Chapter 36 – The Neckredder's Revenge
A strict set of ethics governed Loneshark's actions. The undercover operative could have raised the pistol's sights toward the back of Bobby Joe's head and snapped Joe Bob's neck like a dry twig. Mick's personal code of conduct would never allow him to arbitrarily kill even the lowest form of human spawn. Such a deplorable act would have to be absolutely necessary to save his life or the life of someone else.
Pinewhittle, Colorado, regardless of its international fame and constant influx of tourists, remained a small town populated by less than five thousand local citizens. Since there was such a small population, a hospital had never been established in that valley. Patients in need of emergency treatment were either transported by ambulance or air-lifted to the nearest medical center, about seventy-five terrestrial miles from the tiny metropolis. There was a doctor in town as well as a substantially equipped infirmary located in the northern segment of the factory complex. That facility was the place where Pinewhittle's physician was summoned to meet and treat the Neckredder twins.
Joe Bob had lost consciousness when Mick slightly overextended the normal rotational range of his head. That evening he was awake. The only ill effect he was experiencing from the detective's manipulation of his cervical vertebrae was the condition of his head being locked in that awkward position of hyper-rotation, so his good eye was staring straight across his left shoulder. Joe Bob was laying on his back with his left hand cuffed to the hospital bed's raised side rail. His right eye was swiveling up and around, seeming from its active appearance to be engaged in the exercise of counting the holes in the ceiling tiles. The lesser Neckredder felt no pain. The doctor had taken x-rays of his neck, which showed no fractures. The physician then administered analgesics, anti-inflammatories, and muscle relaxers in hopes that Joe Bob's neck would loosen of its own volition and regain the ability to move his head through a normal range of motion. The only actual discomfort Joe Bob was suffering resulted from the fact that his left eye was forced to look directly into Bobby Joe's face, who was in the nearby bed and not exactly in the mood to exude brotherly love. Bobby Joe was laying on his right side with his right wrist cuffed to the bed rail. The cuffs' chain provided enough slack for the bigger brother to prop the side of his head on that hand. Bobby Joe's sore, swollen, and bandaged blimp of a left buttock was hovering in the air like a patched Hindenburg. The doctor had used a local anesthetic. He had probed for and plucked forth the small projectile, which had only penetrated the huge mass of fat and hardly touched the tough group of muscles underneath. Potent analgesics and antibiotics had been administered after the surgical procedure.
