DONALD HARSTAD
A Long December
I WOULD LIKE TO DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE MEMORY OF
KEITH LEMKA.
HE WAS A FINE OFFICER AND A TRUE FRIEND.
Contents
CHAPTER 01 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2001 15:34
CHAPTER 02 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2001 16:07
CHAPTER 03 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2001 18:11
CHAPTER 05 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2001 09:45
CHAPTER 06 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2001 10:51
CHAPTER 07 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2001 13:27
CHAPTER 08 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2001 15:12
CHAPTER 09 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2001 18:04
CHAPTER 10 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2001 21:09
CHAPTER 11 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2001 08:09
CHAPTER 12 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2001 09:31
CHAPTER 13 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2001 10:40
CHAPTER 14 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2001 15:30
CHAPTER 15 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2001 19:30
CHAPTER 16 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2001 08:11
CHAPTER 17 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2001 12:21
CHAPTER 18 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2001 16:33
CHAPTER 19 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2001 19:27
CHAPTER 20 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2001 23:03
CHAPTER 21 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2001 08:44
CHAPTER 22 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2001 15:23
CHAPTER 23 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2001 17:39
CHAPTER 24 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2001 22:08
CHAPTER 25 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2001 22:41
SLUGS RIPPED THROUGH THE BARN’S OLD BOARDS, showering us with dust and debris. I got even lower than I had been before, pressing my cheek against the sooty limestone foundation. I could see George hunker down along the thick support beam he’d found, and I heard Hester, who was off to my right in the gloom, say “Shit.” At first I thought she was just sort of venting, but then she kept going.
“Shit, oh shit, shit, shit.”
Hester’s no shrinking violet, but she’s not one to curse for the hell of it, either. I rose and turned to her, and noticed that she’d rolled away from her vantage point near the rotted ground-level boards, and was half sitting with her back against the foundation wall.
“What? You okay?”
“My face,” she said. She held the right side of her face with one hand while she struggled to reholster her sidearm with the other. I saw blood ooze between her fingers. “Shit, shit.” she repeated.
George and I both got over to her as fast as we could crawl. “Let me see.”
She reluctantly moved her hand from her face, and I saw blood and torn flesh. Not too much. It was hard to see in the shadows. I unsnapped my coat and daubed her face as gently as I could with the fleecy lining. It was all I had.
“Ahhh!” She pushed my hand away.
“Sorry, sorry, just a sec, just let me look.”
“Don’t press.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said as I pulled off my gloves, fumbled under my sweater, and dipped into my shirt pocket for my reading glasses. I put ‘em on and looked again. Sticking out of her right cheek was about a half-inch stub of an old, rusty square nail, flattened, but about half as big around as a pencil. It had embedded back toward