House of the Rising Sun (Hackberry Holland 4)

“I’ll try to keep it short,” Willard replied.

They sat in straight-back chairs and ate off tin plates on the back porch, the sunlight spreading across the hills, the willows on the riverbank the color of old brass.

“Why’d you do it?” Willard said.

“Shoot the man in the cathouse?”

“Go to San Antonio.”

“I owed Miz DeMolay.”

Willard nodded. “That’s not really why I’m here. I got a call from your former common-law wife. She didn’t ring you?”

Hackberry stopped eating. “You’re talking about Ruby?”

“Yes, sir, that’s the name she gave me. Miss Ruby Dansen.”

“Where is she?”

“She didn’t say. She wanted to know where her son has gone to.”

“He’s in the army hospital outside Denver.”

“She says your ex-legal-wife took him out of there. She said your ex-legal-wife is given to unscrupulous and devious activities. She also said your ex was the paramour of the Sundance Kid, although she didn’t use the word ‘paramour.’”

“Maggie Bassett took Ishmael out of the hospital?”

“On a train headed south. According to her, Maggie Bassett put your boy in a wheelchair and abducted him.”

“You didn’t get a callback number? You just dropped by and made breakfast in my yard and dumped all this in my lap without bothering to get a number?”

“She didn’t give it. I asked.”

“He was in a wheelchair?”

“That’s what she said.”

“What kind of shape?”

“I don’t know, Hack. I felt obliged to tell you this. I didn’t come out here to be your pincushion.”

Hackberry stepped into the yard and knocked the crumbs from his tin pan. “I didn’t mean to get crossways with you.”

“I worry about you.”

“So do I.”

“There’s people trying to mess you up. What bothers me is you seem to he’p them every chance you get.”

“Deputize me.”

“Wouldn’t that be a step downward for you?”

“Pay me a dollar a year. You’ll always know where I’m at. I won’t be able to sass you, either.”

“You still haven’t learned to drive a motorcar?”

“Haven’t had time to get a manual. Or whatever the directions are called.”