Gun Work: The Further Exploits of Hayden Tilden by J. Lee Butts Read Free Book Online Page A

make me colicky, if’n I eat ’em boiled. Gut gets to hurtin’ so bad I sometimes cry like a baby. Boil ’em and they leave you with a definite aftertaste, too. Sticks with a body for hours. Kinda like a mouthful of prairie bitterweed. Enough to make a starvin’, Texas long-horn steer spit it out.”
    â€œAftertaste. Kind of like bitterweed.”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œMust really like them fried then?”
    â€œOnly thing’s better, you ask me, is fried armadiller.”
    â€œFried armadillo. Sweet Jesus.”
    Man grinned like a raccoon trying to wash a loaf of fresh-baked bread in a fast running creek. “Tasty. Ain’t kiddin’ a bit, Tilden. Really tasty. Fry up some coconuts along with an armadiller, and you’ve got yourself one helluva meal, my friend.”
    Returned the last of my three pistols to the holster at my back. Slipped the Winchester out of the boot. Jacked a shell into the breech, then laid it across my saddle just behind the horn.
    Touched Gunpowder’s side with a spur, started easing down the knoll. Nate followed. When he got up close I said,
    â€œThree droopy-looking nags tied at the hitch racks outside that false-front building in the middle, yonder—one with the sign over the door proclaiming it as BLACK’S. Bet a year’s pay those animals belong to the boys we’re looking for, Nate.”
    Out of the corner of my eye, saw him stand in his stirrups and rub his back. Settled in and said, “Sure as hell hope so. Horse of mine’s about to wear me down to a nub.”
    â€œBring these boys to book, we’ll drag them over to Tishomingo. Lock them up in the Chickasaws’ brand-new combination courthouse and jail.”
    â€œWorks for me.”
    â€œAnd you know, I’ve been thinking, Nate. We get these ole boys back to Fort Smith, you’re gonna have to invite Elizabeth and me over for one of those coconut and armadillo sit-downs.”
    â€œSounds good, if these three bastards are willing to go back. But if’n they ain’t, we get finished sending the egg-suckin’ sons a bitches to Satan, Tilden, we’ll for sure ’nuff do ’er. Might even cook up a couple a opossums for you, too. Only bake a opossum on extra special occasions, you know.”
    â€œBaked opossums? You’re for sure kidding now, right?”
    â€œOh, no. Nice fat opossum’s tastiest of the three of ’em, you ask me. Makes my mouth water just thinkin’ ’bout cookin’ up a juicy opossum. Good piece of opossum haunch is a meal fit fer a king, by God.”
    He went silent after that. Seriousness of the situation pimpled to a puss-filled head closer we got to our destination. Quickly put a damper on our ricochet into jocularity, fried coconuts, and downright silliness.
    Headed straight for the centermost structure in Lone Pine. Hadn’t gone far when I detected the tinny sound of music wafting from the rickety building’s front entrance.
    Drew our mounts to a stop on the far side of a muddy, rutted trace that ran a meandering course up from the river into a stand of trees off to the north. Couldn’t have stepped down much more than sixty feet from the front entrance of an illegal whiskey-vending operation that sounded like it was chugging along full tilt. Position gave us a far better ear on the rinky-tink piano melody coming from inside.
    Tied the animals to a spindly cottonwood. Only living tree within a hundred feet located on our side of the rudimentary thoroughfare.
    Thumbed the hammer back on the Winchester. Made sure the hammer thongs on all my pistols were hanging loose, then glanced over at Nate and asked, “Should we call them out, or go inside and brace them where they sit?”
    My hard-eyed partner rested his short-barreled ten gauge on one shoulder, scrunched his face up, then said, “Let’s go in and surprise ’em. Stupid bastards can’t possibly