Read Billy Bob and Hackberry Holland Ebook Boxed Set for Free Online Page B

replied.
    I stepped out on the gallery and levered a round into the Winchester’s chamber. Wyatt positioned his hat on the back of his head, the way Will Rogers often did, so that his face was bathed in moonlight. I steadied the rifle against a post and aimed just to the left of his shoulder and pulled the trigger.
    The bullet struck rock on the opposite hillside and whined away in the shadows with a sound like a tightly wrapped guitar string snapping free from the tuning peg.
    Wyatt looked behind him curiously, then scratched a match on a fencepost and cupped the flame to a cigar stub clenched between his teeth. He flicked the dead match into our yard.
    I ejected the spent casing and sighted again. This time I blew a spray of wood splinters out of the fence rail. I saw Wyatt touch his cheek, then look at his hand and wipe it on his jeans.
    My third shot blew dirt out of the road six inches from his foot. I started to eject the spent casing, but Temple grabbed the barrel and pushed it down toward the gallery railing.
    â€œEither put the gun away or give it to me,” she said.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œHe knows you won’t kill him. He knows I will,” she replied.
    I put my arm around her shoulder. She was wearing only her nightgown and her back was shaking with cold. “To hell with Wyatt Dixon,” I said.
    We went back inside and closed the door. Through the window I saw him get inside his truck and puff his cigar alight. Then he started the engine and drove away.
    â€œBilly Bob?” Temple said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’re unbelievable. You shoot at somebody, then say to hell with him,” she said.
    â€œWhat’s unusual about that?”
    She laughed. “Come back to bed. You know any cures for insomnia?” she said.
    Â 
    THE NEXT MORNING was Friday. Fay Harback was in my office just after 8 A.M . “Where do you get off sending your wife into a suspect’s hospital room?” she said.
    â€œIt’s a free country,” I replied.
    â€œThis isn’t rural Bumfuck. You don’t get to make up your own rules.”
    â€œHave you charged Ruggles yet?” I said.
    â€œNone of your business.”
    â€œI’m getting a bad feeling on this one.”
    â€œAbout what ?” she said.
    â€œThe other half of the assassination team, what’s his name, Bumper, had no record at all. Ruggles has at least a half-dozen arrests, including passing counterfeit, but the charges were always dismissed.”
    Her eyes shifted off mine, an unformed thought buried inside them.
    â€œAny Feds been to see you?” I asked.
    â€œFeds? No. You’re too imaginative.”
    â€œMy client isn’t going to get set up.”
    I saw the color rise in her throat. “That takes real nerve,” she said.
    â€œFile charges against Ruggles and we won’t be having this kind of conversation,” I said.
    â€œThe investigation is still in progress.”
    â€œSeems open and shut to me. Who’s running it?”
    â€œDarrel McComb.”
    â€œYou’re not serious?”
    â€œIf you have a problem with that, talk to the sheriff.”
    â€œNo, we’ll just give your general attitude a ‘D’ for ‘disingenuous.’ Shame on you, Fay.”
    She slammed the door on the way out.
    Â 
    I HEADED UP to the Jocko Valley. Western Montana is terraced country, each mountain plateau and valley stacked a little higher than the ones below it. To get to the Flathead Reservation, you climb a long grade outside Missoula, between steep-sloped, thickly wooded mountains, then enter the wide green sweep of the Jocko Valley. To the left are a string of bars and an open-air arena with a cement dance floor where Merle Haggard sometimes performs. Across the breadth of the valley are the homes of fairly prosperous feed growers as well as the prefabricated tract houses built for Flathead Indians by the government. The tract houses look like a sad