In the Moon of Red Ponies (Billy Bob Holland 4)

“I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” I said.

“It won’t do any good,” she replied.

Moments later she was asleep. I lay in the darkness with my eyes open a long time. We had a wonderful home in Montana, one hundred and twenty acres spread up both sides of a dirt road that traversed timber, meadowland, and knobbed hills. It was an enclave where distant wars and images of oil smoke on desert horizons seemed to have no application.

Why put it at risk for Johnny American Horse?

I heard a vehicle on the road, I supposed one of the few neighbors living up the valley from us. But a moment later I heard the same vehicle again, then a third time, as though the driver were lost.

I put on my slippers and went into the living room. Through the window I could see a paint-skinned pickup truck with slat sides stopped on the road and a man in a snow-white Stetson, a long-sleeved canary-yellow shirt, and tight jeans leaning on our railed fence, studying the front of our house.

I went back into the bedroom, slipped on my khakis and boots, then stopped in the hallway to put on my hat and leather jacket. In the living room I removed a .30–30 Winchester from the gun rack. Every firearm in our house was kept loaded, although no round was ever in the chamber. I heard Temple behind me. “What’s wrong?” she said.

“It’s Wyatt Dixon,” I replied.

I stepped out on the gallery and levered a round into the Winchester’s chamber. Wyatt positioned his hat on the back of his head, the way Will Rogers often did, so that his face was bathed in moonlight. I steadied the rifle against a post and aimed just to the left of his shoulder and pulled the trigger.

The bullet struck rock on the opposite hillside and whined away in the shadows with a sound like a tightly wrapped guitar string snapping free from the tuning peg.

Wyatt looked behind him curiously, then scratched a match on a fencepost and cupped the flame to a cigar stub clenched between his teeth. He flicked the dead match into our yard.

I ejected the spent casing and sighted again. This time I blew a spray of wood splinters out of the fence rail. I saw Wyatt touch his cheek, then look at his hand and wipe it on his jeans.

My third shot blew dirt out of the road six inches from his foot. I started to eject the spent casing, but Temple grabbed the barrel and pushed it down toward the gallery railing.

“Either put the gun away or give it to me,” she said.

“Why?”

“He knows you won’t kill him. He knows I will,” she replied.

I put my arm around her shoulder. She was wearing only her nightgown and her back was shaking with cold. “To hell with Wyatt Dixon,” I said.

We went back inside and closed the door. Through the window I saw him get inside his truck and puff his cigar alight. Then he started the engine and drove away.

“Billy Bob?” Temple said.

“What?”

“You’re unbelievable. You shoot at somebody, then say to hell with him,” she said.

“What’s unusual about that?”

She laughed. “Come back to bed. You know any cures for insomnia?” she said.

THE NEXT MORNING was Friday. Fay Harback was in my office just after 8 A.M. “Where do you get off sending your wife into a suspect’s hospital room?” she said.

“It’s a free country,” I replied.

“This isn’t rural Bumfuck. You don’t get to make up your own rules.”

“Have you charged Ruggles yet?” I said.

“None of your business.”

“I’m getting a bad feeling on this one.”

“About what?” she said.