Page 91 of Rocky Ride

“Another one for the ambulance, Dad.”

“Harlan you and Sarge hold this building. If either one of those shot guys moves, finish them. It will be a gift to them. Mercy. They probably won’t make it anyway.”

“Copy that.”

“I’m going to help Billy. Virgil, sit on the floor, put pressure on your arm and don’t move until the paramedics get here.”

“Copy, Dad.” Virge slid down the wall onto the concrete floor and held tight to his shoulder.

Billy and Ted were wrapping up in the trailer. Mrs. Darkers was cuffed and sitting on the floor in the small living room. Next to her was a guy Travis hadn’t seen before. Figured it was Easy Menard.

“That’s it? Just the two of them in the house?”

“Yep,” said Ted. “Only the two.”

“I’ve got some calls to make. Ted, load up your prisoners, secure them and wait in the squad. Billy, go to the building and put pressure on Virge’s arm until the ambulance comes.”

Billy’s eyes widened. “He took one?”

“Yeah. After he got shot, he got mad and made a bit of a mess out there.”

Billy hurried out the door and headed for the cinderblock building at the back of the property.

Travis called the local DEA boys in Great Falls and gave them the address. Told them to hurry because he didn’t have time to hang around babysitting the fucking scene. He had wounded deputies.

They said they’d leave right away.

Two ambulances arrived next. One of them took Virgil to Cut Bank Hospital and I went with him. Dad said to go. He had the scene tight.

The other bunch of paramedics scraped up the other two guys Virge had shot and put them in the second ambulance. Sirens screaming, we raced to the hospital.

In the back of the ambulance, Virge was white as snow and pretty quiet as the paramedic kept pressure on his shoulder wound.

When he spoke, he made me laugh. “I ain’t going to the fuckin Hallowe’en party, so you can forget it.”

“I probably won’t be going either when Penny finds out I was there when her mother was arrested.”

“Too bad Darkers was in our run,” mumbled Virge. “If he was in his drug building with his crew, I’d like to have shot that fucker in the face.”

“Uh huh.”

Travis waited in the drug building for Doctor Olsen to arrive and process the dead bodies. “This looks like a manufacturing operation, Travis. Congratulations on shutting it down.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

He, Ted and Billy helped the doctor bag the two dead bodies and Ted and Travis carried them to Doc Olsen’s van.

“Ted, take your prisoners to the station and lock them up. We’ll book them when we get the charges sorted out. Then come back up here and pick Billy up. He’ll be waiting for the feds to show. We can’t leave the building until the evidence is taken into chain of custody by the DEA.”

“Copy, boss.”

“I’m going to the hospital. I’ll call you from there as soon as I know how Virge is doing.”

“Copy that.”

Cut Bank Hospital.

The ambulance drove right into the garage and the paramedics wheeled Virge down the hallway to one of the operating rooms. They’d called ahead and the doctor was right there in the gangway ready to take a look at Virgie’s shoulder. He had so much fuckin blood all over him, it was scaring the shit out of me.

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