Colonel Rutherford's Colt Read Online Free PDF Page A

pressure I can bring to bear.”
    Anger rose in Rita like mercury in a hot glass stick. “I’d advise you to move your fucking hand,” she said, “or you going to have to bring it nine-fingered.” Borchard moved, and she rubbed the beer glass against her forehead until the desire to cut him abated.
    â€œI’ve offered you a fair price,” Borchard said. “I’m past the bargaining stage. I want that gun.”
    Given the major’s passion for the Colt, the hen’s passion not to sell it to him, and Jimmy’s way of making his stories, Rita figured she knew more-or-less where he might be going with his newest one. She wondered where it would take her.
    â€œI understand where you’re coming from,” she said to Borchard. “You look at me, you see this tough Indian woman’s been through it. Reservation-bred. Some shithole like Browning. She’s learned how to take care of herself. Could be she got a hunting knife in her boot . . . and could be she’s used it. But she’s a known quantity. You believe you talk some shit to her, she’ll recognize where her interests lie.”
    Borchard shifted in his chair, attentive.
    â€œJimmy, now, he ain’t so easy to read. You say he’s slow, but he’s smart. It’s just he was raised up hard by his daddy, and all his smartness got squashed over into one place in his head. He takes people he meets, fixes ’em up so they sound different and puts ’em in these stories he makes up. Beautiful stories! Doesn’t write them down or nothing, but he remembers every goddamn word. You look at him, you see a spaced-out ’billy who’s crazy for guns. But he goes a mile deeper’n that. I don’t even know for sure what all’s down in there.”
    â€œI’m sure he’s brilliant,” said Borchard. “What does that have to do with the Colt?”
    â€œI got two kids,” Rita said. “I board them with my aunt, but they was with me around the time when I was getting to know Jimmy. Before we got together. So one night I was going out and I couldn’t find nobody to stay with the kids. Jimmy volunteered. Appeared he could handle a couple pre-schoolers. So I left them fed and in their nightgowns. I got home, I found he’d taken his industrial stapler and stapled them up by their nightgowns to the wall. He’d spreadeagled the both of ’em to the boards like trophies. They’d been pestering him and he just couldn’t deal with it. ’Course they kept on pestering him. They loved hanging on the walls, and they were running him ragged, getting him to fetch sodas and candy.” She laughed. “I was pissed, but I had to admit it was funny as hell.”
    â€œAnd your point is? Aside from warning me to keep clear of his stapler?”
    â€œYou’d do better to lay off pressuring Jimmy, ’cause inside he ain’t nothing but pressure. You can’t never tell what’s gonna come out. He’s one bottle cap you don’t wanna pop.”
    Borchard gave his smile a rest and fixed her with a firm look intended, Rita thought, to convey the notion that his position was unshakeable. “I want to give you five thousand for a weapon that isn’t worth more than two,” he said. “You can’t walk away from that. And you can’t jack me up any higher.”
    â€œI could show you a hole in the ground,” Rita said, “and tell you there was a bear trap set at the bottom—I bet you’d still jump in to see if I was lying.”
    Borchard seemed pleased, as if he thought she’d paid him a compliment. “Going halfway gets you nowhere.”
    â€œRita?”
    A bearded man in a leather vest and plaid shirt was standing beside them; sheltering beneath his arm was a weary-looking woman with short gray hair and pronounced crowsfeet, clutching a menu to her chest.
    â€œMind if we join