Thieves Dozen by Donald E. Westlake Read Free Book Online Page B

Hiram said unsympathetically. Bending low over Dire Straits’ neck, whamming his heels into Dire Straits’ rib cage, Hiram yelled into Dire Straits’ ear, “
Go,
boy!”
    “I don’t
ride,
” Dortmunder said, “any
horses.
”
    With Hiram on his back, Dire Straits walked over to the nearest apple tree and started to eat. “
Go,
boy!” Hiram yelled, kicking and whacking the oblivious thoroughbred. “Giddy
ap,
damn it!” he yelled, as flashlight beams began to pick him out among the branches and leaves and green apples.
    “I never did have much luck with horses,” Dortmunder said. Out in front of him was a scene of mass, and growing, confusion. As the siren’s wail continued to weave, horses shouldered their way up and down the tight rows of gnarly apple trees, munching and socializing. Human beings uselessly yelled and waved things among them, trying to make them go home. Because green apples go right through horses, the human beings also slipped and slued a lot. Hiram, trying to hide in the tree Dire Straits was snacking off but blinded by all the flashlights now converged on him, fell out of the tree and into the arms of what looked very much like a state trooper, who then fell down. Other people fell down. Horses ate. Lights stabbed this way and that. Back by the breached fence, Dortmunder and Kelp watched without pleasure. “That reminds me of the subway,” Dortmunder said.
    “Here comes that truck,” Kelp said.
    Dortmunder turned, and here came a pair of headlights through the night from the ranch, jouncing up and down. “I do understand pickup trucks,” Dortmunder said and strode toward the lights.
    Kelp, saying, “John? You got something?” came trailing along. Dortmunder and the pickup approached each other. As the vehicle neared, Dortmunder waved his arms over his head, demanding that the thing stop, which it did, and a sleepy young guy looked out at him, saying, “Who the hell are you?”
    “Your goddamn horses,” Dortmunder said, his manner outraged but disciplined, “are eating our goddamn apples.”
    The fellow stared at him. “You aren’t Russwinder.”
    “I
work
for him, don’t I?” Dortmunder demanded. “And I never
seen
anybody so mad. We need light back there, he sent us down, get your portable generator. You
got
a portable generator, don’t you?”
    “Well, sure,” the fellow said. “But I was gonna—”
    “
Light,
” Dortmunder insisted. Around them, half-awake and half-dressed ranch employees made their way toward the center of chaos, ignoring Dortmunder and Kelp, whose bona fides were established by their being in conversation with the ranch’s pickup truck. “We can’t see what we’re doing back there,” Dortmunder said, “and Mr. Russwinder’s
mad.
”
    The young fellow clearly saw that this was a time to be accommodating to one’s neighbor and to one’s neighbor’s employee. “OK,” he said. “Climb in.”
    “We’ll ride in back,” Dortmunder told him and clambered up into the bed of the pickup, which was pleasantly aromatic of hay. Kelp followed, eyes bright with hope, and the pickup lurched forward, jounced around in a great circle and headed back toward the ranch.
    The pickup seemed to think
it
was a horse; over the fields it bucked and bounced, like a frying pan trying to throw Dortmunder and Kelp back into the fire. Clutching the pickup’s metal parts with every finger and every toe, Dortmunder gazed back at the receding scene in the orchard, which looked now like a battle in a movie about the Middle Ages. “Never again,” he said.
    Ka-
bump
! The pickup slued from field to dirt road, a much more user-friendly surface, and hustled off toward the barns. “Well, this time,” Kelp said, “you can’t blame me.”
    Dortmunder looked at him. “Why not?”
    The cowboy behind the wheel slammed both feet and a brick onto the brake pedal, causing the pickup to skid halfway around, hurl itself broadside at the brown-plank wall of the nearest barn