truck, and then Boone arriving with his lights flashing and his siren giving a single mournful whoop in case the blinding strobe left any doubt he was there.
“Hell,” Hutch breathed, watching as the sheriff climbed, somewhat wearily, out of his cruiser and came toward the doors of the Boot Scoot. “McQuillan’s really going to do it—he’s going to press charges against Walker.”
“Somebody ought to press charges against you,” Amy Jo huffed out, but she wasn’t quite as steam-powered as before. “How could you, Hutch? How could you let things go so far and then humiliate Brylee in public the way you did? Do you even know how much a wedding means to a woman? She looks forward to it her whole life, from the time she’s a little bit of a thing, and then—”
Boone passed them, nodded in grim acknowledgment as he went inside the tavern to investigate the scene of the crime, as McQuillan, who must have gotten right on his cell phone to report the event, would no doubt term it.
By now the damn idiot had probably taped off a body-shape in the sawdust, to mark the place where he’d fallen.
Hutch turned his attention back to Amy Jo. “Just exactly what is it,” he asked, exasperated, “that you people want me to do, here?”
Amy Jo jutted out her spunky little chin. “‘You people’? You mean Brylee’s friends?”
“I mean,” Hutch bit out tersely, “that all this Team Brylee crap is getting old. I’ve always lived here and I always will, and I will be damned if I’ll stay away from the Boot Scoot or anyplace else I want to go, just because you and the rest of Brylee’s bunch think I ought to be ashamed of what I did.” He leaned in, and Amy Jo’s eyes widened. “Here’s a flash for you—pass it on. Post it on that stupid website. Print up T-shirts, put fliers on windshields, whatever. I’m not going anywhere. Deal with it.”
Amy Jo blinked. She wasn’t a bad sort, really. It was just that she and Brylee had grown up as close friends, the way Kendra and Joslyn had. The way he and Slade might have, if it hadn’t been for the old man’s cussed determination to ignore one of them and browbeat the other.
Loyalty was an important quality in a friend, even when it was the bullheaded kind like Amy Jo’s.
“Nobody expects you to move away or anything,” Amy Jo said belatedly and in a lame tone.
“Good,” Hutch sputtered, as another ruckus of some kind erupted inside the Boot Scoot. “Because when hell freezes over, I’ll still be right here in Parable.”
Amy Jo swallowed, nodded and went back into the tavern to find her friends.
Although Hutch’s better angels urged him to get in his truck and go home, where he should have stayed in the first place, he figured Boone might need some help settling things down, so he followed Amy Jo inside.
McQuillan was out of control, waving his free arm and guarding his gushing nose with the other, yelling in Boone’s face.
Boone, for his part, calmly stood his ground. “Now, Treat,” he reasoned, amiable but serious, “I would hate to have to run one of my own deputies in for drunk-and-disorderly and creating a public nuisance, but I’ll do it, by God, I’ll throw you straight into the hoosegow if you keep this up.”
At the periphery of his vision, Hutch saw Amy Jo and the rest of the Brylee contingent quietly gather their purses and other assorted gear and trail out of the tavern. Probably a wise decision, given the incendiary mood McQuillan was creating.
“Arrest me?” the deputy bellowed. Treat never had known when to keep his mouth shut, which was part of his problem. “I’m the victim here! I was assaulted!”
“We’ll discuss that,” Boone assured him, “but not until you calm down.”
“I’d have knocked you on your ass, too, McQuillan,” a male voice contributed from somewhere in the dwindling crowd. “You can’t expect any different when you grab on to a woman in a goddamn cowboy bar!”
“Harley,” Boone said, recognizing the speaker immediately, and without looking away from McQuillan’s bloody, temper-twisted face, “shut up.”
Hutch, looking on, privately agreed with Harley. Manhandling a lady was asking for trouble pretty much anywhere, but square in the middle of cowboy-central, it was close to suicidal.
Just the same, he positioned himself at Boone’s left side, not quite in his space but close enough to jump in if the shit hit the fan.
Boone slanted a brief glance in his direction. “You involved in this?” he asked.
Hutch folded his arms, rocked back slightly on his heels. “Now Boone, I am downright insulted by that question. I just happened to be here, that’s all.”
Boone’s expression remained skeptical, but only mildly so. He sighed heavily. “Come on, Treat,” he said to his disgruntled deputy. “I’ll give you a lift over to the hospital, get them to check you out, and take you home. No way you’re in any condition to drive.”
Treat was all bristled up, like a little rooster with his feathers brushed in the wrong direction. “I’d rather walk,” he replied coldly. Boone might have been McQuillan’s boss, but he was also the man who’d trounced him at the polls last Election Day and he clearly wasn’t over the disappointment. McQuillan had wanted to be sheriff from the time he was little, never mind that he was constitutionally unsuited for the job.
“Whatever you say, Treat,” Boone responded. “But leave your rig right where it’s parked until morning.”
“I’ll be filing charges against Walker Parrish as soon as the courthouse opens,” McQuillan maintained, but he was on the move as he spoke, headed for the doors.
The onlookers finally lost all interest and dispersed, going back to their pool playing and their beer drinking and their armchair quarterbacking.
Boone turned to Hutch. “What happened here?” he asked.
The incident, though it had already drifted into the annals of history, still chapped Hutch’s hide a little. He wasn’t in love with Brylee Parrish, but standing around watching while some drunken bastard strong-armed her into something she didn’t want to do went against his grain in about a million ways.
Hutch told Boone the story, leaving out the part about how he’d meant to go after McQuillan himself but Walker had stepped in and thrown a punch of his own.
“Well,” Boone said on a long breath, “that’s fine. That’s just fine. Because if McQuillan doesn’t cool off overnight—and experience tells me that won’t happen—I’ll probably have to charge Walker with assault.”
“Come on,” Hutch protested. “I told you what happened—McQuillan brought that haymaker on himself.”
Boone was on his way toward the exit and Hutch, tired of the bar, tired of just about everything, followed. “Walker had the right to defend his sister,” the sheriff allowed quietly, over one shoulder, “but he took it too far. He’s half again McQuillan’s size and whatever my personal opinion of old Treat might be, he is a sworn officer of the court. Landing a punch in the middle of his face, though a sore temptation at times, I admit, is a little worse in the eyes of the
