"Yes, yes, it's beautiful country here, it really is." Mike looked at Steve again and rolled his eyes. "Lots of trees… Well, the food is, um, interesting. They do like to fry things… Yes, yes, I am being careful, I'm trying to keep the fried food to a minimum… Yeah, yeah, sure, he's right here, just a second."

With raised eyebrows, he held the receiver out and with a grin Steve took it and sat back in the armchair. "Jeannie!"

Mike sighed heavily and leaned back on the bed, resting his left hand lightly on his bandaged shoulder and closing his eyes. The fatigue was evident on his face.

"Yeah, yeah, we're almost finished here. Like Mike said, we're heading home in a couple of days… Yeah, it takes almost a day just to get from here to Louisville… Yeah, it's been an, ah, an interesting trip. They sure do things differently here… What?.. Oh, no, no, we haven't tried any of the moonshine yet but, you know, there's still time." He laughed, glancing at Mike and grinning with raised eyebrows. The older man chuckled.

"Okay, yeah, it is later here. We gotta hit the sack, long day wrapping things up tomorrow… Yeah, yeah, you too; here's your Dad." He handed the phone back to Mike with a chuckle.

"Yeah, sweetheart, we gotta get going, it's pretty late here… Yeah, I'll call you next Sunday as usual… Yes, I promise we'll drive safely… You bet. Okay, sweetheart, talk to you next week… Love you too, bye bye." He hung up with a sigh and closed his eyes again.

Steve stood slowly, balancing on one foot as he reached down for the crutches. "I better get back to the motel. I'll probably wake Rudy up but, hey, this is all sort of his fault anyway."

Mike opened his eyes and turned his head slowly. "Why don't you spend the night here?" Steve stopped moving and stared at him. "You didn't seem to have any problem sleeping in that chair the other night…"

Steve hesitated. There was something in Mike's demeanor that suddenly set off alarms. The younger man smiled gently; he knew Mike didn't want to be alone. Ever since he had seen the bullet Steve was carrying in his pocket, Mike hadn't let him out of his sight. Mike had been rattled more than he would ever care to admit.

Steve nodded slowly and straightened up, leaving the crutches on the floor. "Sure, sure," he said amiably. Truth be told, he was having a hard time too; carrying that piece of steel and lead in his pocket had become a constant reminder of everything they had been through, how close he had come to losing his best friend, how close he had come to his own certain death at the hands of strangers in the backwoods of Kentucky.

Relieved that Mike had made the request and he didn't have to come up with an excuse to stay, he sat back down in the overstuffed chair and smiled. Matching the look, Mike pulled a pillow out from behind his head and tossed it towards his partner.

As Steve started to snuggle into the pillow, settling in and closing his eyes, Mike mumbled, "Don't get too comfortable, you still have to turn off the light."

With a moan, Steve opened one eye and looked up at the ceiling. "Crap," he growled as he hoisted himself onto his good leg, hopped to the door, turned off the light and hopped back, Mike's affectionate chuckles accompanying him.

Mike reached behind himself and pulled the chain to turn off the fluorescent in the panel above the bed as Steve sat back down, wriggling to find the right position for an untroubled sleep.

"Goodnight, Steve," Mike murmured warmly as he closed his eyes.

Through a yawn and a smile, Steve whispered, "Goodnight to you too, Mike."

# # # # #

"So, Mike, we're gonna keep you all strapped up like this for the trip home, 'cause we want to make sure your clavicle doesn't move and that the incision continues to heal as well as it is. Now, don't forget, when you get home, I want to you see your own doctor right away. I'm gonna send all the paperwork with you, and the x-rays, and he can decide when to switch you over to the figure-8 brace. You're probably gonna be wearing that for at least a month, maybe more, depending on how well and how fast you heal."

Mike let his head fall back against the pillow and rolled his eyes. "Great. Can I at least go back to work behind a desk before I petrify?" he whined, and Doctor O'Neil laughed.

"Well, that won't be up to me, you'll have to discuss that with your doctor and, I guess, your superiors. But I don't see why not." The doctor smiled sympathetically. "Captain Olsen is waiting for you out in the hallway. Why don't we get you up and get your robe on and you can go down to the cafeteria for a change of scene?"

With a loud exhale and frustrated bobble of his head, Mike looked at the doctor. "Why not? What else do I have to do?"

# # # # #

"So, ah, we'll head off about ten tomorrow morning, give you and Mike time to get things squared away before we leave. I thought maybe we'd stop in at the police station in Kearney on the way to the 75 so you guys can say your goodbyes to Sheriff Noble and his men," KSP Sergeant Pearson relayed to the young detective sitting across from him in the diner booth. "How does that sound?"

Steve looked up from his study of the coffee cup before him and smiled. "That sounds great, thanks." He looked back down and it wasn't difficult for the trooper to detect the melancholia.

"What's going on?"

The city cop's head came up, his brow furrowed.

"You just seem, I don't know, a little more down that I would've thought. I mean, Mike's doing great, and you're both finally going home tomorrow…"

Steve stared at the dark-haired lawman who wasn't too much older than he was, and a wry smile played over his lips. He shook his head slowly and snorted. "I really don't know," he began softly and quietly. "It just feels like… I don't know… like something has been left undone…? I don't know, I really don't." He looked back down at the table.

Pearson smiled warmly. "Steve, I know just about everything there is to know about what went on with you and Mike and Donny Lee Rutter that night, and if you think there was anything in the world you coulda done to change what happened…? Well, God bless ya, Steve, but there was nothin', and I mean nothin', you could've done differently. All three of you did the absolute best you could've possibly done. But the bottom line is, you were outgunned, and that's all there is to it."

Steve's head had come up slowly. "It that it, Jim, really? We were outgunned? Is that what it's going to come to – they get bigger guns so we have to get bigger guns? Is it as simple, and as frightening, as that?" He stopped and Pearson watched as he pulled the plastic bag with the rifle bullet out of his pocket and dropped it on the table between them.

"In less than thirty seconds they put forty-seven of these into our car; one of them went through my partner. Through him, Sergeant. Forty-seven rounds in thirty seconds. Between us, Mike and I had two .38's with sixteen bullets in the cylinders. We didn't have a chance. M-16's. That's what they had, right?" He paused and tried to collect himself. "How the hell did they get their hands on M-16's?"

Pearson took a deep breath. "We think they brought them back from the war. With the way it's going right now, the winding down, they're not paying too much attention to who goes home with what. So we've been seeing an explosion of these rifles in the backwoods and up the hollers. That kinda firepower shuts people up real quick."

"So what you're saying is, it's only going to get worse before it gets better?"

"Who said it's gonna get better?" Pearson turned away and seemed to make up his mind. When he looked back, he seemed very troubled. "Steve, have you heard of the NRA?"

"The, ah, the National Rifle Association, right? Yeah, I heard of them but I don't know much about them. They represent hunters and target shooters, don't they?"

Pearson waffled before nodding his head. "Well, yeah, I guess. That's their, ah, mandate, I guess you could call it. I've been a member since I joined the force, but it was just somethin' you did, it wasn't something I passionately believed in, if you know what I mean.

"But over the past couple of years, I've been detecting some shit goin' on with them that I'm beginning not to like."

"What do you mean?"

Pearson took a pause and a deep breath. "It might just be me being paranoid, being a cop and all that, but I'm starting to hear some… rumblings, I guess you could say, that they want to get a little more political."

"More political? In what way?"

"You know the GCA?"

"The Gun Control Act? Yeah, of course."

"A good thing right, regulating the sale of guns across state lines and that kinda stuff, right?"

"Right, yeah."

"Well," Pearson said with a tired sigh, "the NRA is gearing up to try to have it repealed, or at least get it watered down." Ignoring Steve's suddenly wide eyes, he continued, "The NRA is moving to get politicians and other people in positions of power to kowtow to their agenda, and get the teeth removed from the GCA."

"How do they intend to do that?"

Pearson looked down at this coffee, both hands around the mug. "They've got a lot of money, Steve, a lot of money, and a lot of pissed off gun-owners out there who think that we're trying to take the guns and rifles out of their hands."

"That's insane." Steve shook his head, dumbfounded.

"To you and me, maybe, but there's an awful lot of people out there who don't see the world in quite the same way that we do. And I don't mean because we're cops, I mean as rationally thinking human beings." He picked up his coffee and took a sip, then made a face. "Ugh, cold." He chuckled.

Steve, who was staring at him, smiled briefly. "So, ah, what do you think we should do about it? The escalation, I mean."

Pearson shook his head. "Damned if I know. Personally, I'd like to see the possession and sale of these military type rifles completely banned to members of the general public, especially if they're fully automatic. But if we can't get the guns out of their hands, then we have to make sure we have equal firepower, right? At least make it a fairer fight, if not a fair one."

"But where does it end?"

The KSP sergeant shrugged, raising his eyebrows. "At this point, I don't think it does. And from what I can see happening right now, this is only the tip, and that iceberg is pretty damn big."

# # # # #

"Hey, where did you get to this morning?" Mike asked with a broad grin as Steve swung into the room on the crutches and dropped heavily into the yellow armchair.

"Sergeant Pearson and I went out for coffee and then he gave me a tour around the area. It's mighty pretty country, as they say around here." The subject of their conversation had remained on his mind, and as his eyes fell once more on the bulky bandages encasing his partner's shoulder, his smile disappeared and he almost couldn't suppress the shudder that suddenly overcame him.

If Mike noticed, he chose to say nothing. "Well, I went for a trip to the cafeteria with Rudy. I think I got the short end of the stick again." His laugh was infectious and Steve joined in. "But he had a great idea, Rudy did. He's invited everybody who's available to dinner tonight at a fancy restaurant, and he's even going to pick up the tab." Mike's eyebrows had climbed skyward.

Steve's face fell. "You're kidding? Rudy? Man, you must have put the screws to him to get him to pay for a dinner out for, what, at least six of us?" He leaned back with an appreciative grin as Mike stared at him innocently. "So, ah, they're gonna spring you for the evening?"

Mike nodded, grinning. "Yep, Dr. O'Neil says I'm good to go. But, ah, I guess we're not going anywhere too formal. I mean, you and I aren't going to be exactly dressed for a night on the town now, are we?"

"True," Steve agreed, "but then again, it could've been worse. We could've been naked!"

People passing in the hallway turned to stare at the door to the room with the raucous laughter.