Free Renewal 5 - an Untimely Fall by Jf Perkins

those kind of people run loose in the world?”
    Aggie saw the strain in Bill’s eyes and backed down, running her fingers through his unwashed hair. “Ok, Bill, alright. Sometimes the choices are hard, I know. You get some sleep and I’ll yell at you some more tomorrow,” Aggie said, her expression was a mix of frustration battling with pure and enduring love. She smiled softly to remove the sting from her words.
    “Honey, before you give Terry the third degree, you should know something.”
    “What’s that, Old Man?”
    “He saved my life. I only heard it since I was flat on my back, but he somehow pulled a miracle of gunplay on those docks. I went down, and expected to take the final bullet in the next second. I heard a bunch of shooting and next thing I know, Terry’s looking down at me with big round eyes. Then I expected the kid to take a bullet himself, just standing there staring. I didn’t know until Rob told me what happened. I do know that I wouldn’t be here, taking your high quality shit, if it weren’t for him, so go easy, huh?”
    “Go easy? Listen, my love. If I were only thirty years younger, I’d be shoving my own daughter out of the way for that young man.” She palmed his forehead and gave it a gentle shake to show she was joking. “I was just going to thank him for bringing you back.”
    Bill smiled tiredly and said, “Ok. Well give him a kiss for me then. No tongues though...”
    Aggie got up with a look of false exasperation at her crazy, idealistic old man. She shook her head once, and walked out the bedroom door. When she turned to close the door behind her, she saw that Bill was already sound asleep.
     
    End Part 5
     
    Author’s Note:
    Well, Bill Carter has his hands full. A smart man in his situation would be better off shooting every last bad guy he meets, but then, how would he draw the line? Without at least a passing attempt at law and order, it’s only a matter of time before he would be the same as any other brigand. He could have buried the Judge in the woods and it might be years before anyone pinned the murder on Teeny Town. He could have just as easily shot the Dragon and watched the imprisoned cops stomping on the corpse, but Bill tends to take the long view. What’s the outcome? Well, it turns out that every extra effort sets in motion a chain of events that usually makes being right much harder than being expedient. We’ll see...
    About the author:
    Creative people tend to be lousy at self-promotion, and I fit the cliché almost perfectly. After many years of asking myself why I have anything to say that is worth writing, the answer can only be that I have finally, in middle age, managed to make enough mistakes to say something solid about how not to live life. If I hold up a mirror to my own life, I get a backwards reflection that may actually contain some value. More importantly, I have been fortunate enough to know many people who may have suffered, but did so with far more skill and grace than I have, and they set a solid example for a realistic method of how to live well.
    In the meantime, I live in Washington with my wonderful wife, who happens to be one of those good examples, and our five rescue dogs, who manage to encompass an entire school bus full of joyous, childlike personalities. And to add to the rapidly mounting collection of loose fur and allergens, I also share the house with two cats; one with no social boundaries, and one who is nothing but social boundaries.
    In a difficult denial of the self-promotion bit, I must suggest that you stop by my semi-neglected blog and leave me a note. That way, I’ll be able to say that not everyone who signs up is preparing a spam attack.  http://www.jfperkins.com
    Thank you for reading.
    JF Perkins