The Queen of Honduras Came to Texas to Buy Bulls, and Fell for the Shortest Cowboy in the Arena novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Three in the Morning

Clyde pulled the barn door shut behind us and walked toward the house.

I walked right beside him.

"Go inside," he said.

"No."

He looked up at me, and I looked down at him, and he let it go.

The truck had stopped in the yard with its high beams on the porch.

It was a huge white pickup with chains on all four tires and a rack of lights on the roof.

Ice hissed in the beams.

Strother climbed down out of the driver's side in a sheepskin coat and his white hat.

Another man got out of the passenger side.

He had a camera with a long lens hanging from his neck.

"Evening, Clyde," Strother said. "Or morning. It's going on three."

"You're on my place, Roscoe."

"I'm checking on the queen. Her people are worried sick." He squinted past Clyde at me. "And there she is. Safe and sound. In a dead man's shirt."

The photographer lifted his camera.

Clyde stepped in front of me.

It didn't do much good. I was a head taller than he was.

The flash went off anyway, white and blinding.

"Put that down," Clyde said.

"Free country," the photographer said, and took another.

The kitchen door banged open.

Loretta came out onto the porch in her quilt with the shotgun.

"Roscoe Strother, you get that man back in your truck or I'll put him in it."

Strother laughed. "Loretta. Always a pleasure."

He reached into his coat and pulled out a long envelope.

He held it up in the headlights so we could all see it.

"You know what this is, Clyde?"

Clyde didn't answer.

"This is the note on your ranch. Three hundred and eighty thousand dollars." Strother tapped it against his palm. "The bank was tired of waiting on you. I bought it from them in December. Didn't your mama tell you?"

Behind me, Loretta made a small sound.

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