Big Hat No Cattle. A Novel of Crime, Adventure, and the Absurd.

Chapter ONE

ONE

1

There is a breeze running past me—the chilling remains of a cold front which left the tourists of Las Vegas wondering why they were not happier. My friend, Ash, and me are in the desert near Spring Mountain, far from the city, and I know my life is about to change. The dead body we found is here, hidden just beneath the surface like a painful family secret in an ancient, dusty diary.

2

"Billy, you tell that hussy girlfriend of yours that we're men." He looks at me briefly, smiling. "We drink beer, watch football—and dammit—we make our own beef jerky."

That is Ash Martin, my best friend. He is an ugly troll of a man but there is an endearing quality there, too. He has thinning black hair which he keeps short, almost to the bone, and his olive complexion gives him a positively Mediterranean look. He is also short, five-foot-seven in hiking boots, and you can tell by sight he knows how to carry himself—that his size should not be factored by anyone considering a tussle.

He looks from the tip of the smoking object to me as if punctuating his point—that I am a sucker for girls and never stand up for myself.

"You are one to talk." I say this lamely, without effort.

"Meaning?" He looks offended, a little hurt, but I know he is faking.

"You suck with women, too."

"Well, Blanco," he drops the handgun down by his thigh, turning it from right to left but never letting the barrel point away from the ground, and all at once I am satisfied. "I got plans with a hot little lady tonight, so there," one side of his mouth turns up as if he has won. "Here," he says, handing me the pistol.

There is an incongruity to this piece of metal. I know what it is and how it works, but to say 'this is a weapon' or 'this will kill people' gives it too much power. To say it is a gun makes no more sense than saying this is a saguaro, or that is a rock, or that my girlfriend is a friend. A thing is just a thing, not what people say about it. Unless someone puts it to use, it is no different to me than a discarded pencil or a diamond ring.

And yet, I am uncomfortable with it in my hand. There is a gravity pulsing from it which draws me in—something far more powerful than the potential energy it stores. The grip is cool in my palm but the slide is still warm from use. I pull it back quickly and let it slap into place. The very sound bothers me but I do not want Ash to see.

I extend my arm outward and squeeze the trigger once, shattering the harmony of the moment. The morning sun is a flaming disc, white as coal, and yet there is no heat at all, not out here at the base of Spring Mountain on the north-west corner of Las Vegas. Everyone who visits this town looking for a good time thinks it is always sunny and carefree, but they have never visited in January. It is forty degrees, breezy, and altogether too cold. I hear the brass buttons of my jacket flap against my belt buckle and I fire at the bowling pins three more times as if knocking quickly on the door of unhappiness. The pins explode, each of them, and Ash is thrilled.

"Damnation," he is surprised but mellow, I can barely hear his subdued voice from the high-pitched buzz in my ears, "sure you never done this before?"

"Told you before, I do not like guns."

"Well you should. Because dang, Billy, they like you." He looks from the gun in my hand to the shattered bowling pins spread across the ancient desert floor. "The difference, Billy, between a gun and that girlfriend of yours? Both are cold and calculating, but the pistol actually responds to your touch."

"Let us not talk about her anymore."

"Angeline?"

"Yes."