R.C. sat erect and pulled his knees up before him, the dirt and pea gravel shaling off his clothes. “I wouldn’t mind,” he said.
The man with yellow fingernails that were as thick as horn signaled for one of the Mexicans to pass R.C. a canteen that was attached to a looped GI web belt.
“Does Sheriff Holland treat you all right?”
“We share commonalities. That’s what he calls them, ‘commonalities.’”
“In what way?”
“We both pitched baseball. I pitched all the way through high school. He pitched in high school and three years at Baylor. He got an invitation to the Cardinals’ training camp. I wasn’t as good as him, though.”
“I declare.”
“He has the Navy Cross and a Purple Heart. He treats everybody the same, black or Mexican or Indian or illegal, it don’t matter. That’s the kind of man he is.”
“He sounds like a father figure.”
“If he is, it’s nobody else’s business.”
“The sheriff is a widower and doesn’t have family close by. It must be a comfort for him to have a young fellow like you around. Someone he thinks of as a son.”
“I got to use the restroom.”
The man found a more comfortable position by easing his weight down on one knee. “You might be hard put to find one out here,” he said. He gazed into the distance, his eyes dulled over, seemingly devoid of thought. The collar of his white shirt was yellow with dried soap. “What if I gave you a choice, one that would he’p you define your loyalties in a way you wouldn’t forget? That nobody would forget?”
R.C. had taken one sip from the canteen and had started to take another. But he stopped and set the canteen down on the edge of the grave and stared at it, his hand still cupped on the canvas snap-button pouch that held it. He waited, his eyes fixed in empty space, the wind flattening the mesquite along the banks of the streambed. He knew what was coming.
“Here’s the situation as I see it,” the strange man said. “The sheriff tried to kill me by firing a whole magazine down a mine shaft. He has also insulted me several times on a personal level without provocation, even though I have always treated him with respect. So principle requires that I do something in kind to him, otherwise I’ll be guilty of what’s called a sin of omission. Are you following me?”
“You’re Preacher Jack Collins. Around here, that translates into ‘crazy.’ I don’t have conversations with crazy people.”
Collins shifted his weight and pulled his revolver from its holster and fitted his thumb over the hammer. “You’d better listen up, boy.” He pulled back the hammer to full cock and touched the muzzle to R.C.’s temple. “With one soft squeeze, I can scatter your buckwheats all over that streambed. There will be a flash of light and a loud roar in your ears, then you’ll be with your dead mother. I’ll make sure the sheriff understands I did this as payback for what he’s done to me. In that way, I’ll rob him of any peace of mind for the rest of his life. But there’s a problem with that choice. Other than not knowing how to stay out of a hot-pillow joint, you’re an innocent boy and shouldn’t have to pay the price for the sheriff’s actions. So I’m going to create a choice for you that most people in your situation don’t have.”
Collins lowered the hammer and released the lock on the cylinder and tipped it sideways from the revolver’s frame. He shucked the six brass cartridges into his palm. “Are you a gambling man?” he said.
“Whatever it is you’re thinking about, I’m not interested.”
“Believe me, you will be.”
“Sheriff Holland is gonna hunt you down in every rat hole in Coahuila. Don’t be talking down to me about no whorehouses, either. You got whores working for you as informants, and I suspect that ain’t all they’re doing for you, provided they’re not choosy.”
Collins stood up. “I’m going to put one in the chamber and spin the cylinder. When I hand you the revolver, I’m going to cover the cylinder so you cain’t see where the load is. If you’ll hold the muzzle to your head and pull the trigger twice without coming down on the wrong chamber, I’ll turn you loose. If you refuse, I’ll pop you here and now.”
“Why you doing this to me?”
“Boy, you just don’t listen, do you?”
“Let me think it over. Okay, I have. Kiss my ass. And when you’re done doing that, kiss my ass again.”
“Why don’t you have another sip of water and rethink that statement?”
“I don’t need no more of y’all’s mouth germs.”
“Get up.”
“What for?”
Jack Collins laughed to himself. “You’re fixing to find out.”