Tyranny by William W. Johnstone Page B

sound, lifted his own beer, and said, “To corralin’ skunks—government and otherwise.”

Chapter 13
    K yle spent the night in the room where his father had grown up. All of his dad’s things were gone, and the bed and the rest of the furnishings were different. Even the paint on the walls wasn’t the same as when Ted Brannock had lived here.
    G. W. had changed all of that after the accident that took the lives of Kyle’s parents. At the time, Kyle had thought that was pretty callous of the old man.
    By now he had come to wonder, though, if his grandfather had done that more to shield himself from the pain of losing his only child. That certainly seemed possible, although Kyle wasn’t going to ask him about it. For one thing, G. W. might have done it without even realizing that was the reason.
    Despite his intention of staying in bed late, Kyle woke fairly early the next morning. His sleep had been restless, and he was vaguely aware that it had been disturbed by bad dreams, even though he didn’t remember them.
    He sat up and swung his feet out of bed, and as he stood up, he felt his muscles aching from the fight with Vern Hummel the day before, as well as having the stun gun used on him. He stretched his back, rolled his shoulders, and swung his arms around to loosen up a little as he went to the window.
    When he pushed back the curtain, he saw that the sun was up, but he could tell by the quality of the light that the hour was early. As he turned away from the window, he caught a faint whiff of coffee brewing. For several seconds he stood there looking from the door to the bed as he pondered crawling under the covers again. He might be able to go back to sleep and get a couple more hours.
    Then he muttered, “The hell with it,” pulled on his jeans, and padded barefoot to the door.
    When he walked into the kitchen, his grandfather was sitting at the table wearing shiny brown shoes, the pants from a brown suit, and a long-sleeved white shirt unbuttoned at the throat. He was eating a bowl of cornflakes with a banana cut up into them. A piece of toast lay on a saucer, and a cup of black coffee sat to one side. Kyle had never seen his grandfather eat anything else for breakfast.
    â€œCoffee in the pot,” G.W. said. “Help yourself to anything else you want to fix.” He ate another bite of cereal, then added, “I didn’t expect to see you up this early.”
    â€œI didn’t expect to be up this early,” Kyle said.
    He got a cup from the cabinet and poured coffee in it, then added milk from the refrigerator and sugar from the old-fashioned sugar bowl on the table, ignoring the look of disdain G.W. gave him as he did so.
    After he had sat down and taken a sip of the hot, strong brew, he went on. “I guess there’s something about the air around here that makes it hard to sleep late. You never have.”
    â€œThat’s true enough. There’s always too many things to do around a ranch to lay around in bed.” G. W. finished the cereal and reached for the toast. “Since you’re up—”
    â€œI still haven’t changed my mind about church.”
    G. W. grunted and said, “Suit yourself.”
    After he’d had more of the coffee, Kyle got up and put a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster.
    â€œGet a saucer for that,” G.W. said. “I don’t want crumbs all over the place. Brings out the roaches.”
    â€œSure, sure. I’ll clean up after myself.” When the toast was done, Kyle brought it back to the table and sat down again. “What about those chores?”
    â€œAlready done. The hands and I have been up for a couple of hours.”
    â€œHow many men do you have working for you now?”
    â€œEight. Fella named Roberto Quinones bosses the crew. His wife cooks for the four unmarried hombres. They’re good men. All of ’em been with me at least two years. They’ve