Comanche. Brett Riley

      If you’re thinkin of makin love to it, I’d advise you not to use the exhaust pipe, Pat said.

      John laughed and put his arm around her. She had always made him smile without resorting to the usual jokes about his name. If they had lived in a big city, he would have advised her to try stand-up insult comedy, like that old fella Rickles. But they lived in Comanche, so she practiced her art at Pat’s Hair and Nails, her own little shop. Humor had helped them stay together during the tough times when bills and work and Texas summers upped the everyday tensions of their lives. Except during the most serious of crises, she always cracked the first joke.

      Pat slipped her arm around John’s waist and hooked her thumb into his Wranglers’ back pocket, and together they stepped out of the grass and onto the parking lot proper.

      The streetlights along Austin flickered.

      When they reached the walkway, John saw movement in his peripheral vision. He stopped.

      A figure stood beside the old storage building—a man dressed in Old West garb, complete with pistols. He slumped as if exhausted and looked somehow bleached, as if he had walked out of the Llano Estacado and brought half its sand and dust with him.

      He watched them.

      I think I’ve seen that fella before.

      Pat clutched his arm. Come on, she said, tugging him. Let’s get inside. Her voice carried an edge that John registered in some part of his mind. She tugged harder.

      John stared at the figure. He could not seem to stop. He shivered and felt the hair on his neck stand up.

      Now Pat was practically yanking his arm out of its socket.

      Yeah, you’re right, he muttered. Let’s get inside right now.

      They took three steps before the man appeared in front of them, just popped out of nowhere like one of those holograms on Star Trek. Over on Austin, the streetlights buzzed like angry insects and then winked out. The diner’s overheads strobed and crackled. The jukebox cut off. From inside came a cacophony of outraged voices. Pat moaned and gripped John’s arm. He was sure her long nails would break the skin.

      Just like that night the Harveston girl died. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

      The man stood perhaps ten feet away. John was over six feet tall and weighed 240 pounds, and he had gone toe to toe with even bigger men in honky-tonks across central Texas. It had never frightened him. But now, standing in front of this short, skinny, grayish man in the cowboy getup, John Marion Wayne nearly pissed himself.

      Get hold of yourself, you pussy. He cleared his throat.

      Mister, you’re scarin my wife. Best you step outta the way.

      Pat trembled. John wondered if those pistols were functional. They sure looked real. We heard gunshots that night.

      Let’s go back to the car, Pat said.

      I mean it, mister, John said. Don’t make me tell you again.

      But the cowboy did not move.

      I wanna go home, Pat said.

      John’s fists clenched. Jesus, it’s just some jackass in a cowboy suit, not the goddam boogeyman. He pulled away from Pat and assumed a boxer’s stance.

      All right. I don’t know how you got over here so fast or why you’re wearin that getup, and I don’t care. Move your skinny ass, or I’ll move it for you.

      He took two steps toward the gray figure.

      The cowboy raised his head. His visage was haggard and gaunt and stubbled, the cheekbones prominent. His eyes, already gray and faded, sunk into his head, and the Waynes screamed as they gazed into the his skull’s empty sockets.

      The cowboy snarled. Pat’s voice rose like the whistle of a teakettle.

      And then, faster than John could follow, the cowboy drew his pistols and fired twice. Something punched John in the gut, and he flew backward five feet, landing on his back, his legs in the air. Then he rolled onto his side and lay still, groaning.

      Pat ran to John and grabbed his shoulder with both hands and pulled him onto his back. His eyes were wide open, his teeth clenched. He opened his mouth. She leaned in close. And then John vomited blood, hitting her in the face. It streamed into her shirt and burned her eyes. Some ran into her mouth, gagging her, yet she kept on screaming, clawing at her eyes, flinging ropes of gore into the grass. By the time she could see, John was dead.

      The cowboy stood ten feet away, guns holstered, arms hanging slack at his sides as if he had never moved.

      You killed him, Pat said. You son of a bitch.

      People poured out of the diner, their footfalls like the muted thud of faraway horses’ hooves. The cowboy ignored them. Pat got to her feet, hands hooked into claws. Let the cowboy blow her head off. If he did not, if she could get close enough, she would dig her fingers deep into those gray sockets and see if she could find something soft.

      Behind the cowboy, a white man and two Latinos arrived and fanned out.

      What the hell’s goin on here? one of the men said.

      The cowboy ignored him.

      Pat advanced, her arms outstretched, John’s blood dripping from her fingers.

      But just as she got close enough to rip his face off, the cowboy disappeared. He did not move or fade. He winked out of existence.

      Pat stumbled toward the men, not seeing their puzzled, frightened expressions. The white man caught her before she fell. She tried to scream again, her abused vocal chords not up to the task. She beat at the man’s face, blood spattering onto the other two as they tried to pull her away.

      Jesus, she’s as slippery as a greased pig, the first Latino man said.

      What happened to her? said the other.

      What I wanna know is where that sumbitch in the cowboy hat went.

      The white man wiped streaks of blood off his face with his shirttail and trotted to John’s body. He put two fingers under John’s upper jaw. Then he put his ear to John’s chest and listened. The other men watched, silent. Pat had collapsed in their arms. She hung there like a puppet without strings.

      This fella’s dead, the white man said. Somebody call the cops. Anybody know these people?

      I don’t, one of the Latino men said. Maybe somebody inside does.

      Sirens warbled in the distance. In the back of the parking lot, the Mustang sat in darkness, where the police would find it minutes later, still perfect but for a bit of dust and cut grass sticking to its undercarriage.

      Bathed in the pulsing reds and blues of police and ambulance lights, C.W. Roark stood over John Wayne’s body. The eyes were open, the mouth pulled down in a horrible rictus. Nearby, Bob Bradley, the chief of police, conversed with the county coroner. Deputy Roen interviewed three men who had come out to help. Every other cop on the payroll worked crowd control. That had never been much of a problem in Comanche, but when two people were killed in the same place only seven or eight weeks apart, the townsfolk tended to gawk. Or piss themselves. They might even tell their friends and relatives to stay away, and right before the annual Pow Wow.

      Roark squinted against the lights. A pounding headache formed on top of his skull. Will was out there, leaning against his truck and shooting the scene with his phone. Hell and damnation. Gotta go make him delete it, or it’ll be up on the YouTube before I get home. Roark started to move. Then, as if he needed more problems, Rennie arrived.

      She parked on Austin. The streetlights—burning bright, though the three witnesses swore they had gone dark during the killing—reflected off the hood and roof of her car. She got out,