Tyranny Read Free

two twelve-packs of the store’s least expensive beer stacked in his arms. He stepped up to the counter and set them down in front of the young, pretty Hispanic woman working the register.
    â€œHey, Stella,” he said. “You’re lookin’ mighty good today. Muy bonita .”
    He was about forty and balding, which made him twice as old as the woman at the register, so he shouldn’t have been flirting with her. Not that it was any of his business, the man from the bus told himself. He just wanted to get his food, sit on one of the public benches on the sidewalk, look at the mountains, and figure out what the hell to do with his life next.
    Or to be more accurate, he mused, how could he foul up his life again? Because given his track record, that was bound to happen.
    The clerk didn’t respond to the customer’s compliment, but when the man pulled a battered old checkbook from the pocket of his work shirt, she said, “Uh-uh, Vern, you can’t write a check for that beer.”
    â€œWhat?” Vern exclaimed with a frown. “Who says?”
    â€œThis says.” Stella tapped a red-painted fingernail on a check taped to the side of a cardboard candy display sitting on the counter. Several checks were taped there, and all of them had been stamped Insufficient Funds .
    â€œBut those aren’t all my checks,” Vern protested. “Just that one.”
    â€œOne and done, Mr. Charlton says,” Stella told him. “Mr. Charlton says if you bounce one check on him, you don’t write no more.”
    â€œWhat? That’s crazy! That . . . that was just a misunderstanding. A glitch. A bank error. I got the money—”
    â€œMr. Charlton, he tried to put the check through three times, and it bounced every time. Sorry, Vern. I got to do what he says.”
    â€œBut how am I supposed to pay for my beer?”
    â€œCash, credit, or debit. Preferably cash. But no checks from you. That’s final.”
    â€œWell . . . well, hell!”
    â€œDon’t swear at me,” Stella said. “It’s not my fault.”
    The man from the bus knew he ought to curb his impatience, but he and waiting had never gotten along well. He leaned forward and said to Vern, “Why don’t you move that beer and let the young lady wait on me, and then maybe you can figure out what to do.”
    He thought that was a reasonable suggestion and that it was phrased politely enough.
    Vern turned his head to glare and said, “Why don’t you butt the hell out of what ain’t your business?”
    The clerk looked past him at the newcomer, frowned, and then said in surprise, “Kyle? Kyle, is that you?”
    He frowned, too, because he couldn’t place her. He had spent quite a bit of time in Sierra Lobo in the past, though, and there was no point in denying that he’d always had an eye for a pretty girl, so it was possible he knew her.
    She saw his puzzled look and went on. “It’s me, Estellita Lopez. Most people call me Stella now.”
    Estellita, Kyle Brannock thought. Muy bonita, Estellita . . .

Chapter 2
    T he name made his mind flash back to an autumn night a few years earlier. Visiting for the weekend, he had gone to a football game at the high school stadium on the edge of town, and that had led to meeting Estellita and then some frenzied, clumsy groping in the backseat of a car afterward....
    They hadn’t made any declarations of undying love. In that particular moment, neither of them had been looking for such a thing.
    Instead, all they were interested in was sharing the wonderful thing they had discovered together. Although, to be honest, Kyle suspected that Estellita had stumbled upon the great secret before, with somebody else. Maybe a number of different somebody elses.
    Not that he cared. He wasn’t all that innocent himself, and he sure as hell wasn’t a hypocrite.
    â€œOh,” he said now as she smiled across