Feast Day of Fools (Hackberry Holland 3)

Hackberry walked with Pam to the gallery, where Cody Daniels was sitting on the steps in the shadow of the house, staring into space, a bandage taped to his forehead. “You wanted to say something to Chief Deputy Tibbs, Reverend?” Hackberry said.

“I’d like to do it in private, if you don’t object,” Cody Daniels replied.

“Say what’s on your mind. We have work to do,” Pam said.

Cody Daniels looked back and forth, his mouth a tight seam. He fiddled with his shirt buttons and made lines in the dirt with the heel of his shoe. Strands of his hair were stuck inside the tape on his bandage, which gave him the appearance of a disorganized and hapless child. “I apologize for the way I acted when you arrested me. I deliberately provoked you,” he said to Pam.

She touched a nostril with one knuckle and huffed air out her nose. “Is that it?” she said.

“I also made some smart-ass remarks when I was in the holding cell. I’m sorry I did that.”

“What smart-ass remarks?” Pam said.

“I said something to the sheriff. I don’t remember it real clear. I should have kept my mouth shut, that’s all.”

“What remarks?” Pam said.

Cody Daniels wiped a piece of dirt off his face and looked at it. “Just idle, disrespectful stuff that doesn’t mean anything. The kind of things an uneducated and angry man might say. No, ‘angry man’ doesn’t cut it. The kind of thing a half-baked mean-spirited pissant might say. That’s me I’m talking about.”

“What did you say?”

“Sheriff?” Cody Daniels said, raising his eyes to Hackberry’s.

“The man said he was sorry. Why not let it slide?” Hackberry said to Pam.

“Reverend, you’ve got about five seconds to get your head on right,” Pam said.

“Cain’t recall.”

She pulled a braided slapjack from her side pocket and let it hang from her right hand.

“I said I’d rather belly up to a spool of barbed wire,” Cody Daniels said. He knitted his fingers together and twisted them in and out of one another, his teeth clenched, breathing through the side of his mouth as though he had just eaten scalding food, patting the soles of his shoes up and down in the dirt. Hackberry could hear the blades of the windmill rattle to life as R.C. unchained the crankshaft and cupped a drink of water from the pipe.

“What did Sheriff Holland have to say about your remark?” Pam asked.

“He said something about kicking a two-by-four with nails in it up my ass till I’d be spitting splinters. Or something to that effect.”

Pam brushed at her nose again, pushing the slapjack back into her pocket. “What do you think we ought to do with you?”

“You got me,” he replied, shaking his head, his eyes lowered.

“Look at me and answer my question.”

“Shoot me?”

“It’s a possibility,” she said.

“She’s not serious, is she?” Cody Daniels said to Hackberry.

“You’d better believe it, bud,” Hackberry said.

Pam and Hackberry went inside the house and, with two other deputies, began picking up the furniture and sweeping up the glass in the kitchen and the chapel. “Are we doing this because you’re a Catholic?” Pam asked.

Hackberry reset the altar at the front of the chapel and picked up the broken pieces of the statue of the Virgin Mary and laid them on top of the altar. “We’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do,” he said.

“Just thought I’d ask,” she said.

“We protect and serve. We treat everybody the same. If others don’t like the way we do things, they can run us off. End of discussion.”