Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [74]
“I agree with you,” Parker said. “And we’re definitely not drug smugglers.”
“We’re not even Mexicans,” Earl said.
The leathery stranger snorted. “Hell, there’s some anglos work for them cartels. I saw the smoke and heard a bunch o’ shooting, so I figured a couple of rival gangs were tryin’ to kill each other. Then I come out here and find a couple o’ fellas who look like cops and a pasty-faced little gent who looks about as dangerous as a twelve-year-old girl.”
“Hey!” Earl protested.
“Shut up,” Ford told him. “We are cops, sort of. We work for the government.”
Or at least we used to, he added to himself.
“Border Patrol?” the man asked, squinting suspiciously at them over the barrel of the rifle, which he still hadn’t lowered. “DEA?”
“Not exactly,” Parker said. “We work for a, uh, government agency, though.”
“Got I.D.?”
Ford smiled humorlessly. “They don’t issue it to guys like us.”
“Oh. You’re spooks, are you?”
“Something like that.”
The man snorted. “Yeah, and I’m John Wayne come back to life.”
“Actually, you look more like Lee Van Cleef.”
“You know who Lee Van Cleef was?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
Earl said, “Look, they work for the CIA, all right? They’ve been trying to protect me because some other guys from the government want to kill me, because I know about this new nerve gas that’s being developed at a place called Casa del Diablo and it looks like the President might try to use it against American citizens who disagree with what he’s doing, and I decided to blow the whistle on the whole thing and somebody sent that new Federal Protective Service after me and they tried to kill me and frame these guys for it and—”
“Damn it, boy, take a breath!” the stranger exclaimed. “You expect me to follow that crazy line o’bull?”
“It only sounds crazy,” Ford said. “I’m afraid there’s a lot of truth to it. Now, we don’t want to hurt you, mister—”
“Hurt me? I’m the one who’s got the gun pointin’ at you, remember?”
“Yeah, but by the time you shoot one of us, the other one will kill you,” Ford said calmly, “and there’s no need for that. Just let us get in this SUV and drive away, and you can forget you ever saw us. “ “What about that blowed-up pickup? I’d be willin’ to bet that there’s some bodies around here somewhere, too.”
“Wait a couple of hours and then call the sheriff’s office like you just discovered that something happened,” Parker suggested. “By then we’ll be long gone, and there won’t be any need to mention that we were here.”
“I got a better idea. “ The man finally lowered the rifle. “Come on back to my ranch house with me, and y’all can clean up, get somethin’ to eat, and try to spin some yarn that actually makes sense.”
“So you’ve decided to trust us?” Ford asked.
The man shrugged. “Hell, if you’re so all-fired deadly as you claim to be, you could’ a killed me already if you really wanted to. Right?”
“Well … yeah,” Ford admitted.
“And as pale as that little fella is, if he don’t get out of the sun pretty soon, he’s gonna be blistered.” The man turned away. “I left my horse back yonder a ways. Shoot me or come on, whatever.”
The rancher’s name was Rye Callahan. Ryan, actually, but as he explained to Ford, Parker, and Earl, he wasn’t that fond of the name, and since he was fond of rye whiskey, it seemed like a good idea to shorten it. Since he was an old bachelor, he was in the habit of doing what he wanted.
Rye whiskey was the drink he poured for them as they sat in the comfortably furnished living room of the large, sprawling ranch house where several generations of his family had lived. Callahan tossed back the fiery liquor, licked his lips appreciately, and then said, “All right, start at the beginnin’ and tell me this story again.”
Earl opened his mouth to talk, but Ford stopped him with an upraised hand. “I’ll tell Mr. Callahan what’s been going on, and then he can decide what to do about it.”
“What do you mean, decide?” Earl asked.