Read Online The Night Visitor by James D. Doss - Free Book Online Page B

rolling gait took him out the door.
    Horace Flye allowed himself a grateful sigh of relief.
    Tillie showed up at Moon’s side with a grease-stained plastic tray. “Charlie, honey, I got your burger and your fries. And coffee. Been holdin’ it for you, whilst you been doin’ your poleece work.”
    He sniffed appreciatively. “The coffee still hot?”
    â€œShould be.” She stuck her grubby thumb into the cup, and waited for the thermometric information to reach her brain. “Well, it’s warm. I could stick it in the microwave.”
    â€œWell, I’d sure like to… but I need to get my prisoners over to the clinic. One’s got trauma to the ear, the other needs his eyeball popped back into the socket.”
    Horace rubbed his bleeding ear.
    Curtis Tavishuts blinked the bulging eye, which ached like an abscessed tooth.
    Tillie shrugged her massive shoulders. “Oh well, I guess I’ll just eat it myself.” She took a huge bite from the burger.
    Moon’s mouth watered. His stomach was past growling.
    It was late afternoon when Charlie Moon locked the prisoners into adjacent cells. Horace Flye’s ear was now cleaned, stitched, and bandaged. The young physician, after a glance at Tavishuts’ yellowed teeth, had also given Flye a tetanus shot. Curtis Tavishuts’ eye had been inserted back into its socket bya consulting ophthalmologist and pronounced sound enough, though it was watery and extremely bloodshot. And did not look in precisely the same direction as the sound eye.
    Tavishuts glowered through the bars at the white man with his good eye. “Goat-faced hillbilly cheat—I bet you married your sister!”
    Flye, holding his palm over the bandaged ear, leaned forward on his bunk and returned the one-eyed glare double measure. “Blanket-assed Injun, go stick a feather in it!” The white prisoner had—if only for the moment—forgotten his Native American heritage.
    The Ute prisoner raised his heavy crutch like a club. “Soon’s I get a chance, fuzz-face, I’ll knock your pea-sized brain out.”
    Flye sneered. “You couldn’t hit your ass with a bass fiddle, you cross-eyed hoptoad!” He tapped his temple. “Better men than you has tried, and I still got my brain right here between my ears.”
    â€œBetween
one
ear,” the Ute prisoner shot back. Pleased with what he thought to be admirable eloquence, Tavishuts licked his lips. “That ear I chewed on woulda tasted better with some ketchup.”
    Flye raised his right hand, which was not missing the offending finger. “Bite
this
, you one-legged cannybubble.”
    Tavishuts muttered a vulgar curse in the Ute tongue. It had something to do with Flye’s ancestors and domesticated animals.
    Charlie Moon—weak from hunger and drained of his last ounce of patience—gave them a steely-eyed glare. He did not raise his voice, but it had an edge like a straight razor. “Be quiet.”
    The prisoners fell silent, but continued to exchange poisonous looks.
    Moon proceeded to list the rules. Keep quiet. Do as you are told. Otherwise… well, you don’t want to know about “otherwise.” Though a sullen pair, they seemed to hear him.
    Flye, in fact, listened politely.
    Tavishuts figured it was mostly bluff. But he had a grudging respect for the big policeman. It was said that one pop onthe chin from Moon’s fist and a man would forget his name and address for a month or more.
    The Ute policeman congratulated himself for handling a bad situation fairly well. He’d hold them for twenty-four hours while his “investigation” of the brawl was completed. Tillie, of course, wouldn’t file any charges—she had been grateful for the entertainment value of the brawl. What these fellows needed was a good night’s sleep. If they behaved at breakfast, he’d turn them loose tomorrow morning. But now, he