The Shasta Caper, Chapter Ten is now posted on Imagination blogger

Chapter Ten

WHAM!

Samuel sidestepped the bullet as easily as if he it were his dancing partner. The bullet passed him and struck a passenger in his chest, who had stood up in confusion and fright. 

Jimbo was on the Tall Man before he could fire again and took him down, binding his arms behind him with plastic, then tying his arms to his legs.

"My husband is dying!" Screamed a panicked passenger, throwing herself down on her elderly husband to comfort him. 

Samuel ran to the fallen passenger and pressed his hand to the wound on his chest, where blood was flowing freely. The man was in his late sixties, and not likely to survive such a traumatic event, but Samuel did not give up on him. He allowed the spiritual energy in his soul to flow forth through his hand and into the man's wound. The man was in so much pain that all he could do was moan at first, but then he began to grow silent.

Passengers gathered around to watch and were in awe as they saw the wound begin to close at the same time as a beautiful green glow emitted from Samuel's palm to surround the man's chest. The man's eyes closed.

The woman screamed and began to weep at her loss.

Samuel put a hand on her shoulder. "He's alive."

She gave him a look of total disbelief, then when her husband opened his eyes and said, "Damn! That really hurt, Mabel. What's all the noise about?"

He sat up and the passengers broke into applause and cheers.

Samuel rose and they cheered even more. He got claps on the back, handshakes, and kisses from the women. He smiled, but walked away from the attention back to where Jimbo held the captive murderer.

Samuel looked at the man and shook his head. 

"How in the hell did you dodge my bullet?" The Tall Man demanded. "I shot you point blank!"

"Let's just say an old friend showed me how." Samuel said, then helped Jimbo throw the man onto a couch in the business section.

The jet turned around and landed back at McCarran. 

Before the reporters could latch onto  Jimbo and Samuel, or the curious police, Jimbo had them on a different jet, a straight flight and they made up their lost time and arrived, tired and beat, but safe and sound.

As they got off the Jet Blue passenger plane, a Texan even bigger than Jimbo stepped up from a side seating and swore till he was blue in the face, then stopped before them and gave Jimbo a big hug, then Samuel.

Jason smiled at Samuel. "Don't take it personal, we're a friendly bunch."

"Friendly, hell, brother. You're just glad you get to go home and sleep while we solve your problems."

"You mean...your problems." Jacob told Jimbo.

Jacob talked to them all the way out to his Texas red four by four. They rode silently for about ten minutes, then Jacob let it all out.

"It's the strangest damned thing, Jimbo. This guy I've never seen before, comes onto our ranch, steals the horses, then comes back to be shot. Doesn't make a damned bit of sense."

"I should never have let you have the use of my weapons." Jimbo growled.

"Hell, Jimmie. If you hadn't, we'd have torn him apart limb from limb with our bare hands."

Samuel laughed. "Okay, okay, now can we have the truth here."

Jacob looked at Samuel. "Can't I ever pull anything over on you, Sammie?"

Samuel waited.

"Actually, it wasn't a man, it was some kind of alien."

Samuel waited.

"All right. All right. A coyote got one of the horses."

Samuel continued to wait.

Jacob threw his hands up in frustration and if Jimbo hadn't grabbed the wheel the next moment they'd have run off the road.

"Thanks." Jacob said, then took the wheel back. "Samuel, we got a serious problem we need help with."

"What this time?" Samuel asked.

"And it better be good, because we have a case we're hot to solve."

"Oh, it's good all right. You remember Granddaddy's old outhouse. The three seater?"

"Yeah."

"It's haunted!"

Samuel broke into laughter.