Saturday Night Pulps

               “They hung John Crowe on a Sunday. They hung him for farming in cattle country.”          Sheriff Matt Gunn gauged the cattleman's reaction, then cast his eyes out across the flat golden country surrounding Bob Marcel's ranch.          Bob Marcel was a man who knew how to keep his emotions hidden. His face was chiseled from stone.        A couple of Marcel's cowboys rode up and stood smoking cigarettes beside the corral. Marcel's son, Will, was with them.       Marcel, his voice as hard and deep as the crevices lining his tanned face, said, “We keep to ourselves out here, Sheriff. What's it to me if some sod-buster wants to try and scratch a living out of a little piece of country?”      Matt took off his hat and wiped away his sweat with a kerchief. “Except, that little piece of country was ...

Jack Rogers stared at himself in the mirror.   He pressed his fingers against the deep lines beneath his eyes and pulled the skin back.   “There,” he said, to his reflection.   “There you are.”   He ran his hand through his hair. Recent years had given him a widows peak. Streaks of gray invaded his temples like an angry mob.   His eyes fell to the blue security guard outfit. A size too small. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.” His reflection stared back at him with cold, ambivalent eyes.   Jack turned on the faucet and splashed his face with cold water. His face sagged with disappointment. The water hadn't helped.   He took his flask from his back pocket, poured a long shot into his mouth, and swallowed.   He let the whiskey settle. The warmth of liquor's resolve.“Time to go to work, Jackie boy.” The San Pedro harbor was cold and wet. The midnight moon hung dirty in a blue sky smeared with black clouds.   Jack ...