Free The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western by Richard Brautigan Page A

that Cameron was not going to be converted to the geniality of tea drinking. It was, you might say, not his cup of tea.
    “I think we should bury him,” Miss Hawkline said, thinking for a few seconds.
    “You have to get him out of the hall if you want to put him into the ground,” Cameron said.
    “Precisely,” the other Miss Hawkline said.
    “I think we’ll need a coffin,” Miss Hawkline said.
    “2 coffins,” Cameron said.
    “Do you gentlemen know how to make a coffin?” the other Miss Hawkline said.
    “Uh-uh,” Greer said. “We don’t make coffins. We fill them.”
    “I think it would draw too much attention to us if we were to go into town and have one of the townspeople make us one,” Miss Hawkline said.
    “Yes, we don’t want anybody coming out here and investigating into our business,” the other Miss Hawkline said.
    “Definitely not,” Miss Hawkline replied, taking a very lady-like sip of tea.
    “Let’s plant him outside,” Greer said. “We’ll just dig a hole, put him in it, cover him up and it’ll all be taken care of.”
    “We don’t want to bury him close to the house,” Cameron said. “The ground’s frozen hard around this place and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to dig a hole that big in frozen ground.”
    “We’ll dig a hole outside of the frozen ground and then drag him out of the hall and put him into the hole,” Greer said.
    “It’s sad to think of our beloved butler Mr. Morgan in these terms,” Miss Hawkline said. “I knew he was getting along in years and that someday he would die because, as we all know, death is inevitable, but I had never thought about what a problem the hugeness of his body would make. It’s just something you don’t think about.”
    “You didn’t think he was going to turn into a dwarf when he died, did you?” Cameron said.

• On the Way to a Butler Possibility •
    As they started downstairs to take care of the butler which meant guiding him to his eternal resting place, a hole in the ground, they passed the open door of a room that had a pool table in it. It was a beautiful table with a crystal chandelier hanging above it.
    The door had been closed when Greer and Cameron came upstairs to fuck the Hawkline women.
    “Look, a pool table,” Cameron said, carrying a shotgun. He stopped momentarily to admire the pool table. “Sure is 1 fine-looking table. Maybe we can play some pool after we bury the butler and kill the monster.”
    “Yeah, some pool would be nice after we finish our work,” Greer said, with a 30:40 Krag slung over his shoulder and an automatic pistol in his belt.
    “That’s a pretty lamp, too,” Cameron said, looking at the chandelier.
    The room was illuminated by sunlight coming in the windows. Light from the windows gathered in the chandelier which reflected delicate green flowers from the pool table.
    But there was also another light in the flowery pieces of glass that hung like a complicated garden above the table. The light moved very subtly through the pieces of glass and it was followed by a trailing, bumbling child-like shadow.
    Greer, for a second, thought he saw something moving in the chandelier. He looked up from the pool table to stare at the chandelier and sure enough there was a light moving across the pieces of crystal. The light was followed by an awkward dark motion.
    He wondered what could cause the light to move in the chandelier. None of the pieces of crystal were moving. They were absolutely still.
    “There’s a light moving in the chandelier,” he said, walking into the room to investigate. “It must be reflecting off something outside.”
    He went over to a window and looked out. He saw the frost around the house circling out for a hundred yards and then stopping as summer took over the grass and the Dead Hills beyond.
    Greer could see nothing moving outside that could cause a light to reflect in the chandelier. He turned back around and the light was gone.
    “It’s gone now,” he said.