by Bill Brooks
Teddy stole a final glance at Anne as she prepared to enter her tent. Edgar had gone off into the brush.
“No, sir, I wish it was that good of news,” White Eye said.
“Spit it out,” Yankee said. Yankee was still irritated about the entire affair between Jane and White Eye; he wasn’t sure why he was irritated about it, he just was.
White Eye told them about finding Buck Taylor, how they buried him under a cairn of rocks. He and Jane walked Billy, John, Yankee, and Teddy up to the cairn. Billy took off his sombrero and closed his eyes. The wind fluttered his hair and snow fell in it and caught on his eyelashes.
John and Teddy stood somber until Billy finished his silent prayer.
“He was a good hand,” Billy said. “A good hand and a good man.”
“He had a big hole in him,” White Eye said. “Somebody shot him and tossed him in that river. He didn’t drown. It wasn’t no accident or anything.”
“This ain’t good,” Billy said.
“Maybe you should consider canceling the hunt,” Teddy suggested.
“This,” Billy said, nodding toward the cairn, “might not have anything to do with us.”
“No, sir, you’re right. It might not, but still, you could be in some danger and so could your guests, if there’s a killer roaming loose.” If Teddy had been forced to be completely honest, he would have told Cody that one of his concerns was especially for Anne’s safety.
“That’s why I hired you, old son, to make sure that bad things don’t happen to any of these good folk, or to me.”
Billy’s breath smelled like the fruit wine.
“You think you can handle this for me while I go and worry about where we’ll find some buffs tomorrow?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
Billy said to the others, “Best we keep this piece of news among ourselves.”
They looked back toward the tents, some of which had oil lamps lit inside them.
“They’re the reason we’re all here,” Billy said. “We can’t afford anything to ruin this hunt and the bonus money that’ll come with it.”
Billy and the others walked back to the camp and Teddy pulled John aside, said, “Let’s talk.”
John and Teddy walked off a distance. John rolled himself a shuck and lit it.
“This is some bad business,” John said. “You just don’t find dead men floating in rivers, most generally.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about it too, John. I think whoever took the shot at the Colonel the other day shot Buck Taylor. It just doesn’t wash that the two events would be unrelated.”
“What you want to do, old son?”
“I think we take turns standing watch from here out.”
John shrugged.
“Whatever you think.”
“I’ll stand first watch,” Teddy said.
John smoked some more, then started back to camp.
“There’s something else I guess you need to know.”
“You don’t have to say it,” John said. “I seen the way you two were. I guess if I seen it, maybe her fiancé saw it too. Wake me when you need relief.”
John walked down to his tent and climbed in.
Teddy went to the wagon and took out a Winchester and an extra blanket, then went to the fire, where Yankee Judd sat wrapped up in a big coat, sipping a cup of coffee.
“That coffee any good?” Teddy asked. Yankee looked at him, shadows playing over his face.
“It’ll do if you’ve got paint you need removed,” Yankee said.
Teddy poured himself a cup.
“Me and John are going to take turns standing watch tonight. Just so you know.”
Yankee nodded.
“Finding Buck like he was is a bad omen,” Yankee said into his cup.
“I don’t expect any real trouble. And if there is, there are plenty of us that can shoot well enough to handle whatever comes our way.”
“I didn’t come on this hunt to shoot no humans,” Yankee said.
“None of us did.”
Teddy sipped the coffee; it warmed him some, but not as much as his thoughts of Anne.
“This is some lonesome country,” Yankee said.
“I’ve been in just as bad.”
“I guess we all have. You want me to take some of the watch too?”
“Not necessary,” Teddy said. “Me and John can handle it. We put in lots of time night watching herds we run from Texas up to Kansas.”
Snow fell into the fire and was eaten up by the heat.
“I wish it would quit snowing,” Yankee said.
“I do too.”
“Bad bears and now a dead man in the river,” Yankee said. “I don’t care for none of it.”
“I’m going to go off up yonder and stand my watch,” Teddy said and tossed the dregs of his coffee into the snow, then walked off toward some sand hills a hundred yards from camp; a place he could see but not be seen. The snow was almost blue in the darkness, and the sky was the red of a bloodstained shirt.
Teddy scaled the slope of the hill and found a notch just below the top. He settled into it and tried not to think too hard on the falling snow and the cold and Anne and Kathleen or the dead man. The only thing he needed to concentrate on, he told himself, was the Colonel’s safety and that of the party.
He heard the river slip its banks; the way it moved gave it the sound of an eternal whisper. He saw White Eye Anderson go inside Jane’s tent, then saw the lamplight go out. He turned his attention to Anne’s tent, saw her shadow moving around inside, felt drawn to go to her, knew that he couldn’t.
One by one the lights flicked out inside the tents until there was just the campfire and Yankee Judd still sitting close to it. Then finally Yankee stood and went to his tent and went inside without bothering to turn on any light. The horses in the remuda stood sleeping. Teddy took out his makings and rolled a shuck, taking his time as he did. He’d stand watch four hours, then go wake John for the last watch. The Colonel would want to get an early start, probably before daylight. Teddy debated about what to do. He didn’t think it wise to divide the camp, leave some behind while the others went on the hunt. Not now, not with one man already buried.
He twisted the ends of his shuck and struck a match, cupping it in his hands, and lowered the end of the cigarette to it, then snapped out the flame as he drew a lung full of smoke.
Somewhere far off a wolf called, then fell silent, then called again. There wasn’t an answering call. That old wolf is looking for its mate, Teddy thought. Everything’s lonesome.
He thought of Kathleen back in Silver City. Was she sharing her bed with Antrim? Had they had a quick marriage so Antrim could bed her before it was too late? Was she lying awake now, thinking of him and not Antrim?
He smoked and held the Winchester across his lap and brought the blanket up over his shoulders.
Well, come on if you’re coming.
He would have preferred for whoever it was that was out there to make his play, but he knew it wasn’t going to happen that easy. The snow eventually came to an end and off to the west he saw a piece of moon carved out of the black sky, then some stars and pretty soon more stars and with them came the cold, hard, and bone-deep and he had to roll himself another shuck and smoke it. Time went by slow as death.
When he figured his watch was up, he stood on stiff legs and made his way back down to camp and tapped John on the soles of his boots and John came awake, saying, “Huh, okay, I’ve got her,” and climbed out of his tent and said, “Jesus Christ, it’s cold.”
Teddy handed him the blanket and the Winchester, said, “I was sitting up yonder in that notch; it’s out of the wind.” Then he went over and stirred the fire and threw more wood on it and warmed his hands and John came over and said, “I reckon that coffee’s about burned to tar, but pour me some anyway, would you?”
John rolled himself a shuck and sipped some of the coffee and said, “I hope they get a buff or two tomorrow so
we can get the hell on back. I need to get myself on down to some warm country; I ain’t been warm since I left Texas.”
“John, you’re not obligated to stay,” Teddy said. “Nobody, especially me, would read anything into if you want to get on down the line. Fact is, I think it would be a smart thing for you to do. You want, head on down to Juarez and if things work out for me, I’ll meet you down there by the spring.”
John swallowed the last of his coffee with a grimace, set the empty cup in the snow.
“I appreciate the sentiments, old son. And maybe I will and maybe I won’t. But not tonight, okay. Go catch you some shut-eye.”
Then he watched John stand and walk off toward the rise, the shadow of him plain against the snow, the crunch of his boots sinking down in it.
Teddy climbed in his tent and pulled the blankets around him and immediately wished that Anne were there with him.
Stop being a damn fool, he told himself.
He thought he heard something, footsteps outside his tent. He held his breath. But then there wasn’t anything more. He felt a deep disappointment, knowing it wasn’t her, then closed his eyes and pretty soon John was tapping on the soles of his boots, saying, “Colonel’s up, he wants to talk to us.”
Teddy crawled out of the tent. Billy was squatted by the fire, his hands extended toward it. Teddy saw a wolf’s footprints in the snow by his tent, walked over to the fire with John, and squatted down near it for some warmth to come into them.
“If we’re to locate buffs today we’d best get an early start,” Billy said.
“I don’t feel good about us dividing the camp,” Teddy said.
“I know it. I thought about that too. I’m going to leave Yankee behind with White Eye and Jane. They’re all three good shots.”
“What about the women?”
“I’ll leave that to their men,” Billy said.
“I don’t care for it much. I think it’s best we keep everyone together, in light of what’s happened.”
“It’d slow us down too much if we’re to make that buffalo jump I’ve got in mind. It’ll take us half a day’s hard ride to get there as it is. The weather’s turning bad, as well. Wouldn’t do for us to get caught out on that open country in a bad storm. The women would be better off here and I’ll recommend the same to Banks.”
“What if we left John behind, as well?”
Billy looked at John.
“All right,” he said.
“I ain’t for it,” John said. “But I’m just the hired help and if you want me to stay here, I will.”
“Four of us riding hard, we could make good time,” Billy said. “That suit you okay?”
Teddy nodded.
“Then it’s done. Let’s go roust them out of their nests.”
After they’d gotten the others up, Teddy and John saddled the horses. John said over the back of his, “You know I ain’t for this, me staying behind to wet-nurse the women.”
“I know you’re not, John. I’m asking you to do it on my account.”
“You think something bad’s going to happen, don’t you?”
“Anything does, it’s you I’d trust most to handle it.”
John looked at the sky. It was a terrible shade of gray, like a dirty rag. He could feel more snow in it too.
“Goddamn, but I bet it’s plenty warm down in Mexico about now,” John said.
“I bet it is too.”
They finished saddling the horses and brought ’em into camp and the men mounted up—Billy, Rudolph Banks, Edgar Rice, and Teddy. Then Billy said, “Let’s get to the chase, boys!” And they rode off.
John rubbed his chin and thought to himself he could use a shave one of these days.
Chapter 25
Mysterious Dave made sure to skirt wide the ranch of Buffalo Bill and eventually arrived by the more circuitous route the same river in which he’d fallen in and lost his horse, gun, and saddle. The river looked like it wouldn’t hurt a flea; it moved slow and brown as molasses.
“I’ll just follow along it, but not too close,” Dave said to his horse. The horse flicked its one ear. Dave was in a sulky mood. The thought of Dora leaving him for a dead rich man’s money didn’t sit well. It was all because of that goddamn Buffalo Bill, the way he saw it. If Buffalo Bill hadn’t come riding along that day with that big sombrero and that fancy silver saddle on that high-stepping steed and tempted Dave to take a shot at him, he’d never met Dora and fallen in love with her, only to lose her love to a dead man’s money. Life just didn’t seem fair; it seemed downright cruel and mean as a rattlesnake sometimes.
Well, the river was floating brown and peaceful and slow under the gray skies. He’d just have to follow it until he found Buffalo Bill and then dust him front and back and take his big sombrero and silver saddle and high-stepping horse. He’d look a lot better riding Bill’s high-stepper than he would a horse with one ear gnawed off.
Dave rode along until he rode clean out of daylight. He made camp, gathering dry wood and setting it ablaze with a kitchen match from several of which he kept in a tobacco can. He chewed some old beef jerky he found in one of his pockets that he forgot was there. He thought it might be some of the same jerky from that time him and Bat Masterson were buffalo skinners back around ’seventy, in along there.
Buffalo skinning was about the worst job he ever had as far as he could remember. A lot of his life—the parts he could recall—had not worked out very well.
“I should have planned things out better,” he said. The horse cropped some old brittle grass it had pawed snow away from and swished its broom tail back and forth and flicked its ear, oblivious to Dave’s conversation.
“That’s always been my problem, I never was a good planner.”
Dave remembered a time when he was a lawman—he never knew why he remembered certain things and not others—it might have been in Kansas, or it might have been in Wyoming. He wore his gun backward then because this Texas Ranger came along and said wearing your gun backward on the opposite hip made you a lot faster on the draw. So Dave took to wearing his that way until a freed slave named Nigger Nate shot him in a gambling den with a gun worn in the regular fashion. After that, Dave wore his gun the way he always wore it before the Texas Ranger came along. Dave thought that Nigger Nate’s bullet was still in him somewhere, that the medico never did get it out. Somewhere in his lung, because his left lung hurt when it got cold or there was to come a storm. His left lung hurt now. Dave looked at the dirty-cotton-shirt sky.
“I was a lawman, onc’t,” he said to the horse that continued to paw the ground for old grass.
“I think I was pretty good at it too. I reckon, I should have stuck with it. I might not be here now camped along this river, looking to shoot a feller I never met. It’s going to snow. I can feel it in my lung.”
Dave rubbed his jaw and in his mind he saw a little cabin and sitting inside was a nice woman who was sort of big and plump and had lots of long black hair.
He chewed his jerky and tried to look inside the vision in his skull.
It was a nice big room with a big warm fireplace and he could hear the fire crackling and popping from the sap that dripped out from the logs burning. He could smell bread baking and there was some kids—two of them—sleeping in a bed in the corner behind a blanket hung up for a curtain. They were sort of pudgy and cute and slept like little fat kittens.
Dave had rested his boots near the campfire and he had to shift them back away because they’d grown too hot.
The woman was reading a book and she had big pillowy bosoms Dave thought would be nice to go and lay his head down on and just close his eyes. Which was exactly what he did in the vision that turned into a true dream. It felt good and restful and the woman stroked his hair and sang softly to him.
Next he knew, Dave awoke under a blanket of snow. The fire had gone out and was just a circle of gray ash. He cursed the dream that wasn’t in his head anymore. He looked all around, but didn’t see any cabin
with any woman or kids in it. All he saw were sand hills and that muddy brown river he’d fallen into once and near drowned.
He undid himself from the ground and it felt like all his bones were breaking and he was so mad he went over to the river and shot it three or four times, trying to kill it.
He shot the air too, trying to kill the sky.
“I’m in a killing mood,” he said to the one-eared horse. The horse simply stood there looking at him with a curious wet brown eye.
“I’d kill you, except I’d have nothing to ride.”
Dave finally mounted up, hateful of the fact he was reduced to riding a one-ear horse and not the high-stepper of Buffalo Bill’s. He rode along, following the course of the river with the searching instincts of a badger. Such instincts had made him a superior man-hunter when he was a lawman and later a Class A bounty hunter. And when he turned bad, his good instincts made him a very elusive man.
He rounded a bend and rode up through a canyon and past some sand hills before the canyon emptied out again near the river. It was confusing country. He rode a little farther before he spotted a small cabin, about the same as the one he’d seen in his dream the night before. Smoke fluttered out of its stone chimney. If it hadn’t been for the ache in his lung, he would have thought he was dreaming still. He stopped the horse and sat a moment, looking at the cabin. When he was sure he wasn’t still dreaming, he rode up to it, dismounted, and went and knocked on the door.
An old woman, bent as a bad-struck nail, opened the door instead of a plump woman with large bosoms.
“Yaas,” she said.
A mangy little dog stood by her feet growling, its hackles raised, but Dave could see it hardly had any teeth and looked old enough that a good wind would knock it over.
“What would you be needin’ here, mister?”
Dave didn’t like the sound of her; she had an accent: Irish. Dave recalled how the whole goddamn West was littered with immigrant types, as though they’d been blown onto the prairies by the winds of hope: ragged Irish and Germans, who talked funny and ate strange foods and played polka music and danced jigs whenever several of them got together and one had an accordion and another a fiddle. Dave didn’t care much for the Irish and Germans he’d met thus far. Two such had chopped off the head of a friend of his, Bear River Tom Smith, outside of Abilene with a hoe. A Irish and a German. Dave almost could imagine her distracting him and whilst someone took to hitting him across the neck with a hoe.
