Took her a minute 'til she ask. "What did bother you, Willie?"
I rolled over and looked her in the eye. "Why, that big wolf had made himself breakfast of our last food there beside our campfire and didn't even think to wash out the frying pan." I give her a little goodnight kiss. "Don't you worry, Mandy."
My, that girl had a pretty laugh. "Goodnight, Willie."
Chapter Nine
A gunshot. Right beside my face. I rolled for my pistol, but a hundred hooves was right on top of me. Mandy screamed. Horses stamping and turning all around the quilt and kicking up the canvas. Mandy fired her rifle again, sitting up, and someone hollering at the horses.
I yelled, pushing the barrel of her Winchester toward the ground. But she got off another shot anyway, making the horses even wilder. I throwed myself over her, partly to protect her from the hooves flying all around and partly to keep her from shooting.
It took a while, but they started to move away. I laid still as I could, trying to hold her, squirming as she was. The dust settled some and things got quieter. That big strong girl finally laid still beneath me.
"Morning, Deputy," Clete called from a little distance off. "Looks like you've caught somebody, but I thought this was a man hunt."
I rolled off of her and sat up, mustering as much of my dignity as I could. "About time you showed up. What kept you?" It wasn't 'til then that I remembered I was in my birthday suit, bare as a new-hatched magpie. When I reached for the quilt to cover myself, I found Mandy had wrapped it around her. There was nothing else to do but stand up, put on my hat and then my longjohns. Clete, he watched the show still sitting his horse and smiling like the devil does when a Baptist gets drunk.
"This is your friend?" Mandy asked.
"That's right," I told her, buttoning my shirt. "This here's Clete Shannon. You almost put a hole through the sheriff of Two Scalp, Dakota Territory." I sat back down to put on my boots. "And if he's anything at all like he usually is, he won't let you fergit this 'til the day you die."
I went over to where he was. He looked tired and kind of smirky, but I was glad to see him. "Clete, this here's Miss Amanda Bowden, or something Frenchy like that."
"Boudoin," she corrected me, and then said it slow for both of us. "Boo-dwanh. I call myself Mandy." She pushed at her hair and reached for her boots. "You will excuse me if I do not stand up to curtsy, Mr. Sheriff."
"Of course, Miss Amanda," he said, that grin still on his face. You could tell he was taking her in and liked what he saw. When he looked back at me, he was surprised that I caught what was on his mind. "I'm sorry, you two. I didn't figure on finding anyone asleep, seeing as how the sun's already up."
"It is I who must apologize for shooting at you," Mandy said. "I thought you were the other man, the man we follow, Mr. Sheriff."
"Call me Clete, ma'm," he said, touching the brim of his Montana. "When you fired, those two horses I've been leading busted loose and yours got mixed in with them. rn go round them up now and let you get yourself dressed. We got a long day on the trail ahead of us and need to get started right away."
Mandy sat and looked back and forth from Clete to me 'til he rode off a ways. I tied on my bandanna, grabbed my saddle, and walked out after him. Before long he caught my horse and brought him in. Clete stayed on Buckshot while I saddled mine. "Whyinhell'd you bring her?" he ask.
"Had no choice," I told him. "Her parents died and no one else lived around there. She didn't slow me down, though."
"Except maybe at night," Clete said.
"I can't see as that's any of your damn business, just like my drinkin'," I told him flat. "Long as I do my job."
"Didn't know you liked them quite so fresh out of their swaddles."
I was about to tell him I was no older than her pappy was compared to her ma when I seen that damn grin back on his face. He was just hoo-rahing me was all, so I gave him a good wink and let 'er go at that. I looked back toward where Mandy and me had camped, and she was gettin dressed, putting a clean shirt on.
"Where's her horse?" Clete asked, watching her too.
"Our man took it. Ridin' it now, 'cause his is about lame."
"Damned inconvenient, Willie," he said. "And dangerous for her, but I suppose you know that."
I mounted up. "Yessir it is. And I told her so, too, but she still decided she had to come. I'm sorry, Clete, but I saw no other way for it."
"Well, I'm sorry too for actin' like a jackass back there at Nell's. If we catch him, it'll be to your credit, for I'd a never done it, starting out by myself like I had a mind to. I'd have lost him back at Medicine Creek where he covered his tracks. I've been thinking on it, following behind, and I was wrong as shit, so I guess we're even again, huh?"
"Suits me," I said. "Now, are we going to go catch them other horses and get after that hardcase, or are we going to sit here and just apologize all over each other for the rest of the morning?"
Well, it took no time at all to catch them other two and bring them back. He had brought me a fine-looking bay gelding, almost short enough in the barrel to be an Indian pony and long enough in the legs not to be. Sounds like an awkward sort of horse, I know, but he was smooth as the seat of a banker's britches. But what surprised me even more was that the citizens of Two Scalp had sprung for him. The pack horse carried more provisions than we could eat in a month, even with an extra mouth to feed. Clete got out the shotgun he'd brought from the office and I gave him back his Henry.
"I found this with your trail clothes," Clete said, handing me the tied-up skin I kept my pistol and powder and balls in. "Is that a Navy .36?"
"Yes it is," I said. "Stopped wearing it a few years ago when I finally saw I'd never learn to hit anything with it. Don't know why I ever bought it in the first place."
"Pretty old piece and not the best gun for the job we've got here, but I'd appreciate it if you'd strap it on anyway," he said.
"All right, only don't expect much."
"I know better than that," he said, starting out.
He'd brought ammunition enough for a regiment on patrol and even a tent. But of course he didn't bring another saddle for the horse he brought me, so Mandy had to go bareback on the buckskin. She didn't seem to mind.
I rode beside Clete, leading the pack animal, and Mandy followed, keeping well up with us. He looked back every so often to see how she was doing, and then he'd give me that big shit-eating grin. But once when I seen him looking back, I noticed it wasn't just her welfare on his mind, and it was me had the smile on my face after that. While we rode he told me about how everyone in town had gone to Nell's and Jesse's funerals, and thought nothing much about them two old timers sleeping together, though Mary'd been a little funny about it.
"Looky there," I said, after we'd been on the trail for a while. "He's heading back up to the Cheyenne again," for his sign struck out toward the northwest.
Clete stopped and took out his map. "Looks like he's heading back toward the river, all right, but it ain't the Cheyenne. That's a lot west of here. The one you followed him along, that's the Bad."
"The Bad? I never heard of no Bad River. What's bad about it? Looked pretty peaceful to me."
We dismounted and studied the map he'd brought and soon Mandy joined us. "It is called the Bad River because it begins in the Mauvaises Terres," she said, as if that should mean something to us. Clete looked at me and I shrugged. "It means 'bad lands to travel through,'" Mandy explained. "I have heard my father talk of it. 'Where hell comes up to the earth,' Papa said. It would be better not to go there, I think. We should go south 'til we come to a town."
Clete give her a look and then walked over to his horse and snap-mounted him. "If that bastard's going into the Badlands then that's where we're going. At least I am."
I climbed up too. "I didn't sign on for half ways," I said. "Mandy, you're welcome to that old buckskin of mine if you want him. Take my compass, too, and some food. Head south by east and you'll find someone in a few days. Course, there
are Sioux and Cheyenne running around. And I'd miss you plenty, especially if you was dead."
She shook her head and I couldn't tell whether she was just refusing my offer or if she thought we were crazy. Maybe both. But she didn't mount. Just stood there looking at the ground and sulking like a kid.
I turned my horse and went over close so I could say a word to her private. "Now look, Mandy. I didn't say nothin' about you not doing what I told you this morning. I yelled at you to stop shooting and you went ahead and did anyway. You was startled and so was I. But this is a whole different thing entirely. Now, either mount up and go along without trying to change our minds or else head off on your own, don't matter to me. If you go with us, I'll look out for you best I can, but you'll have to keep your ideas about going elsewhere to yourself. You promised to do like I told you. If you go on with us, I'll expect you to live up to your side of the bargain."
"Oh, I will go along, Mr. Goodwin," she said, sharp as a spider bite, "for I cannot go by myself. But I see who makes the orders here and who follows them. It is senseless to chase this man! He is a killer and will kill again. Your friend he shot is well now, so why chase him? Le meurtrier, he was only trying to kill the man who shot his son!"
I guess Clete heard her, for he rode right over. "What's that? You talked to him?"
"Back at her place, before he took her horse," I told him.
"What'd you say about him killing someone who shot his boy?" Clete ask, and not very gentle.
She stood with her hands on her hips and kept her mouth shut, glaring at us like a rattler in a den.
Clete waited a time before he spoke, and when he did his voice was raspy. "I need to know who I'm chasing, Missy."
She smiled at him but it weren't one of her pretty ones. "I will be happy to tell you what I know, Mr. Shannon, as soon as you take me to a place when I can board a stagecoach." She crossed her arms and looked real pleased with herself after that.
Clete wheeled his horse around, grabbed the reins of my buckskin, and turned to me. "Leave her!" He nudged that big black and headed off with her mount. I seen her face good then, and she looked a whole hell of a lot different than she did a minute before.
"Hold on," I called to Clete. I caught up in a few yards, for he was only walking the horses at a good clip. "You can't do this, leave her out here all alone!"
"Don't think I'll have to," he said kind of soft, though there was no need for it, she being then three or four rods behind. "Just let her think on it."
Well, I didn't know what to do. Before I decided, we heard her call out and we stopped.
She was running after us, her hair streaming out behind. "Wait! I will tell you! Wait for me!"
I glanced at Clete, but I was surprised he seemed to be taking little pleasure from his victory over her, his jaw set so firm as it was. I didn't notice the scar by his ear before, since he caught up, but it was still red and nasty looking. It would be with him the day they lowered him into the ground, too.
When she got there, she looked pretty shamefaced.
"What'd he say?" Clete ask.
She took a minute to catch her breath. "I asked where he was going. He said he was going home. That he had avenged the death of his son and was going back to his home. He did not say where his home was and I did not ask him, so glad I was to be leaving there." She took off her wide-brimmed hat and wiped her brow with her sleeve. "I did not know that it was important, Mr. Goodwin, or I would have told you. He said some other things, too, but I did not understand him very well. He talked, how do you say, peculiar?"
She stopped talking and you could tell she was trying to remember.
"Think more would come back to you if we was to ride on?" I ask.
"I will try to remember all I can," she said, and it sounded like a promise.
"See that you do," Clete told her, tossing her the reins to my old buckskin. "Here. Take this rifle too. It's yours. No reason for me to carry it."
Riding bareback at the pace we was going was no picnic. It would be worse carrying that Remington-she had no rifle scabbard because she had no saddle. Which also meant she couldn't dolly welter it to the hom either. She'd have to carry it in her hands a long distance and that old piece had some weight to it. Not an easy man is Clete Shannon when he's crossed.
We rode a long ways saying nothing and making time, nearly ten miles before noon and gaining on him, I figured. The sign was easy to follow and getting easier all the time in the thin grass. His trailing horse was about on its last legs then and it slowed him down. The animal avoided putting that split hoof down as much as he could. He'd not be able to run at all soon, and I couldn't figure out why our man still trailed him. Maybe a bad spare horse was better than none at all.
We made damn good time that morning, but it wasn't good enough to suit Clete. Often he ask me couldn't we go no faster, but it was either the pace we was doing or wear out our horses like the man we was following. Midafternoon, we come onto the river again, and that's where he'd camped.
We dismounted and looked around. Still a few warm coals under the thick ash. He'd killed his trailing horse with a knife beside the river, its head under water. Blood all over the bank. Slit the critter's throat, probly while it was drinking its fill. The slope of the bank raised the dead animal's haunches up some, and it was from there that he'd sliced himself off a couple of steaks. His bootprints showed me where he'd stood when he done his butchering. The flies were helping themselves to the leftovers by the time we got there, so he had probably done it last night and then fed himself.
He'd stayed in camp a while this morning from the tramped-down look of things. Arranging his trap and resting some, I supposed.
"What kind of man eats his own horse, Mr. Shannon?" Mandy ask, looking at the dead beast.
"A hungry man," he told her. "Let's ride."
Chapter Ten
Along the river his sign was as clear as a Texan's conscience. We sailed along for several hours at a quick trot and even cantered some. "This fast enough for you," I called back to Clete.
"If it's the best you can do. I would like to catch him before you die of old age."
Well, we like to had a horse race then. Mandy kept slipping further and further back, and after about four miles I slowed down.
"C'mon," he yelled, up ahead of me. "That horse has a lot more left than that."
"Yeah, but Mandy don't," I told him, looking back down the river but not seeing her.
"Forget her," Clete yelled. "She'll catch up."
"Like them braves caught up to our man, most likely. No, I'm going to wait here for her. Go on ahead, if you want. You'll not catch him in the two hours of daylight left-nor even see him."
"Damn it, Willie, come on! For a dollar you can buy what she's got in any town."
I took a minute before I answered. "I told you what I was doin'. We'll take him tomorrow, maybe the day after. Soon enough for me. It's not worth risking this girl's life to catch him sooner. Not to me it ain't."
"I'm going on," he called back.
"Watch out for an ambush," I yelled after him.
After a while I seen her. She was coming up the river in a awkward sideways trot and she was bouncin' three different ways at once, like the dice in a chuck-a-luck cage. I had to laugh despite myself.
I fell into place beside her. "A slow canter would be easier on you. Try it."
My old horse caught the rhythm of the smooth-gaited bay I was ridin', and Mandy nodded her head. And damned if I didn't think of the night before. We kept at it solid 'til the sun set and the stars begun to come out. I was just starting to worry that Clete might try to go on in the dark when I seen a big blazing campfire far upriver.
Half a mile off, we dismounted and led the horses.
Mandy walked with a hitch and she had a time getting her breath back all the way. I felt as tired as she looked.
"How you doin'?" I asked.
"I am all right, Willie," she said, but I didn't believe it entirely, for I ha
d rode beyond my means a time or two myself. "Why did we go so fast and so far today? You and I were not in such a hurry yesterday."
"Well, one reason is we was both on the same horse and I had to go slower. Another is, I didn't entirely want to catch up to him, not by myself."
"Yes," she said. "And another reason is that you are not a crazy man-like Mr. Shannon."
"'Aw, Clete's all right. A little impatient now and then is all. You got to remember that this man tried to kill him. You had a little taste today of how he gets when someone goes again him. Just can't abide it. I seen it before. Everbody's like that some. Clete's like that a lot. Makes him a difficult man, I agree, but it don't make him crazy."
She surprised me then. She put her arm across my shoulders like we was old compadres and laughed. "You are a good man, Mr. Goodwin. I hope you will be as good a friend to me as you are to Mr. Shannon."
Damned if I knowed what to say to that. How she could think a man could be just friends with a woman was as addled as her thinking me a big bug because I understood old Clete.
When we got close, I whistled to let him know it was us coming in. He was leaning back against his saddle beside the fire when we got there, and he give us a big wave and a howdy. I was happy to see he'd got over his mad.
Played out as she was, Mandy still offered to take care of both the horses. I got the idea she was trying to prove up on her worth to this outfit so's not to be in danger of being left behind again. I told her I'd rub down the bay, but she wouldn't hear of it, and to tell the truth, I didn't have enough spunk left to argue with her. I went over and sat beside Clete. "Reminds me of the time last fall when I had that big fire built for you. Long day in the saddle then, too, I recall."
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