Courageous by Randy Alcorn

kivvered with mud. I slipped this morning and liketa broke my neck.”
    “Uh-huh.” Adam had never met the folksy side of Brad Bronson. It unnerved him.
    Bronson pushed hard on his neck, which made an alarmingly loud cracking sound. “Too bad about Henderson.”
    “Yeah.”
    Bronson’s thoughts jumped like a rock skipping across choppy water. He’d never met a transitional sentence he liked. “You ever have to deal with that Koos woman?”
    The swift switch of topics startled Adam. “Diane Koos? The PIO?”
    “Why did they put a civilian over sworn-in cops? Makes no sense.”
    “She’s not really over us. She was hired by the sheriff to help us with some of our PR problems. He decided to hire outside the department for a change to send the message we aren’t covering anything up.”
    Bronson stared at him. “You think I don’t know that?”
    “Well, you—”
    “That Koos woman worked ten years for television news!” He said it like she’d spent her life selling crack to preschoolers. Bronson revved his cement mixer, then spit on the locker room floor. Adam’s eyes didn’t follow. He didn’t need a memory of any fluid that came out of Bronson’s body.
    “I know,” Adam said. “She lobbied for Shane’s reprimand for failing to warn a runaway perp before tasing him.”
    “And he got the reprimand, which means she is over us—or may as well be. She knows jack about being a cop. And she has the sheriff’s ear. Walks around in spiky shoes that hurt her feet, then takes it out on us. She was out to get me when she was a journalist, and she’s still putting the heat on me.”
    “Something you said?” Adam suggested. “Or does this have anything to do with the guy at the Albany mall you head-butted into unconsciousness?”
    “That’s just an excuse,” Bronson said.
    “You have to admit it’s a pretty good excuse.”
    “The perp was a power lifter. On steroids and crack. They act like he was a one-legged pacifist grandma with the flu.”
    “Well, what can you do about it? I mean, other than not head-butt people at the mall.”
    “The Koos keeps it up and I’m gonna break her broom in half.”

    Derrick Freeman entered his grandmother’s tiny apartment after midnight. When he opened the door, a light turned on. A frail white-haired woman stood waiting in the tiny living room. The deep lines in her face showed worry and fear.
    “You been drinkin’, Derrick.”
    “No, Gramma.”
    “Don’t lie to me, boy. I smell the alcohol from here. And I saw the boys you were with. I’ve seen ’em before. You know how I feel about the gangs!”
    “Yeah, I know.”
    “You’re a smart boy, one of the smartest at your school. I work two jobs so you’ll be able to go to college. I don’t work so that you can flush it all down the toilet.”
    “You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
    “ I don’t know what I’m talkin’ about? I’ve been alive four times longer than you have, boy. I know all about gangs. I saw them take down your daddy before you even got to know him. Your brother was next. You think it doesn’t break my heart every day for Keishon to be doin’ time? It started like this, hangin’ around with the gangsters; then he got beat in. Then they owned him and took him down.”
    “That’s not what happened, Gramma. And he’s not dead; he’s in Georgia State Prison. He’ll be out in a few years.”
    “You were what, fourteen, so you know how it went down? And you think everything will be fine when he gets out? Those boys are Gangster Nation, aren’t they? They makin’ you feel important? They just wanna suck you in. They get you to do drugs, then push drugs, make dirty money, hurt innocent people. You steal for them, you belong to them. God didn’t make you to be nobody’s slave, boy. White man’s or black’s.”
    “That’s not how it is. They’re my friends, my brothers.”
    “You’ll find out what they are when it’s too late. They go after kids who are