Action/Adventure
Date Published: November 30, 2022
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
On a routine delivery, courier Jaxy Thrie must ferry a priceless item—a Fabergé guardian angel once worn by the Empress Maria Feodorovna—to a Russian heiress in British Columbia. Things get out of hand when Jaxy loses the valuable medallion. He finds himself in fast trouble with the Romanov Guild, who accuses him of theft. It falls on Jaxy to restore the national treasure to the Royal Museum while dodging bullets from a greedy band of robbers, the Mounties, and the Canadian Beaver Lodge Assassins Association.
“Where
did those donut-eatin’ cops come from?” asked Jaxy, shifting into overdrive and
spraying a rooster-tail of mud and gravel at the gawkers who’d come out of the
pub to watch him blow through the traffic light. In the mirror, he saw a
flashing cherrytop turn in while two others bore down on his tail. Coming upon
a construction site for a winery expansion with earthmovers parked for the
night, Jaxy downshifted, killed the headlights, cranked the wheel, and
emergency braked into the graded area.
The
van skated over a film of black ice, clipped a skip loader, and caromed into a
row of seedlings planted at the back of the lot. Through the hedge of sage and
softwoods the van chomped its way to slam sideways against the winery’s aging
barn. The muffled crash of magnum bottles prefaced the structural creaking,
until a louder rumbling started, and a season’s worth of snow slid off the roof
to bury the van under rotten ice from tires to bubbletop.
With
his heart pumping triple-time, Jaxy set out his driver’s license and
registration with fumbling fingers, and then meekly waited for the nightsticks,
stun guns, and other state-sanctioned thuggery. For openers, they would book
him for running a red with a stolen plate and an open container, followed by
reckless driving and evasion, destruction of property, and instigating a bar
fight under the influence of cheap rye. From there, they would move on to the
more fascinating charges of drug trafficking and terrorism in cahoots with a
Wild West Cowgirl, and the abduction and homicide of a Saskatonian Mountie.
Blurry,
bright searchlights streaked about. They seemed to be waiting for back-up
before accosting a stewed fugitive, armed and dangerous in a van full of guns,
drugs and dynamite. Jaxy hardly dared to breath lest, misreading his intention,
they open fire. After twenty minutes, the deputies crossed the highway to beat
about a bed and breakfast, then cut the spotlights, stopped shouting, and
exited the scene. Dumbfounded, Jaxy held his breath for another five minutes,
all the time thanking his lucky stars that a K-9 unit didn’t show, or they
would have had him in their jaws before their paws hit the ground.
Panting for fresh air, Jaxy kicked out through the side door into
a night of mixed blessings. The Dodge had taken out none but the smallest of shrubs,
while the limber saplings and leafy shoots had rebounded, obscuring him from
his pursuers. The avalanche of snow
off the barn roof concealed the rest. With the rear dug out, he reorganized
things. The Glenlivet bottle had rolled forward. In need of a nip to calm his
jitters, Jaxy closed the back, came around to the side, and reached for the
scotch.
“Jillian!”
he recoiled, hitting his head, and breaking off the mirror. With a stomach
still churning from the putrid stench and teacup ride, it took all Jaxy had to
keep his dinner of oysters and ice cream down. A butchered body sat buckled
behind in a scissor-cut miniskirt and poofy, polka-dot top. Blackened and
mud-caked strands of hair held down by a watch cap plastered the once fine
face. Tacked to the bloated torso a tagboard read, “Your Turn Jack”.
In tortured agony, Jaxy brushed the clotted bangs aside and
stared, not into Jillian’s eyes, but at the missing Mounted Policeman Pierre de
Chavoie.
“Eee-yuck!
Rory, you depraved animal!” shrilled Jaxy through alternating waves of
revulsion and relief. After a refreshing jog around the winery and a hand scrub
of snow, he backed up the van, forming a makeshift igloo where he dragged the
Mountie’s decaying remains, burying it under the snow and ice. Then, up the
vintner’s drive, Jaxy stealthily drove with lights off. A new parade of black
and whites went screaming by. In the shelter of a pumphouse, he stopped to
throw open the van doors to let the rancid odor fade while tuning in the radio.
It did not take long to find a station buzzing of the near capture
of Jackson Thrie in Totum, Washington, who, after a thrilling, high-speed chase
in and out of side streets evaded law enforcers to inexplicably disappear on
the edge of town. Evidence left at the pub sent the Klickitat Sheriff to a
nearby monastery in search of the desperado.
“Side streets?” Jaxy looked up and down the empty roadway. “What
side streets?”
Had he a phone, it would
have been hard to resist letting them know that Totum boasts a population of
twenty-eight, and a third of
them were at the bar. Just as well, for up against that polished federation of
byzantine liars, Johnny Law had no chance at a straight story from the
monastery either. They would leave with nothing to show for their efforts but a
wall calendar of martyred saints and jars of apple chutney. Meanwhile, Jaxy
passed the time with roasted nuts and ale, singing the bass line in “Red
Cadillac and a Black Moustache,” not sure who was who in the song anymore.
About the Author
A lifetime resident of California, Jerry moved to Santa Barbara after graduating from USC to work in the aerospace industry. Today, he designs night-vision cameras for everyday use. In his free time, Jerry likes to write and use his musical talent to compose original scores for piano and guitar. After his first loves—song and storytelling—Jerry enjoys hiking, spending time in the garden, and baking sourdough bread.
Contact Link
Instagram: @jerrycripewriter
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Great looking cover!
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