Free Comeback (Gun Pedersen Book 1) by L. L. Enger Page B

He looked at Gun as though sizing up a judge, put an appeal in his eyes and said, “I didn’t tell him, Gun, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
    “That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”
    “Gun, listen. Yes, I handle some private matters for Mr. Hedman. I’m his attorney, for God’s sake. I’ve done some work on his Loon Country thing.” Nash’s tone now was backstabbed honesty. “But Gun, he gets no special favors in this office. And he hasn’t asked for any.”
    Gun stood and rested his right hand on a swooping brass floor lamp that beamed down on Nash’s desk. His eyes breezed through the room. “This has turned into a nice little practice for you, Nash. New desk, files, nice carpet. These errands you run for Hedman pay well.”
    “I have a lot of clients,” Nash answered.
    “And a whole bushel basket of new ones, once Loon Country is up and running.”
    Nash smiled involuntarily and squelched it. “Well, sure. It’s a safe guess that new industry in town will bring along some legal holes to plug, and I’ll be here to do it. That’s my job.”
    “But that’s all you’ll get from Loon Country? A few more clients, maybe a full-time secretary? I’d think Hedman would be more grateful than that. Maybe make you his corporate legal advisor, give you a seat on the board.” Gun sighed. Being nasty exhausted him, but he needed true words out of this boy.
    “Gun, I’m not responsible—” Nash began, but Gun tightened his fingers on the floor lamp’s neck and snapped his wrist upward. The brass knuckled back like a garden hose and the beam rested bright on Nash’s face. Gun leaned down at the blinking lawyer.
    “Tell the truth,” he said, “and you’ll get off easy. Think of it as a plea bargain.”
    Nash closed his eyes against the light and ran a long handful of fingers through his hair. Gun felt the confession working its way free. He waited.
    Nash said, “Might’ve let it slip, I guess.” He kept his
    eyes closed, as if the words might look worse out in the light.
    Gun straightened and walked to the door. Nash sat still under the brass lamp. Gun started to leave the office but was stopped by a thought and leaned back in.
    “Nash. Why didn’t you stick with baseball?”
    The lawyer’s eyes opened. They were watery as a child’s. “I didn’t have a curve, Gun. You remember.”
    “That’s right.” Gun shrugged. “Well, you’ve got a beauty now.”

13
    Gun drove out to the Devitz place after leaving Nash Sidney’s office, but Bowser wasn’t home. Gun knew where to find him.
    Harrelson’s Scrub was an unhappy 360-acre piece of Ojibway County that had gone unlived on since the early 1950s. That was when Margie Harrelson, as Gun had heard it, had finally killed herself with the pure mean hard work of farming land meant to remain untilled. Margie left the land to the county when she died. Her son didn’t want it.
    Gun slowed the old Ford and turned onto the township gravel that ran along the south border of the Scrub. Margie’s house was as dead as she was, having been taken back by rampant willows. Gun stopped the truck and stepped out.
    It was colder than it should have been. A gray north wind blew moody clouds over the Scrub, clouds white and the color of dead ashes. The willows and a few malnourished oaks bent toward Gun in the wind, and
    the brushy trees beneath them quivered. Gun’s hair, white mixed with what was left of blond, flattened against his forehead. There was no open space on the Scrub that he could see, no sign that this land had ever been cleared for the plow, and there was no sign of Bowser. Gun reached back behind the seat of the Ford and pulled out a shirt of nappy brown wool.
    Walking was difficult in the Scrub, but the wind was cut. Gun pushed his way through brush and grass that reached to his waist, and ducked his head from branch slaps. Down at his feet something that felt like barbed wire caught and ripped at his ankle. Gun reached down through thick