Wounded Read Online Free PDF Page B

would you say?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’d say the same thing I’d say to a woman who made a pass at me. ‘No, thank you.’”
    Morgan tore some bread from the loaf and put it on her plate.
    Gus cut me a hard look.
    I hadn’t meant to shut any gates, but damn if I hadn’t by accident. “I forgot the wine,” I said. “Can’t have dinner without wine.” I got up and went to the small rack across the kitchen. “Now, I think a nice Syrah would wash down a size-twelve roper just splendidly.”
    Morgan softened somewhat. “Okay, cowboy, that’s what you’d say. How would you feel?”
    I stood at the table, twisting the corkscrew. “I don’t know, to tell the truth. It’s never happened. I don’t know any homosexuals. Well, if I do, I don’t know that they are. Hell, I don’t know if half the people I know are heterosexual. I don’t want to know.” I pulled out the cork. “Anyway, to answer your question: I don’t know. Like I said, I guess I should feel flattered.”
    “I knew some in prison,” Gus said. “They scared me.”
    “Gus,” Morgan complained.
    “Hell, Morgan, everybody scared me in prison. Besides, that was a different thing anyway. That raping and stuff that happens in the lockup, that’s not sex or love, that’s fighting. It’s all about power, all that macho stuff. Well, anyway, that’s how it seemed to me.”
    “Speaking of macho,” I said, “how’s your mother?”
    “We’re burying the battle-ax on Wednesday,” she said, sipping her wine. “She’s alive and all. I just don’t know what else to do with her.”
    “Bury me next,” Gus said.
    “You expect me to dig a hole in this heat?” I said. “Think again.”
    “Mother’s fine,” Morgan said. “She’s as wild as ever. I was going to bring her tonight, but wrestling is on television. You know, she’s seventy and she still rides that crazy horse.”
    “What’s his name?” I asked.
    “Crazy Horse.”
    “Oh, yeah. How old is he?” I asked.
    “Thirty-six,” she said. “Can you believe that?”
    I loved it. “That’s great. Senior food and what kind of hay?”
    “Alfalfa and timothy. It’s expensive, but she doesn’t eat all that much. Everybody else gets straight alfalfa.” Morgan paused and studied me. “Gus, you ever notice how comfortable this man gets when the subject is horses?”
    “Now that you mention it,” Gus said.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
    “Watch this,” Morgan said. “Hey, Hunt. Women.” She stared at me while she said it.
    Gus laughed.
    “What?” I put a bit of antelope steak in my mouth. “What?”
    “Sex,” Morgan said.
    “Very funny,” I said. I didn’t know where to look. I drank some wine, sat back and crossed my legs.
    “Look at him,” Morgan said. “He’s tenser than a Republican with a thought of his own.”
    I looked at Morgan, frowning a smile. “Where’d that come from?”
    “Been waiting to use it.”
    “It’s true, though,” Morgan said.
    “Anyway, Duncan Camp dropped off his extremely large, insane, and might I add, dangerous horse today.”
    Morgan threw up her hands. “He’s a lost cause.”
    The next day, I drove into town to pick up some medicine for Gus. I stopped at the sheriff’s office. There was a buzz in the street and I could feel it more than see or hear it. Three deputy rigs were diagonally parked on the street instead of the usual one. I walked up the steps and inside.
    Bucky spotted me as I entered. “John.”
    “Bucky.” I looked back out the window at the street. “Bucky, what’s going on around here?”
    “Seems we’re national news. Seems we got ourselves a hate crime. Well, ain’t they all?” Bucky moved his unlit cigar around in his mouth.
    “I just wanted to come by and let Castlebury know I talked to his brother like he asked.” I looked at the hallway that led back to the cells. “You can tell him for me. You can tell him, too, that his brother isn’t