Free The Crack in the Lens by Steve Hockensmith Page B

his sun-leathered face…even as he reached out and speared another helping off my brother’s plate. When he spoke, his voice was quiet again, muffled by a moist mouthful of fried egg.
    He’d stepped down off the stump.
    “Look, Gus…I sympathize. I knew that little gal myself, and it’s a shame what happened to her, but you know what she was. It’s a rough business, and people get hurt. That’s just the way of it, and you’d best accept that.”
    Old Red’s lips squeezed tight but his jaw was working, almost squirming beneath the skin. He looked like a man trying to figure out what kind of bug just flew into his mouth. He finally washed the sour expression away with a long slurp of coffee.
    Rucker’s coffee.
    “So,” he said, slamming the mug down hard in front of the sheriff, “you ‘knew’ Adeline, did you? You usin’ that word biblical-like? Cuz obviously it ain’t just ranch hands who turn to Ragsdale and Bock for their fun.”
    Rucker had been polishing off the last of my potatoes when Old Red got going, and now he froze midchew.
    “And tell me, Sheriff,” my brother rolled on. “Them ‘people’ who ‘get hurt sometimes.’ Who would you be talkin’ about, exactly? Cuz if the son of a bitch who sliced Adeline up has done the same to anyone else since then, that’s blood on your hands. And another thing—”
    Gustav was cut off by a nerve-shaking clatter—Rucker tossing the fork he’d appropriated onto my plate.
    “Listen here, you little shit.” Rucker snatched my napkin off my lap, wiped his mouth with it, then threw it back into my chest. “Do you have any idea why I sat down to talk things through with you all polite like this?”
    “Because you were hungry?” I ventured.
    Rucker kept his unblinking gaze on Gustav.
    “Cuz we’re inside city limits,” my brother said.
    “That’s right. Milford Bales’s badge trumps mine here in town. But out there?” The sheriff pointed a long finger to the east, then did the same to the north, west, and south. “And there and there and there? That’s all me, and the law is what I say it is. Right is what I say it is. Wrong, too. So sittin’ here in San Marcos, I can only try to persuade you to see reason. But the second you cross the line…?”
    Rucker leaned toward Old Red and dropped his voice to a whisper. “I can gun you down easy as swattin’ a goddamn fly.”
    Then, quick as that, he was on his feet.
    “Quit buzzin’ in my ears, boys.”
    Before he turned to go, he smacked an imaginary fly on his shoulder, brushing its little invisible carcass away with a couple casual slaps of the hand.
    He was all smiles again as he made his good-byes and left.
    Me and Gustav—we were all frowns.

11

Suicide
    Or, A Visit to the Lucky Seven Is Abruptly Deep-Sixed
    “Well, now it’s official,” I said to Old Red. “We’ve been threatened by every livin’ soul in San Marcos.”
    My brother just glared hatefully at Rucker’s back as the sheriff ambled out the greasy spoon’s door.
    “Eatin’ a man’s eggs,” I said. “That is just plain wrong. Say, Cookie…”
    I turned toward the belly cheater at the griddle, thinking I’d order us another round of eats. I found the old man already glowering our way, a spatula gripped tight in his hand like a flyswatter he was fixing to squash us with.
    “You two clear out,” he said. “I don’t need no troublemakers in here.”
    “Oh, come on, Pop,” I started to protest.
    “You heard the man,” snarled a grungy puncher at the counter. “Get.”
    “Yeah,” his equally scruffy buddy threw in. He left it at that, apparently assuming it said enough.
    He was right, too, and a quick glance around the cookshack confirmed it. We were surrounded by scowls. Our choices were get or get got.
    “Guess I was wrong before,” I sighed. “ Now we’ve been threatened by everyone in town.”
    We had our revenge, though. Gustav and I made for the door without leaving the old coosie a gratuity. That’d