second time, opened and shut the flip part while peering around the corner of a building.

-----

“That sounded like a phone going off,” Chief Arnold said. They had all heard it and were looking in the direction of where the sound came from.

“That’s because it was,” Squiggy said. “A Nokia!”

“Like you’d know,” Mule said. His chest was hurting now. The Chief was grabbing his chest and pressing with all his might. “Chief Porky, you’re hurting the Mule!”

The chief gritted his teeth and gave an extra squeeze. Suddenly, there was a popping sound and the chief wheeled backwards quickly. His face had speckles of white all over.

“Ugh!” the chief said and spit several times. “I think I swallered some zit!”

Squiggy started to laugh while Mule was bowed over in pain. He started groaning and wouldn’t quit.

Michael had enough of this silly stuff and started walking toward where they heard the phone ring. He wasn’t positive, but thought whomever he saw run away might still be hiding in the alley.

Squiggy stopped laughing as he saw his buddy take off. “Where you goin, Mikey?”

Michael didn’t answer, just walked straight toward the alley. He realized this probably wasn’t the smartest thing he had done lately, but wasn’t all that concerned.

Squiggy walked over to his truck and opened the door. Out hopped a dog with an enormous head. It was a pit bull slobbering in amounts that would probably set a record if there was some kind of record.”Hold up, Mikey, here comes Psycho!”

“Oh great,” Michael said. He turned around to watch the dog sprint toward him. He and Psycho had never gotten along all that great, dating back to the first day they met. The dog was crazier than its owner and that took some doing.

“Wait up!” Squiggy said. Psycho pulled up next to Michael and started sniffing up and down his legs. She tried to check out the private area but Michael put a stop to that.

He looked back and saw what appeared to be a trail of blood or slobber. “What’s wrong with your dog?”

Squiggy caught up and was already breathing hard from the twenty-yard run. He held up his finger, wanting to catch his breath.

“She’s in heat. I been trying to breed her but she won’t take no dog. Last one I tried, Psycho bit half the dog’s dang ear off. We been playing Frisbee with it the last couple of days.”

Chief Arnold hopped in the police car and drove to the alley with all the lights blaring. He was on the radio calling for backup. Unfortunately, the other policeman on duty was answering nature’s call at the pizza joint and left his radio on the table. The chief didn’t want to do it, but called for the county sheriff’s help.The chief was about to get out of the car when it happened.

-----

The man knew this was not good. He was trapped behind the corner of the building, the lights shining all around him. He couldn’t move without being seen. He slammed his hand against the concrete wall, frustrated with his stupidity and a phone call at the wrong time.

He had successfully operated in places like Dallas and Houston without getting caught. Now, some rinky-dink, fat cop was going to capture him. But not without a fight, the man decided.

As soon as the policeman opened the door, the man leaned around the corner of the building and started firing. The first bullet was low, but scored, hitting the cop in his foot.

The cop jumped up and down twice, then dove back into the car right before two more shots followed, shattering the windshield and sending glass all over Chief Arnold. The man took off running, paying no attention to the shouting from behind.

-----

“I’m hit!” Chief Arnold hollered. He hollered this several times in a row, then grabbed the radio and said it again, only remembering to push the button on the mic on the third try. He looked down at his foot and saw smoke coming from the big hole in his boot. Chief Arnold didn’t care what anybody said, it did hurt when you were shot.

When the first shot went off, Squiggy and Michael dove to the ground. They waited for the shots to stop and glanced up, grateful that the road was actually below the sidewalk and offered some protection. They slowly looked over the edge and saw the chief squirming in his car.

He looked like a big slab of bacon sizzling in the frying pan. Michael was the first to get up and ran over to Chief Arnold’s car.

“Are you okay?” he asked, ducking down behind the door.

“Crap no!” Chief Arnold screamed in a blood-curdling voice. “I’ve been shot in my foot!”

Squiggy and Psycho arrived next. Squiggy tried to keep from doing it, but was quickly laughing.

“It ain’t funny!” Chief Arnold hollered.

“Have you called for help?” Michael asked.

“We don’t need no help,” Squiggy said. “Sic em, Psycho!”

The dog started for the police chief, who looked even more terrified as the pit bull came after him.

“Not him, you dumb dog,” Squiggy said. “Go after the gun!”

Psycho took off after the shooter, Squiggy trailing a short distance behind. Michael looked around for Mule, but he was nowhere to be found.

-----

The man was running as hard as possible. His truck was only a few yards away when he heard something behind him, coming even faster. He turned around and saw the dog bearing down on him.

The man made it to his Chevy truck, but knew there was no way to get inside before the dog arrived. That left him with only one option. He spun around, raised his pistol and took aim.

"No!” yelled Squiggy, who was some twenty yards behind his dog.

The man was about to pull the trigger, never seeing the blur coming from the side.

Chapter 1

2006-05-03T07:17:00.000-04:00

It was dark inside the top floor of the deserted building. The man was crouched down behind an old desk that didn’t look like it had been used in some thirty years.

This was the old Burroughs Building, located in downtown Langford. He remembered seeing the year the building was built etched in the bricks somewhere a long time ago. That was back when he was younger and noticed stuff like that. He couldn’t remember the exact year the building was built, only that it was in the early 1920s.

The Burroughs Building had been vacant for several years, just like several other buildings in the once thriving downtown. Part of the ceiling had given way thanks to numerous leaks in the roof and the rotted material hung toward the floor in several locations. Aaron Sanders was only in his mid-twenties, but already his knees were hurting from sitting in this position.

His hair was a little long in the back and short on the sides, almost a mullet look. He wore a dark tee shirt, jeans and a pair of white Nike's that stood out like a sore thumb.

With each breath, he tried to hold down the noise. His heart was thumping loud enough that he feared anybody in a block could hear.

Thump..thump..thump it beat. It almost sounded like a drum beaten with a baseball bat.

It was cool outside and cold inside the building. It stunk of rotted wood and the feces that seemed to be everywhere. Despite the cool temperatures, Aaron had sweat pouring down the front of his face. The beads were burning his eyes and he wanted to wipe them away, but knew that would be a bad move.

Whoever was chasing him was here somewhere, looking for him. Aaron looked toward the window and saw the shadows on the floor that made all the different objects in the room appear to be several times their actual size.

He wished the street light outside wasn’t working, like so many others throughout town. But the electric company had this one blaring out light at full strength. He heard a noise somewhere behind him. He held his breath, hoping it was one of the numerous pigeons that had made this building their home. Or possibly a rat. Aaron hated rats and the thought of one scooting across his foot scared him almost as bad as the men chasing him.

His tee shirt was torn in the front, just above his right chest. That was courtesy of a nail on the stairway he used to find this hiding place. Along with part of the shirt, the nail took some skin just for the heck of it.

Aaron had been in the bottom part of the building before, back when it was a pool hall and later a clothing store that did not last long. But this was the first time he had been upstairs. He wasn't impressed.

There were several rooms that had once been apartments a long time ago, each in about as bad of shape as the room he hid in.

He was hurting, both from the scratch on his chest and the ankle he twisted badly while running in the alley, stepping in a pothole that was concealed by darkness and water. Aaron had limped into the building, feeling a relief that the back door was not locked. He had tried to put the door back into its prior position, but it never closed properly.

The old floor creaked from something heavier than a pigeon or rat. He hoped it was from something else, but at the same time knew he was no longer alone. Aaron tried to scoot even further under his cover. As he did, the desk moved, making a noise that sounded about as loud as an airplane flying just a few feet above his head.

There! Another footstep scraping on the old wooden floor. The pursuer bumped into something and grunted. At any other time, it might have been funny. But not now, that was for sure.

He held his breath and looked to his left at the old brick wall. He could see the shadow moving, one of a man holding something that looked much like a pistol in front of him.

The man was moving slowly. Aaron took no comfort from this. It would take a miracle to save him and he was not feeling lucky.

A siren started wailing outside somewhere in Langford. He saw the shadow stop for a second. Aaron hoped it was a police man coming to rescue him, but knew from the sound of the siren that it was the Langford volunteer fire department leaving their building two blocks away to the north.

Aaron looked to his left and saw the man’s boot, the cowboy variety, made up of some animal skin. The light almost seemed to reflect off them. Aaron knew if he could see this well that the man could probably see just as good.

A flashlight turned on. Aaron felt the beam shine into his face. He closed his eyes for the last time and waited. Aaron didn't have to wait long.

"Well, there you are,” the other man said in a drawl that was not from around here. “This will only hurt for a second.”

He laughed as Aaron braced for the end, one he never felt.

------

Michael Hunt was trying to wrap things up for the day when he heard the gunshot. It sounded close, way too close for a man who had people shooting at him only a short time before. The gunshot sounded like it was across the street.

Michael hit the floor, wondering if this was another bullet aimed in his direction. This time, he didn’t hear any glass break and he sighed in relief. He hoped that it was some stray animal that one of the members of the Langford Police Department had just put out of its misery.

He slowly raised and looked over his desk toward the front of the building. The glass door was still in place, thank goodness. Michael had already replaced the glass in the door once and didn’t want to have to shell out the money again.

The money was not the problem like it had been a few months earlier, but he didn’t want to spend any money on anything that wasn’t necessary.

Michael slowly walked to the front and looked outside. Something was moving on the road between the Burroughs Building and the empty lot to the north. He saw a man disappear into the alley, moving at a rapid pace.

At about that time, a truck skidded to a stop at the front of the Langford Review, where Michael was working until the gunshot disturbed him. He knew this truck way too well and tried to hide, not wanting to bother with the driver and his sidekick.

Michael knew it wasn’t any use. He opened the door and looked outside just as the one man, a small and skinny one hopped out of what could be considered a monster truck. A monster, ugly truck at that. It was jacked up beyond belief, so high that one almost needed a ladder instead of steps to enter and exit.

The driver came running up to the door. His dirty hat was cocked to the side. He had a chew of tobacco in his mouth that made his face looked deformed.

Just behind him, the other door opened and the other fellow came jogging up toward the front of the building. The second man tripped on the steps and looked like a baserunner sliding face first into second base.

The first man saw this and stopped to enjoy the scene. “Safe!” he said and threw his arms out like an umpire, with a bit of tobacco juice dribbling off of his chin.

“Ugh,” said the second man, who somehow managed to hold on to the beer bottle in his right hand without spilling a drop.

“Mule, you look like a dadgum retard,” the driver said. He was also sporting a beer bottle that was half full of spit. The driver went by the moniker “Squiggy”, one that he had recently attempted to have tattooed on both arms.

Squiggy was pretty proud of his tattoos until Michael pointed out that it spelled “Squeaky” instead of “Squiggy”. “Reckon I can change my nickname to Squeaky?” he had asked Michael.

Slowly, Mule sat up. He was wearing camo shorts despite the frigid temperatures and a short that had once been a button-up, long sleeved one that he had cut the sleeves off with a pocket knife.

Squiggy turned his attention back to Michael. “They shooting at you again?”

“Not this time,” Michael said. He stood in the doorway, looking across the street. He was of average size, wearing tan slacks and a white dress shirt that proved wrinkle free did not exist at the end of a work day. His hair was tinted with a touch of grey and receding rapidly, showing a forehead that was covered up until a few years ago.

A police car came pulling up in front, without the lights on. The car pulled in close to Squiggy’s truck, at an angle that would prevent the truck from leaving without taking the front bumper of the cruiser with it.

The front door opened and out came a short, plump man with an enormous gut that sagged over the front of his jeans. Even in the darkness, it was easy to see what looked like the remains of a coney splattered across the front of his shirt. He fumbled with his holster, trying to extract a pistol that seemed too large for the short man.

“Dadgummit!” Police Chief Arnold bellowed, loud enough that the Hispanics gathered in the road a block away started to stare.

“Need some help, Porky?” Squiggy said.

“Not from you,” the police chief said. He was still a little peeved at the little man for taking and wrecking this same vehicle almost a year earlier during the worst ice storm Langford had seen in some five years.

Squiggy noticed some of the dents on the car and tried to keep from laughing. He failed. “When you gonna fix them dents?”

“Probably as soon as you pay for them,” Chief Arnold fired back. “You almost cost me my dadgum job. Somebody shooting around here?”

“I thought they was trying to kill Mikey again,” Mule said. He proceeded to open his shirt and look at a large bump on his chest.

“What the crap is that?” Squiggy asked. “It looks alive!”

“I think it’s one of them ingrown hairs,” Mule said. He tried to squeeze the sore. “Dang, that hurt.”

Squiggy leaned in for a closer look. “Dadgum, that almost looks like a third nip.”

“Did you pop it?” Chief Arnold asked, taking way too much interest in the act. “I do like to pop a pimple. Want me to try?”

Mule had to think about this for a second. He didn’t like to pop his own pimples and surely wasn’t crazy about letting somebody who was carrying a gun have a go at it. “I’ll get it later.”

Chief Arnold eyed the sore. “I see a whitehead!” It was said with way too much enthusiasm. “Let me get it! Please!”

Squiggy was the first to notice. “Dadgum, Porky, you’re drooling! You gonna eat it?”

The chief stepped back. “Uh, no, I just wanna pop it.”

“Excuse me,” Michael said. The three men turned to look at him. “I know that pimple’s really exciting, but I saw somebody running off after I heard the shot.”

“So?” Chief Arnold asked. He stole a couple of glimpses at Mule’s chest.

“So…I think somebody might've been shot.”