by Paul Bagdon
Austin nodded, smiling. “Them trail bosses was awful careful about their herds, but a accident sure can happen. A cow is ’bout as bright as a wore-out boot. A drive is jus’ bound to lose a few.”
The wind and rain stopped sometime during the night, and the following sunrise showed a clear sky and promised a return to the scalding heat that is a West Texas summer. Will and Austin were saddling up when they still needed a lantern to cut the dark in the barn. Will overpaid the stableman for the care of both horses and tossed a five-dollar bill to the boy who cleaned stalls and ran errands.
“You must have a ton of money, Will,” Austin said as they rode out of the end of Lord’s Rest.
“I got money. What I don’t have is a brother or his wife an’ children.”
“Yeah. That’s why we’re here, no?”
“Yeah. That’s why we’re here.”
They stopped about midday when the heat was making both the men and the horses drip sweat. Austin sighted in the rifle he’d taken from the mercantile and found it to be a fine weapon.
“We should come to some water ’fore too long, if this map is right,” Will said. “We’d best have a sip an’ give what we have to our horses.”
“Yeah—they’re both sweatin’ buckets an’ the fastest we gone is a slow lope. That kinda worries me, Will. One Dog an’ his men will run their horses ’til they drop. We could be losin’ ground.”
“Maybe so. But even if them killers are good enough to ride the unbroken horses they stole, they’ll ride them to death, too. An’ I figure most of them deserters never rode nothin’ but a plow horse ’fore the war. They don’t know how to treat a animal, an’ the Indians don’t care. We’re doin’ the right thing, Austin. We’ll catch them.”
Austin took a quick sip from one of his canteens and poured the rest into his hat for his horse. Will did the same. When the animals sucked the hats dry, both men emptied their second canteens into their hats, and again the horses sucked them dry in moments. Austin put his hat on and walked to his saddlebag. He removed a quart of whiskey, yanked the cork with his teeth, and poured a good three inches into his gullet. “Damn,” he said. “Don’t taste real good, but least it’s wet.”
He handed the bottle to Will. Will looked at it longer than Austin thought he would and then tipped it to his mouth. He lowered the level a couple of inches, coughed, and handed the bottle back. He was a little unsteady swinging into his saddle. “I ain’t used to rattler venom like that,” he said.
“Better’n nothin’, no?”
“Maybe.”
The oasis, such as it was, was a muddy puddle maybe ten yards wide, most of which was covered with stringy pond scum. There was an apron of decent grass around the water, and after drinking, the horses began mowing the grass.
“Ya know,” Austin said, “I ain’t never seen so many nice, fat jackrabbits in my life.”
“I know. We can’t risk a shot, though. We’re too close to One Dog. I figure their camp ain’t but a mile or two, an’ I’m goin’ in tonight to look it over.”
“They’ll have guards out, Will.”
“I’m sure they will. They’ll give me a chance to test out this hog’s tooth.” Will slid the knife from his boot and turned it back and forth in his hand.
“We’ll both go on foot an’ then split . . .”
“No, you stay here with the horses. I been thinkin’ ’bout this for a long time. First time, I go alone. If I don’t come back, you ride off with the horses an’ supplies an’ my money. If I’m not back near dawn, you haul ass.”
“That don’t make no good sense, Will. We—”
“This ain’t somethin’ I’ll argue about. We’ll talk a bit later, but that’s how it’s gonna be. Hear?”
“I hear,” Austin said. He shucked off his gun belt, folded it neatly, and set it on the ground. “You ever et raw rabbit?” he asked. “I’m kinda partial to it.”
“I’ve had it. Ain’t bad.”
“Good. Then we’ll eat right fine ’fore you go out, an’ we won’t burn our supplies. See, I fed my ma for some time by heavin’ rocks at rabbits. I got good at it. I could tear a jack’s ass off from a long ways away. I still can.” He sat down and grunted his boots off and set them next to his gun belt. Any boots were bound to make more noise than a barefoot man, and even though rabbits weren’t overly bright, they were intelligent enough to run from noise. “I should be maybe a hour. Don’t shoot me when I come back in.”
“Lookit,” Will protested, “that was a bit of time ago when you was bringin’ in jacks by tossing rocks at them. We got plenty of jerky an’ some hardtack. All we gotta—”
“You set still an’ listen to the horse tear grass. Like I said, I’ll be back in a hour, give or take.”
Austin walked out into the prairie, snapping a foot up when he stepped on a rock or a baby saguaro. He meandered back and forth, selecting stones that would carry well and that he could pop an unsuspecting jack with.
The sun was dropping rapidly now and the temperature came down a few—a very few—degrees. Still, the difference felt good. The absence of the glaring, merciless sun made all the difference. Will rolled a smoke and leaned back against his saddle. The pastels at the western horizon made the prairie seem inviting, benign. He remembered what an old scratch miner leading a ribby mule told him years ago.
“This prairie is like one a them real pretty hoors that look so good, an’ then hand a man a dose of clap or the syph. Shit, if the rattlers an’ scorpions don’t kill you the goddamn sun will.”
“You’re out here,” Will said.
“Sure. But I’m crazier’n a hoot owl. What’s a man like me gonna do but what I’m doin’? Be a ribbon clerk in a fancy mercantile? Maybe go to a city an’ start up a big bidness an’ be rich?” He spat to the side, ending the conversation.
Will had to admit the ol’ boy had a point.
Austin came in not twenty minutes after he went out, swinging a fat jack by its ears in either hand. He dropped them in front of Will, smirking, proud. “I fetched ’em in,” he said. “You gut ’em. An’ watch you don’t nick that sack in there. I hear tell whatever’s in it can kill a man, or make him awful sick. It ain’t no bigger’n your thumb, so you gotta be careful.”
“I guess I never cleaned a rabbit before,” Will growled. “Thanks for learnin’ me how. I think maybe I’ll start me a goddamn rabbit ranch.”
Austin took his bottle from his saddlebag, took a long glug, and handed it to Will. “Yer damn near as testy as a sidewinder in a hot skillet,” Austin said, but he smiled as he said it.
“I always kinda thought of myself as a kindly man of God, spreadin’ cheer an’ happiness all over the world.”
Eating raw rabbit isn’t terribly unlike eating a cow’s udder—or any other uncooked flesh, for that matter. It’s somewhat stringy, but there’s a singular flavor to it, almost as if it were dusted with a light spice of some kind. And there was still a tad of warmth in the meat.
“Good rabbit,” Will commented.
“Got the first two I thrown at,” Austin said proudly. “Stove their heads in so’s they didn’t run. Thing is, I wisht we could make a fire. I cook near’s good as I throw.”
“Can’t risk it. One Dog’s men would smell the meat cookin’ even if they didn’t see the smoke. Then it wouldn’t take ’em long to find the fire—an’ us.”
“Sure.” Austin hesitated for a bit, as if rehearsing what he had to say. “You was sayin’ you’re gonna check out the camp tonight, an’ maybe send one a them sonsabitches off to wherever scum like them go. But we’re pards, least in this affair, an’ I figure we should go together. I ain’t a man to let my partner get . . .”
Will put his hand on Austin’s shoulder. “We’re pards OK, Austin. But all I’m doin’ is a little scoutin’ tonight—see what the lay of the land is. There’ll be plenty of fightin’—I guarantee that. There ain’t nobody I’d favor to be with than you when we come down to a battle. But I wanna go tonight. S
ee, it’ll be our first strike an’ I want to be the one to do it. It’s important to me, Austin. I want—need—to be the one to show One Dog we’re after him, an’ that I’m gonna kill him.”
“Well,” Austin said.
“Well?”
“I see what you’re sayin’, Will. First blood always counts an’ I know you ain’t comin’ back here without makin’ it flow.” Austin took a quick suck from his bottle and offered it to Will.
“Nah, not now,” Will said. “When I come back I’ll have a sip. What I’m gonna do now is wait out a few hours an’ then go for a walk. And I gotta do like you did: shed my boots. Those boys would hear boots no matter how careful I was. You have yer drink. I’m gonna rest a bit.”
There wasn’t much moon—a selfish crescent—when Will took his boots off. It was better than no moon at all, but the darkness was thick.
Will thought Austin was passed out or asleep or both. He was wrong. Austin said quietly, “Kill at least one a them goat turds, pard.”
Will tested the edge of his boot knife with his thumb and smiled. “You can count on it.”
The prairie floor was no more kind to Will’s feet than it’d been to Austin’s. He stumbled once and went down, and would have loved to yell out a curse, but remained silent. A jagged rock cut his face under his left eye, and the impact of his shoulder with the ground shot lightning bolts all the way to his fingertips. He stood up slowly, wiped the blood from his face with a sleeve, and flexed his left arm and hand until everything seemed to work. He went on.
The moonlight cast shadows that made Will reach for his .45, which, of course, wasn’t there. The mile or so seemed like the longest stretch in the world, but Will kept walking, picking his steps as well as he could and making not a sound. The cut under his eye was weeping blood and he wiped it away impatiently with his sleeve.
He topped a gradual rise and dropped to his stomach, gazing down at the camp. There was a fire going, with the rump of a beef or horse on a spit, a man wearing a Union officer’s outfit turning the crank.
A half dozen or so of the men near the fire were passing a bottle; others walked about, hanging close to the cooking fire. There was but one tepee—the rest of the gang had bedrolls and army blankets spread protectively around the tepee. The scent of the cooking meat reached Will, and in spite of himself, his mouth began to water. Raw rabbit will fill a man up, but it doesn’t smell or taste like a real meal.
One Dog had a rope corral set up for the horses he was taking to Mexico—any decent horse brought a real good buck across the border—with or without legal papers. The cattle were calm, either grazing or nudging one another, shagging flies, calves stuck close to their mothers. Will saw one outrider, half asleep on his pinto, riding at a walk around the cattle, swinging over to the horses ever so often.
He knew that there must be at least a couple men standing guard around the camp; One Dog was too bright to assume he and his crew were safe. Will swept his eyes fairly rapidly all around the camp and then slowed his gaze. It took a while but he was finally able to pick out a man leaning back against a boulder, his rifle across his chest. Will couldn’t tell if he was an Indian or a deserter, but it made no difference. Whoever the guard was, he was involved in the killing of Will’s brother and his family. That bought the figure in the dark a death sentence.
The guard had positioned himself nicely to be killed. Although the slope to his right was steep and rocky, he had chosen the easy way—an almost gentle slope to the boulder he rested against.
Will drew his knife from his belt and grasped it between his teeth. He wanted both hands free as he crawled down the slope headfirst, moving his hands across the soil and rock in front of him, making sure there was nothing he’d loosen that would roll on down, alerting the guard.
Images of his brother floated before him as he moved cautiously. This wouldn’t, Will decided, be like killing a man. It’d be like crushing a scorpion under his boot.
Will’s hands touched the rock and the sandy surface pressed against his palms. He eased his legs and lower body into position and got his feet under him. Then, shifting the knife from his mouth to his right hand, he began a tortoise-paced movement around the boulder and to his prey.
Peeking around the boulder, Will could see the guard wore a Union uniform, although his hair was heavily greased and tied into a pair of braids that hung over his shoulders and almost to his belt. He smelled like rancid meat, old sweat, and whiskey.
Will crouched, knife ready in his hand, feet under him to spring him forward. He’d take the guard from the right side, grab his hair . . .
Will let his body settle, gave his heart time to stop pounding. He took the knife in his left hand and wiped the sweat from his right on his denim pants. When he grasped the knife again in his right hand again it felt as if it belonged there—as if he and the blade were partners—and he was ready. All it would take would be a quick step around the jagged edge of the rock . . .
And the battle will be on. One Dog will be seeking me as intensely as I’m seeking One Dog.
The fight would go to the death—there was no doubt about that. And One Dog was known and feared for making his captives scream for death, plead for it, beg for it. As suddenly as a bolt of lightning from a clear, blue sky, Will saw himself and Hiram as deeply tanned children of the summer, barefoot, smoking corn-silk cigarettes out behind the barn.
This is for you, Hiram.
Will stepped around the rock, snatched a greasy braid with his left hand, and sawed his blade across the man’s throat. Blood spouted in a quick gush a foot or so and then slowed. It was black in the night light, but the heavy, coppery scent was always the same, day or night. Will didn’t look at the man’s eyes. When the blood stopped flowing Will ripped open the Union campaign jacket and carved HW in deep, six-inch letters in the corpse’s chest. He wiped his knife on the dead man’s pants, slid it back into his belt, and began his escape.
“Luke? Hey, Luke, where the hell are you?” a hoarse voice called, followed by the crunching and snapping of twigs and branches and the dislodging of pebbles and clods of dirt.
Will looked around him. There was what appeared to be a fairly deep indentation—a natural furrow—a few feet from the rock. He slithered into it on his back and drew his knife.
“Goddammit, Luke—if yer drunk again on watch, I’m gonna tear yer ass off. Hear me?”
There was more anger in the voice this time. “Dumb sumbitch! You ain’t . . .”
The fellow stepped over Will and the furrow, one boot on either side, beginning to swing his right foot forward to take another stride. Will jammed his knife upward to the hilt, directly between the outlaw’s legs, and then twisted it sharply.
Will completely expected a horrendous screech that would bring the entire camp up to the rock, but instead the man fell to his side, hunched over, both hands gripping his groin. His mouth was wide-open, forming a large O, but the only sound from him was an almost feminine squeak. Will rolled out of the furrow and cut the fellow’s throat. The gurgle of his death was louder than his reaction to the blade in his privates, but even that wasn’t loud. The man was a bare-chested Indian in deerskin pants and moccasins. Will took the moccasins and a Colt .45, carved HW on the well-muscled chest, pulled on the moccasins, and headed back to the camp he and Austin had established.
Will noticed his knife was still dripping blood. This time he swiped both sides of the blade on his own pants.
The walk back to the camp was a whole lot more comfortable in the moccasins. He crossed a rocky area in what he thought was almost perfect silence. Apparently, he was wrong. The sound of a handful of beans being shaken frantically in an empty tin can stopped Will where he stood. The snake was somewhere off to his left, maybe a yard or so away—maybe more, maybe less—but Will peered until his eyes teared and all he could see was a small cluster of larger rocks and scattering of smaller ones. The moon gave him no help. He’d hoped that the oily glistening of the serpent’s eyes or
the pale whiteness of its open mouth would place the rattler for him. The erratic but constant rattling continued. Will’s mind built a fat six-footer with fangs as long as a saddler’s needle, coiled tightly, ready to strike, the glistening, evil eyes focused on his calf, or his arm, or even his face.
He stood motionless for what seemed like forever, frightened sweat dripping into his eyes, almost afraid to blink. He felt a wetness in his pants without realizing he’d pissed himself.
Hot urine drained down his legs and into his moccasins. Still the snake warned him, the young-pea-sized, irregularly shaped stones dancing in the buttons at the end of its tail.
Will tensed his leg muscles, but slowly, hoping he wasn’t moving. His upper body was ready to move—had been since the first sounds reached him. Both his hands were clenched into fists, but he was no more aware of them than he was of wetting himself.
His legs were beginning to tremble from the tension. He was beginning to grow dizzy.
He counted to three in his mind and hurled his body to his right, slamming painfully against the stones, and scrambled to his feet within the smallest part of a second after striking the ground.
Then, he ran.
Austin was leaned back against his saddle, smoking a cigarette but cupping his hand completely around it so that no dull red of the end showed. The bottle was next to him. His rifle was resting across his chest, locked and loaded and ready to fire. The cigarette was in his left hand, his Colt in his right—pointed at Will’s chest. He lowered the weapon as soon as he recognized his friend.
“You find that guard?”
“Yeah.”
“You kill him?”
“That’s what I was out there for. Lemme have that bottle.” He stepped closer to Austin to grab the neck of the booze bottle.