Crystal Meth Cowboys Read Online Free PDF Page A

Harrick, Wes had been dismissed and Bell had stayed behind in the Sergeant's office. About an hour later Bell called Wes at home and told him to 'put on your pukin' clothes' for a trip to the Deer Lick Inn.
    The left headlight picked up a basketball-sized brown clump on the road dead ahead. Bell had never been a great student. But he had an acute, visceral understanding of mechanical physics. He knew that, at 80 miles per hour, approximately 200 feet from an axle-high obstruction, he had to stay off the brake or risk bringing the back end around and careening down the mountainside. He briefly considered executing a radical right turn into a sideways slide but, in the instant before impact, he judged the obstruction to be more dirt than rock.
    Wes reached out for a handhold to brace his upper body. His right hand found sticky duct tape that patched the torn vinyl of the passenger's door arm rest.
    "Ohhhhhh Mama!" crowed Bell as the Firebird's bumper sheared thick, wet mud off the clump in the road and the front axle whistled over it at 60 mph. He tromped on the accelerator. The four barrel quadrajet inhaled a heady mixture of oxygen and octane, the eight Bosch platinum plugs fired the eight custom-bore cylinders and the Firebird leapt off its back wheels and rocketed up the road.
    Wes released his death grip on the arm rest. Bell raised the bottle of Corona from between his legs to between his lips, accelerated into the final turn, eased up on the straightaway and squealed into a neon beer-sign-lit oasis at the crest of the hill.
    The Deer Lick Inn slouched on a snug two acre mesa. A low slung crescent moon limned the peaks of neighboring foothills in the pearlescent sheen of a just-healed flesh wound. Along the front of the parking lot, parallel to a hitching post, stood half a dozen chopped-down Harleys. Two four-wheel drive vehicles and a late model Camaro were parked on the other side of the lot. Bell pulled in next to the Chevy.
    They climbed out of the Firebird. Wes arched his back, hands on his hips. The sky was clear as etched glass. The blue-black firmament rained down starlight, Venus glowed like an amber traffic lamp and the Milky Way was so close it looked like a fog bank.
    Bell buttoned his baggy dress shirt, blousing the shirtail over his gun butt. Wes zipped up his pre-stressed leather jacket and tried to match Bell's long strides to the front steps. Bell clonked up the stair planks in old combat boots, thudded his heels on the loose boards of the short porch and paused at the swinging doors. Wes followed silently in his Reeboks.
    "I love this part," said Bell just before he swaggered through the swinging doors. Wes caught the doors' backswing on his forearms and slipped inside.
    They entered a deep room, its peaked ceiling braced with rough-hewn beams. The bar stood to the left, raised two steps above a lounge area known as the pit. Middle-aged bikers sprawled around on everything from an overstuffed sofa to a bucket seat from a late 60's muscle car. Two of them played darts. They all looked up at the new arrivals.
    On the drive back to the PD, Bell had speculated that the naked man was a speed-dealing biker who sampled a little too much of his own product. They had found a vintage Harley in a corner of the parking lot with sand pits on the fender paint. Bell said that speed labs were often located in the desert, run by biker gangs out of San Berdoo. The naked man was probably in town to drop a load.
    They learned later that Cyril Reese had recovered a set of works and a sixteen ounce freezer bag of uncut methamphetamine in the bedroom closet of room #12. The Harley was registered to Robert R. Bjornstedt of San Bernadino, California.
    Bell led Wes up to the bar, past an old 49ers' schedule tacked to the pine paneling between the neon beer signs buzzing in the windows. The mirror behind the bar was starred with green oxidation stains. A meaty aroma led Lyedecker's eyes to a crock pot behind the bar.
    Bell plunked