All Hat by Brad Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

thoughts.”
    â€œBut we had a deal.”
    â€œWell, there was nothing signed. I just been thinking—I don’t know that I’m ready to retire. And the old girl doesn’t think she wants to move after all.”
    Sonny walked along the row of plants. He stopped and turned over a large ripe tomato with the toe of his Topsider. “Now that’s a shame,” he said. “Because we had a deal.” He crushed the tomato beneath his heel.
    â€œSee here,” the old man protested.
    â€œNo, you see here.” Sonny took the gas bill from his pocket and showed the back of the envelope to the old man. “This is from my lawyer. You’re in breach of promise, Methuselah. I pay my lawyer a lot of money to make sure guys like you keep your word. And he tells me that all I have to do is sue your ass, and there’s a good chance that I’ll get this farm for nothing. So this is working out real good for me. I’m not so sure about you and the missus.”
    The old man stood silently, his eyes on the splattered tomato in the dirt, as if it was the source of his dismay. “There was nothing signed,” he said again.
    â€œYou telling me your word is no good?” Sonny asked. “I thought that was a big deal to you people.”
    â€œYou got a lot of nerve,” the old man said, and he took a step toward Sonny. Sonny raised his cane instinctively. The man looked plenty strong in spite of his years.
    â€œIt’s your choice,” Sonny said, and he shrugged. “Maybe you should fight it in court. You got a good lawyer? My guy’s a fucking maniac; I swear you could cut him with a chain saw and he wouldn’t bleed. But you do what your conscience dictates.”
    Sonny turned and walked back across the field, taking care to step on as many tomatoes as he could. The old man watched as Sonny backed the BMW onto the lawn and then drove out of the driveway. Then he walked slowly to the house.

5
    The Augustine auction was to begin at ten in the morning. Ray rode over with Pete Culpepper in the pickup, arriving at half past nine. It was to be a huge auction, with three auctioneers: one to handle the furniture, antiques, and other sundry household items; another for the machinery and the real estate; and a third for the livestock, which consisted of not only a dozen thoroughbreds but also a herd of Charolais cattle.
    The horses were turned out in the paddock along the barn, and each wore a hackamore with a number on it for identification purposes. They were mostly broodmares, although there were a couple of geldings still running at Woodbine.
    And the colt that had so recently become the apple of Pete’s eye.
    He was a good-looking horse, dark bay, tall, and not yet as big across the chest and shoulders as his configuration promised. He was standing away from the other horses, watching the crowd with wide intelligent eyes, his ears forward. Pete Culpepper was doing his best to study him while pretending not to.
    â€œSee anybody else looking at him?” he asked Ray after a while.
    â€œPete, there’s two hundred people here. How the hell am I supposed to know where everybody’s looking?”
    â€œI just wish the sonofabitch didn’t look so healthy,” Pete said. “Too bad he wouldn’t pick up a stone and limp a little.”
    â€œWant me to go kick him in the shin?”
    Pete looked at Ray, thinking. “No, somebody’s bound to see you.”
    The machinery and the cattle and the household items went on the block first. It would be after lunch before the horses and real estate went up. Pete and Ray found a place to stand in the sun along the barn wall and wait.
    *   *   *
    Sonny picked up Dan Rockwood, and the two of them drove out to the sale together. On the way they stopped at the village of Cook’s Station, although it was hardly a village at all anymore, just an intersection of side roads, a