Caleb Fawney’s smile faded as I spoke.
“So you’re an orphan, then.”
“No, sir.”
“Well, you ain’t got no family, do you?”
“I do have a family, sir. They’re just all dead. But they’re my family just the same. So I ain’t no orphan. I’m still my mama’s son and my papa’s boy and my sister’s brother, and I’m here to get our horse back.”
For a moment, there was only the sound of the rain and Sarah’s stamping, as she pulled on the rope trying to get to me.
Then the outlaw spoke.
“Fine, kid. She’s yours. Take it easy, now. I’m gonna have to move to untie her.”
My hand shook not a bit as the gun barrel followed Caleb Fawney over to my Sarah. He kept his eyes on me, and he moved nice and slow. My finger stayed tight on the trigger, ready in an instant to squeeze until death came out.
Caleb Fawney sidestepped to Sarah. He bent down and with one hand reached for her bridle, tied off to a low branch. His fingers unworked the knot easily, and he slid the leather loose from the limb. With a quick flick of his wrist he released her, the rope falling slack.
Sarah tossed her head and, feeling her freedom, she ran toward me.
Fighting every urge I had in me to run to her, too, I stepped quick to the side so that she didn’t place herself between me and the outlaw. His eyes were speedy, watching me, watching my gun, watching my horse. I knew that he was a rattlesnake with no rattle, coiled quiet and waiting for the time to strike.
And then Sarah was there, right there with me. My Sarah, my sweet, lost Sarah, was sure enough right there with me again, right there up against me. Her nose nuzzled hard at my neck, nearly pushing me down, knocking me so that I had to step to stay up. She butted her chest up against my shoulder, rubbing her neck against my head. My Sarah, my sweet, lost Sarah, was sure enough right there with me again. And I was with her. I was back with my horse, my girl.
My eyes got dangerously blurry with tears. I blinked them away furiously, keeping my eyes on Caleb Fawney, keeping that gun steady on his heart. Sarah bumped and nuzzled me, her sweet breath blowing in my ears and on my neck. I wrapped my other arm up around her neck and hugged her tight, and she rested her head down across my shoulders, and every broken piece of me came together right there in that one sure enough beautiful moment.
“Good Lord,” Caleb Fawney said, his voice not much more than a whisper. “That horse sure does love you, don’t she?”
I didn’t answer, not trusting my voice to talk.
“Well, okay,” he finally said. “Send that stallion on over, then, and let’s go our separate ways. I ain’t in any position to spend any more time standing around talking.”
I took a bracing breath, knowing that my next words would bring only trouble and danger. I kept my arm ’round my horse and my gun dead level.
“No, sir. This stallion ain’t my horse to give.”
Caleb Fawney’s eyebrows dropped. I saw all the casual drop out of his shoulders. His fingers flexed and loosened, ready. A deadly calm fell over his face.
“Excuse me? You telling me you aim to leave me on foot, with a posse no doubt on its way here right now? After I done already gave you what you came for?”
“No, sir.” I kept my finger tight, my eyes hard and wide. “I don’t intend to leave you at all. There is an innocent man back there, murdered in the mud. And my papa taught me to always do the right thing, even when it’s hard.”
Caleb Fawney just stared at me, still and silent, eyes unblinking. My heart was a-hammering.
I pointed with my chin at the hole he’d been digging when I’d rode up. Sitting in it was a sack. Mr. Campbell’s money, I was sure.
“Grab that bag, please, sir. Nice and easy. That is stolen money, and I aim to return it to its rightful owner.”
Caleb Fawney blinked a slow, lazy blink. I didn’t like the kind of calm that he was becoming. Like this was the kind of situation he was used to, and good at. And I was not. Like he was the snake, and I was the mouse.
“Now, boy, you know that ain’t gonna happen.” His voice was cold like January snow down my collar. “Going back with you means me hanging from a tree. I don’t intend for that to happen.” He took a few careful steps to the side, edging away so that Sarah was more between him and me.
“You’ll get a fair trial,” I said, begging him in my heart to not make this happen like I thought it was gonna happen. I circled with him, trying to keep my shot clear.
“Maybe,” he said. “But we both know a fair trial still ends with a rope around my neck. Put down your gun, kid. I don’t wanna hurt you.”
“I don’t wanna hurt you neither, sir. Keep your hands up. And stop moving!”
The rain was back to pouring. It pittered on the leaves around us. It ran down my face and into my eyes. But I didn’t dare wipe at them with my sleeve. That moment was all that Caleb Fawney would need to draw his gun and put a bullet in me. His own eyes were dry and cold under the brim of his hat.
“Me and you are a lot alike,” he said, taking another step to the side. I stepped with him, almost tripping on a root but keeping my footing. “I was an orphan, too, you know. But my papa never taught me nothing but drinkin’ and meanness.”
“You stop that walkin’ right now!”
Caleb Fawney ignored me, moving again to the side, forcing me to take another stumbling step to keep him in my sights and Sarah in the clear.
“But he also taught me that a man ought to know when it’s time for him to go,” he said.
And then I saw it.
I saw it in his eyes, the way they sharpened and widened.
I saw it in his breathing, how it sped up and then stopped, waiting.
I saw it in his whole body, the way it just barely tightened up, just barely got smaller and harder like a spring shaking to be sprung.
It was all small, but it was all there. I knew, in one terrible moment, that the outlaw Caleb Fawney was about to go for his gun.
“No!” I started to shout, wanting anything at all except to pull the trigger.
But Caleb Fawney’s hand shot like dark lightning toward the gun at his hip.
I waited just a blink of a breath of a heartbeat of a moment, wordlessly praying that it wasn’t all happening.
And then I saw his hand coming up with a shiny black pistol.
And I sure enough pulled that heartless trigger.
And Papa’s gun roared and kicked in my shaking hand.
Everything stood terribly still when that gun in my hand went off.
My breathing.
My pounding heart.
Even the rain, I think, stopped its falling for just a moment.
Caleb Fawney stood there, looking at me, the gun in his hand. It was halfway up, pointing at the ground somewhere in front of my feet.
He blinked at me. And a queer sort of smile played on his lips.
I missed him! I thought, and I wasn’t disappointed. I was darned near relieved that my bullet had missed its mark, and that Caleb Fawney was still standing there in front of me.
And then he crumpled to the ground, landing on his back in the mud.
I stood there. The rain started up again. My lungs took a shaky breath. My heart started my blood moving again.
Caleb Fawney, staring up at the clouds, heaved a big sigh. He’d dropped his gun on the way down and had landed so that his head was resting on a log. His hat was still on, even. It looked almost like he was just lying down for a nap.
I walked over to him, slow. My stomach twisted with a sour sickness. Just to be safe, I kicked his gun back behind me as I approached. I kept my pistol pointed at him, though it sure didn’t hardly seem necessary.
I stood looking down at him, my heart up in my throat.
“Damn it, kid,” he said through a clenched jaw. “You shot me.”
He was clutching at his stomach with both hands and I could see the dark spreading blood stain, right in his middle, just und
er his heart. The gun shook wildly in my hand. I fought to keep from getting sick.
“I’m sorry,” I said. And my voice was back to being shaky and high again. I weren’t no man at all, and I knew it. I was just a boy. A boy who had just shot a man.
He closed his eyes and his face tightened up in a grimace. He bared his teeth like a wolf caught in the jaws of a steel trap. Then he groaned, and took a few breaths, and opened his eyes into slits and looked at me.
“Get on outta here,” he snarled through a tight breath. He was talking like he was carrying something mighty heavy, something he couldn’t carry for too much longer. “Get on outta here and let me die in peace.”
“I—I—I’ll come back,” I said. “With a doctor.” My breath was coming in quick, shaking gasps, like I’d just run a race.
He shook his head once, quick, and coughed out a hurting laugh.
“I’m dead, kid. Gut shot. It’s just a matter of bleeding out, now.”
Rain poured down on us, drenching us both in the same wetness.
“I don’t wanna just leave you,” I said. “All alone.”
He shook his head again.
“I always been alone. Go on and leave. I don’t wanna die with someone gawking at me.”
I shifted from foot to foot, the rain running down my face and down my back.
“Before you go … could you … do me a favor?” His voice was getting smaller, and tighter. His words were getting shorter. I could tell each one was an effort.
“Yes, sir.”
“I got a flask. In my pocket. Let me get it out.”
I tightened my grip on the gun.
“Okay,” I said.
His hand, stained with blood, crawled up from his wound to his pocket. He fished out a dull pewter flask. His breathing was coming fast and shallow.
He held the flask out toward me, his hand weaving unsteadily.
“Open it, kid.”
I stepped forward, real cautious, and took it from him. My gun stayed as steady on him as my trembling hand would allow. I unscrewed his flask and handed it back. He brought it to his lips with a quivering hand and took a long draw. Then he held it out to me again.
“Have a drink.”
I swallowed.
“No, thank you, sir. I—I don’t drink.”
He winced and closed his eyes, then blew out a breath and opened them again.
“Take a drink. Ain’t gonna hurt you none. I’ll be dead shortly. I wanna have one last drink. And I don’t feel like drinking alone.”
Mama and Papa were silent on this one. They wouldn’t have liked me drinking. But as Mama said, mercy and humanity were in short enough supply in this world.
I took the flask. It was sticky with his blood. It felt warm in my hand. I hesitated a moment, then tilted it back and took a swallow. It burned something fierce and I coughed and sputtered, but I didn’t spit it out. My throat was on fire.
I gave him back the flask with a trembling hand.
“Now go on,” he said. “Get on outta here and leave me in peace.”
I took a step back and remembered his gun, lying a few paces behind me.
“I can’t leave you your gun,” I said.
“Why’s that?” he grunted, fixing me with a one-eyed glare. “You gonna leave me here defenseless? With a posse coming after me?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry. But there’s good men in that posse.”
Caleb Fawney smiled a bitter, weary smile.
“You’d be surprised how bad a good man can look when he’s coming to kill you.”
“I s’pose so. But I can’t leave you armed. Is there—is there anything I can do for you, sir? Before I go?”
“Nah. Just leave me be. I got some dying to do.”
I took a few more steps back and picked up his gun and put it in my satchel.
Sarah came up behind me and nudged at the back of my neck with her nose. I reached up and scratched her cheek. My heart was a sure enough painful confusion, full of so much sad and happy at the same time.
I stepped back and buried my face in Sarah’s mane for a few breaths, taking my eyes off of Caleb Fawney for just a moment. I breathed in her good, horse smell and wiped the tears off my face into her mane.
“Kid!” he called out. My head snapped up. I was sure I’d see him standing there, another gun in his hand. But he was still lying in the mud, limp and unmoving.
“You done right by killing me,” he said. “It shouldn’t weigh none on you. I was gonna shoot you. You beat me square, and you shot true. You done right. One of us was gonna die. And I reckon it may as well have been me.”
He reached up and pulled the hat from his head. Then he threw it toward me. It spun and floated and landed in the dirt at my feet.
“Take that. It’s a good hat. Shouldn’t go to waste. Keep the rain off your face.” His voice was getting weaker and more pained every second.
I looked down at the hat at my feet, then stooped and picked it up. I put it on my head and looked over at Caleb Fawney. The rain pittered and pattered on the wide brim of the hat.
His chest was rising and falling, quick and ragged.
I ain’t proud of it, but it’s sure enough true: I didn’t want to be there and have to watch him die. I didn’t.
I walked around to my Sarah’s side. All she had was a bridle around her neck. Mr. Fawney had been riding her bareback, just like I did. I had to look away from him and lower my gun to get up on her, but it didn’t worry me none. I knew he was past hurting me.
With a grunt and a jump I was up, back where I belonged. Up on my Sarah’s back, her mane clutched tight in my free hand. I felt her breathing and living between my legs. I looked at Mr. Fawney’s blood, staining my left hand. Sarah felt good and familiar under me, but I didn’t feel like a child no more. But I put the pistol back in my satchel all the same. ’Cause I’d sure enough had my fill of being a man, for a while.
The rain was coming down hard now. It drummed a steady beat on the hat on my head. The black clouds were gathered so dark it seemed almost like night.
“Mr. Fawney,” I said. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re bad all the way through.”
Caleb Fawney grimaced and grunted.
“Well, kid. Then that makes one of us. Now get the hell outta here.”
I gave my Sarah a squeeze. It didn’t take no kick or nothing. We were like one, her and me. She turned without me telling her and took us right where I needed to go, back the way I’d come.
“That’s my girl,” I said, bending low and patting her on her strong neck. “That’s my girl.”
Mr. Campbell’s horse, standing in all that wet, far from any person he knew, was more than willing to follow us back down that draw. His hooves rumbled behind us as we headed toward the road and the waiting world.
I did not look back at Caleb Fawney, dying in that rain from the bullet I put in him. I did not look back. I couldn’t.
The cold mist was even thicker than it had been, shrouding the world in a gray fog that chilled through my clothes and brought gooseflesh out all over me.
My heart was all kinds of broken. I’d shot a man. I’d shot a man and left him for dead in the rain. My heart was all kinds of cold, and all kinds of scared, and all kinds of lonely.
So as we galloped through that murk, my heart started talking to Sarah. Though my mouth was closed, I started telling her all about my long road to find her. About Ah-Kee, and the last grizzly in the Colockum, and what was left of the Indians. About Ezra Bishop, who she knew, and almost drowning in the Yakima. About boys and babies and a cabin in a canyon. About saying good-bye to a friend, and riding a train through the rain. About a man lying dying in the mud, and a grown-up boy back on the horse he loved. And behind that story, we were telling each other another story we both knew. A story about a mama and a papa and a son and a sister. And a red-and-white Indian paint pony. A story about home, and a story about family.
We were right together, again and at last.
Like we were always meant to be. Me and my sweet Sarah.
Mr. Fawney’s hat kept the rain off my face, but my cheeks were wet nonetheless. My tears were like a river, and they were sure enough telling a story.
Once we’d come up out of the draw, back to the straight flat part of the trail that led to the road, Sarah felt my feet before I kicked them and we sped up, rising to a gallop through that open country. I let her loose, let her open up and run. I let her run as fast as she wanted, taking us both away from the blood I’d spilled and the man I’d sent to the grave.
The wind of our running was blowing on my face. I couldn’t see far through the mist and the darkness and the rain, but I could see the horse beneath me and that was all I needed to see.
And then my Sarah jerked, hard. I felt her body shudder and heard a dull sound like she’d been slapped with a stick.
I felt us falling, plunging all of a sudden down from where we’d been flying, down toward the earth.
And just before I hit the dirt, just before I smashed into the hard and hateful ground, I heard the echoing crack of the gunshot.
As the mud rushed up toward me, I knew with a cold and sickening certainty. I knew.
I knew that she’d been shot.
My Sarah, my sweet Sarah, had been shot right out from under me.
I lay stunned, the breath knocked clean out of my body and the sense knocked clean out of my head. My face was smashed down in the mud. I blinked and groaned and tried to gather my wits.
Then I heard Sarah. Behind me. When we fell I’d been thrown forward, over her head. She was breathing hard and kind of grunting with each breath. And I could tell by where her breathing was coming from that she was still down, still lying there on the ground. It ain’t never good when a horse doesn’t get up.
I jumped right up, ignoring the aches in my body. I stumbled back to where she lay on her side. Her eyes were open and rolling whitely. Her muscles twitched and jerked. I dropped to my knees beside her and threw my arms around her neck.
“Sarah!” I shouted. “Sarah!” Her great heart was pounding. Her rapid breaths blew out hard through her nostrils.
Some Kind of Courage Page 14
