House of the Rising Sun (Hackberry Holland 4)

“They’re restoring it, Arnold,” Maggie said.

“It’s Sunday. Why would anyone be working on it today? I’m a bit tired of that bunch, anyway. They used the power of the church to challenge the title to my land. I had to cede them fifty acres along the riverside to keep what was already mine. Tell me the clerics don’t know how to make the eagle scream.”

“Ishmael doesn’t want to shoot. Leave him alone.”

“You don’t want to shoot?” Beckman said.

“Another time.”

“That’s the way it was in the trenches?” Beckman said. “Let’s take a bloody vote on it? Wait until the weather is nicer? Fritz might be sleeping in?”

“Not quite,” Ishmael said.

“I’ll be fucked if I see trucks or workmen there. What is it, four hundred yards? You think this .45 automatic will travel that far?”

“Arnold, behave,” Maggie said.

“I’m sure Mr. Holland has an opinion. Do you have an opinion, Mr. Holland?”

“Don’t wave that around,” she said.

“This is perhaps Mr. Browning’s best creation. Think it might reach the mission, wake up a few Irish immigrants who are probably drunk or dozing on the job?”

“Arnold, I mean it. Stop the histrionics before you hurt someone,” Maggie said, pushing Beckman’s wrist down.

“I’d like to try the Krag, Mr. Beckman,” Ishmael said, picking up the rifle, working the leather sling around his left forearm.

“You worry over nothing. Watch,” Beckman said. He pointed the .45 in the direction of the mission and pulled the trigger seven times, his wrist bucking, the ejected shells bouncing on the table. “See? No one even noticed. People are being killed all over the world at this very moment. It isn’t being written about or filmed, so it doesn’t exist. The British sent hundreds of thousands into Maxim guns. I saw their bodies stacked like frozen cordwood. The incompetent bastards who sent them to their death wouldn’t take time to piss in their mouths. But they’re treated as fucking national heroes.”

“I think we’d better be going,” Ishmael said.

“Don’t be a prima donna, Mr. Holland. I know you’re a brave man. We’ll take a drive and check out the cabbage eaters you’re worried about. Darling Maggie will come with us, won’t you, you lovely mog?”

“Of course,” she said.

“What did you call her?” Ishmael asked.

“A mog. That’s British slang for a cat. Look at her, sleek and lovely and about to spring. She’ll ruin other women for you. After Maggie, they’ll all seem homely as a mud fence.”

“Thank you, Arnold,” Maggie said. “But please shut up. I’ve never known anyone who can absolutely pump it to death.”

“She’s the only one I let talk to me like that,” Beckman said. “Venus Rising in Texas, right out of the Gulf of Mexico, the sun bursting from her hair. The egalitarian queen and cowboy’s delight.”

“I’m warning you, Arnold,” she said.

His face split into a smile; he clapped his hands like a magician making all bothersome complexities disappear. “Let’s go see if we put any holes in the mission’s walls. I don’t want to bring the papists down on my head again.”

THE AIR WAS cold, the sunlight harsh, as they drove in Beckman’s open-top car to the Spanish ruins. Beckman was riding hatless in front, his hair blowing. “Told you,” he said. “Half of them look like boiled red potatoes. I’ve yet to know a Paddy that wasn’t a nigger turned inside out.”

Maggie leaned forward and pushed him in the shoulder. “Will you stop that?”

“Admit it, you love it,” he replied.

“I commanded colored troops,” Ishmael said.

“I’m aware you did. So don’t be so bloody serious. We can’t seem to have any fun these days. Everyone has his own smug cause.”

The driver parked in front of the mission. Ishmael and Maggie stepped down, but Beckman remained in the seat. He lit a cheroot and dropped the match on the ground, tilting his head back as he blew a stream of smoke into the wind. Ishmael waited for him.