Northern Lights

cuffed in under ten seconds.
    "Hey!" was the best the reigning champ could manage.
    "Give me grief, and you'll sit in a cell for resisting arrest, among other things. Peter, bring that one over to the station when he wakes up."
    With no apparent loyalty, the crowd shifted its support to Nate with catcalls and whistles as he muscled Jim Mackie toward the door.
    Nate paused when he saw Charlene ease out of the kitchen. "You looking to press charges?" he asked her.
    She stared, finally blinked. "I . . . well, hell, I don't know. Nobody's ever asked me that before. What kind of charges?"
    "They broke some stuff back there."
    "Oh. Well, they always pay for it after. But they did run off a couple of tourists who were going to order lunch."
    "Bill started it."
    "Oh now, Jim, you both start it. Every time. I've told you I don't want you coming in here fighting and causing a ruckus that runs people off. I don't want to press charges exactly. I just want this nonsense to stop. And payment for damages."
    "Got it. Let's go sort this out, Jim."
    "I don't see why I have to—"
    Nate solved the matter by pushing him out into the cold.
    "Hey, Christ's sake, I need my gear."
    "Deputy Notti will bring it. Get in the car, or stand here and get frostbite. Up to you." He yanked the door open, gave Jim a heave inside.
    Once Nate was behind the wheel, Jim had recovered some dignity, despite the bleeding mouth and puffy eye. "I don't think this is the way to treat people. It ain't right."
    "I don't think it's right to coldcock your brother when somebody's holding his arms."
    Jim had the grace to look chagrined, and dipped his chin onto his chest."I was caught up. Heat of the moment. And the son of a bitch pissed me off. You're that Outsider's come to be chief of police, aren't you?"
    "You're a quick study, Jim."
    Jim sulked during the short drive to the station house. Then he trudged along as Nate took him inside.
    "Lower 48 here," he said the minute he spotted Otto and Peach, "he doesn't understand how things are done in Lunacy."
    "Why don't you explain it all to him?" There was a light in Otto's eyes. It might've been glee.
    "Need the first-aid kit. Step into my office, Jim."
    Nate led him in, pushed him into a chair, then, after unhooking one of the cuffs, snapped it onto the arm of the chair.
    "Aw, come on. If I was going anywhere, I could just take this little dink of a chair with me."
    "Sure you could. Then I'd add stealing police property to the mix."
    Jim sulked some more. He was a bony man of about thirty, with a shaggy mop of brown hair, a narrow face sunken at the cheeks. His eyes were brown, with the left puffing up nicely from one of those shortarmed punches. His lip was split and continued to dribble blood.
    "I don't like you," he decided.
    "That's not against the law. Disturbing the peace, destroying property, assault. Those are."
    " 'Round here, a man wants to pound on his fool of a brother, it's his business."
    "Not anymore. 'Round here, these days, a man's going to show respect for private property, and public property. He's going to show respect for duly designated officers of the law."
    "Peter? That little shithead."
    "That's Deputy Shithead now."
    Jim blew a sighing breath that had blood spitting out along with the air. "Christ's sake, I've known him since before he was born."
    "When he's wearing a badge, and he tells you to settle down, you settle, whether or not you've known him in vitro."
    Jim managed to look both interested and baffled. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about."
    "I get that." He glanced over as Peach came in.
    "Got the first-aid kit and an ice pack." She flipped the ice pack to Jim, set the kit on the desk in front of Nate. Then she fisted her hands on her hips. "Jim Mackie, you just don't grow any smarter, do you?"
    "It was Bill started it." Flushing, he pressed the ice pack to his bleeding lip.
    "So you say. Where is Bill?"
    "Peter's bringing him along," Nate said. "When he wakes up."
    Peach sniffed. "Your mother's likely to blacken your other eye when
    she has to bail you out." With that prediction, she walked out, snapped the door closed.
    " Jeez! You're not going to put me in jail for punching my own brother."
    "I could. Maybe I'll cut you some slack, seeing as this is my first day on the job." Nate leaned back. "What were you fighting about?"
    "Okay, listen to this." Gearing up for his own defense, Jim slapped his hands on his knees. "That brainless jackass said how Stagecoach was the