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.“It sure is nice to see everybody getting along so well, I have to say.Everybody so friendly.Know what I heard the other day?”They said nothing.The horses tossed their heads.“Heard that old man of mine humming a tune.” He shook his head.“Can you beat that?”Carmen smiled thinly.She looked at the boy.Turned to Billy again.“Are you going to back up and let us go by?” she said.Billy held her eyes.Smiling still, but the smile nowhere now but in his lips.“Where you all been to, anyway?” He squinted at them.“You been up to that cabin, haven’t you.Old man Santiago’s cabin?” Mirth and lewdness playing in his face.“I knew this old boy one time went to the doc with a load of number five birdshot in his ass cheeks.Doc takes one look at the boy’s jeans all blood-soaked but not a hole in them and says, Damn, I thought old man Santiago passed on years ago.”To the boy he said: “The way you sit that horse, I’d say maybe that old cuss has done kicked off after all.”The boy said nothing.Carmen said, “Are you going to move that car or not?”Billy studied her.He tested the little patch of hair under his lip with the tip of his tongue and smiled again.“Why you gotta take that tone with me? Isn’t that my horse you’re sitting on?”“It’s Emmet’s horse.”“Wrong.That’s my horse between your legs, darlin.” He stepped toward them and the mares shied and stamped and he stopped.“Not that I’m proud of owning such a pair of contrarian nags.”Carmen reined the horse and said, “Okay, this has been fun.Really.But I’m turning around and going back.”“Going back?” said Billy.“With him?”She was trying to back-step the horse so she could get it turned around but the horse only squatted and tossed its head and would not back-step.Billy shook his head.“Pitiful.”At last she curbed the horse violently and it reared and slammed against its sister and came down on its forehooves facing the way they’d come and she reined it to a standstill and looked at the boy and said, “Are you coming? She’ll turn around now.”The boy sat watching Billy.“Sean,” she said.He slipped his off-boot from the stirrup and swung his leg over and stood down into the snow and looped the reins over the mare’s neck and held her by the cheek strap as she shook her head.When she was calm, he walked away from her toward Billy.Billy waited with his arms loose at his sides, smiling placidly until the boy stopped and stood facing him.“Well?” said Billy.“Are you going to move that car?”“Sure I am.”The boy waited.“You mean now? This second? No, I don’t believe I can do that.”The boy walked on toward the car.“Where you going?” said Billy, following.The boy stepped to the driver’s side and reached for the handle.“I wouldn’t do that.”He lifted the handle and opened the door, and Billy stepped up and kicked the door with the heel of his boot, wrenching the door from the boy’sgrip and slamming it shut again.The sound echoed down the canyon of pines, and both horses reared and Carmen held on and said Easy, easy.She watched and the mares watched wild-eyed as Billy took the boy by his jacket and spun him around and pinned him against the fender and brought his face close to the boy’s and said, “Like father like son.What is it with you people? Don’t you know any better than to touch another man’s vehicle?”The boy had not resisted being spun around and pinned to the car.Now with Billy’s face in his face and the feel of his spittle landing on his skin, he reached up and filled his hands with the leather lapels and shoved off against the car and spun around and pinned Billy, in turn, to the car.“Stop it,” called Carmen.“Sean, stop it.”“Best listen to her,” Billy said [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]