BBH01 - Cimarron Rose by James Lee Burke Read Free Book Online

unconsciously rubbing my
hand on the knee of my trousers.
    Why, I thought.
    There was a cut, an indentation, newly scabbed, the size of a
tooth, on the ring finger of Darl Vanzandt.
    No, I told myself, you're letting it get away from you.
    That night, as an electrical storm raged outside, L.Q. Navarro
stood in the middle of my living room, his ash-colored Stetson tipped
back on his head, and said, '
You were as good a lawman as me,
bud. When they're poor and got no power, like Lucas and the dead girl,
and other people get involved with what happens to them, you know it's
a whole sight bigger than what they want you to think
.'
    '
Why'd you go and die on me, L.Q.?'
    He twirled his hat on his index finger, and an
instant later, through the window, I saw his silhouette illuminated by
a bolt of lightning on a distant hill.

----
chapter
six
    The next day, after work, I dug night
crawlers and
cane-fished with a little mixed-blood Mexican boy in the tank on the
back of my property. His name was Pete, and he had blue eyes and pale
streaks the color of weathered wood in his hair, which grew like a soft
brush on his head. He grinned all the time and talked with an Anglo
twang and was probably the smartest little boy I ever knew.
    'That was the Chisholm Trail out yonder?' he asked.
    'Part of it. There're wagon tracks still baked in
the hardpan.'
    He chewed his gum and studied on the implications.
    'What's it good for?' he asked.
    'Not much of anything, I guess.'
    He grinned and chewed his gum furiously and skipped
a stone across the water.
    'Black people say you spit on your hook, you always
catch fish. You believe that?' he said.
    'Could be.'
    'How come you don't marry Temple Carrol?'
    'You have too many thoughts for a boy your age.'
    'She sure spends a lot of time jogging past your
house.'
    'Why do you have Temple Carrol on the brain this
evening, Pete?'
    'Cause there she comes now.'
    I looked over my shoulder and saw Temple's car drive
past my garage and barn and chicken run and windmill, then follow the
dirt track out to the levee that circled the tank. Pete thought that
was hilarious.
    Temple got out of her car and walked up the slope of
the levee. Her face looked cool and pink in the twilight.
    'He's out,' she said.
    'Moon?'
    'None other.'
    'Excuse us, Pete.'
    I leaned my cane pole in the fork of a redbud tree,
and we walked down the levee. The late red sun looked like molten metal
through the willows on the far bank.
    'He was at your office,' she said.
    'What?
    'Sitting on your steps for maybe an hour. In a blue
serge suit and a Hawaiian shirt that's like an assault on the eyeballs.
I told him your office was closed. He just sat there, cleaning his
fingernails.'
    'Don't mess with him, Temple. Next time call the
cops.'
    'What do you think I did? A half hour later, this
new deputy, Mary Beth Sweeney, shows up. I told her I was glad somebody
from the sheriff's department could finally make the trip from across
the street. Get this, nobody sent her. She just happened to be driving
by. She told him to hoof it.'
    Temple forked two fingers into the side pocket of
her blue jeans.
    'He left you a note,' she said.
    It was written in pencil, on the inside of a
flattened cigarette wrapper.
    Mr Holland, I find it damn
inconsiderate you dont post your office hours. Call me at the Green
Parrot Motel to talk this thing out.
    Garland T. Moon
    We were back at her car now. She
opened the driver's
door and reached across the seat and picked up a revolver. It was an
ancient .38-40 double-action, the metal as dull as an old nickel with
holster wear.
    'Keep this. You can add it to your historical
collection,' she said.
    'Nope.'
    'I got a friend in Austin to run Moon on the
computer. Corrections thinks he did two snitches in Sugarland.'
    'Thanks for coming by, Temple.'
    She lowered the revolver, which she held sideways in
her palm.
    'Where's it end?' she said.
    'Excuse me?'
    'You gave up your badge, then your career as a
prosecutor with the Justice