Page 95 of On the Land, We Shoot Straight
Cole crossed his arms over his chest. “It wasn’t like what? You blackmailing me and selling me off to your friends?”
“You fuckin’ enjoyed yourself! You loved it! You fuckin’ lying slut!”
Grady shifted the sight and shot the ground right in front of Tom’s crotch so the dirt exploded, showering him. He pulled the fore-end to the rear of the gun, ejecting the used cartridge, cocked the hammer, reloaded the next shell in the chamber, pushed the slide forward in rapid movements, ready to fire again.
“Nice fuckin’ shot!” Cole sounded delighted, and Grady smiled.
“You were sayin’, Tom?”
“You’re fuckin’ crazy,” Tom hissed.
“I reckon you owe my man here an apology,” Grady said.
“Man?!” Tom screeched.
“Yeah.” Grady shifted his sight to Tom’s crotch. “And I reckon you got ten seconds to make it, or you ain’t gonna have no claim to that title yourself.”
“Not that you got one anyway,” Cole said.
“Fuck, okay, look, I reckon there’s been—”
“Eight seconds.”
“Right, fuck!”
“Seven.”
“I’m sorry, okay! I’m fuckin’ sorry!”
“For what?”
“For, for...”
“For rapin’ my Cole here,” Grady gritted out, “for thinkin’ the likes of you even got the right to look at him, let alone be touchin’ him.”
Tom was nodding. “Yes, all right. Yes.”
Grady brought the gun down. “Get the fuck off my land. And if you ever come near Cole or me again, you’re dead, you hear me?”
Tom was nodding. “What about, what about the lawyer?”
Grady leaned on post, the gun loose in his hand. “I need to think on it. Maybe the police be comin’ round one day soon.”
Tom shook his head. “No, we gotta make a deal.”
Grady brought the gun up again and fired another round to Tom’s left. Tom danced like a Looney Tunes character, and Cole lost it laughing.
“I want you to hear me real good now, Tom. Real good,” Grady said and reloaded, fired to Tom’s right for good measure. The rapid succession of bullets chased each other in an echo of claps thundering across the landscape as Tom tap danced around and held his head.
“You listenin’?”
“Yes!”
“We don’t make no deals with the likes of you, ya hear? Maybe Cole gonna decide in a few years this here was a crime he can’t get past and you need to be meetin’ retribution. Then we be comin’ for you, and you’ll die. Or maybe we decide to get my ex-wife and press charges and the police be comin’. Point is, you don’t get to decide, ya hear? Cole decides. And you get to live the rest of your life waitin’ on that day.”
Tom nodded, and Grady saw he’d pissed himself.
“Now go on and get in that there car and get outta here before I change my mind and decide to end this right now.”
