Read There Fell a Shadow for Free Online

something?”
    â€œSomething. Divorced.”
    â€œKids.”
    â€œI had a daughter once,” I said. “She killed herself when she was fifteen.”
    â€œChrist,” said Colt. “That is hard livin’.”
    He drank. He did not drink lightly. He did not drink like a man already drunk, trying to make it last. He took a long draft, like he wasn’t there yet, wherever he wanted to get to. Wherever the pain ended.
    He came gasping out of it. “So are you really as good as they say?”
    â€œHell, no. Are you?”
    â€œNah. But I’m good.”
    â€œYeah. Yeah, you are.”
    â€œYou, too, my friend.”
    I shrugged. “They make it easy for me. The pols in this town. This town …” I waved a hand around. “Politically, this town is about as healthy as a cancer on a leper’s ass.”
    He tilted his head, eyed me shrewdly. “And what’re you? The good doctor?”
    I heard myself make a harsh, guttural noise of dismissal. “I’m just taking notes in the cesspool, pal. I don’t fix it, I just write about it.”
    Colt made a quick movement with his tongue, like a man spitting the Oklahoma dust from his mouth. “So how come you’re too all-fired pure to make it with a pretty young thing who’s dyin’ for you?”
    The question took me off guard. I shifted uncomfortably between the wings of my chair. I was beginning to feel like I was being interviewed. I didn’t like it. If I’d wanted to be held accountable for myself, I’d have gone into another business.
    â€œI got a woman,” I said tightly.
    â€œShe doesn’t seem to be waitin’ up for you,” Colt shot back.
    â€œShe works upstate. Runs a suicide hot line up there.”
    â€œEver see her?”
    â€œWhen I can. Right now things are kind of busy.”
    Colt sat relaxed, one leg crossed over the other at the knee. But his eyes stayed sharp. His hand gripped his glass tightly. “When’s the last time you saw her, Wells?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou don’t see her. I’d bet cash money on it. You never see her.”
    â€œWhat is this, Colt?”
    â€œAh,” he said drunkenly. “You don’t give a shit. I know your type.”
    â€œYou’re drunk.”
    â€œI know your type. You don’t give a shit about anything.”
    â€œYou’re drunk. What is this garbage?”
    He pointed a finger at me. “You’re workin’ all the time. Right? You bury yourself in your work. You don’t want to give a shit, that’s what. That’s why you keep away from Lansing.”
    â€œOh yeah?”
    â€œYou think I don’t know you.”
    â€œThat’s what all this is, huh. That’s what it is.”
    â€œI know you, Wells. I know you. I was just like you once. I was just like you.”
    I’d had it. “Cut the shit, Colt. Just because Lancer kissed you off, I don’t have to take this shit.”
    That seemed to stop him finally. The fire in his eyes dimmed. He looked down at the standard, hotel-issue shag rug.
    We sat in silence for a few seconds. My head was spinning. My mind was dull. Vaguely I found myself wondering about the incident in the bar. The confrontation between Colt and the haunted man. We’d all politely let it go unmentioned, but it had cast a pall over the night. It had sparked the serious drinking. Now it seemed to me that this discussion was related to it in some strange way. Some way I couldn’t make out. It was all too complicated for my pickled brain.
    Colt started talking again. To add to my confusion, he seemed to have gotten off on a whole new topic.
    â€œWe were in Jacobo when the rebels broke through.” He was still staring at the rug. He spoke quickly, in a low, feverish murmur. “Me and Wexler. We knew the capital, Mangrela, we knew it was going to fall. You have to understand. There’d been