Dirt Rich by Clark Howard

Author:Clark Howard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2020-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

39

McAllen was four hundred fifty miles downstate; it took Sam twelve hours to drive there in his new yellow Packard sedan. He arrived at six o’clock in the evening, with two hours of daylight still in the sky, and drove down Laredo Street, a three-block stretch of inferior asphalt lined on both sides by illegal saloons operating as “private clubs,” whorehouses operating as hotels, flophouses, pool halls, guns and ammo shops, saddleries, cafes, fortune tellers, and store-front gambling houses. As Tom Prater had said, it was a tough border town.

The Pinkertons had reported that Draw was working in a place called Felson’s Billiard Parlor. Sam found it in the middle of the second block. Draw was out in front, sweeping the wooded sidewalk. Sam felt a tug in his chest at the sight of the old cowboy with a broom in his hand. Nosing the Packard up to the curb, he parked and got out. Draw stopped sweeping and scrutinized the shiny new car. “You’re looking prosperous,” he drawled by way of greeting.

“I am prosperous.” Sam handed Draw a bankbook. “You are too.”

Draw thumbed open the little book. It showed several pages of daily deposits of six hundred dollars each. The balance, as of the previous day, was nearly fifty thousand. “I left definite instructions that this money was to go to the boy. Didn’t Pop tell you?”

“He told me,” Sam acknowledged.

“Well?” Draw demanded.

Sam shrugged. “I figured if you wanted Ty to have it, you ought to give it to him yourself. When he’s older and can appreciate it.”

Draw glared at his visitor for a moment, then stuffed the bankbook into his shirt pocket and said, “Have it your way.” He resumed sweeping the planks on which they stood.

“Is this what you’re doing now? Sweeping sidewalks?” He could see Draw glower.

“I do other things too,” the old cowboy said defensively.

“Such as?”

“I rack balls. Fill the talc cans. Brush down felt on the tables. Lots of things.”

Sam nodded. “Flunky work.”

A glimmer of a smile flickered on Draw’s face. “If you’re aiming to insult me and make me mad, you made a hell of a long drive for nothing. Might’s well get back into your pretty yeller rich man’s car and head on back.”

Sam stepped in front of him so that he had to stop sweeping. “Why’d you run out on me?”

“That’s my business. Besides, I didn’t run out on nobody; I stayed until the job was done.”

“The job, Draw, is just beginning, and you know it. I’ve needed you a hell of a lot more since we brought the oil in than I did before we hit.”

“You’ve got plenty of good hands without me,” Draw insisted. “I agreed to help bring in the well, that was all.”

“You ran out because you didn’t want to have to tell me that I was Able Patman’s bastard grandson, didn’t you?” Sam challenged.

Draw stared at him in surprise. “You found out,” he said after a moment.

“I found out. I also found out that you and he were like brothers all your lives.

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