House of the Rising Sun (Hackberry Holland 4)

“I don’t like to speak them kind of words, suh.”

“Thank you for telling me, Markus.”

“Marshal Holland, you ain’t listening. I seen him put his hand under the bar like he was checking something.”

“Check what?”

“Suh, I don’t want to borrow trouble.”

“Go down to the sheriff’s office and tell him what you told me.”

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to go home.”

“That would be fine, too. Is your family all right?”

“Yes, suh, they surely are.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Then the black man was gone and Hackberry was left alone with his thoughts and the sound of the rain on the roof, his holster creaking against his side when he straightened his leg to ease the discomfort from an old bullet wound, one that either the season or circumstance had a way of giving new life.

HACKBERRY REENTERED THE saloon and stood with one foot on the rail at the back end of the bar, his left hand resting on top of it. As Markus the saloon swamper had said, Atwood was acting as a substitute bartender, reading the newspaper, disengaged, glancing up occasionally at the rain blowing on the front windows.

“Give me a beer and an egg,” Hackberry said.

Atwood filled a mug from the tap and broke a raw egg in it and set the mug on the bar. “You calling it a night?”

“Not quite. You got a clear look through the preacher’s window?”

“A show like that? What do you think?”

“Ruby has a tattoo on her shoulder.”

“Then she must have a twin sister, because the woman I saw had a body as pink and unmarked as a baby’s butt.”

“Thought I had you,” Hackberry said. He drank the beer to the bottom, swallowing the egg yolk, his eyes lingering on Atwood’s.

Atwood laughed to himself.

“Something funny?” Hackberry said.

“Maggie always said you were a smart man, the way you read Charles Darwin and encyclopedias and such.”

“She overestimated me.”

“You said it, I didn’t.”

“I’m slow on the uptake, Dr. Atwood. You have to he’p me here.”

“You’re right, the girl you live with—Miss Ruby, that is—has got a tattoo on her left shoulder. It’s a rose, I believe. Bright red.”

Hackberry rubbed his face with his palm. “I’m going over to my office and write up a report on your solicitation to commit murder. A warrant for your arrest will probably be issued by tomorrow afternoon.”

“You take a mean revenge on a man who merely offered to buy a lady a train ticket, Mr. Holland. I guess that’s the plight of a cuckold. If the woman strays, it’s usually because she’s not getting what she needs at home. Must be hard to live with.”

“Could I have one of those peppermints in that jar on the shelf?”

“Bill saves those for ragamuffins.”