Samuel Light, Spiritual Detective: The Shasta Caper, Chapter Seven is now posted. www.johnpirillo.com

Samuel Light, Spiritual Detective: The Shasta Caper
by John Pirillo
Chapter Seven 

Well, things didn't actually happen quite so fast as either of them expected. Jimbo got an unexpected call in the middle of that night from his brother Jacob, who claimed that someone had broken into the ranch and raided all the horses. When asked what happened next, Jacob had said, "I shot the bastard!"

Jimbo looked over at Samuel, who had fallen asleep on his sofa. Samuel rubbed his eyes. He had heard everything, but wasn't clear enough yet to make sense of it. "Is he in trouble?"

"In jail." Jimbo answered.

"Oh."Samuel answered.

"I have to fly there immediately to get him out."

"What about the rest of your family?"

"In jail."

"Why?"

Jimbo blushed a deep red. "They all shot the bastard."

Samuel laughed, then he realized what that meant and grew sober. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh, but it's so damned absurd and utterly ridiculous..."

"I know." Jimbo said. "I should have known better than to leave my machine guns unlocked."

"They shot the raider with machine guns?"

Jimbo sighed. "Emotions can do strange things. My family comes from a long line of horse breeders and there's always been someone trying to take away what they rightly brought up. Guess the tradition wasn't lost on this generation either."

"How so?"

"Every generation has been in jail for shooting rustlers."

"It isn't against the law to shoot someone for breaking into your property." Samuel insisted.

"No. But is against the law to shoot their horses too."

Samuel groaned. "They machine gunned the Raider's horse too?"

"Yup."

Samuel laughed again. "You Texans!"

"Hey! I'm not the one who did it, besides if I had no one would have found out about it."

Samuel considered that sobering thought.

Jimbo waved his hands. "Whoa, pardner, I have never done that though. Not in this life."

"Okay!" Samuel said, sitting up and putting his feet into his shoes. He stretched, then climbed to his feet. "I'm going with you then."

"No way."

"Way...pardner!" Samuel insisted. "Someone's gotta protect all those airline hostesses from the love mangler."

Jimbo laughed at the stupid words. "Lover mangler." Then he stopped. "You don't really think I mangle the women I love, do you?"

"Jimbo, how many of those heinies did you do?"

Jimbo gestured to the kitchenette where four empty six packs were on their sides with empty bottles all about them.

"Case closed."

They almost ran out the door. The earliest flight left in thirty minutes. They were only twenty minutes away, but if they weren't fast, they wouldn't be able to run up the double flight of stairs in time to catch their flight, which Jimbo reserved by phone in the Taxi they took.

They both tipped the Driver, who gave them surprised looks, then ran for the escalators as they dashed into the terminal. They hit the stairs running and didn't stop, even with others ahead of them, somehow managing to get around them without tumbling them down or hurting anyone.

They finally had to slow down on the main floor, because Home Security Guards were everywhere. There had been a recent scare from some kind of political terrorist in the Middle East. There were always one or another going on. Had never stopped. Samuel knew why, but he didn't talk about it. No one really wanted to know, so he kept it to himself.

They reached the Southwest Lines ticket taker at the door as the last passenger was boarding. She was a knockout. Even Samuel, who was usually quite sedate when it came to lookers, had to admit she was stunning.

Jimbo, of course, immediately tried to get her phone number. She stonewalled him and he shrugged it off to win one lose one and stomped after Samuel, trying to hide his frustration with failing in front of his best friend.

They were greeted by an even more stunning hostess at the jet cabin door and Jimbo lit up like a Christmas Tree. "Christmas really does come twice a year in Vegas." He said to the Hostess, who had no idea what he was talking about as she took his ticket and motioned towards the back.

Samuel nodded to her, then looked back. Something about those eyes. What was it. He shook it off and carried on after Jimbo, who helped an old lady stack her baggage in the rack overhead and beneath her chair, before sliding into his own seat on the opposite side of the asile. Samuel slid past him next to the window. They were right over the wing section.

The old lady looked over at Jimbo and smiled. "You going to Texas, young man?"

"I am." He answered politely.

She gave him a card which she hastily scribbled a number on and offered to him. Politely, he took it and grinned at her. She winked, then slid a pair of blinders over her eyes and ear muffs over her ears and went to sleep.

Samuel elbowed Jimbo. "Christmas happens three times in Vegas."

"I hate you." Jimbo replied.

The flight was a bumpy one on take off. It always is over the Nevada range of mountains. The air currents play hell with the jets, shaking them like a milkshake for a good five minutes before settling down.

It didn't bother Jimbo any, but it always brought back memories to Samuel, because he had been involved in a plane crash once in Arizona near Sedona. It had been a special flight. A tourist flight and not a passenger jet like this one, but flying is flying and it took him a couple of years to get over his fears of flying after that. Even to this day he got a bit anxious if the plane suddenly jerked or veered, but when he shut his eyes he could always see the smiling face of a beautiful woman glowing with white light about her telling him "Everything is going to be fine, Sammie."

It was his mother. He was the only one who saw her. She was his Whisperer. Everyone had one or more. They were people who had gone on into the Light and had chosen to help from the other side by being Jiminy Crickets to the humans still caught up in nonsense of Earth living.

He closed his eyes. They had a good length of flight ahead of them. Normally, they could take a non-stop and get there in about three hours, but this flight was going to be stopping at least twice and they had to transfer once as well. So eight hours. He groaned inwardly, but such is the vagaries of life, when you try to help others you can't put boundaries on the time it takes.

A tall man climbed into the chair behind him and arranged himself. His knees pressed into the back of Samuel's chair and he groaned inwardly again. He wouldn't be able to lean back in the chair because of the man, and so he would have to sleep sitting up straight. They should have gone business class, but then again, those had been sold out.

He started to shut his eyes and the man behind him groaned and reached a hand onto his chair to adjust himself. Samuel thought nothing of it. Movement and disturbance were par for a flight in the air.

He no sooner shut his eyes than a blinding white light shone in his face the same time as he felt a hand clasp his right arm from between the chairs.

He opened his eyes.

WHAM!

His vision was blurred by a mist of red and anger. He had never felt so much anger in his life. So much that the man who was standing opposite him in the bar was not much more than a blur.

"Look, Carl, I can come up with the money. I just need a little more time."

"I've given you all the time I promised already." He told Carl, a small mousey man with a potbelly and a bald head. A nondescript man with no future. Nothing more than a loser and would never be anything but a loser.

"I swear to you. This time it will be different."

They stood in an alley, outside the Monte Carlo Casino. It was inset somewhat. Cars parked up and down it. Traffic nonstop on the strip, lots of noise and distractions. They were just two drunks hollering as far as the crowd surging past knew, and were ignored as such.

He grabbed Carl by his left arm and squeezed hard. "I have to be paid now!"

"I don't have the money. I've already told you!"

He felt so much anger that he exploded. He struck Carl in the face. Carl fell back between two parked cars and slammed to the pavement. He hit his head hard against a curb and lay there.

He moved between the cars. "Come on, Carl, get up. I didn't hit you that hard!"

He kicked Carl in the side. Carl didn't move. "Get up you stupid little fat!"

Carl lay there and then he saw the pool of blood building near Carl's temple where he had struck the curb.

"Oh crap!" He said.

He began backing up. He struck something.

"Sir. You have a problem?"

Carl turned around it. It was one of the biggest Policemen he had ever seen. He was smiling. He didn't know about the body yet. Carl  tried to stop sweating. He was sweating profusely, but then it was that time of year when sweating was easy, especially when you were as overweight as he was. He was tall and appeared somewhat thin, but he was a hundred pounds overweight.

"Nah. Just got lost for a moment. Drinking."

"Ah. Happens." The Officer replied. "Like me to call you a Taxi?"

"I'd appreciate it."

The Officer took out his cell and called a Taxi. A few minutes later, after some nervous chit chat a Taxi came up and a passenger door flipped open.

He looked at the door, then the Officer. He reached out a hand to shake his hand, then he noticed the blood on the knuckles and the tears there. He rapidly withdrew the hand, but not before the Officer saw it. The Officer's face hardened for a moment.

He saw the threat and said quickly. "I hit a wall accidentally."

"Right. A wall. Have a safe night, sir." The Officer said as he climbed rapidly into the Taxi and told it to go straight to the airport.

He looked back and the Officer was still staring at the cab, then he looked at the alley. He started into the alley.

"Oh crap!"

WHAM!