Six Cut Kill

by David R Lewis

  Cletus sipped his coffee and looked out the sliding doors for a moment. “This is a terrible nice spot,” he replied.

  “There is a pretty little stretch of woods at the east end of the lake,” Crockett went on. “Oak and walnut. Be no big deal to clear a spot, drill a well, and doze in a road right to the shoreline.”

  “You’re serious, ain’tcha.”

  “The company that put in this cabin and Stitch’s place can do about anything you could ever want. I know everybody else you’d need to get it done.”

  Clete smiled. “You’re a mess, you know that?” he said.

  Crockett returned his smile. “None of us getting any younger, Texican.”

  “I reckon not. Ol’ Goody is windin’ down, I guess. Hell, he’s ninety or better. It’s catchin’ up to him. He stopped usin’ them fake legs a couple a years ago an’ went to the wheelchair. He don’t cook as much as he used to either. Spends more time in his room nowadays. An’ Ivy’ll be seventy-eight or nine this winter. She’s on that dialysis machine three times a week now. Both of ‘em keep up a good front an’ they’ve been a blessing for each other, but it don’t take a genius to see that they’re losin’ ground. Damn shame. I love ‘em both.”

  “So do I.”

  “Everthing changes, son. I can just see me an’ you an’ ol’ Stitch a settin’ out there on your porch in our rockin’ chairs, spittin’ an’ whittlin’, tellin’ lies an’ takin’ a pull on the jug ever now an’ then.”

  Crockett chuckled. “You’re not exactly at death’s door, Texas. You’re ten years or more younger than me, and I’m younger than Stitch.”

  “My ol’ Daddy usta git to singin’ when his back would git to botherin’ him, or when his arthritis was actin up and he was feelin’ his age.”

  “How is your dad?”

  “Him an’ mom are still kickin’. Ever since he got through that mess with the cancer, she an’ him have got along better than they ever did. He still keeps a few cows and a horse or two. Still rides and works outside. He’s slowed down, but he ain’t quit. Mom don’t never seem to change. Texas women are a tough bunch, son.”

  “The offer stands, Cletus.”

  “Best one I’ve had in a while. I’ll think about it. Real nice of ya.”

  “It’s not without self-interest. A few more years down the road, and it might be good to have somebody a little younger around.”

  Clete grimaced. “There it is,” he said. “Some fool like me to change the bed clothes, carry out the chamber pot, an’ keep flippin’ ya so you don’t git no bed sores. That there is Satin’s job.”

  “Shit, Clete. I go down, and she’ll take all the money and run off with Stitch. That hippie stopped aging thirty years ago. She’s just biding her time. Talks about it in her sleep.”

  Clete grinned and headed toward the coffee pot. “Goddamn women,” he said.

  A little before noon, Stitch and Danni showed up with buckets of fried chicken and fixins from the Colonel’s place in Liberty. Danni hugged everybody while Satin gathered the necessary accoutrements for dining, Charlene arrived as was expected, she and Cletus were introduced, and the group pigged out on the sheltered deck as the rain came to a stop and the sun began to disperse the clouds. After the meal, Charlene and Clete repaired to a corner of the living room and everyone else stayed outside to give them some privacy. Stitch took a bite of one of the remaining biscuits and looked at Crockett.

  “You got fish for the fry yet, dude?” he asked.

  “Not yet. I was gonna go this morning, but the rain showed up.”

  “Rain might be, like, good, ya know? Sometimes rain gets fish stirred up an’ shit.”

  “What are you trying to say, hippie?”

  “Get your shit an’ let’s go see if we can catch a mess. I’ll even clean ‘em. We put ‘em in water with a little salt overnight in the fridge, ‘an tomorrow they’ll be just fuckin’ right, man. Bring ol’ Donk with us, dude, in case we fall asleep after all that chicken.”

  Crockett and Stitch found what they were looking for in a rocky cove near the damn. Several oak trees had been left standing in around twenty feet of water, and the bluegill were hanging in the branches about six feet below the surface. In a little over two hours, they caught almost fifty fish, keeping nearly twenty that were a pound to a pound and a half each of slab-sided little beauties that reflected light in an array of colors under the shining sun.

  “This is the life, motherfucker,” Stitch said, releasing a fish deemed too small for the occasion.

  “You got that right,” Crockett agreed. “This morning I told Clete he was welcome to put a place in out here when his Chicago shift was through.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “Far fucking out, man! Oh wow. Be good to have ol’ Clete around, ya know?”

  “Always is.”

  “Way cool, dude. That’s some good shit, man. Think he’ll do it?”

  “I think he might.”

  “Righteous. Fuckin’ righteous. Ol’ Clete. Far out.”

  When they got back to the house, the ladies and Clete were kicked back on the deck. Crockett hustled to the kitchen for his filet knife, a big pan, and ice, while Stitch pulled a hose down to the dock for fresh water. Forty-five minutes later, he and Crockett returned with thirty-six hand-sized bluegill fillets on ice after cleaning and rinsing them thoroughly, hosing down the mess on the dock, and tossing the unwanted portions of the fish back into the lake to feed the rest of the herd.

  “Those are beautiful,” Satin said, peering into the pan. “I’ll cut ‘em into about one-inch squares, dip ‘em into Joker’s batter, and fry ‘em up bite-sized. Broiled potato wedges good with that?”

  The general consensus was that broiled potato wedges would be fine.

  “I’ll make coleslaw and deviled eggs,” Danni piped.

  “And I’ll bring desert,” Charlene added. “Double dark chocolate cake with cherry compote?”

  Crockett grabbed his chest and lurched against the railing.

  “I assume that is a yes?” Charlene went on.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Good. This is sort of a twin celebration. While you two were out fishing, Clete and I agreed to the deal. It includes everything you know about and an additional hundred and fifty thousand per year business expense allowance if our income doesn’t cover all we need. Our two enterprises, Heartland Stables and The Second Chance Pit Bull Rescue are off and running.”

  Crockett beamed. “That’s wonderful. This calls for a drink. Root beer or scotch?”

  The unanimous choice was root beer.

  An hour later, with the fish fillets filed away, the root beer consumed, the sun sinking a little low, and the group getting lethargic on the deck, Clete spoke up.

  “Where ya’ll gonna git your horses? Horses for a stable set up are hard to find. Takes a pretty special animal to deal with different folks piling on and off ‘em all the time. Good ones are near worth their weight in gold.”

  Charlene shrugged. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. Have you, Danni?”

  “No. I guess we’ll just have to talk to people, hit some auctions, check out some stables or something, and go to sales. Whatever it takes.”

  “The only thing worse than a used car salesman is a used horse salesman,” Clete went on. “You can’t hardly believe nothin’ any a them ol’ boys tell ya. ‘Specially the ones that’s dealin’ in plug pleasure horses. No papers, no real history, nothing to prove the truth about the animal. Crap shoot.”

  Charlene smiled. “Don’t bring me a problem without a solution, Marshal,” she said.

  “Could be I got that for ya, m’am,” Clete drawled. “My poor ol’ daddy.”

  “Your father?”

  “My dad has been dealin’ in horses and cattle out in west Texas most a his whole life. He can spot a bowed tendon or fistulated withers from a mile away. He can look in a horse’s mouth an’ not only tell ya how old the nag is, but it’s mother
’s maiden name. That ol’ boy can pick ‘em, an’ he can deal with the best of ‘em. Git ya more horse for your dollar than anybody I ever seen.”

  “Will he do it?” Charlene asked.

  “For me he will.”

  “How ‘bout for an additional fifteen percent commission?”

  Clete grinned. “I was you,” he said, “I’d consider it done. How many you want?”

  “Let’s start with ten or twelve. No hurry. I’ve got a rig and a six-horse trailer so no delivery will be necessary. If the new barn isn’t up in time, I’ve got another place to put them until it’s finished.”

  “I’ll call him tomorrow. I know him. He’ll start lookin’ right off. He finds one, he’ll holler for money, git the horse, an’ keep it at his place until he gets enough for a load. He’ll charge you for feed an’ such, but it’ll be reasonable. Vets are pretty reasonable out that way, too. Horse is skinny, he’ll fatten it up. Horse is fat, Daddy’ll Atkins his ass. You get a horse from him, it’ll be in better shape than when he got it. Knowin’ him, it’ll have better manners, too.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Charlene said. “Go for it.”

  “Okay. Just so ya’ll know how much I admire this thing that you’re fixin’ to do, the first horse ya’ll get is on me. Call it my contribution to the cause.”

  Danni jumped up, hugged him, and kissed Clete on both cheeks.

  “Praise Texas,” Clete said. “What do I get for two horses?”

  Danni grinned. “Don’t push your luck, Uncle Clete,” she said.

  Charlene looked at Clete and smiled. “Have you considered three horses?” she asked.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Breakfast was late. Crockett forked a bite of pancake and looked at Clete pouring more batter onto the griddle. “What do you think, Marshal?” he asked.

  “’Bout what?”

  “About this whole Pit Bull and horse thing?”

  Clete grinned. “You mean the dog an’ pony show?”

  Crockett chuckled around his pancake and nodded.

  “I think that the Crockett women are bitin’ off a helluva chaw, son, and are gonna both wind up workin’ their purty little asses off. Danni’s up for it. Satin claims she ain’t gonna go overboard. You believe that?”

  Crockett shook his head.

  “Me, neither. That woman ain’t built to do nothin’ halfway. They’ll both love it. An’ they’re both well-protected. This thing goes south for any reason, they’ll come out fine, still financed, loss free. Ivy an’ me seen to that.”

  “Nice of you to get the first horse and bring your dad into everything.”

  Clete grimaced. “Aw, hell,” he said. “I got caught up.”

  “I thought you said once upon a time that you didn’t know anything about horses.”

  Clete shook his head. “Never said that. Said I didn’t want nothin’ to do with the crazy sonsabitches. Still don’t.”

  “So you know horses.”

  “I was ridin’ by the time I could walk. Started workin’ with my daddy before I went to first grade. Bein’ in the oil bidness didn’t keep him away from horses much. Got into saddle broncs. When I graduated high school, I had several offers for academic scholarships; but instead of goin’ to A&M or someplace like that, I took one at little ol’ Howard College in Big Spring ‘cause of their rodeo program. Gonna be a famous cowboy, doncha see? I hadn’t been there for twenty minutes when I come across this girl that stole my cold, cold heart. Fell in love for the first and only time in my life, on the spot. Mavis Pendelton. Her daddy was involved in the horse program on the King ranch. That mean anything to you?”

  “Palominos?”

  “Mostly. Bred outstandin’ horses. Mavis was on the school’s quadrille team. Hell of a horse woman. We spent ever minute we could with one another. Gonna git married our senior year, had kid’s names picked out, plumb silly for one another. In our junior year the school hosted a rodeo for a college in Arizona. The quadrille team was performin’ before the bareback bronc ridin’. All them gals in shiny silver outfits on palominos, ridin’ in formations and doin’ all that precision trick stuff. They were doin’ this figure eight thing at a gallop, alternatin’ where they crossed one another at the center of the eight. When the horse in front of Mavis came to the crossing, it shied at a piece of paper blowin’ across the arena and broke gait. The horse that was supposed to cross between it an’ Mavis, swerved and slammed into Mavis and her horse. Her horse fell and rolled on her. Twenty minutes later she died from internal bleeding. I ain’t been on a horse since. Ain’t been in love since, neither.”

  “Jesus, Clete.”

  Clete shrugged. “My own damn fault that I ain’t never let it go. Been near thirty years an’ I’m still hangin’ onto it.”

  “You finished school though.”

  “Yeah, but at Texas A&M. Then the service, then the Rangers, then the guvmint picked me up. You know most of the rest. Just another tragic figure. Heathcliff on the moor an’ all that kinda crap.”

  Satin walked into the room. “You’re full of shit, Marshal,” she said. “Would you have quit driving if she’d been killed in a traffic accident?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t ‘what’ me, goddammit. And yes, I’ve been eavesdropping. Heard your whole sad story. You’re not pining for what might have been. You’re just taking advantage of a tragic situation to keep from having to commit your life to anybody but yourself.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about somebody I love. You. You are one of the best men on the planet, Clete, and yet you deny yourself the same happiness you so enjoy seeing in other people. You’ve been a caretaker most of your adult life. All these years with Ivy. Look what you did for Crockett when he lost Rachael and then Ruby. How you risked your life to get a kid away from his asshole father and back to his mother. What you did for Carson Bailey. Hell, what you did for me! And every one of those unselfish deeds ended with ol’ Clete, coat thrown over his shoulder, walking away into the night, nothing left but the sound of his footsteps. It may have been a horse’s fault that your first love, a love that, incidentally, never had a chance to go right or wrong on its own, ended in tragedy, but it is damn sure your fault that you still hide behind it to keep from getting what you truly deserve out of life. Cowboy up, you wuss!”

  Clete was pale. “Jesus!”

  “Wanna fight?” Satin said.

  “No ma’m,” Clete replied. “I do not.” He looked a little hunted.

  “Then it’s time to get back on the horse,” Satin went on. “And when we get some, goddammit, that is exactly what you are going to do.” She glared at him for a moment. “I’m going back upstairs until I settle down. If I stay here, I’m gonna kick your self-indulgent, West Texas ass.”

  Crockett watched Satin stomp up the stairs and turned to Clete. “Have you met my wife?” he asked.

  Stitch and Danni arrived around noon, bearing a big bowl of coleslaw and three-dozen deviled eggs. Crockett snatched one and shoved it in his maw as he collected a deep stainless steel pot from under the counter.

  “Where’s Clete?” Danni asked.

  Crockett chewed rapidly, then smiled. “He went for a walk about an hour ago.”

  “Where’s mom?”

  “Upstairs settling down.”

  “From what?”

  Crockett’s smile escalated to a grin. “She gave Clete a hemorrhoidectomy a little while ago. Like most things of that ilk, it wasn’t pretty. But, it was necessary.”

  Danni snorted and headed upstairs. Stitch looked at Crockett and raised an eyebrow.

  “About a girl Clete was in love with when he was in college,” Crockett said.

  “The chick that got killed on a horse, huh?” Stitch replied.

  “Ah, yeah.”

  “He told me about it once up at Ivy’s when we got into a bottle of Mescal. Helluva lick, huh dude?”

  “No shit.”

  “Dumbass been c
arryin’ her corpse around all these years. I wanted to, like, jump his shit, ya know? But I figured somebody better suited for the task would get around to it sooner or later. Ol’ Satin nailed him, huh?”

  “To the cross. Gonna be interesting to see how this turns out. She went right for the throat, Stitch. She ever came at me like that, I’d shoot myself to keep from being taken alive.”

  Thirty minutes later, Stitch was sitting in the swing watching Crockett shovel congealed coconut oil into the pot as it sat on a cold grill, when Clete came walking up the slope. He seemed a little smaller than life sized. Crockett smiled at him.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Nossir, I ain’t,” Clete replied, trudging up the steps. “Your wife around?”

  “Upstairs with Danni, last I knew.”

  Clete peered out over the railing and studied nothing in the distance. The sliding glass door opened and Satin stepped out onto the deck. Clete turned to look at her.

  “Miz Satin,” he said.

  “Cletus,” she replied.

  They studied each other from ten feet for a while until Satin spoke again.

  “Wanna hug?” she asked.

  “Yes, m’am,” Clete said. “That’d be just fine.”

  Crockett and Stitch studied the trees and grass for the duration, then watched the newly reunited pair disappear into the living room. Danni came out carrying a pitcher of iced tea and glasses.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Restoration and rebuilding,” Stitch said.

  Danni studied the living room through the glass doors for a moment. “Must be working,” she replied. “Clete is able to sit down.”

  Crockett was warming the coconut oil and nearly half of the deviled eggs were gone before Clete and Satin rejoined the group. Clete looked a little tired, Satin seemed a little self-satisfied, and both appeared to be comfortable with the other. Donk sat near the eggs, ever hopeful of a dropped morsel, Dundee stayed close to Danni, and Nudge was draped on the railing to supervise the lesser beings. Satin had just returned from the kitchen with the iced bluegill squares and a bowl of batter when Charlene, wearing low cut hiking boots, kaki safari shorts, and man-tailored white shirt over a red tank top appeared at the crest of the steps. In her hands was a box just the right size for a double dark chocolate cake with cherry compote. Crockett rushed to help.