Rain Gods (Hackberry Holland 2)

?It?s okay, fellows. We?re just going to check this guy out,? Hackberry said, walking between them, the white-handled .45 hanging from his left hand.

As Hackberry approached the north fence on the pasture, the driver of the car shifted into gear without apparent urgency, the lights still off, and turned in a circle, dead tree branches and uncropped Johnson grass raking under the car?s frame. Then he drove in a leisurely fashion onto the asphalt and continued down the road, clicking on his headlights when he passed a clump of oaks on the bend.

Hackberry went back to the house, set his revolver on the nightstand, and gradually fell asleep. He dreamed of a rodeo bull exploding out of a bucking chute. The rider?s bones seemed to be breaking apart inside his skin as the bull reared and corkscrewed between his thighs. Suddenly, the rider was in the air, his wrist still tied down with a suicide wrap, his body over the side, whipped and dirt-dragged and flung into the boards and finally horned.

Without ever quite waking from the dream, Hackberry reached for his revolver and clenched its white handles in his palm.

PREACHER CONSIDERED HIMSELF a tolerant man. But Bobby Lee Motree could be a challenge.

?Holland is an old man,? Bobby Lee said over the cell phone. ?When he was running for Congress, he was known as a drunk and a gash hound. He got religion after he started representing a Mexican farmworkers? union, probably because he?d already screwed up everything else he touched. His first wife dumped him and cleaned out his bank account. His second wife was a Communist organizer of some kind. She died of cancer. The guy?s a loser, Jack.?

Preacher was sitting at a card table in the shade behind his stucco house, watching a lizard crawl across the top of a big gray rock while he talked. The table was spread with a clean cloth. On top of the cloth, Preacher had disassembled his Thompson machine gun. Next to the disassembled parts were a can of lubricant and a bore brush and a white rag stained yellow with a fresh application of oil. While he talked, Preacher touched the oiled surface of the Thompson?s barrel and studied the wispy tracings his fingerprints left on the steel.

?Listen, Jack, if it?s not broken, you don?t fix it,? Bobby Lee said. ?The guy couldn?t even save his own grits. Liam would have capped him if that cunt of a deputy hadn?t shown up.?

?Don?t use that term around me.?

?We?re talking about popping a Texas sheriff, and you?re worried about language??

Preacher wiped his fingertips on the gun cloth and studied a hawk flying above the mountainside, its shadow racing across the slope.

?You there?? Bobby Lee said.

?Where else would I be??

?I?m just saying Holland is a retread and a rural schmuck who surrounds himself with other losers. Why borrow trouble?? Bobby Lee said.

?The man has the Navy Cross.?

?So, rah-rah, he?s a swinging dick. Maybe he ran in the wrong direction.?

?You have a serious problem, Bobby Lee.?

?What?s that??

?You come to conclusions without looking at the evidence. Then you find reasons to justify your shoddy conclusions. It?s like inventing a square wheel and trying to convince yourself you like your wagon to ride a little rough.?

?Jack, you smoked a federal agent. You want to add another cop to your tally? They not only execute in this state, they have beer parties at the prison gates when they do it. I?m risking my life throwing in with you. We?ve got Hugo and Artie Rooney to deal with. Then there?s Vikki Gaddis and the soldier boy. What?s next, dropping a hydrogen bomb on Iran??

?I?ll handle Artie Rooney.?

?You ought to get laid. You know what Hugo said? I?m quoting Hugo, I didn?t say it, it?s Hugo talking, not me. He said, ?Preacher?s last sexual encounter was a visit to his proctologist.? How long has it been since you got your ashes hauled??

Preacher watched the lizard?s throat puff out in a red balloon on the rock. The lizard?s tongue uncoiled and wrapped around a tiny black ant and pulled the ant into the lizard?s mouth. ?I?m glad you?re on my side, Bobby Lee. You have loyalty in your lineage. That?s why General Lee stuck with the state of Virginia, isn?t it? Loyalty has no surrogate. Blood will out, won?t it??

There was a long silence. ?Why are you always ridiculing me? I?m the only guy who stood with you. You really hurt my feelings, man.?

?You got a point. You?re a good boy, Bobby Lee.?

?That means a lot to me, Jack. But you got to quit renting space in your head to bozos who couldn?t shine your shoes.?

?Artie Rooney is going to pay me a half million dollars. Ten percent of that will go to you.?

?That?s generous of you, man. You got a kind heart.?

?In the meantime, Artie is going to leave the Jews alone. That one isn?t up for grabs.?

?You still worried about the Jews after what Ms. Dolan did to you? What about the Gaddis broad and the soldier boy? Are they out??