West of Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page A

away in a dark haze.
    When he awoke it was to a dull throbbing pain and the dim outline of bars. There was a tiny open window through which he could see the night sky and feel the cold night breeze. Some ten feet away was a table with a lamp on it and the shadow of a man.
    Jack propped himself up and called out. His voice was a dry whisper, and the throbbing intensified. The shadow moved, bringing the lamp closer, and Jack saw a tall, heavyset man with a beard and mustache. Dark eyes peered at him through the bars of the cell and then the face smiled.
    “Good to see you awake,” the man said in a deep, gravelly voice, “How you feelin’?”
    “Not so great,” Jack answered.
    “Somethin’ to drink, right?”
    “That would be nice,” Jack managed.
    “I’ll be back in two shakes,” the man said, “Then maybe you an’ me can have a talk.”
    “Sure,” Jack agreed, immediately rehearsing the identity he had chosen for himself.
    By the time the man returned Jack had his story ready, but the man didn’t ask about Jack’s past. Instead he introduced himself as Harlan Harris, Federal Marshall, and unlocked the door to the cell. He handed Jack the bottle and pulled in a chair from the table, sitting himself down and tipping the chair back until it touched the bars.
    “That’s whiskey,” Harlan Harris said, pointing to the bottle. “I mean the real stuff, not that cheap shit they hand out to the customers. It’ll keep that pain to a level you can tolerate an’ quench your thirst at the same time. ’Course, it’ll give you a wicked hangover, too, but I guess there’s a price fer everything.”
    Jack took a swallow, not caring much about a hangover, wanting only to push the burning pain down to a manageable point.
    Harlan Harris watched Jack with his dark eyes, idly rolling a cigarette between his big, meaty fingers. He flicked a match against the wall and gave a deep sigh after inhaling.
    “Yep, nothin’ like a good smoke,” he said. “You want one?”
    “No, thanks,” Jack said.
    “All right then, maybe later,” Harlan said with an easy smile.
    “Am I under arrest?” Jack asked.
    “Hell, no!” Harlan said. “We were just keeping you here till we found out who you were.”
    “And?”
    “You ain’t wanted as far as we can tell. The telegraph came back sayin’ there weren’t no one fittin’ your description that was wanted anywhere. We woulda moved you to better quarters but the doc said it was best to leave you be for as long as we could.”
    “How long have I been here?”
    “About three days.”
    Jack took another long swallow and felt the pain begin to ratchet down. He scrutinized Harlan, knowing there was more.
    “And?” he asked.
    “Well, some of us was wondering where you learned to shoot like that. You got three of them, you know.”
    Jack gave an uncomfortable shrug. “Oh. I was in the war . . .”
    Harlan squinted at him. “The war? What war? You ain’t old enough.”
    Jack felt a moment of panic then, realizing he’d messed up. Forgotten where he was. When he was.
    “Sorry,” he said, recovering. “Not here; it was down in South America. A little war you never heard of.” Which was entirely true. He had been in the war—just not any war Harlan was familiar with.
    God only knew why he went, even now he couldn’t have explained, couldn’t fathom how he could have thought that going off to war was a good idea. He’d never even seen a dead body before and certainly never thought of killing anyone—except maybe his father. But of course, it was too late by then; he’d already signed on the dotted line. Eighteen months in exchange for four years college tuition. It had seemed like such a bargain when he’d put pen to paper.
    Ten months later he was back in the States with a jagged scar and a pretty medal and a lot of pictures he wished he could delete from his head.
    Why his senior thesis paper, How the West was Won , was included in one of the college chapbooks was