?I don?t study on what other people say or think. Why do you keep favoring the other side of your bed, Sheriff??
?I have problems with sciatica. I can?t lie in one position.?
?Is this what you?re looking for?? Preacher said, holding up Hackberry?s revolver.
?Maybe.?
?If you?re going to keep a weapon close by your bed, it should be a small one, a derringer or an Airweight you can tuck under your mattress or pillow so an intruder cain?t find it without waking you up. You favor a thumb-buster forty-five? That?s a lot like carrying around a junkyard on your hip, isn?t it??
Hackberry looked through the screen door at the rain blowing in the pasture, his horses playing in it, rearing in mock combat, a stump fire glowing orange and hot under a log each time the wind fed fresh oxygen into the flames. ?Do what you came to do and be done,? he said.
?I wouldn?t rush my fate if I were you.?
?You lecture others, a man who killed nine unarmed women, some of them hardly more than children? You think you?re the scourge of God? You?re a pimple on creation. I?ve known your kind all my life. You?re always looking for a cause or a flag to hide under. There?s no mystery to your psychological makeup, Collins. Your mother probably wanted you aborted and cursed the day you were born. I think you were despised in the womb.?
Preacher?s mouth was a stitched seam, as though he were taking the measure of each word Hackberry used. He huffed air out his nostrils indifferently. ?Could be. I never got to know her real well. You?re a recipient of the Navy Cross.?
?So what??
?I checked out your background. You don?t fit easily into one shoe box. You were a womanizer and a drunkard. While you were married and running for Congress, you were hiring Mexican girls down on the border. You ever carry diseases home to your wife??
The ammunition drum on the Thompson rested between Preacher?s knees; the index finger of his right hand was poised outside the trigger guard. ?The question isn?t a complicated one,? he said.
?You name it and I did it. Until I met the woman who became my second wife.?
?The Marxist??
?She was an organizer for the United Farm Workers and a friend of Cesar Chavez.?
?That?s how you took up with the papists??
?There?re worse groups.?
?The situation with those Oriental women wasn?t of my selection.?
?I dug them up. I saw your handiwork up close and personal. Run your bullshit on somebody else.?
?You found them??
?At least one girl had dirt clenched in her palm. You know what that indicates??
Preacher raised his index finger in the air. ?I didn?t have control of what happened out there.?
?You?re using the passive voice.?
?What??
?It involves manipulation of language to avoid admission of guilt.?
?You a grammarian besides a war hero??
?There?s nothing heroic about my history. I informed on two fellow POWs.?
Preacher seemed to have lost interest in the subject. He scratched idly at his cheek with four fingers. ?You afraid??
?Of what??
?The other side.?