catty-corner to him. If the horse spooks, he?ll pull away from you and fall backward on the farrier.?

?I can see that might be a problem.?

?Thank you.? Hackberry bent over and cradled the hind left foot of the horse against his thighs and began trimming the edges of the hoof, the half-moon strips of horn dropping into the dust. He felt Santa Fe surge and try to straighten his leg and pull against the lead. ?Hold him,? Hackberry said.

?I?m not exactly playing with myself up here,? Pete said.

Hackberry smoothed the edges and bottom of the hoof with his rasp, still fighting the resistance of a three-year-old horse weighing eleven hundred pounds. ?Dammit, boy, hold him,? he said.

?I?d sure like to get a job in your department. I bet it?s fun,? Pete said.

Hackberry dropped Santa Fe?s foot to the ground and straightened up, closing his eyes, waiting for the pain in his lower back to go to the place that pain eventually went to.

?You got sciatica??

?Get the chairs back out of the tack room, will you??

?Yes, sir.?

Hackberry pressed his hands against the barn wall and stretched one leg at a time behind him, like a man trying to push down a building. He heard Pete unfold the chairs and set them on the ground. Hackberry sat down and removed his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. It was comfortable in the shade, the heat of the day trapped inside the sunshine, the wind puffing the mulberry tree in the backyard.

?Who was the shooter at the church?? Hackberry said.

?The one actually did it??

?Who was he??

?This guy Preacher, I guess.?

?You guess??

?I didn?t see it. I got out of the truck to take a leak and took off when the shooting started.?

?Who had the Thompson??

?The guy named Hugo. It was in a canvas bag with the ammo pan. He said it belonged to the most dangerous man in Texas.?

?Did you ever see Preacher??

?No, sir, I never saw him. The only guy I saw up close was Hugo. It was in the dash light of the truck. There were other guys out there in the dark, but I don?t know who they were. One guy had a beard, I think. I just saw him in the headlights for a second. Maybe the beard was red or orange.?

?Was his name Liam or Eriksson??

?I don?t know, sir.?

?Who hired you for the job??

?An ole boy I was drinking with. But he didn?t show up at the convoy.?

?Convoy??

?There was one truck and an SUV and a couple of cars.?

?Where were you drinking when you met the guy who hired you??

?At Ouzel?s place. Or at least I think I was.?

?What was this ole boy?s name??

?I don?t know. I was drunk.?

?So as far as you know, the shooter could have been Hugo, not Preacher??

?It could have been anybody. I told you, sir, I took off.?

?Did you see the women??

?Yes, sir.?

Pete was sitting in one of the two folding chairs he had set up, his eyes averted, his shoulders rounded like the top of a question mark. He folded his arms across his chest and lowered his chin.

?Did you talk to the women??

?A girl fell down getting into the truck, and I he?ped her up.?

Hackberry could hear the wind gusting through the grass and the screens on the far side of the barn. ?By that time you knew you weren?t bringing in wets??

?Yes, sir.?

?Who did you think these women were??

?I didn?t want to know.?

?Housemaids??

?No, sir.?

?Fieldworkers??

?No, sir.?

?Did you think they were going to start up a laundry??

?I figured they were prostitutes. And I figured if they weren?t prostitutes already, somebody was fixing to turn them into prostitutes.? Pete?s eyes were shiny when he glanced sideways at Hackberry.

?You think I?m being too hard on you??

?No, sir.?

?That?s good, because the feds are going to be a lot harder.?

?I don?t care. I got to live with what I did. Fuck them.?

?They?re just doing their job, Pete. But that doesn?t mean we won?t do ours.?

?I cain?t translate that.?

?What that means is I don?t think your legal value is worth horse piss on a hot rock.?

?Is that good or bad??

?I suspect both of us will find out directly.?

Pete stared in confusion at the sky and at the wind in the trees and at the shimmer of sunlight on the water brimming over the edge of the horse tank. ?I wish I?d ate an AK round in Baghdad.?

HACKBERRY HAD TOLD Pete and Vikki to stay close to the house, then had gone to town in