Текст книги "Paradise Sky"

Автор книги: Joe R. Lansdale

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Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

“Why I got you.”

“A horse has his own way of walking with a shoe—how it steps, way it puts its print down. Trust me. It’s him. And I figure one of the other prints to be Doolittle. They never get far apart, and the print is light. Doolittle rides light. He don’t weigh enough to hold down a newspaper in a light wind. And there’s another. That might be your Ruggert fellow.”

I nodded, glanced at the sky. It was starting to darken. “Looks like rain will be soon.”

“Yep. Let’s get on the trail. See how much ground we can cover before it comes down.”

We wound up into the mountains and the sky got dark and the rain started to come down hard. We pulled on our slickers, and that helped, but pretty soon it was damn near dead dark, and the sound of the rain on my hat was making me loco. There was an old cabin high up in the mountains Choctaw knew of, and he said it wasn’t much off the trail and we should go there to ride out the storm. We rode there, being cautious to note if our outlaws might have had the same idea a few days back and was still there, but they wasn’t.

We brought our horses into the cabin, which wasn’t really much more than a shack. It was dark in there, but we had some waxed paper twists and we lit one. There was an old kerosene lamp, but there wasn’t any kerosene in it. We stuck a few lit twists here and there and tried to figure where we could put our bedrolls. First thing we did was block the door from being pushed back by wedging a slicked piece of wood underneath it. It would take some determination from outside to move it, and by then we should be on the job in case defending ourselves was necessary.

There was a fireplace, and the flue drew smoke well enough, and there was a bit of wood, so we made a fire. That gave us more light. Choctaw got out his cooking goods, warmed us up some beans. It was a lot of beans, actually. I ate a plateful, and Choctaw ate three plates full. He wasn’t kidding about always being hungry.

“What do you think they got in mind?” I asked Choctaw.

“Not getting caught. Bunch like that, they done played out their cards, but they don’t know it. They ain’t got nothing left now but to keep doing what they’re doing, and then in time they’ll step in a pile somehow, and they’ll get caught.”

“Think we’ll be the ones to catch them?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“What makes you so certain?”

Choctaw smiled at me, wiped his bean-juice-coated mouth with the back of his sleeve. “You got me. Course, once we catch up with them they could kill us both.”

The rain came down like bullets, and the cabin was shabby and leaked. We hobbled the horses, but the rain and the lightning made them restless, and between the rain and them stirring and me worrying about our prey coming upon us by accident, I had a sleepless night. Here is what I had wanted for so long, and now that I was getting close I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I wasn’t sure I’d live through it, and if I did I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about myself. My mother said I was destined for greatness. I doubted when she said that she thought I’d be up in the wet mountains with plans to kill a man, even if he deserved it. I remembered what Ruggert had said about her, and that made me a little sick. I didn’t like what was running through my mind, the ideas he had put there.

When morning light slipped through the wet cracks of the cabin, I was already up and tending to the fire. There was hardly enough wood to make a blaze now, but it was enough to warm more beans. I had my plateful and Choctaw had his three, this time the beans coming from my possibles. At this rate we’d have to eat the horses by noon and each other by noon the next day.

The day was fresh, and the rain was drying fast as the sun was growing hot. By ten the freshness would go out of the air and it would turn sticky, like someone had poured hot honey over the woods and mountains. It was that time of year when the weather could change from one thing to another as quickly as a child can change its mind.

Choctaw, to my surprise, could still find sign of where our bunch had traveled. He said it was because they had those cows with them when they passed through. The cows had torn the earth up a lot. I looked. I couldn’t tell the difference from what the rain had done and what the cows and horses had done a few days back. As I said, I’m not a great tracker, though I can follow fresh sign all right, but Choctaw could follow a ghost in moccasins.

By late afternoon we come upon a white man walking. He didn’t walk like someone used to it. He was a heavy, bowlegged outfit of a man without a hat, and he was holding a hand to the side of his head. When he seen us he threw up a hand. “Hold on there, men. I been robbed.”

We got down off our horses and helped the man to sit on a fallen tree by the side of the trail.

“Who robbed you?”

“Three men,” he said. “One of them I knowed, so that’s why I think I’m alive. They gave him me to kill, and he took me off in the woods and said I’d wake up with a headache, and before I could ask him what he meant I woke up with a headache. I see two of each of you, by the way, but I doubt you is two sets of twins. And you got all them horses.”

“You’re going to need some bed rest,” I said.

“I ain’t far from my house if I can take the right trail.”

“There’s only one,” Choctaw said.

“Not the way I’m seeing,” he said.

“What’s your name?” I said.

“People call me Bump. Now that I got this lick on my head, that fits right nice. You got a chaw?”

Neither me nor Choctaw had a chaw.

“Smoke?”

Choctaw rolled Bump a cigarette, licked it closed, put it in Bump’s mouth, and lit a match to it.

Bump took a few puffs.

“Bump, who was it you knew?” Choctaw asked.

“Doolittle, that little shit. He used to work for me. He’s all right, I reckon, but he has a tendency to stray here and there, and now I’m mad at him, hitting me in the head like that.”

“He was supposed to shoot you,” I said.

“Yeah, well, that’s true, but I tell you, my head stays like this I won’t even be able to sort my socks. There’ll be too many.”

“What did they steal from you and when?” I asked him.

“I been walking all day…Well, I laid out some on the ground in some trees for a while. Yesterday near evening was when Doolittle hit me. They already had some cows with them when they come up on me, three, I think, and then they took my cows. Eight of them. And my horse. I was driving the cows on some green range. I don’t own it. No one does that I know of. I run them there now and then to give them a kind of spring tonic. Hell, they’re not prime cows or nothing. Just some old sagalongs. Some I was gonna butcher and smoke the meat; a couple are milk cows. I’ve had them awhile. I like my milk. They’ll need milking, too, and I told them that. You gonna steal them, I says, then you gotta milk ’em, otherwise they’re in pain, and in time they can quit giving milk. I don’t think they was listening. But I tell you, they don’t milk them, they’ll be bawling by sundown.”

“Any idea where they was going?”

He shook his head.

“I have an idea,” Choctaw said. “There’s a fellow named Chet Williamson on the other side of the bluff, two, three days’ ride at their pace with the cows. He buys stolen anything that can be made into meat. He’s a butcher. He’s good at buying what ain’t his and butchering what ain’t his. We all know he does it, but ain’t no one ever caught him red-handed. He buys cows low and butchers them right away and makes his money off the meat by selling high. He don’t ask much in the way of questions. Them rustlers need some quick money, is my guess, and they’re gathering cows and horses, which Williamson also buys, kills, and smokes and says is beef. He wants what you got, you’re quick in and quick out. By the time money has changed hands and he’s got the stock, Williamson’s sons go straight to the butchering. They’re all butchers, though I heard one of them likes to make brooms or some such horseshit.”

“Oh, hell,” said Bump. “They butcher them. Ah, shit. I hate that to happen to my milk cows. They’re like family. They’re the only family I got, actually.”

“Maybe we can get to them before they sell the cows,” I said. “Tell me about them.”

Doolittle we all knew about by now, and then he described one that Choctaw said was definitely Pinocchio Joe. Then Bump said, “And the other one looked like he had been caught on fire and it had been put out by a stampede. Not only was he ugly, he was also mean, and he was in charge. I thought him and the long-nosed one was at each other’s throats a little, on account of I think Long Nose thought he should be running things. Doolittle, he don’t care who runs things. He’s good to figure out what day it is and which hole to shit out of. He wasn’t much of a worker when he worked for me. I thought I might as well be honest about that.”

“That’s a note we’ll make,” I said. “All right, we’ll get you to your place then go after these assholes.”

“Hell with that. Go on and do your job. My place ain’t far, soon as I figure out which of the trails I see is really there.”

“We can set you on it,” Choctaw said.

“Just get my cows back,” he said. “Especially my milk cows.”

“We’ll do what we can,” I said.

We set Bump on the trail, and with his hand to his head, he went wandering along. Back on our horses Choctaw picked up their trail again, and we followed.

As we rode along, Choctaw said, “The cows are slowing them down quite a bit, and now that they’ve added some they’ll go slower still. We’ll catch up with them by nightfall is my figure. Not then, early the next morning.”

“Good,” I said.

“I want to remind you,” he said. “I only signed on to track.”

“When we find them, you can go back if you like.”

“Just so that’s understood that I can if I want to. I ain’t going to, just wanted it understood I’m my own man.”

“You’re sticking, then?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“When will I know so?” I said. “Something like that I ought to have a better idea of, considering the circumstances.”

“Yeah, I’m sticking.”

“I ought not look a gift horse in the mouth, but why?”

“You ain’t bossy like some of the others. Bass—damn, now, there’s a boss. I think him having been a slave taught him how to be a boss, too. He learned from his master. You know, story is he run off from being a slave, got clean free, and never went back. He was a good friend to his master is the story I heard, and they got in an argument over a card game, and Bass hit him and then run off and stayed run off.”

“Good for him,” I said.

“Yeah. But I think he did it not just because he was a slave but because he wanted to be boss. He likes being boss a little too much. Had his way, he’d have slaves.”

“But you’re fine with me?”

“You got an easy manner, Nat.”

It was all birdsong and roses right then, but we had yet to find them, and sometimes if you hunt bear, the bear wins. A thing I had solid in my mind as we rode along higher into the Ozark Mountains.

33

What I told you about how weather in that part of the country can change in the blink of an eye was coming true. The skies had darkened again, and not only was rain threatening to wet our heads, it was also threatening to darken our trail and wash it away. Choctaw had been able to follow it so far, but even he said another rain and he might not be able to stay on it, least not without some serious hunting here and there to pick up on it again. He said that wasn’t a worry, though, as he was certain where they were driving them cows and he didn’t need to track them anymore.

It made sense, but then again you can make all kinds of guesses that can get your ass in a tight crack. I was hoping we wasn’t making one, and I was hoping it wasn’t going to rain before we come up on them, as that would make our business more difficult. That hope got wet not long after.

It began to drizzle, and then real rain came down. It was a cold rain, driven by wind that near slashed you out of the saddle.

As it was dark with cloud cover and rain, we wasn’t trying to follow sign anymore. We pulled on our slickers, and Choctaw headed us where he thought they might be going. By nightfall the rain was still going full blast, and it was very dark, and we come upon a huddle of trees, hardwoods that had broad limbs and full leaves, and we decided that was the place to camp. As we was preparing to do that, we seen a red glow about three hundred yards away. Sitting on our horses just inside the trees, we could see that it was a huge fire built into the front of a cave that was hollowed out of a rise of rock; the kind of caves that litter parts of the Ozarks. What we couldn’t figure was just how far it went back, but we could hear cows mooing in there, and a couple of the critters seemed distressed.

“That’s them that are in need of milking,” Choctaw said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well, I don’t reckon you plan on just riding in on them.”

“I don’t. This is as good a place out of the rain as we got. I say we get our horses fed and do some planning.”

We dismounted, leaving the saddles on in case we needed to ride quick, and led our horses into the thickness of the trees and put feed bags on their snouts and tied them to tree trunks. We stood there watching them eat, glancing now and then at that big warm fire and that large-mouth cave. Here we was, representing the law, and we was cold and wet, and there they was, representing assholes everywhere, and they was warm and dry. That alone made me want to shoot them.

It was then that we seen a figure coming across the clearing between the cave and the trees. I think he had been coming all along, but because of the rain and the shadows we hadn’t made him out. He was wearing a hat pulled down tight and a rain slicker.

“It’s a little fellow,” Choctaw said.

“Doolittle?”

“My figure.”

We moved through the trees, in line to where we thought he’d enter, and waited.

Our man edged into the trees and walked right between us, as we was hid up behind some elms. As he got past us, Choctaw stepped out and whacked him a good one in the back of the head with the Yellow Boy barrel, knocking him down.

“Aw, hell, that hurt, shit, damn it,” said the man on the ground.

“Shut up or I’ll give you another one,” Choctaw said.

“That hurt,” the man said.

“I reckon so,” I said. “You Doolittle?”

“Who wants to know?” the man said.

“A fellow that’s going to smack you again with this rifle,” Choctaw said.

“Yeah, I’m Doolittle. What have I done to you?”

“Breathe air,” I said. “I’m Nat Love, deputy marshal, and you are under arrest for theft and a bunch of stuff that would wear me out to list.”

“You ain’t got nothing on me,” Doolittle said.

“Let me think,” I said. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. I got papers on you and your friends.”

“They ain’t all that friendly,” he said.

“I also got word from Bump that you hit him in the head a lot harder than you just got hit.”

“Goddamn it, I knew I should have gone on and shot him. I liked him, though. That’s what my problem has been all my life, just like my mama told me. She said my good heart would lead to my downfall.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to tie you up and gag you.”

“Oh, hell, not a gag. I been gagged before. That’s just miserable.”

“Shut up,” Choctaw said.

“We will gag you and tie you up, or we can just go ahead and shoot you. If we shoot you, that will let your companions know we’re here, but on the downside for you, you will be dead.”

“I don’t like that side of it at all. Go ahead and gag me.”

We tied his hands behind his back with some leather strips, bound his feet, sat him up against a tree, tied a rope to the bind that held his hands, and wrapped that around the tree.

Choctaw said, “You are in luck, Doolittle, as I got some dirty socks that will fit right into your mouth. But let me tell you a thing or two. I seen a man gagged once that fought the gag so much he swallowed it, and that didn’t do him any good, I can assure you. You got to be still and wait for us to return or you might choke.”

“And what if you get killed?”

“That wouldn’t be good for you at all. We get killed, and your buddies get killed, too—or don’t know you’re here or don’t care—you’re going to be in quite a pickle, now, ain’t you?”

“I reckon I will be. But it don’t seem right I got to root for you fellows.”

“It is a confusion,” I said. “Why was you out here anyway?”

“Looking for a place to shit. At least I don’t have that problem no more. It’s all stove up inside of me now.”

“You can’t shit in the cave?” Choctaw said.

“I suggested it, but my pards was against it.”

“I can see that,” I said.

“So you came out in the rain to shit in the woods?” Choctaw said.

“I’m modest. They’re going to miss me, you know?”

“Maybe not soon enough,” I said.

Choctaw got one of his socks and some rags out of his saddlebag. You could smell that sock even with the rain and the wind blowing. It wasn’t pleasant.

“You really going to use that sock?” Doolittle said.

“I am.”

“Ain’t you got no clean ones?”

“I do.”

“So you’re just being mean?”

“I am. I used it to wipe a little cow doo off my boots when I changed socks yesterday, so there might be something in them you can chew on.”

Choctaw pushed the socks up close to Doolittle’s face.

“Oh, that’s smells terrible. I’ve changed my mind. Go on and shoot me.”

“Don’t tempt us,” I said.

Choctaw shoved the sock in Doolittle’s mouth and tied it in there with a couple bands of what was now wet rags. When he was done, he stood up from where he had been squatting and patted Doolittle on the head.

“Be good, little boy,” he said.

There wasn’t no choice but to go to them, as pretty soon they might wonder what happened to Doolittle. Way we decided to come at it was I’d go to the right, far around, and try and come along the line of rocks that led to the cave and surprise them at the mouth of it. Choctaw would cross the clearing off to the left side of the fire. We figured if they saw him at all before he was right on them, they’d think it was Doolittle coming back, though the problem there was Choctaw was considerable taller. I pointed this out to him, and he said, “I’ll hunker down.”

“Hunker good,” I said. “Give me about a five-minute lead before you start hunkering, though.”

I took my deputy marshal badge out of my pocket and lifted up my slicker and pinned it on my shirt and set out along the trees with my rifle in hand until I was far right of the cave. Then I took to a trot across the clearing, out of their line of sight, or so I hoped. I glanced back and saw Choctaw had started his way toward them. With all that rain and wind blowing, I didn’t think they figured it was anyone other than Doolittle until he was right up on them. I was close enough I could really hear them cattle in the cave now, and I could hear voices, but not what was being said. I felt pretty confident we had put the sneak on them, but as I reached the rock wall, I looked back and seen a surprising sight.

It looked like a giant rabbit wearing a hat. Doolittle had somehow freed himself from the tree. Rope was rotten or the knot wasn’t good, I didn’t know, but there he come, his hands still tied behind his back and his feet bound. He was hopping up and down, right past Choctaw, who decided to go to one knee there in the clearing. I could make them both out from where I was, and since there was two of them, if the men inside the cave looked up, they’d see them both and know they couldn’t both be Doolittle.

Now, I got to give it to Doolittle; he could hop fast. He went right on past Choctaw and just kept on his mission. We could have shot him, but that wouldn’t have helped us none, as our shots would have announced us. I decided it was best I moved on toward the cave, and just before I started in that direction I seen Choctaw stand up from where he squatted and start out after Doolittle the Rabbit, most likely to brain him again with his rifle.

I hadn’t no more than pressed against the rock wall and started moving when shots rang out, and Doolittle the Rabbit caught one and stumbled but kept to his bound feet and went back to hopping. The gag had shifted, and he had managed to spit the sock out, cause he started calling out, “It’s me—don’t shoot.”

Instead of stopping fire, this seemed to draw it. Bullets ripped from the cave, and down went Doolittle, right on his face. Then them inside the cave took note of Choctaw, who had tried to widen his position, and I heard a shot and seen him toss his head back and yelp and fall to his knees, and then to his face.

I didn’t know the disposition of either him or the rabbit and had no choice but to continue on my path to the mouth of the cave. When I wasn’t no more than twenty feet from it, I seen a man step out of it, just past the fire that was raging inside the cave. The fire was hissing as the wind was blowing rain into the cave and into the fire; it was like someone was constantly spitting into it.

I knew the fellow standing there was Pinocchio Joe, because I hadn’t never seen a nose like that on anything outside of a possum. It stuck out and then hung down like a door latch at the tip.

“I got them both,” Pinocchio Joe said. “But I’m starting to think one of them was that little shit Doolittle.”

“Which one?” said a voice from the cave, which I recognized as belonging to Ruggert.

“The one hopping, I figure.”

“What the hell was he hopping for?”

“He might have thought it was funny.”

“He ain’t laughing now, is he? Didn’t you know it was him?”

“I thought the other one was him, but then I seen he was taller. I’d already shot Doolittle by then, so how tall one was to the other don’t really matter.”

“Who the hell is the other one?”

“I don’t know no more than you do.”

“Well, least make sure Doolittle’s dead,” Ruggert said. “You shot him, you finish him. We’ll call it an accident if we got to call it anything. It makes dividing the money easier. And see who that other fucker was. See if you know him.”

“Why don’t you go out and take a look?”

“Cause I’m the goddamn boss.”

“Boss of what? Ain’t nobody left but me and you.”

“Don’t get no ideas, Joe. I ain’t going to hop up and down till you shoot me. I might prove a bit more trouble.”

Pinocchio Joe stood there as if thinking to respond. I was leaning tight against the shadowed wall, and if Pinocchio Joe didn’t turn and look right at me, he wasn’t going to see me. I held my breath.

Pinocchio Joe tracked across the clearing to where Choctaw and Doolittle lay. I took a quick study of my situation, and as I was putting together what I should do, for some reason or another, Pinocchio Joe turned and looked back just as I was moving out of the shadows of the rock wall with my rifle.

“Son of a bitch,” he said when he saw me.

Ruggert yelled out of the cave, “What did you call me?”

It was then I brought my rifle up and started cocking it fast as I could. I had the lever pushed so that each time I cocked it, it hit the trigger. I must have missed him three times, but I figure I got him on four. He went down in the grass and started cussing.

“You got me in the nuts, you coward. You shot my goddamn nuts.”

“I was aiming for your goddamn pecker,” I said. “You in the cave. You better stay put.”

“Willie?” came Ruggert’s voice. “Is that you?”

“It is,” I said, “and your hide is tanned.”

“You ain’t got me yet,” he said.

“I’m laying out here shot in the balls and you’re having a talk with this bastard,” Pinocchio Joe said. He had started to roll around on the ground a little.

“It’s that nigger I told you about,” Ruggert said.

“I don’t care,” Pinocchio Joe said. “I got a bullet in my sack.”

All the time Pinocchio Joe was rattling on, I had been moving with my back against the rocks, toward the mouth of the cave. Pinocchio Joe might have thought I wouldn’t notice he was trying to get up on his knees with his rifle. But I noticed. I was just waiting for him to set up high enough I could pick him off.

When he rose up suddenly and the rifle lifted, I popped off a shot. He shot, too. His shot went wild, but mine hit him. He fell back in the grass and yelled out, “Now I’m shot in the goddamn neck. I’m dying in the rain. Oh, Jesus. I got blood in my mouth.” Then I heard Pinocchio gurgle, and then he was silent and still. I watched toward the mouth of the cave to see if Ruggert was coming out on me, which he didn’t, and then I darted my eyes out to where Pinocchio Joe lay, hoping he wasn’t playing possum. He didn’t move, but I decided to put another shot into him to make sure. I shot him twice, actually. He didn’t so much as flinch either time. I was counting him dead from that moment on.

“Ruggert, I’m coming in after you.”

“Then come ahead. I’ll put on the coffee, you black bastard.”

I heard the cattle and horses stirring inside the cave. Those shots had gotten them worked up.

I leaned my rifle against the wall and pulled the LeMat and put the lever on the shotgun load, then I put it back and loosened the Colt in its holster. I picked up the rifle again. I considered for a moment.

“Well, you coming in, or do I need to give you a piggyback ride?” Ruggert said.

I took a deep breath and moved swiftly along the wall to the mouth of the cave and the bright burning fire. I poked the rifle inside and started cocking and pumping shots. The cows bellowed and the horses snorted and then they all went wild. I could hear them stomping around in there, and then one of the horses leaped through the fire, knocking big logs about. I heard more stomping inside, and then Ruggert yelled out in pain. I dropped the rifle, pulled both pistols, and stepped inside.

There was a wall of cows, and they near knocked me down, running in a circle as they was. The cave was small, but I could see between the dancing shadows of cow bodies and flickering firelight that there was a kind of drop-off at the rear. I could hear Ruggert screaming down there, so I knew he had been knocked into it by those frightened critters. They was wide-eyed and getting crazy, and within an instant they all started toward me and the fire. I stepped back outside the cave as they came rushing out, sending logs and fire a’winding, sparks floating up into the wet night sky. The logs that was knocked outside the cave steamed white smoke in the rain.

I watched the animals rush off across the clearing, tramping on Pinocchio Joe’s body so solidly I could hear his bones crack from where I stood. I waited a moment, then stepped inside. It was darker at the back of the cave, as the fire had been knocked about, so with my LeMat in one hand I picked up a burning stick with the other and used it to guide me back into the shadows.

Ruggert was moaning down in that dark drop-off.

At the drop-off I stuck the blazing stick over the edge and peeked down.

“Had a little fall, did you?”

A shot flared up and punched a hole through the brim of my hat.

“I ain’t dead yet, nigger. I’m stomped on and broken, but I ain’t dead. I been burned and cut, shot and beat, and still I ain’t dead. But what I don’t understand is why in hell ain’t you dead.”

“Ornery as you, I reckon,” I said.

“I’ll second that, goddamn it. Ah, shit. I hurt.”

“Ruggert,” I said. “I could just sit up here and wait you out, or you can give yourself up.”

“And have you kill me?”

“I wait you out, you’ll be dead, and I’ll haul your dead ass into Fort Smith just the same. I could kill you easy. Get some rocks and push them over on you. Fire down there with my pistols until I hit something with meat on it. I could drop this here firebrand down and shoot you in the light of it. Or you can give yourself up.”

“You’d let me give up?”

“I been talking to the preacher. He thinks I’ll do better about myself if I don’t kill for vengeance.”

“Does he, now?”

“I can’t say I’ve got Jesus, but I think he makes some sense there. You know I killed Golem?”

“You did? That big, contrary son of a bitch? Well, damned if you ain’t the resourceful nigger.”

“I got an ass full of resource.”

“You could be lying to me, Willie.”

“I assure you Golem’s dead.”

“About bringing me in alive.”

“I could be.”

“You ruined my life.”

“I didn’t do nothing to you. Who the hell cares about such a thing as someone seeing your wife’s clothed ass?”

“I do.”

“And what’s it got you? A burned-up face, some cut-up balls, and now you been stomped on by a cow. On top of that, you’re a wanted man. And you’ll love why I’m taking you in.”

“The reward, I figure.”

“That’s true, but I’m also a deputy marshal, and it’s my job.”

“Now, I’ll be damned to hell if you’re a marshal.”

“Have it your way.”

“I got another solution. I could shoot myself.”

“Go on ahead. It’s nothing to me. You do it, I’m off the griddle. You give me trouble and I do it, I’m doing my job. And I could change my mind and feel less forgiving in the next five minutes. Hell, Ruggert. You get to choose. But you don’t choose soon, then I will kill you in the name of the law, and for Win, Madame, my pa, and a hog that never done nothing to you. And I’ll kill you for my mama just on general principles.”

“I forgot about the hog,” he said. “Damn it, boy. Drop a rope over. Pull me out. I’ll go in with you.”

“Your voice has got real sweet, but I don’t trust you. Let me tell you how we’re going to do it. I’m going to go check on my man. Then I’m going to come back, and you are going to throw your guns up here—”

“I just got one. I dropped my rifle. You tend to do that when a fucking cow steps on you.”

“I see it here on the ledge. You throw what guns you got up here, and then we’ll see about getting you out. How bad are you hurt?”

“Leg’s twisted under me, coiled up like a rope. It hurts.”

“It’ll get worse. Throw the gun up.”

“I don’t trust you for shit.”

“You might want to throw it up anyway. I walk away with this fire it’s going to get awful dark down there.”

I grabbed the burning brand and started out the front of the cave. Ruggert yelled after me. “Don’t leave me down here, Willie.”

I ignored him and went out of the cave to look at Choctaw. He was sitting up when I got there, holding the side of his head. The rain made my burning brand waver.

I kneeled down next to him.

“I got creased in the head,” he said. “There’s blood all over me.”