Don't Poke the Bear! (an Emmett Love Western) Read online

  Don’t Poke the Bear!

  (an Emmett Love Western – Volume 2)

  by

  John Locke

  As of this date of publication…

  John Locke’s Follow the Stone is the #1 Western on Amazon/Kindle and has continuously been the #1 Western for more than three months!

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  DON’T POKE THE BEAR!

  Special Kindle Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  Copyright © 2011 by John Locke. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Cover Designed by: Telemachus Press, LLC

  Cover Art :

  Copyright © istockphoto 2114178/Royer

  Copyright © istockphoto 14444555/Avesun

  Published by: Telemachus Press, LLC

  http://www.telemachuspress.com

  Visit the author website: http://www.LethalBooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-935670-73-5 (eBook)

  ISBN: 978-1-935670-76-6 (Paperback)

  Version 2011.05.26

  If You Like Don’t Poke the Bear! You Will Love Now & Then!

  Go back in time and follow Rose as a precocious ten-year-old, as she guards the first generation of Donovan Creed and Emmett Love’s ancestors!

  John Locke

  New York Times Best Selling Author

  #1 Best Selling Author on Amazon Kindle

  Donovan Creed Series:

  Lethal People

  Lethal Experiment

  Saving Rachel

  Wish List

  Now & Then

  A Girl Like You

  Vegas Moon

  Emmett Love Series:

  Follow the Stone

  Don’t Poke the Bear

  What the Critics are Saying About the Donovan Creed Series:

  Author John Locke only improves, like an aged wine. John Locke's writing draws you in. You fall in love again on every page, and it is never predictable. Except that I am always left satisfied.”

  “I have devoured everything John Locke has written, and I’m having the time of my life! He is funny and creative and I can't think of anyone else I'd rather read to get away from it all!”

  (Saving Rachel)“If Dean Koontz collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock at the circus, this would be their brain child!”

  “Saving Rachel transcends ordinary storytelling into a class of genius!”

  (Wish List) “Hooked is what you will be after reading this novel! Hooked for life is what you will be if you read the Donovan Creed series! Hooked so badly I check the store every day just waiting for the next book in this series!”

  (Wish List) “An excellent vehicle for John Locke's technicolorful characters and manically paced plot lines. Another great read for folks who love to read for fun.”

  (A Girl Like You)"When I heard Locke had a new book I hit that link to Amazon and bought that sucker as fast as I could. I walked a block to the nearest WiFi hotspot and it was on my Kindle! I read the first third of this book during lunch and devoured the rest that evening. Talk about getting your money's worth!”

  (A Girl Like You) “I just wish I hadn't plowed through it all in one afternoon. I couldn't find a good stopping place so I could set the book down—I just kept reading because I was dying to know what would happen next!”

  "Vegas Moon" gave me blisters on my page-turning thumb!”

  “VEGAS MOON is a tightly plotted story that, as in all of John Locke's books, keeps the pages flipping rapid-fire. There's a superb twist at the end. However, it's not the plotting that keeps readers flocking to the Creed series. It's the imagination and humor of John Locke.”

  (Vegas Moon) “This was my 7th Locke book and I am still in love with his writing as much as I was when I read the first page of the first one. Just amazing. It left me on the edge of my seat, I couldn’t read fast enough. Put it down?? I don’t think so!”

  “Lethal People stands out as a brazenly smart thriller that’s hip and quick. Locke’s descriptions pop with a wit and flair that keep the pages turning. It’s a fun read that knows when to take itself seriously.”

  “Lethal People is flooded with twists, unexpected characters and action…A page-turner.”

  (Lethal Experiment) “I give 5 stars to all John Locke books, but would give 6 stars to this one if I could. Not only is it a page-turning thriller, it's the kind of book that forces the reader to have an opinion. I read the whole thing on the beach in an afternoon—couldn't put it down!”

  (Lethal Experiment)“I have never been so thrilled by a mystery crime novel! Donovan Creed grips the reader’s attention and the plot is a delight to an action fan! Conflicted characters, twists and turns—I just loved this book! Just could not stop turning the pages!”

  (Now & Then) “This book had me truly stunned from beginning to end. What starts off as a modern mystery story ends up being the story of a rare gift passed down through generations. To describe this book as unusual is an understatement: it is by far the wildest mystery novel I have encountered!”

  (Now & Then) “I just finished ‘Wish List', also by John Locke, and jumped right into this on a plane ride for business. (Upon landing) I was throbbing with adrenaline and actually sat in the boarding area to finish a section. Great fun!”

  The Emmett Love Series is

  #1 in Westerns on Amazon Kindle!

  What the Critics are Saying:

  (Follow the Stone) “Butch Cassidy Meets City Slickers! Uproariously funny! Not since Lonesome Dove have I had so much fun reading a Western. Highly recommended!”

  (Follow the Stone) “Entirely original and intriguing. Fast, funny, furious—but also charming, interesting, and 100% unputdownable!”

  (Don’t Poke the Bear!) “The characters and dialogue sparkle, and the story unfolds a mile a minute. It's a tremendously amusing tale.”

  (Don’t Poke the Bear!) “You won't want this story to ever end...unique characters, heartwarming moments, suspense, humor, this book has it all.”

  (Don’t Poke the Bear!)“Picture if you can...Jason Bourne and Monty Python do Dodge. I give it 5 hearty pokes!”

  New York Times Best Selling Author

  John Locke has sold

  more than 1,000,000 eBooks

  …by word of mouth!

  Thank you!

  To learn more about John Locke,

  visit his website:
/>   http://www.DonovanCreed.com

  Acknowledgments

  This book is dedicated to the OOU’s, the most loyal fan base any author could have! If you’re an OOU it means you’ve read all the Donovan Creed books and all the Emmett Love books, and you’ve signed up on my website to receive updates and information, and you probably even follow my author blog at http://www.donovancreed.com.

  It means you’re One of Us, and we’ve corresponded, and your opinion matters a great deal to me. It means we’re in this writing adventure together, as partners and friends, and it means I’ll work hard to continue earning your trust by writing stories that make you smile, while staying true to the characters who have become your friends.

  “Bless the beasts and the children, give them shelter from the storm;

  Keep them safe, keep them warm.”

  --Barry DeVorzon and Perry Botkin, Jr.

  Performed by The Carpenters

  Don’t Poke the Bear!

  PROLOGUE

  September 16, 1961

  ALL THAT WAS known about Scarlett Rose Coulter, 99, is that her possessions included a bible and two wooden signs. The bible had been a present from her mother, Gentry, to mark the occasion of Scarlett’s first birthday.

  Scarlett had been a resident of the Caring Hearts Nursing Home six years before anyone knew she could smile, or even speak, for that matter.

  When she spoke, it was only once.

  An orderly bumped up against her by accident and Scarlett jabbed her hat pin two inches into his thigh.

  “What the fuck?” he screamed.

  “Don’t poke the bear!” she said.

  “What?”

  Her impassive face began to twitch. Her eyes brightened. An ear to ear smile slowly worked its way across her face. The kind of smile that takes twenty years off a woman’s looks in the blink of an eye. She took a deep breath, lifted her head, and yelled, “Don’t poke the bear!”

  “You a crazy motherfucker!” the orderly yelled. He reared back, as if to strike her, thought better about it, grabbed his thigh, and limped away at a quick pace.

  Scarlett Rose watched his retreat with great amusement. She looked around the commons room, noted the shocked, ancient faces staring back at her…and started chuckling. The chuckling turned to laughter, and for the next thirty seconds she laughed harder than anyone remembered hearing a person laugh. And right in the middle of her heartiest laugh, she died.

  With a smile on her face.

  Fifty years have passed since that day, but people in the nursing home still talk about it. Not the ones who were there, of course, but the children who took their parents’ places.

  1.

  DODGE CITY, KANSAS, 1861, is a windy, dusty-ass town. It’s worse in the summer months, but even now, early April, it’s a mess. It’s evenin’, and there’s a chill in the air, so everyone in the main room of my saloon, The Lucky Spur, notices when the door opens.

  I’m in the back of the buildin’, diggin’ a hole in the open area by the kitchen like I’ve been doin’ every day for the past three weeks. It’s back-breakin’ work, made easier by my Chinese helper, Wing Ding. I’ll tell you right off, Wing Ding ain’t his actual name, but that’s what someone called him years ago, and for some reason he liked it then, and likes it still. I reckon I’d shoot the first man who called me Wing Ding, and let the rest of ’em scatter. But I’ll call a good man by any name he chooses.

  So I’m in the hole, six feet deep, diggin’ for seven.

  “Got another one for you, Wing,” I say.

  Wing’s got the hard job. He has to pull the bucket up, untie it, drop me another one, then haul the dirt forty paces away. By the time he gets back, I’ll have the next bucket filled.

  “He does that all day?” Burt Bagger asks.

  “We take turns. Tomorrow’s my day to haul.”

  Burt runs the local paper. For now, my jail hole seems to be the biggest news in town.

  “The ground’s hard from all that snow last month. Digging and hauling has got to hurt your backs.”

  “It does for a fact.”

  I don’t know what sort of liniment Wing Ding uses. I only know he don’t want any part a’ mine. He ain’t said as much, but I think it’s because my witchy friend, Rose, gave it to me before headin’ back to Springfield last October.

  Burt watches Wing carry the bucket out the door. Then says, “Does he talk?”

  “Not much,” I say. “And when he does, I can’t understand a word of it. But strangely, he seems to understand everythin’ I say.”

  “Odd.”

  Not to me. I’m used to workin’ with folks that don’t talk much. My best friend Shrug is said to be a talker, but I traveled with him more’n two years and never heard him speak, though he’s an uncommon good whistler.

  “I understand there’s talk that the town might be willing to pay you a dollar a week for the use of your jail hole,” he says.

  “You think?”

  I finish fillin’ the bucket, then put my hands behind my hips and lean back to stretch out my knotted muscles.

  “I never heard of an indoor jail hole,” Burt says. “My readers will want to know the benefits.”

  I seriously doubt the few people in town who read the Dodge City Gazette will care much about my indoor jail, nor the reasons for it. But when there ain’t much to write about, I suppose you make do with what you’ve got.

  For the benefit of Burt’s readers I explain this’ll be a good place to keep drunks till they sober up. Like most towns, Dodge has no real jail, so you’ll find a couple outdoor holes here and there where people can be tossed for a night and pulled out later.

  I don’t care much for outdoor jail holes. Innocent people can fall in at night, and break their necks. You can cover ’em up, but if you cover ’em too tight, the men inside can suffocate. If you cover ’em in a way the prisoners can breathe, their friends can use a horse and rope to drag the cover off and set ’em free.

  There’s more problems.

  If the hole’s too shallow, them that’s in it can climb out. If it’s too deep, you can get seepage weeks later, and that can fill a hole in an hour’s time. Of course, a big rain can drown a drunk, too. I’ve known drunks to drown both ways in an outdoor jail hole.

  “How many will it hold at one time?” he asks.

  “I can squeeze four in here, if they don’t mind beatin’ hell out of each other.”

  “Once in, looks like they’ll stay put.”

  “They should,” I say.

  Before diggin’ the hole, I cut a six-foot square out of my wood floor and fastened three iron hinges to it, and a rod to bolt it shut.

  “The roof overhead’ll keep ’em dry,” he says.

  “That’s the plan,” I say, endin’ the interview.

  Burt never asked, but Gentry don’t like the hole bein’ near the kitchen. She says the prisoners’ll piss and shit in it for spite, and that’ll stink up the whole kitchen and make it unsanitary. I figure to treat my prisoners well enough to discourage it. Gentry says you can’t reason with a drunk, and she ought to know. She’d been whorin’ five years when I met her last September, at which time she’d just turned seventeen.

  I never shot a man for shittin’, but reckon I would, if it upset Gentry enough.

  I don’t think it’ll come to that, because I have plans to contain the smell. First, my prisoners’ll have a bucket to do their business in. Second, when no one’s in the hole, I’ve got a large piece of wood that’ll lay flush against the openin’. And I haven’t told Gentry this, but I’m plannin’ to build a wall around my jail hole, after the lumber man fetches his next load from St. Joe.

  The sound of many voices in the main room tells me it’s time to quit diggin’ and get to work. I give Wing Ding the last bucket to dump, and while he’s haulin’ it away, I climb out of the hole and shuck my duds right there on the kitchen floor. Then I take ’em outside, shake ’em, bring ’em back inside, and hang ’em on a peg by the do
or. Then I get the basin of water from the counter, take it outside, and pour it over my head and body. I hear hootin’ and hollerin’ from the landin’ above me, turn, and see two of our whores up there smokin’ pipes.

  I bend over and give ’em a vertical smile, which gets ’em all worked up with laughter. Then I go back inside, slick my hair, and put on my hat and night clothes. I get about three feet into the main room when a one-eyed whore named Mary Burns comes struttin’ into the main room like a Tennessee Walker with ginger up its butt. Mary sashays up to the bar, tosses back a shot of rye, puts her hands on her hips and shouts, “Who wants a free poke?”

  “I do!” says Charlie Stallings.

  “Then c’mere, handsome!” Mary says.

  Charlie’s seventeen, new to the ways of whores. He jumps up from his chair at the card table, takes a few steps, turns back for his hat, picks it up, but don’t seem to know what to do with it. Finally he puts it on his head and walks up to Mary and says, “A free poke? No shit?”