A Quiet, Little Town
Page 26
“A man without hands is near useless.”
“Near useless, but not wholly useless? Hmm. I wonder what you could mean by that.”
Rollie looked at Chance. “I assume he has his pecker. I guess he could be of use to somebody. Likely will in prison.”
That had caused a stir and Rollie had nearly smiled, but not quite. He knew that Judge Wahpeton, indulgent though he may be, was not inclined to tolerate uproar in his courtroom. His gavel rapped hard and his bushy eyebrows arched like the wings of some great, riled eagle. The courtroom hushed.
“Any talk of prison will be of my own making, Agent Finnegan.” The judge surprised everyone by stepping down from his dais and walking across the front of the room. Without warning, he pivoted and lobbed a palm-size brass ashtray toward the sneering defendant. The man snatched it from the air with ease.
Too late, Chance realized his mistake. He dropped the ashtray to the tabletop and fluttered his hands before him like two agitated sparrows.
“I think not, Mr. Filbert,” said the judge as he mounted the steps to his dais and cleared his throat before proceeding to pass his commandments to the jury.
CHAPTER TWO
The jury took shy of five minutes to render its verdict.
And so, with Judge Wahpeton’s final words, and then the mallet-strike echoing in his head and warming his heart, Rollie “Stoneface” Finnegan stood outside, waiting for a fringe topped surrey to pass by. It ferried a fetching woman wearing a long-feathered hat that looked to be more feather than hat, with a veil that didn’t hide the pretty smile he imagined was meant for him. He was tempted to wave her down, strike up a conversation perhaps.
He crossed the street and recalled the reason he was walking west—yes, he could almost smell the heady aromas from Hazel’s Hash House. The eatery was two streets over and one lane back behind the courthouse. His nostrils twitched in anticipation of hot coffee and the singular pleasures of Hazel’s sticky, sweet pecan pie, a slice as wide as it was tall and deeper than the tines of a fork. He’d earned it, after all, helping cinch tight the legal noose on Chance Filbert’s pimpled neck.
The bum’s death wouldn’t bring back the seven-year-old girl or even Kahlil, but it damn sure made Rollie’s day a good one. Then came the pretty lady in the surrey, and he was about to indulge in a slice of heavenly pie and a couple cups of hot coffee before tucking into his next assignment. Yes, the day was turning out to be one of the best Rollie Finnegan had had in years.
He warbled a low, tuneless whistle as he angled down the alleyway that would cut off an extra block’s worth of walking.
He never heard the quick figure catfoot up behind him, never felt the long, thin blade slide in. It pierced the new wool coat, the satin lining, the wool vest, the crisp white shirt, the undershirt, the pink skin. The blade was out, then in again for a second quick plunge into his back, high up, caroming off a rib and puncturing the left lung, before retreating for a third slide in.
Instinct drove Rollie to spin, to face the source of this sudden flowering of pain as his left hand shoved away the hanging coat, then grabbed at the holstered Schofield. But he was already addled enough that his gun never cleared the stiff leather sheath. He made it halfway around as the knife slipped free of his back a third time and plunged in a fourth, into the meat of his left thigh.
The spin lacked strength. Hot pain bloomed inside him with eye-blink speed. As Rollie’s slow dervish spin gave way to collapse, he saw a dim specter—a thin, dark, wavering flame drawn upward. Red, not from rage but from spattering blood, washed before him, over him, becoming a choking black curtain.
Rollie “Stoneface” Finnegan would not get to taste his sweet pecan pie and hot coffee.
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over 300 books, including the bestselling series Smoke Jensen, the Mountain Man, Preacher, the First Mountain Man, MacCallister, Flintlock, and Will Tanner, Deputy U.S. Marshal, and the stand-alone thrillers The Doomsday Bunker, Tyranny, and Black Friday.
Being the all-around assistant, typist, researcher, and fact-checker to one of the most popular western authors of all time, J. A. JOHNSTONE learned from the master, Uncle William W. Johnstone.
The elder Johnstone began tutoring J.A. at an early age. After-school hours were often spent retyping manuscripts or researching his massive American Western History library as well as the more modern wars and conflicts. J.A. worked hard—and learned.
“Every day with Bill was an adventure story in itself. Bill taught me all he could about the art of storytelling. ‘Keep the historical facts accurate,’ he would say. ‘Remember the readers—and as your grandfather once told me, I am telling you now: Be the best J. A. Johnstone you can be.’”
Visit the website at www.williamjohnstone.net