Uncertain Justice

Chapter 17

"Look, mister." Murray's voice was plaintive at first but grew stronger as he remembered his training. "We can work this out, okay? Nobody has to get hurt." His eyes searched for somewhere to put the blankets and inflatable mattress so he could free his hands. He could drop the sack with the chicken and other stuff on the floor, he thought. He shifted his weight in preparation for a step toward the ruined counter to his right.

"FREEZE, DAMMIT!" He didn't know what the young man had in mind, but Miles knew he'd be calling a Texas jail home pretty darn soon if the policeman in front of him had any say in it.

"Mister, listen to me. It doesn't have to be this way. Let me put these down and we can figure a way out of this, okay?" Murray's voice was unsteady again. Role-playing training exercises didn't usually go this way.

"Son," Miles cautioned dryly, "I know you've been taught to take command of the situation and deal with bad guys from a position of strength." He paused to pull in a shuddering breath of air.

"But that just isn't gonna work this time. The only way we both walk away from this is for you to do exactly what I tell you and for you to do it pretty damn quick when I tell you. Got it?"

"Hey, you're in the driver's seat--I got no problem with that." The trooper's right shoulder dipped slightly and his right foot shifted minutely to the side. "I'll set these on the counter and then we can talk, man to ma--"

Miles' high school football coach had often threatened to bring a calendar to Wednesday afternoon practices. That was the day the team ran time sprints and Miles always ran a terribly slow forty-yard dash.

The coach didn't mean it though. Miles played defensive end and his first two steps off the line were the quickest on the team. He specialized in getting into the opposing team's backfield so fast it often appeared he'd beaten the snap count.

Coach Flores always had a talk with the head linesman before the game to let him know about Miles' quickness. He wanted the official to watch closely and not throw a flag too quickly.

The coach had also known Miles' reaction speed was coupled with an equally quick temper. Whenever he was penalized unfairly, a frustrated Miles was always taken out of the game for a while. It helped keep referees from accidentally being run over on the next play.

The state trooper didn't have the benefit of Coach Flores's insight.

"ARRRRGGGGGGGGGGHGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!"

The roar filled the house, stunning the trooper for a split second with its ferocity and volume. The more than twenty years since his high school days made Miles' forty-yard dash even slower than it had been, but the years hadn't appreciably slowed the quickness of his first few steps.

If anything, his adult body was better coordinated than the gangly high school football player he'd been. The temper difficult to control in his youth was slipping its reins more often lately.

On the other hand, he was being provoked more often too.

Erupting into motion, Miles took two quick paces toward the officer. Bending forward slightly at the waist, he yanked the muzzle of the shotgun up to his left shoulder and dropped the stock to his right hip so the weapon slanted across his chest. He took his forefinger off the trigger.

On his third step, already at full speed, his right shoulder slammed into the middle of the man's back.

Murray was knocked flying into the left side of the doorway and he bounced off into the front room. His suddenly empty hands weren't able to cushion either impact--there was no time to pull his arms up. His forehead hit first, smashing against the ancient doorframe, followed a split second later by his chest and lower body.

The bucket of fried chicken fell from suddenly Trooper Murray's nerveless fingers to the floor. Blankets, rubber mattress, and pump were flung into the room beyond the doorway as he staggered forward.

The wood splintered as the young man struck the doorframe. Dried and punished by decades of mistreatment, there wasn't much strength or flexibility left in the wood. Had it been new lumber, he would have been badly hurt. In its present, state, it gave way instantly and saved the officer a fractured skull and broken ribs. Even so, he was dazed and had the wind knocked out of him by that impact and second one with the floor an instant later.

The trooper hunched his body into a fetal position and straightened his legs out again a number of times, trying desperately to pump air into his body. Little mewling noises came from his mouth as his lungs fought to inflate. Some blood trickled down over his left eye.

As the man struggled for breath, Miles dropped to a knee beside him and unbuckled the equipment belt from around the officer's waist. Miles started to toss it and its attachments back into the kitchen, but stopped before it left his hand.

With his left hand, he worked a set of cuffs from its leather case while he watched the distressed man intently. Gauging the chances the young man could recover over the next few seconds, he decided the probability was remote. He put the shotgun on the floor behind him.

Wrestling the smaller man onto his belly and capturing flailing arms with his hands, Miles snapped the manacles about the trooper's wrists. He was about to get to his feet when it occurred to him to appropriate the key to the handcuffs so the officer couldn't reopen them as quickly as they had been closed.

In the man's front right pocket, he found the small, oddly shaped piece of metal on the trooper's key ring. He tested it by locking the restraints in place so they wouldn't tighten painfully about the man's wrists. The pocketknife discovered in the same pocket was tossed into a corner out of the way. Miles held on to the key ring.

He grabbed the trooper's equipment belt and stood, retrieving the shotgun from where he'd placed it on the floor. Taking a couple of steps into the kitchen, he wrapped the belt around the holster and tossed it on the half-rotted kitchen counter the officer had been trying to get to earlier. His anger quenched for the moment by the violence just past, Miles watched as the young man caught his breath.

The young officer recovered enough to struggle to a sitting position leaning against the front door. He tried to focus on his attacker, but the late sun streaming in the kitchen window was in his eyes and the stranger stayed in the shadows.

"What the hell you trying to do ... kill me?" he wheezed.

Miles snorted. "Not hardly," he replied matter-of-factly. "If I was, you'd be dead," he continued matter-of-factly.

Miles lifted the shotgun one-handed to emphasize his point and parked the weapon on his right shoulder. His hand was around the grip and his forefinger extended along the receiver above the trigger guard.