Whispering Rock (Virgin River #3)(23)

Mike absently worked his shoulder a little bit, loosening it up. He couldn’t remember hearing about a bar fight around here. Certainly not since Preacher had come on full-time. You’d have to be drunk and stupid to get into it with him.

These guys looked pretty fit. Lots younger by average than Jack, Preacher and Mike. But they’d been doing a lot of drinking, whereas that evening shot before closing had yet to be poured for the crew running the bar. The home team had been on coffee.

As Mike knew, Jack hated it when his bar got messed up. It was a sacrifice he’d make if threatened, but it made him very unhappy. Maybe he’d stay behind the bar and just let them wander off. Or maybe he’d enjoy a little fight, having had the kind of summer he’d had.

“Come on, boys. Get going. You really don’t want to mess this place up…” Mike said.

The hunters exchanged looks, then slowly stood. They began to move away from the table, having left no money to pay for their drinks, which was a sure clue trouble was coming. The one in the group closest to Mike whirled suddenly, landing a blow right to Mike’s face. It sent him skittering backward, his hand to his lip, ending up against the bar. He said, “Oh, you’re going to hate yourself.”

He wound up and hit back, left-handed, sending his assailant flying into his boys, knocking two of them off balance.

It started. Preacher and Jack were around the bar before Mike even delivered his first blow. Preacher knocked two heads together, Jack landed a blow to one gut, another jaw. Mike grabbed up his attacker, decked him again and then sent him into another guy, downing them both. Someone came at Jack with a ready fist, which Jack caught easily, twisted his assailant’s arm around his back and shoved him into his boys. In less than two minutes, six partially inebriated young hunters were on the bar floor, spread over some broken glasses and amidst toppled chairs and two tables. All of them were moaning. Besides that first blow to Mike’s face, they hadn’t even managed contact. The heartiest of the bunch got back on his feet and Preacher grabbed him by the front of his jacket, lifted him off the floor and said, “You really wanna be this stupid?” He instantly put up his hands and Preacher dropped him.

“Okay, okay, we’re out of here,” he said.

“It’s too late for that, guys,” Mike said. He yelled, “Paige!” She stuck her head into the bar. “Rope!”

“Aw, come on, man,” someone said.

“Just get ’em the hell out of here,” Jack said, disgusted.

“Can’t,” Mike returned. Then to the hunters, “Hell, I tried to warn you. You don’t want to mess with the women. You don’t want to fight. Not around here. Jesus,” he said in disgust. “Shit for brains.”

Mike explained to Jack that not only were these boys too drunk to drive down the mountain, they might get down the road and claim they’d been jumped. Since they had all the bruises and the home team had only sore knuckles, it just wouldn’t be smart to take that kind of chance. Better to let the police handle things now. Fifteen minutes later each one of them was tied to a porch rail out front, and a half hour after that three sheriff’s deputies were standing around the front of the bar, assessing the damage.

“Merciful God,” Deputy Henry Depardeau said. “Every time I turn around, somebody’s getting beat up or shot around here!”

“Yeah, Henry, we’re awful sorry,” Jack said. “We hardly ever have any trouble.”

“And what was it this time?” he asked impatiently.

“That one,” Jack said, pointing. “He threw the first punch. That was so frickin’ rude, don’t you think? You can see, it was just out of line. You know?”

“You’re taking up way too much of my time!”

“I’ll buy you dinner one of these days, how about that? You and your boys just drop in anytime.”

“Yeah, yeah. All right, let’s load ’em up. I sure hope you boys have yourselves licenses and your deer tag.” By the droop of one hunter’s head, it looked as if there were going to be more fines. It made Jack laugh. “Aw, man,” Henry said. “Poachers are usually quiet and polite so they can slip in and out of here unnoticed. I should book you for stupid.”

Hope McCrea, a feisty old widow, was almost a daily visitor at Jack’s. She liked to have a Jack Daniel’s and a cigarette at the end of the day. She’d often sit up at the bar next to Doc, but there were times Mike talked with her a while.

“You know I hired Mel to come up here, right?” Hope asked Mike one night.

“I heard that, yeah,” he said.

“I’d like you to come out to the house to talk about something. A proposition.”

“Well, Hope.” He grinned. “That sounds real interesting….”

“A job, you young fool,” she said, pushing her too-big glasses up on her nose. But she had a toothy smile for him just the same.

“I don’t want a job, Hope,” he said.

“We’ll see. Jack will tell you how to get there. Tomorrow. Four o’clock.” She stamped out her cigarette and left.

Mike drove out to Hope’s house the next day because Jack had said it might be at least worth listening to. Hope was seventy-seven and had been widowed for over twenty years. She had given Mel a contract for a year, paid her out of her own accounts plus the cabin she was living in, now with her husband and child. After that one-year contract was exhausted, Doc had pulled Mel into his practice and they’d managed a modest salary for her without help from Hope, which was exactly what Hope had intended. Mike had learned this from Jack.