Rancho Javelina by Bill Coates

Author:Bill Coates
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery, fiction humor, southwest, quirky characters, javelina mayhem
Publisher: Bill Coates

Chapter Seventeen

Sgt. Vasquez had seen his share of rattlesnake victims. Usually, guys in their late teens, early twenties. They see a rattlesnake and try to mess with its head. The thing is, you can’t psyche out a rattlesnake. They’re creatures of instinct and they’re lightning fast. Guys get bit. Just plain dumb. Vasquez said one guy tried to get a selfie with a sidewinder. Dumber.

Then there was me.

Vasquez told me to stay calm. I tried, but it hurt too fucking much. He got me in the truck. Moe rested his head on my lap. Vasquez sped to the Casa Grande General Hospital, hitting every light green. The police escort saw to that.

Casa Grande had no shortage of rattlesnakes. Not exactly a secret. The desert and fields were full of them. And the ER doctors and nurses here had plenty of practice treating bite victims. So, by the time I waltzed in, they pretty much had it down. They rushed to me to cubby and started a drip. I think it was something to make me feel good. I was feeling a bit floaty. A bit fuzzy headed. Of course, I got the antivenin, at three thousand a pop. Many doses. I kept thinking: “I hope I’m covered.” They cut on me a bit, then wheeled me to ICU. I thought of Michael Coleson. I waved at all the doors. He must have been behind one of them.

The next morning, I removed the IV plug and tried to get out of bed. Stand up. I couldn’t bear the pain. I hobbled to the wheelchair and made my way to Room 314. Coleson was sitting up, reading a magazine.

He looked a bit pale. He’d had a stroke’s version of an aftershock. A mini-stroke. But he looked up from the magazine and recognized me. So he was still among the cognizant.

“You’re looking good,” I said. “Glass half full anyway.”

“Sure, not bad for a guy in his mid-seventies attached to a monitor on loan from NASA.”

“The line’s still wavy,” I said.

“Good sign.” Coleson chuckled. It was a wry crackly chuckle. Nothing out of the ordinary for him. Coleson had aged into the white-haired nicotine wrinkled curmudgeon of the newsroom. But like many so-called curmudgeons, he wasn’t all that mean. He simply didn’t put up with shit. And he met polite formalities with prickly humor. “Have a nice day” was answered with “Too late for that.”

As a reporter, he was fair. Sometimes a bit too much of a booster for the men and women in blue.

But he didn’t shy from writing about their shortcomings, if egregious enough. He wrote about the male cop who had sex with a judge. In her chambers. He’d strip out of his uniform, then disrobe the judge. She had on the judicial robe and nothing on underneath. They’d go at it.

Coleson got a tape from a sting operation, ordered by the county attorney. It took a public records request and threat of a lawsuit.

It was the biggest click bait ever posted on the Daily Post website.

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