LITMIR.BIZ

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bar stool. Standing, he stretched out his lanky frame, popping several vertebrae. “He’s afraid if he sets foot in Utah, some crazy redneck, like you Bucky, will shoot him.”

      “Wouldn’t mind it.” Lee shrugged as he heaved a two-gallon galvanized steel-mixing tub and set it on the counter with a metallic thud. “Wouldn’t mind it one damn bit. He’s nothin’ but a hippie, a womanizer and a draft-dodger. Went to England instead of Nam, you know.”

      “Oxford—University College, I think, but he didn’t inhale,” Douglas “Roper” chuckled, subconsciously rubbing his right hand over the stump where his left index finger used to be.

      “Yeah, he’s a regular pillar of salt.” Lee spat again.

      “What’s that supposed to mean—a pillar of salt?” Ruby Nez asked, not trying to hide her disgust, from her perch on the other kitchen barstool. “You talking about a pillar-of-the-community or Sodom and Gomorrah?”

      “Neither. Don’t think for a minute this won’t affect you, Rube,” Lee said, positioning a hand-crank cast-iron meat grinder over the mixing tub and securely screwing it down to the counter lip. The manufacturer’s label, TSM, was prominently stamped on the side wall of the hamper. “Nothin’ better than these old TSM grinders. Can’t break ‘em with a sledge hammer.”

      “What’s TSM stand for?” Roper asked idly.

      “The Sausage Maker, what’da ya think?” Bucky countered. Once the grinder was securely fastened to the counter, he looked up at Ruby, frowned, scratched his whiskered chin then continued with his original train of thought. “And this heer is one time your looks ain’t gonna help ya none, Rubles. Don’t mean a damn thing to them BLM boys. They’se asexual.”

      “Asexual?” Roper Rehnquist asked, arching an eyebrow.

      “I’ve earned everything I’ve got. Looks had nothin’ to do with it,” Ruby snapped, her fine features turning flinty hard as black obsidian.

      “Don’t hurt none your second husband happened to up and die and leave youse that bottomland on the Escalante and that allotment on the fifty.”

      “That ranch was losing money till he married me, and that’s a fact.”

      “Never did quite figure out how he died,” Bucky commented, “somethin’ strange about it.”

      “Died in a hunting accident,” Ruby said unflinching. “Nothin’ strange bout it at all.”

      “Only they never found the shooter or the gun.”

      “They found the bullet, a thirty/thirty. You have a thirty/thirty, don’t you?”

      “Yeah, an I’m a purdy damn good shot too. Won me some shootin’ contests in my time,” Bucky asserted, then reached in a counter drawer, pulling out three soiled, blue-ribboned metals, each bearing the inscription, first place. Proudly, he displayed them on the counter.

      “They don’t say they were for shootin’,” Ruby contended.

      “They don’t say they weren’t, neither,” Bucky retorted.

      “So, you do admit to owning a thirty/thirty.” Roper suppressed a smile as he got directly in front of Bucky’s face and argued, trying to sound like a prosecuting attorney.

      “Everyone does,” Lee smirked, pulling a hind quarter of venison from his propane refrigerator. “There’s more thirty/thirtys in the state of Utah than cell phones.” He paused momentarily as he plunked the meat down on the counter with a thud then looked over at Ruby. “Probably doesn’t matter what everyone’s been a sayin’?”

      “Bucky, you best not go there,” Doug Roper Rehnquist cautioned.

      “Yeah—yeah, no point in closing the barn door if’n the horses have gout.”

      “Bucky,” Ruby answered, gritting her teeth, “most of the time I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

      “Well, all I’m a sayin’, is let them sleepin’ dogs die. ‘Specially them mean sum-bitches.”

      “He had his good side,” Ruby replied defensively.

      “Shore he did, Rube,” Bucky said sarcastically, “and so did Ted Bundy. But, all I’m sayin’, is all you ranchers is goin’ a be in a world of hurt by this here tree hugger.”

      “He just got done saying there would be grazing,” Ruby contended testily.

      “Yeah, for now.” Lee cut off a small chunk of meat, stuffed it in the grinder and began cranking. “That’s just to get the monument in place with the least amount of ruckus. Once things settle down, how long do youse think Gore and his flower-sniffers is goin’ to let youse desecrate them holy lands with your stinkin’, shittin’ cows? Hell, far as they’re concerned, them bovines are worse’n them friggin’ four-wheelers.”

      “Nothing worse than ATVs,” Roper confirmed.

      “Well, I’m not sayin’ I’m trustin’ ‘em,” Ruby said.

      “I’d be just as worried about the Grand Canyon Trust buying up all the permits,” Roper argued. “I’ll be darned if I can figure out where they get all their money.”

      “That’s pretty strong language, college-boy,” Lee mocked.

      “Well, they just bought that big ranch outside of Moab and another on the Arizona Strip,” Roper declared, “so they’re getting their money from somewhere.”

      “Bleedin’ heart liberals back east, and the Sierra Club,” Lee growled. He now had a respectable mound of ground meat, looking like a pile of extruded red worms, impossibly tangled in the bottom of the bowl. “And Robert Redford.”

      “Why Redford?”

      “If’n they have their way, you’ll all be a turning in your cowboy boots, chaps and Stetsons for fancy lace-up boots, ‘luminum walkin’ sticks and Spandex. Shit, he has some nerve callin’ hisself a Utahn.”

      “Who?” Roper asked.

      “Robert ‘where-the-red-fern-don’t-grow’ Redford!” Lee spat out the words, followed by another errant attempt at the bucket. “Who’d ya think?”

      “I don’t think he’s so bad,” Doug Roper declared, “he means well. But, I suspect your little operation here is goin’ to suffer more than Ruby and me.”

      “I’ll be fine,” Bucky Lee said, twisting off the top of his can of Skoal. “I’se gone and got myself diversified, like them Wall Street boys.”

      “Diversified?” Ruby asked.

      “I’se got a new line,” Bucky said, putting a pinch between his tongue and cheek, then went back to his meat. “Don’t youse worry none about me. Soon I’ll be making six figures and youse guys will be comin’ to me beggin’ for a loan and of course I’ll say no.”

      “That’ll be the day,” Ruby muttered.

      “How you going to make that kind of money?” Roper asked.

      “Confidential,” Bucky Lee said. “Like they say in the marines, don’t show, don’t kill.

      “As usual,” Ruby declared, “you’re all mixed up.”

      “You’ll see,” Bucky Lee insisted, “All I can tell you it has something to do with rocks.”

      “Rocks!” Ruby exclaimed. “Are you crazy?”

      “Clinton definitely said there would be no mining,” Roper insisted.

      “These ain’t just any rocks,” Lee explained. “These are rare and there’s no mining and that’s the beauty of it and that’s all I’m goin’ to say about that.”

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