Whistle Pass Read Online Free Page A

door opened a crack. He peered into the room.
    Harris, still clad in the wet clothes, was laid out crossways on the bed. Gabe pushed the door wide open. The man’s shoulders were off the mattress, his arms dangling in the air along with his head. The eyes were open in a blank stare. Gabe sucked in breath. “Oh shit. He’s dead.”
    He ran to Harris and grabbed the man to lift him onto the covers. Fingers clamped onto Gabe’s throat, choking off his ability to breathe. Gabe felt his eyes bulge out, his heart drum with terror.
    “You’ve got three seconds to tell me why you’re prowling around my room before I kill you.”
    He tried to respond, but words couldn’t rise past the lock on his throat. Little squeaks leaked out his mouth.
    Harris rolled around and sat on the edge of the bed. “You’re the hotel manager.” He turned Gabe loose. “What are you doing in here?”
    What Gabe really wanted to do in here was piss all over the floor and relieve the fear pulsing through him. He inhaled deeply, rubbing his throat. “I thought you were dead. I was just trying to help.”
    “Not outside the door you weren’t. I heard you out there. What do you want?”
    Realizing his hands were empty, feeling the ultimate fool, Gabe looked to the doorway. His cheeks and ears burned in embarrassment. The coat lay in a heap where he’d dropped it. “I was returning your coat to you. I had it cleaned.” He shuffled over and picked up the pea coat, patted off any invisible dirt that might have attached to it. “No charge. The Larson is only too pleased to….” Gabe looked at Harris, and the rest of his words trailed off, unspoken.
    Harris had slumped forward, chin on chest, his hands between his legs. The man was pale as unglazed porcelain. His fingers trembled, then shook violently. The tremors climbed his arms to his shoulders, to his chest, and found their way to his thighs and knees.
    “Mr. Harris?” Gabe closed the door and hung the coat and hanger on an iron hook screwed into the back of the door. “Mr. Harris?”
    The man’s entire body convulsed. Eyelids blinked in rapid succession. Teeth chattered.
    “What’s wrong with you?” But inside, he knew. Shellshock wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before. He heaved a breath and walked to the bed. There he threw the wet spread and top sheet to the floor. “Forgive me, Mr. Harris, but we’ve got to get you out of these wet clothes.”
    Gabe tugged off the ribbed T-shirt, the only shirt the man was wearing. He paused, open-mouthed, at the spectacle scarring the man’s shaking, muscled body. “What hell did you fight your way out of?” He gently lowered Harris to the bed.
    His vision traced the four-inch zippered scar between abdomen and ribcage—bayonet? Three small marks dotted the leathery skin—bullet wounds. Harris was a veteran. Had to be. But from which war? The world war, or Korea? Gabe chewed a lip. Did it really matter? Harris needed help, not dissection.
    He hurried to a vacant room and yanked off the spread and top sheet. In 412, he lightly tucked the ends under the mattress. He untied and removed Harris’s boots. They weighed a ton. Definitely not like any available around Whistle Pass. He grabbed the socks and stared, impressed, as he pulled them off. The wool socks were bone dry.
    He leaned his head back and looked at the ceiling, unsure if he could or should proceed further. A soot cobweb swayed from the plaster. He frowned. Arlene, the upper floors housemaid, wasn’t doing her job as he required it be done. He’d have to talk with her about this. Cobwebs, insect or coal-furnace created, were completely unacceptable in the rooms. Gabe rolled his eyes and moaned.
    Though Arlene needed a talking to, she had nothing to do with the current dilemma. He dropped his gaze to the quivering body in front of him, the thin layer of chest hair cascading to the navel, breaking the flow, then reforming to a singular trail of fur that disappeared beneath the