The Crack in the Lens by Steve Hockensmith Page A

again.
    “You think we’re bein’—?”
    “ Yes . Now get outta sight, goddammit.”
    “What about you?”
    “I’ll draw ’em out, you cut ’em down. Now go!”
    There was no use arguing—and no time for it, either. Whoever was behind us would round the curve of the hill any second.
    Off to the east, about thirty feet from the wire, was a tangle of trees and brush. I hopped off my horse, tugged her into the shady chaparral, and wrapped the reins around a low-hanging branch. Then I filled my hand with iron.
    Old Red, meanwhile, just sat there, slump-shouldered, both hands on the saddle horn, looking as relaxed as any hand lollygagging between chores. If it was Death he was facing, he’d meet it like an old friend.
    A moment later, our shadow came galloping around the hill: one man on horseback, on the Lucky Seven side of the wire.
    I squinted down the barrel of my Peacemaker.
    “Suicide!” Gustav shouted. It looked like he was committing just that, too, for he sat up straight, making a nice big target of himself with his Colt still holstered.
    The man slowed his horse and came toward Old Red at a trot. With his big brush-popper chaps, coiled rope, and general air of dirt-caked grit, he could be nothing but a puncher. An old hand, by the look of him—he might have been as ancient as twenty-nine or thirty.
    If he reached for a gun, I’d see to it he never got any older.
    “Hey, Gus,” the cowboy said. He reined up near the fence. “You mind tellin’ your brother he can leave my head on my shoulders?”
    “Sure, sure. Come on out, Otto! Suicide’s a friend.”
    That last word—“friend”—seemed to poke the drover like a pin-prick, and a little wince puckered his tanned face.
    “That ain’t an easy thing to be these days, Gus,” Suicide said. He greeted me with a nod as I stepped from the thicket. “You two ain’t very popular around here. In fact, I shouldn’t even be talkin’ to you. We got orders to run you off if you come around.”
    “Joe Koska’s still straw boss, is he?” Old Red said.
    “Yeah, and he ain’t forgot how you said good-bye to him.” Suicide coughed out a grunt that might’ve been a chuckle under happier circumstances. “That ain’t the all of it, though. The Circle B, the Lazy Diamond, the Slash—they’re all closed up to you. You won’t find a hand in the county who won’t spit in your eye.”
    “Well, there’s one ,” I pointed out. I was up to the fence by then, and I stretched an arm over the wire. “Otto Amlingmeyer. Big Red to friends.”
    Suicide leaned down for a reluctant handshake. “I know who you are—and I’d be spittin’ at you, too, if any of the boys was around.” He gave my brother a miserable shrug. “Sorry, Gus, but I gotta get by around here.”
    “It wasn’t just luck it was you who spotted us, was it?” Old Red said.
    Suicide nodded. “I’ve been ‘roundin’ up strays’ over here all morning. Figured you’d come this way sooner or later.”
    “Well, there you go.” My brother waved the puncher’s shame away with a single swipe of the hand. “So…what’s got everyone so riled?”
    “That ruckus y’all kicked up at the Phoenix, for one thing. There were hands from all the big spreads there last night, so word’s got ’round fast about it.”
    “Why would anyone hold that against us?” I said. “Fellers must be raisin’ hell at the Phoenix all the time.”
    “Not fellers like you.”
    “What’s different about us?” Gustav asked.
    Suicide took in a deep breath. He looked like a man who’s been asked to tell a long, sad story he’d just as soon forget.
    “Look, Gus—things have changed since you been gone. Before, there was a little chafin’ between San Marcos and us out here in the country. Now everything’s rubbed raw. A bunch of them townsfolk went and got religion—the hellfire and damnation, no whorin’, no drinkin’ kind—and closin’ down the Golden Eagle won’t be enough for that bunch. It