The Crack in the Lens by Steve Hockensmith Page B

won’t be long ’fore they’re tryin’ to vote the whole county dry…and you know that don’t sit well out here. It’s got so there’s only two ways to line up: with Marshal Bales and them reformer types or with Sheriff Rucker and everybody else.”
    “And ‘everybody else’ thinks we’re in with Bales?” Old Red asked.
    Suicide looked confused. “Ain’t you? That’s what Ike Rucker’s been goin’ around sayin’. And everyone knows you and Bales used to be pals.”
    “Used to be is right. Now?” Gustav shook his head. “Milford don’t even enter into it, though. I ain’t here to help him. You know what really brought me back.”
    Suicide nodded slowly. “Sure. It ain’t like Gloomy Gus Amlingmeyer to leave a job undone. I can’t help you on that score, though. I don’t know anything more about it than I did five years—”
    “Put your gun on us,” Old Red cut in.
    “What?”
    Suicide’s Peacemaker was still in its scabbard, but Gustav put up his hands all the same.
    “Some feller just come over the hill behind you,” he said.
    I peeked past Suicide’s shoulder and spotted the man myself: another puncher, not a hundred yards off and headed our way fast.
    I put up my hands, too. “Looks like you got the drop on us, you wily devil.”
    Suicide finally got the idea and whipped out his artillery.
    “One more thing you oughta know, Gus,” he said, talking fast. “Bob Harris bought part of the Seven—that rocky patch that dips into Guadalupe County. Got himself a homestead and his own little herd, of sorts. You want answers, maybe you oughta look there.”
    As Suicide spoke, the hand behind him came galloping down the slope so fast it looked like he aimed to jump the fence. At the last moment, though, he reined up hard, and his horse kicked up dust and clods of dirt as it skidded to a stop mere inches from the wire.
    It sure made a statement, an entrance like that.
    I am a reckless halfwit .
    He was young, even by drovering standards—a true cow boy of perhaps fifteen, with wispy fair hair and apple cheeks and freckles he probably wished he could shave off like the whiskers he hadn’t yet sprouted. He was trying to scowl at us like a hard man, a real tough hombre, but the effect he achieved instead was more a gassy baby.
    “That them?” he said to Suicide.
    “Yup. Caught ’em skulkin’ around the wire here.”
    “Meddlin’ sons of bitches.” The kid caressed the grip of his gun—a Smith & Wesson .45 that bulged on his hip like a two-ton anchor tied to the side of a rowboat. “What should we do with ’em?”
    “I already gave ’em the lay of the land.” Suicide threw us a depressingly convincing sneer. “They know they ain’t welcome here—nor anywhere else outside town.”
    “We was just leavin’,” my brother said.
    “Yeah, you do that.” Freckles straightened up in his saddle, puffing himself up to what he fancied was man size. “Run on back to your streetlights and Bibles, and do it quick. Cuz the next time you get caught out here in the hills, you’ll be buried here. You get me?”
    It was a little much to take from a squirt who didn’t look any tougher than a slice of angel food cake. So I didn’t take it.
    “Alright, alright—don’t get your diapers in a bunch, junior.” I turned my back to him and started walking off toward the trees. “We’ll go and let you get back to playin’ cowboys and idjits.”
    When I led my mount from the thicket a moment later, I found Freckles waiting with his .45 drawn.
    “Why don’t you try that again, asshole?” he snarled menacingly—or would’ve if his voice hadn’t cracked. Still, his S&W was menace enough for me.
    “May I have your permission to flee in terror now?” I said. “Sir.”
    “That’s better,” the young puncher said. “Sure. Go. And don’t come back.”
    As I saddled myself, he kept the gun aimed so as best to remove what little brains I have.
    There was no way to thank Suicide or say a