Here by the Bloods by Brandon Boyce Read Free Book Online Page B

sleeping that night, or the night after, for that matter. They were too busy celebrating and carrying on and spending money.”
    And then, finally, it hits Whitlock. “Ho! Wait a minute. Imagine such a thing happening here. We could . . .”
    â€œMake our money back. Tenfold.” Boone says.
    â€œOh, hang on, Walter,” Whitlock says. “Some folks would. Like Merle, the whorehouse, the hotel, even those with a spare room. But I’m a rancher. How would I share in the bounty?”
    â€œYou think a thousand mouths will not be hungry? How does a two-dollar steak sound?”
    â€œImagine. Two dollars for a steak. I could set up a grill tent right on Main Street! Oh, Walter. It is a fantastic idea. A stroke of genius. You must bring it to the town council tomorrow.”
    â€œWe do not need a council to tell us what common sense already approves. There is going to be a hanging in Caliche Bend. And a hanging is good for business.”

CHAPTER TEN
    The little eye, half-open, punches through the night’s blackness, gobbling up the stars that dare swing too close. The ground crunches under Storm’s easy stride. Up ahead, the orange glow of the station house frames Big Jack’s wide shoulders where he stands in the open doorway, awaiting me. I put it dead midnight. “You shoulda seen it, Harlan,” he says, plodding down the steps as I tie off Storm. “Me and Elbert blasted him with the fire hose. Had to bathe him somehow and he proved most disinclined to do it of his own accord. Stench was overbearing.”
    â€œThat why you got the door open?” I ask.
    â€œWell, not entirely. I do not much care for his company. He unnerves me. I admit I was eager for your arrival.”
    â€œHe is a talker, all right.”
    â€œThat is the matter right there. He has said hardly a word. Only that he would not wash. And after we put the hose to him, he demands a can of boot polish. You believe that? Fella is sitting in there in a burlap smock, but has the shiniest boots from here to Laredo. There is no figuring his kind, that is for sure.”
    We move up the steps and I catch the glint of Big Jack’s five-point star pinned to his vest. He comments on it before I ask. “Pretty swell, huh?”
    â€œWhere you get that?”
    â€œThe mayor give it to me. ‘Special Deputy Atta-shay. ’ By appointment of His Honor, the Mayor. Yours is sitting there on the desk. And Elbert’s makes three. Merle wanted one too, but Boone figured the fella pouring the whiskey ought not have too much legal authority. Probably good thinking.”
    â€œSheriff wears the star. And appoints the deputies. Sheriff is dead.”
    â€œOh, it is just temporary. A special ‘dee-cree,’ he called it.” Jack hands me the key to the cell and lumbers back down the steps, still gripping his shotgun as if someone aimed to snatch it from him. “Elbert will be in come sunup. And mind his stare, Harlan. It will unsettle you.”
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    The most notorious outlaw in the West cuts a slighter figure when laid out on his back in a ten-foot cell, swaddled in ill-fitting burlap. He does not move when I come in. His eyes stay fixed on the ceiling. I settle in behind the desk and pick up the star. No writing or emblems, just a flimsy piece of tin, cheaply made, like a child’s toy. I wonder if Boone keeps a box of them under his bed. In his honor I give it a spin on the desk and watch it fall over itself and sputter to an unsatisfying stop. I toss it into the bottom drawer.
    â€œWill you not wear it?” the Snowman asks, hardly containing his amusement. “The way those two fools fussed and flapped over a five-cent piece of tin, you would swear they had been appointed U.S. Marshals.” He sits up on the cot. “I was starting to think you had abandoned me.”
    â€œHardly.”
    â€œI suspect you were out reveling in newfound glory, if not rolling in a