House of the Rising Sun (Hackberry Holland 4)

“Hack, please,” Maggie said.

“He’s all right,” Atwood said. He set down the fork and pushed the plate to the edge of the table. “Here, let me wipe off the fork for you.”

“You ever shoot a man in a poker game?” Hackberry said. “When he was raking in his winnings and about to head for the cribs upstairs? If you want to park one in a man’s brisket, that’s the time to do it. But you’ve got to have the right rig to pull it off.”

“I don’t do things like that.”

“I bet you love your mother, too,” Hackberry said. He pulled the fork from Atwood’s hand and drove the tines through the man’s knuckles into the tablecloth and wood. Then he ripped Atwood’s sleeve to the elbow and removed the single-barrel .32 hideaway strapped under his forearm. Atwood’s face was white, blood trickling through his fingers, his mouth quivering with shock, his hand impaled like a monkey’s paw.

SOMETIMES IT WAS hard to turn it off. Hackberry pushed Atwood ahead of him into the street. The sky was laden with clouds that resembled smoke from an ironworks, swirling, unpredictable. “Walk to the jail,” he said. “Don’t look at me, either.”

He pushed Atwood again. When Atwood stumbled, Hackberry hit him across the head with the revolver and sent him sprawling in the mud.

“He’s no match for you, Hack. Please, this isn’t necessary,” he heard Maggie say. He felt her hands dig into his upper arm.

“I always thought you had pretty good taste in men. When did you take up with yellow-bellied back-shooters?” Atwood started to get up, but Hackberry kicked him again. “You stay where you’re at.”

“Hack,” Maggie said, shaking him. “Hack! Did you hear me? Get out of it. Look at me. I’m Maggie. I know you. I know every thought you have. You’re jealous and possessive. Now, stop what you’re doing.”

“Why are you with him?”

“Because I didn’t have any place to live. Because I don’t want to work in a whorehouse or teach children of ignorant cedar-cutters for thirty-five dollars a month in a mud-chink log house.”

“Sounds like the girl I used to know,” he said.

People had come out of the café and the saloon and the laundry, which always stayed open late, and were watching from the elevated concrete sidewalks inset with tethering rings. Hackberry picked up Atwood from a puddle and walked him off balance and stumbling to the jail. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cod Bishop, dressed in a crisp suit and bowler hat and a vest that looked like a cluster of wet dimes. “I saw all this, Holland,” Bishop said. “One day you’ll get your comeuppance. Your niggers will be of no help to you, either.”

“Hold that thought. I’ll be out in a minute,” Hackberry said.

He locked Atwood in a cell in the rear of the jail. When he came back out on the street, Cod Bishop was gone. Maggie was not.

“Legally, I’m still your wife,” she said. “That won’t change.”

“So call yourself my wife. In the meantime, I’ll call myself the king of Prussia.”

“Under Texas law, I own half of everything in your name.”

“Then you should hire yourself a lawyer, one with better thinking skills than Romulus Atwood.”

“I’ll make you a proposal. I’ll come back and be a good wife. You know everything there is to know about me. If we resume our marriage, there would be no surprises.”

“Really? I heard only recently you worked in Fannie Porter’s cathouse in San Antonio. Didn’t you want to tell me that on our wedding night?”

“You never visited there or a place like it?”

“Working in a hot-pillow joint is not all you did, Maggie. You sewed me to a mattress when I was drunk and damn near killed me with a horse quirt. I don’t think I’m up for a repeat on that.”

“That’s my point. You’ve seen the worst in me. I also remember a couple of things you seemed to like.”

“Your wealth of experience in the erotic arts is undeniable.”

“I didn’t hear you complain.”

“You’re a handful.” He paused. “So is a boa constrictor.”

“Does Ruby’s eye ever wander?”

“Don’t be talking about Ruby. She’s got nothing to do with this.”