Free Pronghorns of the Third Reich by C. J. Box Page B

there?”
    After a long pause, Parker said, “No, Lyle, I don’t.”
    “I think you do.”
    “Really, I …”
    “Shut up,” Lyle said to Parker. To Juan, he said, “There’s a gate up ahead. When you stop at it I’ll get Paul here to come and help me open it. You drive through and we’ll close it behind us. If you see him try anything hinky, do the same thing to him you did to that dog.”
    “Champ,” Parker said woodenly.
    “Ho-kay,” Lyle said.
    Juan Martinez was a mystery to Parker. He’d never seen nor heard of him before that morning. Martinez was stocky and solid with thick blue/black hair and he wore a wispy gunfighter’s mustache that made his face look unclean. He had piercing black eyes that revealed nothing. He was younger than Lyle, and obviously deferred to him. The two men seemed comfortable with each other and their easy camaraderie suggested long days and nights in each other’s company. Juan seemed to Parker to be a blunt object; simple, hard, without remorse.
    Lyle Peebles was dark and of medium height and build and he appeared older than his 57 years, Parker thought. Lyle had a hard narrow pinched face, leathery dark skin that looked permanently sun and wind-burned, the spackled sunken cheeks of a drinker, and a thin white scar that practically halved his face from his upper lip to his scalp. He had eyes that were both sorrowful and imperious at the same time, and teeth stained by nicotine that were long and narrow like horse’s teeth. His voice was deep with a hint of country twang and the corners of his mouth pulled up when he spoke but it wasn’t a smile. He had a certain kind of coiled menace about him, Parker thought. Lyle was the kind of man one shied away from if he was coming down the sidewalk or standing in the aisle of a hardware store because there was a dark instability about him that suggested he might start shouting or lashing out or complaining and not stop until security was called. He was a man who acted and dressed like a cowpoke but he had grievances inside him that burned hot.
    Parker had hoped that when the trial was over he’d never see Lyle Peebles again for the rest of his life.
    Parker stood aside with his bare hands jammed into the pockets of his coat. He felt the wind bite his bare ankles above his slippers and burn his neck and face with cold. He knew Juan was watching him closely so he tried not to make any suspicious moves or reveal what he was thinking.
    He had no weapons except for his hands and fists and the ball of keys he’d been ordered to bring along. He’d never been in a fist-fight in his life, but he could fit the keys between his fingers and start swinging.
    He looked around him without moving his head much. The prairie spread out in all directions. They were far enough away from town there were no other vehicles to be seen anywhere, no buildings or power lines.
    “Look at that,” Lyle said, nodding toward the north and west. Parker turned to see lead-colored clouds rolling straight at them, pushing gauzy walls of snow.
    “Hell of a storm coming,” Lyle said.
    “Maybe we should turn back?” Parker offered.
    Lyle snorted with derision.
    Parker thought about simply breaking and running, but there was nowhere to run.
    It was a standard barbed-wire ranch gate, stiff from disuse. Wire loops from the ancient fence post secured the top and bottom of the gate rail. A heavy chain and padlock mottled with rust stretched between the two. “You got the keys,” Lyle said, gesturing with his Colt.
    Parker dug the key ring out of his pocket and bent over the old lock. He wasn’t sure which key fit it, or whether the rusty hasp would unsnap. While he struggled with the lock, a beach-ball-sized tumbleweed was dislodged from a sagebrush by the wind and it hit him in the back of his thighs, making him jump. Lyle laughed.
    Finally, he found the right key and felt the mechanism inside give. Parker jerked hard on the lock and the chain dropped away on both