The Ranger - Ace Atkins [104]
Daddy Gowrie drove the second car with Charley Booth riding shotgun, his cherry red El Camino with bucket seats complete with a nekkid-woman air freshener. He wasn’t so sure about his son’s plan and told Ditto, while everyone looted the store, the store clerk down on his face, counting squares.
“I think my boy’s brain has corroded.”
Ditto nodded.
“Why the hell you come back?”
“For money.”
“Money and pussy has killed many fine men.”
“You want to run?” Ditto asked.
“He’d kill me. He’d kill you, too.”
“I just as soon try,” Ditto said.
Daddy Gowrie topped off the tank and hung up the nozzle. “No. I said I’d back him. He’s my boy.”
“You shoot me if I run?” Ditto asked.
“Probably.”
Ditto looked to Main Street, running south into Jericho’s downtown. His eye caught something high up, just in line with the winter sun. Someone was crawling up that old rusted water tower with a rifle on his back.
“What you looking at?” Daddy Gowrie asked.
“Nothin’,” Ditto said, smiling. “Let’s go.”
“Hold on,” Daddy Gowrie said. “Wait one minute.”
Ditto turned and saw that Jimmy parked across the road, Lena marching toward the gas station with the baby in her arms. His mouth stayed open, not sure what the hell to say.
Charley Booth ran out to meet them and pulled them on inside.
“You ever seen two roosters git into it?” Daddy asked with a rotten smile.
Lillie gathered the men on South Main, right by what had been the train depot, deputizing Blanton, Ed Varner, Mr. Jim, Boom, and Quinn right on the spot. Varner asked if this was all legal, and Judge Blanton said that Lillie was acting sheriff and she could deputize who she saw fit. That seemed to satisfy Varner, and he set off down the road for the water tower, telling Quinn he’d take the shot on Gowrie if he’d poke his head out just a little.
“What about George and Leonard?” Quinn asked.
“Who do you think quit on me?”
“In with Wesley?”
“Just cowards.”
Lillie held a 12-gauge and chewed gum, moving in the direction of the town Square, where they’d walk north toward where Gowrie’s men had met at the old Dixie Gas station. Judge Blanton held a beautiful old Browning Sweet 16 in his liver-spotted hands. Mr. Jim hobbled next to him in his Third Army hat, cradling a 12-gauge pump.
Boom held a deer rifle, the .44 Anaconda tucked into his belt.
Quinn carried Blanton’s old M1, the clip loaded and a spare in his jacket pocket. The old man said it had been his and he fired it once a year, still in fine working order.
They all crested the hill of the railroad tracks and moved on into town, passing a barricade set up by a couple policemen down from Eupora. Lillie nodded, the group of five walking together, Quinn scanning the town for any movement from the doorways or the roofs of the storefronts.
He picked out Ed Varner, that old crazy bastard, on the rusted water tower where he’d already found a perch for the sniper rifle, aiming it down toward the north end of the Square and the old gas station.
“I didn’t ask him to do that,” Lillie said, walking beside Quinn.
“You didn’t have to.”
“Can he make that shot?”
“In his sleep.”
Blanton hobbled alongside Boom, Boom’s left arm hanging loose with the rifle in hand. Mr. Jim kept that shotgun pointed upward, walking nice and easy, as if they were at a Saturday quail hunt, moving on past the Coulter’s Flower Shop, past what had once been the hardware store, pharmacy, and general store. Nothing but shells now. Plywood covered the busted-out windows of the Odd Fellows Hall and the check-cashing business on the bottom floor.
The town gazebo sat empty. The whole town emptied out after the bank robbery, the old brick buildings standing crooked and worn in the weak winter light, a cold wind slicing