And the Hills Opened Up Read Free Page B

wore, the cheap rosewater from the general store.  It covered the musked smell of her natural body odor, though not completely.  He could imagine the feel of his body, pressing so gently down upon hers….
    The church was silent.  Ingrid had finished her confession and was waiting for his reply.  Father Lynch frowned, as if deep in thought, and charged her with a penance of fifty Hail Mary’s before giving her absolution. 
    “Amen,” Ingrid said, nodding.
    “Your sins are truly forgiven.  Go in peace, child.”
    “Thanks be to God.”
    Ingrid rose and started for the back door, her scent lingering in the pew.  Father Lynch remained seated, his eyes fixed on the cross.  He already felt worn and tired, the July heat filling the church with humidity similar to the hot, panting breath of a dog.  He heard the door open behind him and sunlight swept into the church.  Floorboards creaked as the next penitent entered, seeking absolution of her own.

3
    Sherriff Milo Atkins circled the town’s perimeter slowly, not wanting to go round too fast.  Twenty minutes was all it took to walk Red Earth and he didn’t want to eat up the ground before he’d cooled off some. 
    It was that damn Hank Chambers who’d gotten his blood boiling.  Mr. Fancy Words Mining Foreman, Mr. The Dennison Mining Company is All-Powerful and Rules Above Us All.  Sure, old man Dennison paid the bills around here, including Atkins’ own salary, but that didn’t mean you could blast away without giving the town some kind of warning, even five minutes notice, so you weren’t snoozing at your desk when it happened, a loud enough bang that you woke up and tipped back in your chair, much to the goddamned amusement of anybody who happened to be in the general store.  Haw-haw-haw. 
    It was probably Atkins’ age that made Chambers forget about him like that, like a town sheriff was nothing but an itty bitty old fly fit for the swatting.  Atkins’ pa, who’d been a lawman for thirty years himself, in Wichita, Kansas, had warned it would be like this for the first few years—in half-wild towns like Red Earth grown men didn’t cotton to twenty-five-year-old sheriffs, all bright-eyed and damp behind the ears.  Didn’t matter how good you were at the job, or how well you handled a gun.  Men who’d lived long enough with the wilderness at their heels weren’t keen on much authority at all, much less a man wearing tin long before he’d turned thirty.  
    But you had to start somewhere.  Atkins had brought his wife and boy out here promising the next town would be located somewhere properly civilized, with an actual railroad running through it.  If putting up with some ignorant jawing would keep them all warm and fed, and give him some experience to boot, he’d just have to do it, no matter how it galled.
    Atkins was walking behind the two boarding houses when some rocks broke loose and rolled down from the hills beyond, kicking up dust as they tumbled down to the valley floor, harming nothing.  Atkins followed the trail of dust up the hillside with his eye and found an old mountain goat looking right back at him, horns and all. 
    “What you doing up there?  You bent on disturbing the peace?”
    The goat chewed whatever the hell he was chewing.  Atkins unbuttoned his holster and pulled out his revolver, lining its sight up with the goat’s face.  The goat made no move to flee—he just stared back at Atkins, mute and as dumb as the rocks he’d kicked.  It’d be a tricky shot, but Atkins reckoned he could hit it right between the eyes if he’d wanted, since he’d been practicing with a revolver for as long as he could hold onto one.  He’d wanted to be a cowboy as a youngster, like Billy the Kid, or Wild Bill Hickok, not knowing that the Wild West was already long over and that it hadn’t really been such a grand shootout to begin with.  Even Wyoming was getting settled now as the ranchers put up their fences and the oil and