Trial by Fire
Charles awoke sitting upright in a chair. His nostrils detected a faint astringent odor he did not recognize. He blinked a few times, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dim lighting. It was coming back to him. He had been attacked outside of his home.
He twisted his head around to survey the surroundings. A clutter of old automobile and tractor parts encircled him and a second smell, this one familiar, assaulted his nose. He was in a barn.
A dull pain burned in his right hand. He tried to pull the hand toward his face for a closer inspection, but discovered he could not move his arms. Beside him stood Cullen with that same emotionless face he maintained during the trial. In his hands, he held a pair of bolt cutters and the ring.
Charles tried to get to his feet, but again was unable to move. The nagging ache in his hand intensified. With his right thumb he probed the other fingers, finding a slippery stump.
His little finger had been severed.
A wave of panic crashed over him. His white-hot eyes scanned the room for a way out. He tugged at the straps and struggled to free himself, overturning the chair. It landed on his left arm, pinching it between the chair and hard clay ground. Ignoring the pain he continued to fight the restraints, as the chair lurched and spun on the floor like a child’s broken top. After a minute had passed his energy ebbed and he became motionless, but his heart continued to beat as though trying to escape the confines of his chest.
Cullen set down the items he held, and wrestled the chair back to its upright position. “I’m going to put you down,” he said, as matter-of-factly as a farmer discussing plans to butcher a Holstein that had stopped lactating.
Charles wished he didn’t understand. It had been a mistake to take this man, charged with two counts of murder, as a client, and an even worse idea to extort what was apparently his prize possession.
Drygulch (collaboration with Kathryn Craft)
Harris hawks perched on saguaros at daybreak like sentinels guarding the US-Mexican border. Philsy saw the pack hunters silhouetted against a brightening sky, the white stripe on their tails vivid against the emerging green of the cactus. Their eyes would be trained on the sparse Sonoran landscape, awaiting the first sign of prey.
“See the hawks?” Philsy said. “Could be a good omen. What do you think?”
Cole raised the old phone bill envelope to the window’s dim light and squinted at the directions he’d scribbled onto it. He gave up when the truck bounced over a patch of washboard in the dirt road.
“Close enough,” he said. “Let’s pull off.”
Philsy took a wide berth around the hawks and eased the pickup into a cluster of cholla cactus where it wouldn’t be seen from the road. The sheaths that covered the cholla’s radiant spines would shimmer like silver in the mid-day sun and offer the vehicle effective camouflage from other hunters. He’d only experienced trouble once, when he’d returned after a long day of hunting to find his radio gone and his tires shot out. Most hunters were honorable fellows. But his father, Phil Senior, had taught him that to hunt safely you must respect both the gun and the fool. No code of ethics, he’d said, is stronger than the sense of power a man has when he holds a gun in his hand.
They got out, took a leak, and looked around to get their bearings. Flora that appeared shades of gray in this early light would soon burst into richer greens, rusts and yellows; the sun threatened to breach the hills to the east at any moment.
“Great day for hunting,” Cole said. His words sounded sharp in the dry winter air. It was so quiet. No cars, telephones, or office chatter to violate the stillness. Even passenger jets knew not to intrude, and floated overhead too high to be heard. “Smithson in Accounting guarantees that the hunting out here is worth the drive.”
“Better be,” Philsy said. “It’s damn hard to give up a warm bed at three in the morning just to chase a few rabbits and a bobwhite or two.”
“Your problem, my friend,” Cole said, drawing his Mossberg shotgun from the dusty case in the truck bed, “is that you are afraid to try anything new.” He stuffed extra boxes of shells into his hunting vest.
“And your problem is you think a body has a problem if it hesitates to step out onto the December desert before sunrise.” Philsy shivered. “Shit, it’s cold.”
Cole nodded toward the mountains. “Sun’s almost up. This day’ll be cooking soon enough. And the worst day hunting is still better than the best day working, right?” Cole clapped Philsy on the shoulder and laughed.
Philsy pulled his Remington twelve gauge from its case and carefully loaded it with rounds of birdshot, then double-checked his rucksack to make sure they had the gear they needed. “Which way, boss?”
Cole pointed south. “The hawks say this way.”
Eleventh Hour
“Mister, why don’t you let me go and I promise-”
“Why don’t you shut your dope hole until I tell you to talk? Do you have any clue how many dollars we’re talking about in lost productivity and court costs?”
The man didn’t wait for him to answer.
“A lot. But it gets better. The loser’s shyster lawyer and his expert witnesses actually tried to convince the jury he was the victim. Made me want to puke. My guess is the trial cost us taxpayers an easy two hundred thousand dollars.”
The man looked at Louis with disgust. “You know my favorite part? The scumbag went to jail for a few months to watch television and lift weights, while the very people he ripped off went back to work to pay for his trial. Imagine that-the victims paid for his trial!” The man shook his head in bewilderment.