Текст книги "Paradise Sky"

Автор книги: Joe R. Lansdale

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

“That’s what I thought you’d say,” I said.

“Does it help?”

“As much as anything could.”

“People are an odd bunch,” Luther said.

“Sometimes I feel odder than the rest.”

“Should I pray for that man’s soul for you, Nat?”

“I guess it couldn’t hurt, even if I think your words are bouncing off the wall.”

“You’re saying it’s the thought that counts.”

“I don’t think anything counts much, to tell the truth.”

“I’ll say a prayer for him anyway. What’s his name?

“Chooky Bullwater. I wonder if he stole the pig cause he was hungry. They said it was an old feud, but maybe he just wanted something to eat. I been that low before.”

“So have I, as I’ve told you. I had a Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascus moment. Maybe this is yours.”

“I don’t know what it is.”

“You didn’t shoot Chooky or the pig, Nat.”

“True enough.”

“Ruthie told me you were in town. She told me about Win. I didn’t know her, but I remember how you talked about her. I’m sorry.”

“I should have come to see you sooner. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

Luther put his hand on my shoulder. “Ruthie has feelings for you, you know that?”

“I do.”

“I know there’s been some bad things in your life, and Win was important to you, but if you have feelings for Ruthie, I think you ought to let her know. And if you don’t, then you ought to let her be.”

“I guess I’m sorting out how I feel about things.”

“Don’t sort too long,” he said. “There’s other fellows that have an interest in her. I fear the Baptist fellow the most.”

“What about a nonbeliever?”

“You got room to come around. He don’t. He’s solid Baptist.”

“Judge Parker says God is a Methodist.”

“Better that than a Baptist or those fools that play with snakes.”

“Somewhere along the line I figure you got bit by a Baptist instead of a snake,” I said.

“I do hold a certain prejudice, but that is neither here nor there. It’s good to see you again, Nat. You know, Samson greatly admires you…Let me ask. Does this event today mean you’ve given up on the man hurt Win?”

“I’m still a deputy marshal, and he is in my sights as an officer of the law.”

“And that’s all there is to it? A man doing his duty?”

I didn’t answer that. I dodged around it. “You know what? Say a few words for that innocent pig. He wasn’t killed to be dinner. He was murdered.”

I got up, patted Luther on the shoulder as I passed, and left out of there.

31

A few days later, one sunny morning, I was at the courthouse. I had testified in court about a fellow I had arrested for stealing a couple goats. It had been an easy arrest. I found him asleep on the trail and the goats he stole wandering about. He wasn’t much of a rustler. Another hour of him asleep and the goats would have walked home.

I finished up my testimony and was coming down the courthouse steps with a warrant in my pocket for a fellow who had robbed another fellow of a horse, when who should I see riding along on his big sorrel but Bass Reeves. Riding along with him was Choctaw Tom.

There was a white marshal with them, Heck Thomas, and he was driving the prison wagon that was rattling along behind them. In the back of it six men was peeking out of the bars at me. Three of them was colored, two was maybe Indian or Mexican, and the other was white. I recognized him. Kid Red, the boy me and Bronco Bob had taught to shoot. He was as skinny and ragged as I had first seen him when he was carrying Bronco Bob’s shooting gear. He was hatless, and his red hair had grown long and stringy. He was chained to the others by wrist and ankles and the main chain was locked down to a ring in the middle of the wagon.

“Hold up, Bass,” I said.

Bass raised his hand, and Heck pulled the wagon to a stop.

“I know one of your prisoners,” I said.

“You knowing him won’t help him none. These are the worst among a bad lot,” he said.

“They steal full-grown hogs instead of pigs?”

“That’s funny shit, Nat. You are something of a softie, I fear, and it will get you killed. My prediction is every one of these dog turds will hang, including the one you know.”

“I’d like to speak to one of the turds for a moment, the one I know.”

“All right,” Bass said. “Heck, Choctaw, let’s get a cup of coffee. These fellows ain’t going nowhere.”

Heck climbed off the wagon, and Bass and Choctaw dropped down from their horses.

“Bass, let me have the redhead off the trot line,” I said.

“That ain’t a good idea, Nat.”

“Leave his leg manacles on. Just take him off the main chain, let him out so me and him can talk.”

“You’re sure?”

“I am.”

“Which one is he?”

I pointed out Red.

Bass pushed up his hat and gave me that dark, burning look he used on men who didn’t agree with him. I have to admit, that was some look. I tried not to let my knees buckle.

“I get a feeling that someday you and me are going to tussle, Nat.”

“Not unless I steal a pig.”

Bass grunted. He went around and unlocked the back of the wagon and unchained Red from the main chain and brought him out. He pushed him to me. Red’s leg chains tangled him up, and he fell. I got him under the arm and pulled him up.

Bass locked the back of the wagon.

“You got as long as it takes us to have a cup of coffee in the courthouse.”

“Have two cups,” I said.

Bass did that grunting thing again, went up the steps of the courthouse and inside with the other two. I led Red over to the courthouse porch, and we sat on the edge of it.

“How you been, Nat?”

“Just happy as a duck in water. What the hell, Red? What are you doing? I got a letter from Bronco Bob. He said you’d gone wrong and thrown in with Ruggert. You know what he did to me?”

Red hung his head. “I feel deeply sorrowful about it, Nat. I do. It’s the whiskey. I got on it, and then I got to liking the guns and the thrill, and next thing I know I’m with Ruggert, and…I wish I could explain it better.”

“Me, too. What have they got you for?”

“The big man had a writ, and he served it, and it had a lot of things written on it.”

“Did you do them all?”

“Yeah. And some more wasn’t on it.”

“How bad was what was on it?”

“Murder, six times, train robbery, stagecoach robbery. Burglary. Public lewdness. I showed my pecker to some ladies. I was drunk on that one, Nat. I mean real drunk. On all them charges I was drunk, Nat. I ain’t like that now. I’m a changed man.”

“Save it. You’ve crossed the river, and there’s no boat back. You might be lucky with time in prison, but I figure it’s the rope. That’s a lot of mischief, Red.”

“I know.”

“It’s bad enough you done all that, but Ruggert? You teamed with him? What did I ever do to you, boy?”

“Nothing, Nat. You always treated me straight and upright. I ain’t got no excuse for it. You won’t believe this, but when I first got crossed with him I had been rustling some cattle, and he was the man we sold ’em to. Me and these others, and I thought, I know him from Deadwood, and that’s the man done them bad things to Nat, wrapped him in a cow skin and raped his woman and killed the other one. I knew all that from you and Bronco Bob telling me. Shit, Nat. Really, I meant to kill him. And then he had us all stay the night. He was staying in a shack, and it turned out he’d killed them that owned it, and they was propped up out back. It was cold weather, so it wasn’t as nasty as you’d think. He put them stolen cows in their corral. Ruggert, he had a buyer, and he paid us for them. He also had some men with him, four of them, so I was waiting on my chance—”

“This sounds like bigger bullshit than Bronco Bob writes.”

“Hey, I read some of those books, and they’re good. I’m in a couple of them, though he’s not real nice to me.”

“Goddamn it, Red. Give me your shitty explanation. Give me something to believe.”

“I know how it sounds, Nat. But it’s all true. I was going to kill him, but he had whiskey.”

“You sold me out for whiskey?”

“Sort of.”

“Jesus, Red.”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen how it did. It was sort of like a little creek—that would be me—flowing into a larger river, and that larger river would be Ruggert. Next thing I know I’m drinking, and he’s talking. I never mentioned you, but he did. He has it bad for you. Told me how you violated his wife and so on and so on, and how he had killed you by wrapping you in a cowhide. Word hadn’t gotten to him yet. I told him I knew you some and that you was alive. I didn’t make out we was friends.”

“Thanks for that,” I said.

“He was beside himself. Got so mad I thought he was going to mess his pants. He jumped up and hobbled around—that’s how he walks, with a hobble.”

“I know. Go on.”

“He said you was the reason every bad thing had happened to him, including his being burned and scalped and his balls carved on. It was a long, sad story, Nat. And I was moved. Not that I thought you was responsible, but he’d had some deprivations. I learned that word from one of Bronco Bob’s dime novels.”

“Congratulations on your vocabulary.”

“Next thing I knew me and him was planning a robbery. I didn’t have nothing against you, and I didn’t think you was responsible for nothing, but he was really sad.”

“Well, boo-hoo.”

“So before I know it I’m in with him, and we’re robbing trains and getting into scrapes and he’s praising my gun handling and all that, and I’m liking it. I did mention to you in the past how I hadn’t gotten a lot of attention.”

“You did,” I said.

“Now I was getting some. It went to my head.”

“That’s it? That’s why you were with him?”

“I suppose that’s all there is to it. And then we did this last job, which was robbing a stage up near Kansas, and things went bad. I got in a shoot-out, killed the driver and the shotgun rider, and damn if a stray bullet didn’t pick off a kid. We had brought everyone out to stand in front of the stagecoach, and there was this boy dressed in a suit and a bowler hat, holding a little dog, and that’s when the shotgun man, who we had disarmed and told to stay up on the seat, pulled a derringer and shot at me. He missed, but I didn’t. Then I shot the driver for good measure, and Ruggert yelled, “Watch them prisoners,” and I don’t know how it happened, but I just turned and shot. Bullet went right through the dog and hit that kid. He just sort of sat down out from under his bowler hat. That dog and him didn’t so much as whimper. I knew then I was through. We split up. Ruggert took the money. Days later I got lost somewhere in the Indian Nations. My horse broke a leg. I shot it and then got lost worse than I was before, if you can imagine that, come out finally on a clay road and knew where I was. Didn’t help me none. Here come that big colored man and with him that other fellow driving the wagon and the mixed blood, and there was five men in there. Deputy marshal, one you call Bass, has a memory like a steel trap. He figured me for someone on the run, which I guess isn’t that hard, but he remembered a description of me and Ruggert. I wasn’t anywhere near where we robbed that stagecoach, but he had already gotten word. Goddamn telegraph.”

“I don’t like him,” I said, “but he is a hell of a marshal.”

“He said, ‘You fit a description, boy.’ I tried to hold out on him, but after that kid and that dog, I’d had enough. I shot my mouth off. I told him everything I had ever done, and that included stealing a comb when I was a kid in Deadwood.”

“You’re still a kid.”

“I don’t feel like one.”

“I’m sorry for you, Red, but there’s nothing I can do for you.”

“You want Ruggert, don’t you?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“I can give you a lead on him, but I’d like something in return.”

“I can’t let you go.”

“Hell, I know that. But maybe you can talk to this judge, Parker.”

“He’s a hard one,” I said.

“You could talk to him about how I helped you marshals out. Ruggert, he’s the brains behind all this, and he wants to kill you. He knew you were here he’d come for you. I bet he would. But I bet it would be better and easier you just went to him.”

“You know where he is?”

“I know his running path. He don’t know I’ve been nabbed. He’s expecting me to show up again. You can use that. Besides, I ain’t going back if I could. I think he might be planning to kill me. There was a fellow in our gang disappeared and no one knew where he went. I figured it was Ruggert got rid of him. Got him alone and killed him on account of it was more money for Ruggert. He always seemed to have more than the rest of us. He was the leader, but he was supposed to split whatever we hauled in even-steven. I don’t know he ever did. Maybe that fellow called him on it.”

“I don’t care about any of that. Who else is with him?”

“Pinocchio Joe Bullwater is one. And then there’s this other fellow, Indian Charlie Doolittle.”

I had never heard Pinocchio Joe’s last name. It was not listed on the warrant, but it certainly rang a bell now.

“Pinocchio Joe have a brother named Chooky?” I asked.

“He did. He didn’t ride with us, but he put us up in his cabin some. I was planning on going there when I got caught out on the road.”

“That’s interesting,” I said.

“You got to watch Pinocchio Joe. He’ll cut down on you in a minute. Doolittle not so much. He’s kind of like a chicken. He’s just as happy pecking corn out of cow shit as he would be eating fresh corn. But he’s a sneaky bastard. Look here, Nat. Will you talk to Parker?”

“I will, but I won’t guarantee a thing.”

“But you will talk to him? Put in a good word for me?”

“You tell me where Ruggert stays, and if you lead me on a wild-goose chase I will put in a different kind of word with Parker. Hear me?”

“I do,” he said. “I do. You put in a good word, that’s more than I deserve. Goddamn it, Nat. I am so hungry. I haven’t eaten in days. Bass gave me some water, but when I asked for a bite, he gave me his best wishes.”

“I’ll get you fed. You can count on that. This information you got, you can’t tell nobody but me. Say anything to anyone else, our deal is off.”

“That’s how it’ll be. Thanks, Nat. You were always good to me. I want to make things square with you and me. No matter how it turns out, me in prison or bouncing on the end of a rope, I want to make things square.”

He told me where he thought they were hiding. I placed him back in the cage and secured the lock through the chains that fastened him to the wagon.

I went over and seen Judge Parker right away. I told him what I knew from Kid Red, and I put in a good word for him on account of him giving me some information that might lead to me coming up on Ruggert and killing him. I also told him there might be something to me checking out Chooky’s cabin.

“Kid Red has quite a list of serious crimes, Nat,” the judge said.

The judge was sitting at his desk, but now he stood up, walked around, and looked about his room like he was searching for cobwebs in the corner.

“I know,” I said. “I’m only asking to put it into consideration. He isn’t really any more than a boy, and he’s had it tough.”

Judge Parker stopped walking, put his hands behind his back, and looked at me.

“Nat, would you say you’ve had it tough?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Surely things have not all been slick sledding for you as a Negro.”

“I suppose not.”

“Have you committed any crimes?”

“Not that I’d own up to.”

“All right, then, let’s take another tack. Lot of men brought in here have had hard lives and can tell you stories so sad it would make you and your horse weep. But they still had a decision to make, and they chose to go wrong. I know some of the men who work for me haven’t always been on the up-and-up. Maybe that’s your case, son. But what I will tell you is this. I find out they aren’t square, find out they aren’t doing their duty, then they have to answer to the same laws as those they arrest. Understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t want to know your past. Way I look at it, I don’t have a warrant, I don’t have a thing to say to you for anything. But this boy, he murdered a boy and a dog. The dog doesn’t rest as heavy as the child, but it has some weight with me. I like dogs. You look at the list of his crimes—hold up.”

He went to his desk and ratted around in some papers, came up with one.

“This is the latest information I have on the Ruggert gang. And it’s quite a list. Your boy, as you call him, has murdered and robbed—”

“I said as much.”

“Hold your water. Listen. They have raped in the Nations. Indian women. Negroes and white folk as well. Your boy is said to have raped a young girl. That’s what it says here.”

“That doesn’t sound like him,” I said.

“It’s not what he’d tell you. Look at it this way, Nat. A boy like that with bad raising has made choices you wouldn’t make. You may have some knots in your life’s rope, but I bet you haven’t raped any young girls. Now he whines. He could have gone either way, and he chose one way and you chose another. He’s a criminal, and you are a US deputy marshal. You kept your word to him, and now you’re done with it. I will tell you true as the direction we call north I’m going to hang that boy. That’s how it is. Now, if you have something that will let you get this Ruggert and whoever is involved with him in his criminal enterprises, go forth and do it. Good day, Nat.”

“Good day, sir.”

I left the courthouse stunned, walked over to where the wagon had been. Bass had moved it under a big oak tree so that it was in the shade. It would be emptied soon enough, and into the jail those six would go. I stopped and leaned against the bars.

I was close to Red. I said, “There’s a new warrant, says you raped a girl. You didn’t mention that.”

“Why should I, Nat? I was just getting me some. It was an Indian.”

“And if it was a colored girl how would you feel?”

“I don’t know. I think of you as different.”

“I’m colored.”

“Yeah, but you’re different.”

“And if she was white?”

“Of course not.”

“So you did rape her?”

“I took some advantage of her, but I wasn’t the only one, and I wasn’t the first of us.”

“So the number and position somehow make it different?”

“It was just some girl you don’t know, Nat.”

“Listen to me. Listen good. I told Judge Parker you helped me out. Right now I don’t know you did. You may have lied to me.”

“I didn’t.”

“Good. Because I’ll get Ruggert, and you know what?”

“What?”

“You’re going to hang like drapes.”

“You said—”

“I said I’d talk to the judge. I did. That was before I knew you raped a girl. You did it, and you don’t seem bothered by it in the least.”

“It gets to me a little. I was drunk when I did it. Wasn’t entirely myself.”

“Shit, Red. You’ve become one of them. Only reason you are talking to me, befriending me, is you thought I could help you out. You put everything on being drunk. It’s you that’s drinking, Red. It’s not being forced down your throat.”

“You’ve killed before.”

“Not for money. Not for sport. And I never did the things you did. That boy and his dog. That wasn’t no accident, was it?”

“Nat.”

“It wasn’t an accident, was it?”

“I never had a dog. I never had a fancy suit like that punk had, or a bowler hat. He looked right proud of himself in that garb, holding that damn dog. I never had nothing.”

“So they should have nothing?”

“You’re turning on me, Nat.”

“You turned on yourself, Red. All I can hope for you is the drop through the trap is clean, snaps your neck, and you don’t strangle.”

“You’re like all of them. You’re just like Ruggert said.”

“Like all of who?”

“Like all the goddamn people like you.”

“How do you mean?”

“He said no matter how good a nigger is, in time the nigger will come out in him. You just let it come out in you. You sold me to the rope.”

“You sold yourself, boy. And I ain’t getting you a damn thing to eat. Suck your thumb.”

I turned then and started walking away. I felt like a fool. Tears was running down my cheeks.

“Nigger,” he kept calling out, over and over until I was gone.

32

I bought myself lunch, something I could eat out under a tree, and later when I seen that the wagon had been emptied of its prisoners, I walked to where Ruthie stayed with her family. I found her out in the yard with a hoe. She was trimming around some tomato vines that she had staked. They wasn’t real healthy-looking tomatoes. I stood at the gate of the fence they had built around the garden, which I guess was about half an acre, and watched her hoe for a while. It wasn’t that I enjoyed seeing a woman work, though I damn sure like one that is willing to, but I found myself trying to figure if she was the sort that would have gathered rats in a bag and beat them to death or drowned them. I couldn’t see that. And I couldn’t see Win talking to ducks. There was a lot of confusion in my head, but some of it sorted out that very day. I opened the gate and went through the path between the crops. Ruthie lifted her head when she saw me coming, leaned on the hoe. I could see Luther out back cranking a bucket of water up from the well. He looked like a tree wearing a hat. It was a nice well and a nice house. Samson was out in the distance tossing corn to some free-ranging chickens.

They both looked up and saw me. I lifted a hand in a wave. I went right up to Ruthie.

“I’m going on a hunt for a dangerous man. I think you know who I mean, as you’ve heard me talk about him. I’m done with him, and you ain’t been claimed by any of them other suitors, I would love to be your main man, as long as you don’t think it’s a ricochet and you know I’m serious about marriage.”

“That’s a lot of words,” Ruthie said.

“It is.”

“What if I said we should start slow?”

“I would start slow. About those other suitors…”

“I don’t care a hoot for any of them,” she said.

“That’s good.”

“It’s good for you. And just so you’re clear on matters, Nat. No one claims me. I decide if I want to be with them. That’s how it works.”

“Fair enough. I want to give you something to think on while I’m gone so maybe it will help you decide if it’s a ricochet.”

“All right, then. What have you got?”

I pushed up my hat and took hold of her shoulders and pushed my lips to hers. She didn’t fight. We kissed. It was a long and good kiss. It wasn’t the same as that kiss with Win on our hill in the high Dakotas. It tasted a little damp with sweat, but mostly it tasted sweet and right.

I heard Samson make a hooting sound. When I looked up Luther was still out by the well, but he was smiling at me. Samson’s hooting had scattered the chickens. He wore a big grin. I tipped my hat to them all.

Ruthie was a little teary when she said, “Don’t get killed. For God’s sake, don’t get killed.”

“Wouldn’t think of it,” I said. “And more for my sake than God’s.”

I turned and went along the path and out of the gate.

I started that very afternoon. I went and found Choctaw Tom over at the courthouse. He was sitting out front whittling on some wood. I said, “I’d like to have you come with me.”

“I’m taking it this ain’t no invitation to a dance.”

“It kind of is. The music might be gunfire.”

“I don’t like getting shot at.”

“Hell, who in their right mind does?”

“I like it less than most.”

“Well, I’m asking, and you can say what you want.”

“You ain’t crazy like Bass, so that’s in your favor.”

He tossed the piece of wood on the ground and folded up his pocketknife.

“Judge going to pay for this?” he asked.

“It’s marshal business, so yes.”

I told him who I was going after and asked if he knew Chooky, who he saw killed.

“I knew him. He was harmless as that pig. His brother, though, he’s not on the harmless side. He’s a snake and then some.”

“He’s running with other snakes.”

“I know.”

“Could you find them?”

“I can find anybody if I have a start.”

“That’s what I hear. I also hear that Pinocchio Joe is running with a man I want, Ruggert, and another man named Indian Charlie Doolittle.”

“That little shit. He ain’t much.”

“But he has a gun.”

“He probably does. My guess is there might even be more of them than those three.”

“That’s possible,” I said. “I’d like you to go with me. I said you’d get paid. I told you who it is, and now all I need is your agreement.”

“How about one bottle of whiskey when the job’s finished?”

“Fair enough. When it’s finished, not before. I don’t ride with drunks. But I’ll bring the bottle with me. I’ll decide when the job’s done.”

“Well, then, I’ll go get my horse and saddle.”

“One goes with the other,” I said.

“That it does.”

“More important, bring a rifle.”

“I got a Yellow Boy. Thing is, though, I’m a tracker, not a marshal, so I’m not going to promise I’ll get down in the thick of it. I’ll get you there, but three men or more, that’s a lot of men. We could get Bass and some others.”

“We could, but we won’t. I think it’ll be easier to find them with a light crew. It’s more than you want to handle when we find them, you can step out.”

“All right, then.”

“Meet here in an hour, ready to go.”

He went to get his goods, and I went to get mine.

I put some possibles together and made sure of my ammunition and was on the hunt. We left out of Fort Smith with the sky freckled like an Appaloosa, a sure sign of bad weather and a sure sign to turn back and wait for better weather.

But we went ahead. Bad weather would cause them to hole up somewhere, not to expect someone out in it and after them. I thought about Kid Red’s information, and I told Choctaw Tom where he said they might be.

“Hell, Nat, that could be anywhere. That’s a place so wide and long it’s like saying there’s a tick out there with a top hat and he lives there somewhere and you can find him if he yells at you and waves his hat and has a voice like a buffalo. That’s no help at all. That’s just as general as saying, ‘There’s stars in the sky. Watch for the one on the left.’ ”

“Is that where the tick with the top hat will be?”

“Most likely.”

“He seems to have moved from the ground to the sky.”

“They are tricky bastards.”

“Here’s how we’ll start. Pinocchio Joe being Chooky’s brother, it might be best to start with Chooky’s cabin.”

“Did you know Pinocchio was wanted?”

“Yep.”

“You didn’t tell Bass the connection?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t like him. Killing a man over a pig seems on the harsh side to me. Besides, I just discovered the connection from Kid Red.”

“I see. Ever ate a pickled egg?”

“What?”

“A pickled egg. I’m going to have me one. I got two.”

“No. That’s all right. Keep it for yourself.”

Choctaw pulled a bag from his saddlebag. It had a box inside it, and as he rode along, he opened the box and took out one of the eggs. It smelled awful. He ate it, and then he ate the other.

“I knew I’d eat them right away,” he said. “I was going to save them for a time when I was really hungry, but I love the goddamn things.”

“I don’t need an explanation,” I said.

“I eat all the time, Nat. I’m always hungry. I got enough supplies here for a whole wad of sawmill workers. I could feed ten or twelve. I eat all the time and don’t gain a goddamn pound. I stay skinny as a rail. I could use a bit of meat on me. Other day the wind blew, and I found myself in a tree.”

“Sure you did,” I said.

“Would I lie to you?”

“I think you might,” I said.

“Not about the eating. That’s true. I think I got some kind of worm.”

We came to where Bass had shot Chooky, and then we rode on farther up the hill and then onto a flat slab of land and into some trees. On the other side of the trees was a cabin that Choctaw said belonged to Chooky.

We stopped and sat on our horses and looked at the cabin. There was no smoke, and there was no horses to be seen out front or in the open-ended shed to the right of the house. I rode around back of the house, going wide, and didn’t see no horses there, neither, though there was a corral there. Without getting down off my horse I could see that the horse turds there wasn’t fresh, but they wasn’t old, neither. A few days or so, I guessed. We met around front and tied our horses off. Choctaw carried his Yellow Boy, I pulled my Colt, and we went up to the door, which was already partly open. I nudged it with my boot. It was dark in there, and it smelled like sweaty men.

Choctaw lit a match and moved past me and went inside. It was a small cabin, one room, and we was quick to see wasn’t nobody there but us.

“They must have holed up here with Chooky,” Choctaw said. “There’s been several men here. I reckon he stole the pig to feed them. He wasn’t no bad fellow, but he’d have helped his brother hide out. He just up and lied about why he stole that pig. Stood by his brother to the end.”

“And Bass didn’t come here after the pig thief was killed,” I said. “That would have been a smart follow-through, don’t you think?”

“It would have, but I think Bass was thinking about free pork chops more than detective work,” Choctaw said. “He’s got his mind right, though. Ain’t no one better than him. I just don’t like his attitude.”

We strolled out back to the corral.

“There were several horses here, and not too long back,” Choctaw said.

“Way I figured.”

“There was some cows, too.”

Choctaw got off his horse and climbed over the corral and started feeling around in piles of shit. Soon as he mentioned it, I could see there was cow pies and horse piles in the corral. It ain’t that hard to tell them apart; same with chicken shit and hog shit. They all got their look and smell and feel. Choctaw went out to the well and cranked up a bucket of water and rinsed his hands off, came back, and got on his horse.

“There was three cows rustled from Old Man Turner over on the other side of the bluff there. He had them put up, but someone came in the night and took them. My guess is these fellas was the ones that had them, cause there was three cows in that corral, and on the far side there was horses.”

“You can tell how many cows from a pile of shit?”

“Hoofprints and such. Every hoof looks different, you make the effort to study them. My figuring is they stole them to sell, or maybe for food. They drove them off when they rode away.”

“Can you follow them?”

“Trail isn’t too warm, but I can follow it if it doesn’t start raining, and maybe even then. Long as they got those cows with them they can’t move too fast. Then again, they got quite a few days on us. I can’t guarantee your man—what’s his name?”

“Ruggert.”

“I can’t guarantee he’s with them, but Pinocchio Joe is. I know his horse’s print. It’s not the horseshoe, it’s the way the horse wears it.”

“You can wear it different ways?”

“You ain’t much of a tracker, are you?