Read Online The Deadline by Ron Franscell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ron Franscell
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bones.”
“Something to worry about?”
Old Bell just stared out toward the east, toward Pierce.
“I hear the gunfire more nights now, sometimes explosions. Trey Kerrigan gives them a wide berth, that chickenshit tinhorn. And Pierce has gotten bolder since the Oklahoma City bomb. A few months back, he sent a letter to the paper making some vague threats against the Fish and Game wardens around here. He and his fellow wingnuts even started one of those goddam computer whatzits on the Internet ...”
“A web site?”
“Yeah, that’s it. They’re wired up to the whole goddam world. They spread their vicious gospel, inciting folks to hate the government, the media, immigrants, Indians, Negroes, environmentalists, you name it. They hate just about any damned group in the, quote, New World Order that twists their tail. Won’t be long before your name finds its way onto his enemies list. You’re like goddam fresh meat to those coyotes.”
“It’s nice to know it’s nothing personal,” Morgan joked.
“Oh, it’ll be personal. Count on it. And he’s got some folks around here believing his crap. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Some uneducated sodbuster becomes the goddam Messiah? When it comes to Malachi Pierce, watch your step.”
Malachi Pierce.
Neeley Gilmartin.
The bank.
His reporters.
His own printing press.
Claire and a new baby, so soon after Bridger went away.
Even time itself seemed to be conspiring against him.
Morgan leaned against the cool window casement and counted the pitfalls that awaited him. He wasn’t the kind to be paranoid, but neither did he like leaving control of his fate in other people’s hands.
In the distance, the hawk still circled, looking for prey.
“What next?” he asked himself out loud, exasperated.
Old Bell’s answer wasn’t what Morgan expected. He spoke softly, his faded blue eyes focused on the horizon beyond Mount Eden. If he doubted Gilmartin’s innocence, or himself, this was the closest he’d come to admitting it.
“Gilmartin is next. It’s like a goddamned quest, kid. If he didn’t do it, you’re the only one who can help him now.”
CHAPTER FOUR
M organ arrived at the sheriff’s office before eight a.m. Friday morning, but Trey Kerrigan was down in the basement jail, serving breakfast to its lone occupant. Arly Bucknell had been face down in his own vomit when a deputy lifted him out of the gutter the night before.
The sheriff’s secretary, a large but pretty woman whose chin unfolded in thick pleats down her neck, was expecting Morgan. She fetched him a Styrofoam cup of coffee from a drip coffeemaker behind her desk. After he’d swizzled two packets of sweetener into it, she led him into a comfortable office to wait.
Sheriff Trey Kerrigan’s walls were a shrine to his late father.
Plaques, framed letters, mounted heads and several dozen photographs were hung in a mosaic so dense that barely a half inch of the dark maple-paneled wall behind showed around each one. Almost all of them were engraved or addressed to Deuce Kerrigan, or pictured the broad-shouldered, barrel-chested sheriff posing with one of his trophy game animals, shoulder to beefy shoulder with a famous politician or, occasionally, escorting one of his “customers” from his black squad car.
And in some, a familiar little face appeared, sometimes in the margins of the image. A devoted son who wanted only to be a lawman like his father. He appeared like a smiling little shadow to the bigger-than-life Deuce Kerrigan.
It was Trey.
The same little kid who’d bedecked the walls of his courthouse office with these remembrances of his father.
Deuce was never given to such narcissism. In Perry County, conceit was a flaw almost as intolerable as having reason to be conceited. Small towns had a way of keeping their citizens’ feet on level ground.
The door opened and Sheriff Trey Kerrigan walked across the room in
“Something to worry about?”
Old Bell just stared out toward the east, toward Pierce.
“I hear the gunfire more nights now, sometimes explosions. Trey Kerrigan gives them a wide berth, that chickenshit tinhorn. And Pierce has gotten bolder since the Oklahoma City bomb. A few months back, he sent a letter to the paper making some vague threats against the Fish and Game wardens around here. He and his fellow wingnuts even started one of those goddam computer whatzits on the Internet ...”
“A web site?”
“Yeah, that’s it. They’re wired up to the whole goddam world. They spread their vicious gospel, inciting folks to hate the government, the media, immigrants, Indians, Negroes, environmentalists, you name it. They hate just about any damned group in the, quote, New World Order that twists their tail. Won’t be long before your name finds its way onto his enemies list. You’re like goddam fresh meat to those coyotes.”
“It’s nice to know it’s nothing personal,” Morgan joked.
“Oh, it’ll be personal. Count on it. And he’s got some folks around here believing his crap. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Some uneducated sodbuster becomes the goddam Messiah? When it comes to Malachi Pierce, watch your step.”
Malachi Pierce.
Neeley Gilmartin.
The bank.
His reporters.
His own printing press.
Claire and a new baby, so soon after Bridger went away.
Even time itself seemed to be conspiring against him.
Morgan leaned against the cool window casement and counted the pitfalls that awaited him. He wasn’t the kind to be paranoid, but neither did he like leaving control of his fate in other people’s hands.
In the distance, the hawk still circled, looking for prey.
“What next?” he asked himself out loud, exasperated.
Old Bell’s answer wasn’t what Morgan expected. He spoke softly, his faded blue eyes focused on the horizon beyond Mount Eden. If he doubted Gilmartin’s innocence, or himself, this was the closest he’d come to admitting it.
“Gilmartin is next. It’s like a goddamned quest, kid. If he didn’t do it, you’re the only one who can help him now.”
CHAPTER FOUR
M organ arrived at the sheriff’s office before eight a.m. Friday morning, but Trey Kerrigan was down in the basement jail, serving breakfast to its lone occupant. Arly Bucknell had been face down in his own vomit when a deputy lifted him out of the gutter the night before.
The sheriff’s secretary, a large but pretty woman whose chin unfolded in thick pleats down her neck, was expecting Morgan. She fetched him a Styrofoam cup of coffee from a drip coffeemaker behind her desk. After he’d swizzled two packets of sweetener into it, she led him into a comfortable office to wait.
Sheriff Trey Kerrigan’s walls were a shrine to his late father.
Plaques, framed letters, mounted heads and several dozen photographs were hung in a mosaic so dense that barely a half inch of the dark maple-paneled wall behind showed around each one. Almost all of them were engraved or addressed to Deuce Kerrigan, or pictured the broad-shouldered, barrel-chested sheriff posing with one of his trophy game animals, shoulder to beefy shoulder with a famous politician or, occasionally, escorting one of his “customers” from his black squad car.
And in some, a familiar little face appeared, sometimes in the margins of the image. A devoted son who wanted only to be a lawman like his father. He appeared like a smiling little shadow to the bigger-than-life Deuce Kerrigan.
It was Trey.
The same little kid who’d bedecked the walls of his courthouse office with these remembrances of his father.
Deuce was never given to such narcissism. In Perry County, conceit was a flaw almost as intolerable as having reason to be conceited. Small towns had a way of keeping their citizens’ feet on level ground.
The door opened and Sheriff Trey Kerrigan walked across the room in
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