?Pardon??
?If I?m not stupid or ignorant, then what am I? Somebody you can deceive and not pay any price for it? Somebody with no honor or self-respect who lets other people wipe their feet on him? Which is it??
Bobby Lee propped his hands on his thighs. He stared at his feet and at the cave opening and at the landscape starting to gray with the coming of dawn. ?Everybody thought you were losing it. I did, too, at least for a while. You?re right, though, I was selfish and thinking of myself. Then I realized you were the only guy I admired, that Liam and Artie and Hugo and the others weren?t real soldiers, but you were.?
?You and Liam were going to pop me??
?It didn?t get that far.?
Preacher was smiling. ?Come on, Bobby Lee. You?ve given honest witness about your failure. Don?t water the drink now. You?ll undo the courage and the principle you?ve shown me.?
?Yeah, we talked about popping you.?
?You and Liam??
?I told Liam that was the order from Artie Rooney and Hugo. But I decided all of them were a bunch of dirtbags, and I called you up on my cell phone and told you how much I respected you.?
?That was just before you decided to let Liam eat a bullet point-blank in the women?s restroom? I?ll hand it to you. You can slide around and reshape yourself faster than quicksilver.?
Bobby Lee started to speak, then realized Preacher had already disengaged from the conversation and was standing in the cave?s entrance, his hands on his hips, watching the wind ripple the tents down below, watching the mysterious transformation of the desert from darkness to a pewterlike stillness that resembled a photograph defining itself inside developing fluid. Then Preacher said something Bobby Lee couldn?t quite hear.
?Say again?? Bobby Lee asked.
Preacher turned and reached behind the wood pallet. Unconsciously, Bobby Lee fastened the top button on his cracked sheep-lined coat as though protecting himself from a gust of cold air.
?I told you I always wanted you to be a piece of this property,? Preacher said. ?That sentiment has not changed one iota.?
Down below, the Mexican killers and Esther were wakened by a burst of machine-gun fire and a tinkling of brass hulls on stone. But the sounds were absorbed so quickly inside the earth, they each wondered if they had been dreaming.
AT FIRST LIGHT Hackberry Holland and Pam Tibbs talked to an elderly man and a small boy at a dirt crossroads where they were picking up trash out of a ditch. The land was level and hard, marked by little other than fence lines and loading pens that were gray with rot and impacted with tumbleweed. Far to the east, the sun was pale and watery behind a low range of hills that looked coated with frost, ragged like glass along the crests.
?Traven?? the old man said. ?No, there?s nobody here?bouts by that name.?
?How about Fred Dobbs?? Hackberry said.
?No, sir, never heard of him, either.? The old man was very large and straight in physique for his age, his hands horned with calluses, his face oblong, as big as a jug, the creases so deep there were shadows in them. He wore strap overalls and a yellow canvas coat and no cap. He studied the departmental logo on the cruiser?s door, obviously noting Hackberry was out of his jurisdiction. ?It?s the frozen shits this morning, ain?t it??
Hackberry showed him photographs of Jack Collins, Liam Eriksson, Bobby Lee Motree, and Hugo Cistranos.
?No, sir, if they live around here, I ain?t seen them. What?d these fellows do??
?Take your choice,? Hackberry said from the passenger window. ?Did you know a woman by the name of Edna Wilcox??
?Died of an accident or a fall of some kind??
?I think she did,? Hackberry said.
?She owned a big chunk of land about ten miles up the road and to the east. People have rented there off and on, but the house burned down. There?s some Mexicans been working there. Show your pictures to my grandson. Look right at him when you talk. He cain?t hear.?
?What?s his name??
?Roy Rogers.?
Hackberry opened the passenger door and leaned over so he was eye level with the little boy. The boy?s hair was jet-black, his skin brown, his eyes filled with a black luminosity sometimes characteristic of people who live inside them
selves.
?You know any of these men, Roy?? Hackberry said.