Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) Read Online Free PDF

poor animal was in, he laid his head on that guy’s leg and his tail thumped the ground.  His broken leg lay twisted out behind him.
         The guy was making some kind of gasping noise.  I’d probably hurt him pretty badly.  The first one lay quiet on the ground, and the fourth lay next to him.  They were amateurs.  I took a step toward the dog, wondering if I had enough money to afford a vet.
         “Stop right there!” I heard behind me.  I turned and saw two uniform cops with their weapons drawn, and that third guy standing behind them.
         Great.
     
         “So you was defending a dog?” the big cop asked me.  He was black, overweight, dressed in over-tight pants and an over-loose jacket.  His stomach poked out three inches past his belt line and strained the last two buttons of his white shirt.  His tie looked like a test pattern and his breath proved that coffee could get rancid.
         “They were stomping it,” I said, not looking at him.
         “They said they found it that way,” the cop informed me.  “They say they were trying to get it into their car when you came up, tried to mug them.”
         “I want a lawyer,” I told him.
         “Sure,” he said.  “We’ll get you one, one is on the way, but while he gets here, let me tell you something.
         “Them boys you beat up?  One of them was a fellow officer’s brother .  And that punch you gave him in the neck?  Well, he died.”
         No way!   I didn’t hit him that hard.
         I looked up at him.  He wasn’t lying.  “I don’t want to talk to you until I hear from my lawyer.” 
         “Well, you’re poor, so you get you a prime, public defender.  And when he is through seeing his other thousand valued customers, I am sure he will get around to you.
         “And I bet, with all that long, blond hair, they gonna love you in prison, Randy Morden, dishonorable discharge , U.S. Navy, because it’s four against one, and they sent that dog to the pound,  so he ain’t talkin’.”
         The cop grinned again, turned around and left.  Two hours later, when the public defender, an overworked, greasy-haired white woman with coke-bottle glasses, finally arrived, she told me the exact same thing.  She may get me off with manslaughter, but the DA wanted Murder Two and odds were that I would do no less than ten years.
         And she let me know that they were putting down the dog.
     
        I lay in a dirty little cot, in a dirty little cell, in local lock up.  A single bulb burned above me, a stainless steel toilet ran to my right.  The whole place stank of urine and fear.
         My cellmate was a big, dark-haired, dusky weightlifter-type.  I don’t know if I could have beaten him in a fair fight .  I resolved not to fight fair if he pressed me, but so far he just stared at me. 
         After about two hours of this, he finally said, “You dat murderin’ white boy?”
         “Why, you going to do something to make me want to kill you?”
         He put up his hands, “No, no!  I saw you on the news, man!  Say you killed a man,” he snapped his fingers, “didn’t take you nothin’ .”
         “Yeah, that’s me,” I said, wondering if I should just pick the fight and get it over with.  It occurred to me that, at its very best, the rest of my life would be like this.  Fighting other people to be one step up from the bottom.  No money, no future, no fair shake – and no one to blame but my damn self.  I seemed preordained to screw up.
         As if he read my mind, the other man said, “They say you a lifetime loser, man.  They say you kicked out of the Navy, say you have an ax to grind, that they going to lock you up.”
         “Whatever,” I said, hoping he would just shut up.  But he didn’t.
         “No, man – don’t you be giving up, now.  You look at me, and what you see?”  He spread his arms wide,