Read Online Colonel Rutherford's Colt by Lucius Shepard - Free Book Online Page A

then he smiled—“if there is profit to be had.”
    The colonel, in whom rage had begun to stoke its fires, could barely withhold from striking him. He had endured a sufficiency of these effete little men, these half-breeds with their dapper attire and usurers’ hearts. But he only said, “I would very much appreciate it if you would do your level best to ensure your wife’s discretion.”
    The doctor nodded, said, “Of course,” as if no contrary thought had ever entered his mind.
    â€œPerhaps,” the colonel continued, “you will visit me in my office so we can discuss the matter further.”
    â€œI would be delighted,” replied the doctor.
    Once the two men had departed, the colonel knocked down his brandy and went out onto the grounds of Tia Maria’s. He stood beneath a coconut palm, tipped back his head and gazed at the sky.
    All the feelings he had suppressed during the conversation now came spilling out, like tiny devils bursting free from an enchanted box, led by Fury, but followed in swift order by Hate, Bitterness, Loathing, Envy, Despair, and, lastly, by a horrid, squirming, tumescent thing he could not identify by name, but that he recognized as emblematic of the odious and unhealthy sexuality that the news of Susan’s infidelity had roused from his depths. These vile beasts of feeling enlarged him, inflated him with their gaseous breath, making him so great with emotion, he half-believed that were he to stretch out his hand, he might pluck the stars from out their sockets of black bone and rewrite the diamond sentences of the sky to contrive a tale of calumny and murder. The colonel was not a courageous man. He had used his family connections to ensure that he would never set foot upon the field of battle; and it was by dint of these same connections and a talent for political in-fighting that he had risen to his position of eminence. But now he saw himself as a warrior, triumphant and painted with the blood of his enemies. And yet he was not, in this vision, intemperate. Oh, no. He would assure himself of the facts before acting. He would weigh his choices. Then and only then would. . . .
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    * * *
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    â€œMister!”
    A boy and a girl—both of junior high age—were standing in front of Jimmy. The boy was skinny and rodentlike, had tipped hair and wore a white T-shirt with spattery red letters spelling out the words JESUS WHO? The girl, a strawberry blond of no appreciable beauty, was demurely dressed in jeans and a crew-neck sweater. The cluttered noise of the crowd was that of a thousand people all saying the same thing slightly out of synch.
    â€œYou were talking weird shit in your sleep,” said the boy, and the girl giggled.
    Jimmy could not get the colonel out of his head. He stared at the boy with the ferocity of a man who has just received news that has left him in no mood to suffer fools. It seemed his eyes were boring like slow bullets into the boy’s eyes.
    â€œHe’s fucked up on something,” the boy said in a hushed tone that put Jimmy in mind of a golf announcer explaining a difficult lie to the viewing audience. The girl leaned into him and took his hand: he was so wise.
    Jimmy hefted the Colt, still warm from the telling, and laid it on the table. He got to his feet. Yawned.
    â€œWhat kinda gun’s that?” the girl asked. “Is it worth a lotta money?”
    â€œColt forty-five automatic, Model Nineteen-Eleven,” Jimmy said. “Designed by John Browning. Damn near the same sidearm’s been used by the US Army these last ninety years. This one here’s worth a good bit.”
    â€œHe’s just talking more shit,” the boy said.
    â€œYou know where you are?” Jimmy asked him.
    The boy affected a tone only slightly more doltish than his natural one. “Naw. Where am I?”
    â€œThat’s my one rule of life,” Jimmy told him. “Know