Judgment Day

Judgment Day
Excerpt

At Texas Rangers Headquarters on Saddle Tramp Road, Captain Holland held the phone to his ear in disbelief. The US Marshals should have arrived yesterday. Though Deckers lay off the beaten path, they shouldn’t be dragging their feet where ever Billy Denton was concerned.
“We’re sorry about the delay, sir,” the dispatcher said.
“Christ! It’s been a week already.”
“I’m sorry the judge denied him bail.”
“Are you kidding? We’re not letting that killer loose. It’s your job to transport him to the county jail.” Holland knew it was a two hundred mile trek across some of Texas’ roughest terrain, but Justin Graves’ killer required special handling. “If I had the manpower, I’d haul him over there myself.”
“Just keep him locked up until we get there.” The phone clicked dead.
Holland slammed down the receiver. “Lieutenant Simmons, get over to city jail. Backup Deputy Pender. Looks like we’ve got Denton for another night.”
“Right away, sir.”
Simmons grabbed is suit coat off the back of his desk chair and rushed out. He was a young Ranger with a pretty wife and a rambunctious six-year-old son waiting for him to come home.
But tonight, duty called.
Holland shuddered. Each moment that passed gave Billy another opportunity to make good on his threat to escape. He’d be getting more and more desperate with each passing hour, knowing it wouldn’t be long before he was transported to county where security was much higher. Even that weasel couldn’t weasel his way out of a lockdown that tight. He’d have to make his escape tonight, or never.
With that thought banging around in his brain, Holland threw on his ten-gallon hat and Texas Rangers jacket, and then checked the clip in his Glock.
Three men on guard duty tonight couldn’t hurt. They could take turns sleeping and guarding Billy Denton.
* * *
Deckers City Jail wasn’t much more than a cracker box, built sometime between the Alamo and the Civil War. Billy watched Deputy Pender through the only door that led from the backroom cellblock to the front office. Pender was sitting at the squad desk, his feet propped up and his eyes shut like he was taking a nap. A ring of keys dangled from his leather belt, and his holstered Colt hung on a wall hook by the front door. The two things Billy needed most were way out of his reach from his position on the cot in cell number two.
Jo Joe Peters, the town drunk, was locked up in cell number one. Lying on the concrete floor, he hacked and snorted in a drunken stupor, his weathered face and bulbous nose flushed as Santa Claus. He hadn’t combed his wiry hair and scruffy beard for months, and his BO smelled like cat piss.
Cell number three was empty.
Other than Jo Joe’s belching, the jailhouse was quiet. Billy preferred it that way. Gave him time to think in peace. Like he’d told Captain Holland, this jail wouldn’t hold him for long. Billy rubbed his goatee. One slipup...that was all it would take. The cops could kiss his ass goodbye.
Billy pushed his empty dinner tray aside and leaned back in his cot, watching Deputy Pender nap and thinking about the keys and the Colt.
Jo Joe stirred, grumped and cursed, then started puking out his guts on the floor.
As if the urping and splattering sounds weren’t enough to make Billy sick, the disgusting odor of bile ballooned in the air. His guts constricted in an instinctive response to the stench. He was going to lose his supper. Jumping up to the bars, he had all he could do to inhale enough breath to shout, “Pender! You better get Jo Joe outta here before I blow a gasket!”
The deputy just snorted.
“Pender!”
Jo Joe coughed and spit. “Mind yer own beeswax, boy. I’m in my glory here, can’t ya tell?”
“Puke in the damn toilet, ya pig.”
“If I coulda made there, I woulda...” Jo Joe let loose another gush of vomit. It splattered on the floor and added to the toxicity of the backroom air with a fresh tidal wave of nauseous stench.
“What the hell did you eat, old man, rotten mule dung?”
Arraugggggg. More puke spewed out of Jo Joe.
The smell was sucking the juices out of Billy’s stomach. Already the back of his throat burned with churning stomach acid.
“Pender!”
A gut-wrenching spasm took hold of Billy’s innards and shook him like a rabbit in a coyote’s jaws. He made a mad dash for the commode but upchucked before he got there. Puke hit the wall, the floor, and drenched all down the front of his prison coveralls.
Jo Joe joined him in another chorus of barfing and gagging.
“What a mess!” Pender shouted. He was standing at the cell door, keys in hand.
* * *
In the afterlife, Justin Graves watched the scene unfold at Deckers City Jail. He stood before the light, feet spread and his long brown coat hanging open as Pender unlocked Billy Denton’s cell door.
“Oh, oh!” Justin had just a second to pull his cowboy hat low over his eyes and tuck his elbows in tight to his sides in preparation for a quick transition back to the land of the living. Pender was going to need some help.
In a flash, he was speeding through a spinning black void of time and space, his insides seething at the thought of confronting Billy Denton. Finally. Justice for Christy...
The ethereal plane suddenly shifted. His speed increased. He should have been transported to Deckers by now. In the distance, a red glow appeared, expanding like a tumor. He’d seen it before, not long ago, with Christy, right after they’d died in a shootout with Billy Denton. Now, for some ungodly reason, the devil had summoned him back to hell. He couldn’t have picked a worse time.