To: 
From: "Jay  P Hailey" 
Reply-To: trekcreative{at}yahoogroups.com


Title: Long Arms
Author: Jay P. Hailey (jayphailey{at}tic1.net) and K.A. Strickland Series:
Vista City/Four Corners
Part: 13/13
Rating [PG] (Some Violence)

 Scott crawled out of the car and found the world spinning around him.
"Must have hit my head, too." He said to himself.  She staggered
up the embankment to the side of the road.  Two cars were pulled over by
the side of the road.  One was a brown Plymouth Duster.  The other was a
fire engine red Ford Fairlane.

 Two men were standing beside the cars talking in the headlights.

 Scott staggered towards them.

 As he got closer one of them noticed him and whipped up a gun.  Belatedly
the other man saw him and started pawing for his own weapon.

 "You lose, Short!"  One of the men said.

 Scott stopped short  "Which one of you is Stanley?"

 The first one with the gun said. "As if it matters.  Me."

 "Are you going to shoot me right now, or do you want to hear what I have to
say?"

 "I'll shoot you when I feel like it."  Stanley sneered.

 "Shoot him now, John." The other one said.

 "What's important to you, Mr. Stanley?  I thought the lives of four armed
people were important to you."  Scott said.

 "Yes.  Much more import than yours anyway." Stanley sneered.

 "Does Jim Mosley count?"

 "What? What are you talking about?" Stanley demanded.

 "Well, you're out here, after a life threatening high speed chase, having
had your car shot all up and why?" Scott asked.

 "I am not going to let you trash Kyle Warner in order to get some damned
short off the hook." Stanley said.

 "Shut up!"  Kyle said.  'Now he knows my name!"

 "You're out here to defend Warner.  You're out here to save a four armed
person from the shorts, right?" Scott said.  His head was clearing now
but he was still too adrenalized to feel the pain and the stiffness.

 "Yes. That's correct." Stanley said condescendingly.

 "So if something happens to Kyle, then that would be bad."

 "Would you get to the fuckin' point!?"  Kyle yelled.

 "Yes, granted."  Stanley said irritably.

 "You four armed people are badly out numbered in this world,
right?"  Scott
said.

 "That's about to decrease by one." Kyle yelled.

 "That's part of the problem.  If there were enough of us to threaten your
kind then we wouldn't be nearly as vulnerable as we are."  Stanley said.

 "Okay, so that means that every four armed life is precious to
you."  Scott
said.

 "Yes.  That's true."

 "And yet, there's Jim Mosley over there, possibly dying."

 "We'll take of him after we get rid of you, if that's any help."   Stanley
leveled his gun.

 "But who speaks for Marlene?"  Scott asked.

-*-

 Lights filled the scene.  Police cars with full pursuit lights blazing
surrounded the confrontation.

 "Drop all weapons!"  Karla Morgan's voice came over the amplified PA
system.  "Surrender immediately!"

 From the other sides of the crowd the two Dennison boys flipped the
switches on and off on their sirens.  This caused the Four Corners Sheriff
cars to whoop a single note like banshees.

 "We have you surrounded!  You're under arrest!"  Karla yelled. 
"Don't make
me come in there!"

 Most of the separatist crowd threw down their weapons.

 "Can't you see what they're doing to us?"  Crenfield yelled at them.
"They're turning us against each other!  Divide and conquer!"

 "You're the one that wants to divide people up, Roy."  Bodine
said quietly.

 Many of the former mob were quietly backing away from the scene and away.

 "Four Corners is for us, not you!"  Roy yelled raising his gun once more.
There was a polite and slow scuffle as Angelo tried to get in front of the
civilians and the civilians tried to cover Angelo.

 "Roy, I have you covered!  Don't make me shoot you."  Karla yelled.

 Crenfield hesitated just half a second too long.  Bodine Macabee stepped up
to him and took his gun away.  "Don't feel too bad, Roy.  You just
have a few more things to learn is all."

 Crenfield looked confused, beaten and mournful.  Tears began to flow down
his cheeks.  "I... I don't understand."

 Karla Morgan came forward.  Angelo was surprised and a little worried to
see that she carried a tactical shotgun in her upper set of arms, a pistol
in her right lower and a billy club in her left lower hand.  Angelo was
wondering if she could use all those in concert.

 She stepped up to Crenfield and holstered her pistol.  The she reached up
and unpinned his badge.  "Roy, you're fired."

 Crenfield started to laugh and cry at the same time.  It wasn't too pretty
to watch.

 "Ron, Mac, round up the lynch mob."  Karla ordered her two deputies.  She
turned to Angelo and Sonja.  "Your Captain hared off with our mayor in
a high speed chase and then the radio went dead.  Would you like to come
with me to provide back up?"

 Angelo and Sonja hurried over to Karla's patrol car.  Karla followed.  "Mr.
Bodine, Can you please go see why the radio is off line?"

 "Sure thing Sheriff."  Bodine said.  "Cody, Dr. St. Thomas, you're
deputies, now.  Let's go see what's up in the courthouse."

 "Oh, boy!"  Cody rolled his eyes "Look whose on duty again!
Sheriff Macabee
will clean up the town!"

 "Just until I get back!" Karla yelled.  "And alert the
Hospital to get an
ambulance down Highway Sixty-One!"

 She leapt into her patrol car and tore off to the North.

-*-

 "Your outside world killed Marlene, Short.  She should never have left."
Stanley said. "And you should have never come here."

 "Look at Warner's gun." Scott pointed.  "It's a Colt m1911
A1, by the look
of it.  That exactly the same caliber as the weapon that killed Marlene.
Millions of those types of guns are floating around.  Ask yourself if he
would let us test fire the gun to make sure. All it would take would be one
bullet to say yes or no."

 "I am not listening to your lies, Short." Stanley said.

 "Why is this so hard to believe?"  Scott asked.  "Where has
Warner been for
a week?"

 "Shut up now! Or I'll kill you!"  Kyle screamed.

 "We're better than you."  Stanley said.  "We don't have
crime and murder
and drugs the way you do."

 "No violence either?"   Scott asked.

 "No."

 Scott pointed back at the wreck of the Lumina.  "But there's Jim Mosley.
Your bullets put him in the ditch.  You fired on him and may have already
killed him.  If you could do it, why not Warner?"

 Stanley grimaced at Scott.  "It's his fault!  He's the one that sided with
you shorts!"

 "If he hadn't done that, you wouldn't have had to shoot him?" 
Scott asked.

 "Uh..."

 "And so what did Marlene do that made Warner have to shoot her the same
way?"

 "She should never have left me!!"  Kyle yelled.  "We were
happy and she had
to fuck it all up and move into the outside world!  We were happy!!"

 "Marlene wasn't really happy though, was she?" Scott asked.

 "Shut up, Kyle." Stanley said.

 "She had some bad ideas.  We were workin' on those.  Her place was by my
side, makin' my children and keepin' my house.  That's the way it's
supposed to be."  Kyle said.  "We were workin' on it."

 "But Marlene wanted to sing."  Scott said.

 "Shut up!"  Stanley yelled.  He wasn't sure if he was yelling at Kyle or
Scott.

 "God dammit!"  Kyle yelled.  "She belonged at home takin'
care of me! She
belong with me! She was MINE!"

 "Tell me about what it was like when she left."  Scott said.

 "Shut the fuck up, Short!"  Stanley threatened Scott with his gun.

 "You're supposed to be the superior man, Stanley.  How superior can you
possibly be if you can't look at the truth?"  Scott said.

 "I'll put you right down, Short!"

 "You're right!" Kyle yelled.  "We don't need to take no
shit from this
short!"  He raised his gun.

 Stanley looked at him for a moment.

 Kyle looked back "Well, aren't you going to shoot him?"

 "You got a gun.  Why didn't you shoot?"  Stanley raised his gun to high
port.

 "Well," Kyle thought quickly.  "I thought this one was,
like, your shot,
you know?"

 Stanley stared hard at Kyle for a few moments.

 "What?" Kyle demanded.

 Stanley looked back at Scott.  "You're pretty brave for a man with no
gun."

 Scott shook his head.  "No.  It's just that the truth is all I have left
now.  The only way my wife and kids will ever see me again is if you open
your eyes to the truth."

 Stanley looked grim.

 "That's real tough." Kyle said.  "Real tough."  He
raised his gun.

 "Where have you been, Kyle?"  Stanley asked.

 "What? Don't tell me that you're starting to listen to this crap."

 "I'm not listening to anything, Kyle.  I am asking for a truthful answer,
now.  Where have you been?"

 "Nowhere.  Nowhere, man.  I went hunting out in the woods.  Nowhere near
California."  Kyle said.

 Stanley looked at him sharply.   "Who said anything about California?"

 "Uh, it was his accent!"  Kyle pointed at Scott with his chin.

 "Funny," Scott said.  "I grew up in Colorado."

 "Shut the fuck up, Short!!" Kyle screamed.

 "God above, you did it, didn't you?"  Stanley said.

 "She shouldn't have left, John.  Hell you said it yourself.  Marlene had no
business in the outside world."  Kyle said.

 "When did I say you should kill her, Kyle?"  Stanley's face grew hard.

 "If she had stayed with me, nothin'  woulda happened to her!  Her place was
with me, not out there singing to a buncha damned shorts!"  Kyle yelled.

 "We don't kill each other, Kyle.  We were supposed to be better than
that!"
Stanley bellowed.

 "What in the fuck was my life worth without her, John?  She said she'd
stay, and then she left!  And I couldn't stop thinkin' about her out there,
singin' to 'em, talkin' to 'em, maybe fuckin' a couple of 'em..." 
Kyle's face grew distant and hateful.  "She was mine!  Mine!  She
belonged with me and nobody else! Nobody!"

 "Jesus, you hit her, didn't you?"  Stanley said.  It was as though a veil
had been pulled from his eyes.  "You hit her and no one listened so
she had to leave."

 "She didn't belong on no stage displaying herself to everybody!" Kyle
screamed "Those days were OVER!  She was MINE and she belonged to
ME!"  Kyle looked at Scott and raised his gun again. "It's us
against them John!  The shorts want to take everything away from us, you
said so yourself!  They started with Marlene but I didn't let 'em get away
with it.  I stopped 'em. Now we just hafta plug one short and it's a done
deal.  Four Corners one, Shorts zero."

 "No, Kyle."  Stanley said.  He raised his gun to point at Kyle Warner.
"Put down the gun.  You're done here, tonight."

 Kyle stared at Stanley in naked shock.  "I can't believe it.  You're going
to believe some damned short before one of your own kind!?"

 "Marlene was one of my kind, too."  Stanley growled.

 "No she WASN'T!  She left us!  She left me!  She made the decision to go
live like a short!  That made her like one o' them or less because she
betrayed us!"  Kyle yelled waving his gun around.

 Scott started to slide to the side slowly.

 "Who betrayed who, Kyle?  Marlene just left, but you've killed one of us."
Stanley said.  "Now put down the goddamed gun!"

 "I never thought I'd live to see the day John Henry Stanley would betray
one of his own on the word of a Short!"  Kyle raged.

 "I guess it just boils down to the truth, doesn't it, Kyle?" 
Stanley said.
"I ain't asking you again..."

 "Sonofabitch!" Kyle screamed, bringing his gun around.

 Scott dove for cover as two shots rang out.

-*-

 The Macabees discovered that Roy Crenfield had "kicked the plug" on the
dispatch radio at the city hall in order to give Stanley the leeway to get
to Kyle without any FCSD backup interfering.  The fault was easily repaired
and soon patrol cars and ambulances were being routed where they needed to
be.

-*-

 Jake Morgan looked up as someone entered the radio station.  He was
surprised to see a two armed person enter the building.  It was the man
with the black hair.

 Jake wondered what he was doing there.  "May I help you, Sir?"

 "Yeah."  Angelo said.  "I'm told that you have Marlene
Summers' CDs here
for sale."

 Jake had mixed emotions.  On the one hand, he was jealous of the best
singer to come out of Four Corners so far.  He wanted to say "No. She
belongs to us."

 On the other hand, Jake was overjoyed to see that someone from the outside
was interested in what was going on in Four Corners.  It was a sort of vindication.

 On the third hand, Jake was curious.  He went with that one.  "How did you
happen to hear of Marlene Summers, Mister..."

 "Mancuso.  Angelo Mancuso."  Angelo reached out to shake hands. 
"The fact
of the matter is that I just missed meeting her.  And from what the people
close to her say, she had a voice like an angel."

 Jake nodded "It would be a lucky angel to have that voice."  He reached
into his desk and pulled out three CD's.  They were done in the digital
studio attached to the radio station and featured an eclectic mix of covers
and original material.  Marlene had crossed genre lines casually and
fearlessly on those CD's.  They would wind up being her legacy.  Jake
decided to go ahead and blow more production CD's.  "That'll be
$26.89." Jake said.

 Angelo flipped out a well used gold card. "Thanks."

 "Just do us a favor and play 'em loud so your neighbors can hear."  Jake
said.

 "Can I have your address?  That way friends of mine back home can order
copies of their own if they want them." Angelo said.

 "A pleasure doing business with you, Sir."  Jake grinned.  It wouldn't
occur to him until later that he didn't know what to do with Marlene's
share of the money.

-*-

 "Have you spoken to Jim?" Scott asked.  His damaged arm was in a sling.
He'd have to go to see a specialist to get it repaired.

 "Just a few minutes ago.  He's doing fine and said he's sorry to see you
go."  Karla said.

 "What's going to happen to John Stanley?"  Scott asked.

 "Well according to your account the shooting was pure self defense.  I
don't think we're going to charge him with that.  But he is probably going
to do some time for shooting at the Mayor and a guest police officer."
Karla said.

 "How about the people in town?"  Angelo asked.

 "Some of them have been arrested for incitement to riot and disorderly
conduct.  We'll hold a hearing soon to decide how to charge Roy for
threatening you."  Karla said.  "All of that is in the hands of
the court system now.  I just gather the evidence and present it."

 "I can't say that my trip has been an unadulterated pleasure," Sonja said,
"But I'd like to come back some day and play tourist."

 "You'll get the chance.  You'll probably be called to testify about what
happened in town." Karla said.

 "Great."  Angelo said.  "Not that I didn't like your town
or anything.  It
was just bad for my blood pressure."

 "Don't worry.  I can guarantee that your next trip will be
quieter."  Karla
grinned.

 "Don't make any promises you can't keep."  Sonja said knowingly.

 "Flight 243 for San Francisco now boarding."  The PA said.

 "That's us.  Time to go."  Angelo said.

 "Nice to meet you, Sheriff.  See you again."  Sonja said.

 "Before I go, I'd like to invite you and your son to come out to Vista City
for an informal visit."  Scott said.  "As it happens my family
has lifetime passes to Disneyland and we're overdue for a visit.   I'd like
to show you
that the outside world isn't all that bad."

 Karla boggled "Life time passes?  How did you get those?"

 "Well at one time my wife and I helped Disney Security with a sticky
problem-" Scott began.

 "Captain!"  Sonja called.

 "But that's a story for another time.  Goodbye, Karla."  Scott turned and
walked towards the plane.  "See you again soon."

 "I wouldn't miss it!" Karla said.


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