by Bill Brooks
that’s what those horses did, ran away from whoever
owned them and hadn’t yet been found. Well, it was
his good fortune the way he looked at it. Finders
keepers.
He had come a long way since leaving Texas. He
was of the Naconi Tribe—the Wanderers. That was
the trait of his people: to wander the land. Only in his
case, he had wandered very far indeed. Texas wasn’t
worth a shit since the Texas Rangers rubbed out most
of the Comanche.
He looked at those horses standing by themselves,
knowing that the horse was the true brother to the
Comanche.
He said down under his breath: “Hello, brothers.”
It had been a long time since he had a horse, now
there were three of them just waiting for him to take
them. The last horse he had, he ended up eating after
it became lame. He wouldn’t have eaten his horse
even then, but the Rangers were on his heels and he
was way out in the dry country and there wasn’t any-
thing else to eat. Damn good horse, too, both ways.
He squatted there waiting to see if the three horses
had owners around anywhere. He didn’t see anybody.
He rose and walked slowly toward the animals that
were grazing and swishing the flies off them with
their tails. One was a roan, one a bay, and the other a
buckskin. He couldn’t believe his good fortune.
Thank you, he said in his head to the Creator. Thank
you for these goddamn horses.
He approached them carefully, like he was just an-
other animal, an antelope or deer out there on the
grass with them. They didn’t even raise their heads
until he got pretty close, then the roan raised its head
and looked at him.
He said, “That’s okay, no problem,” and held out
his hand as though he had something in it, an apple,
maybe. The roan kept looking at him while the other
two continued to graze. He spoke to them in Co-
manche because the Creator gave the horse the ability
to understand his brother Comanche.
The roan snuffled and let him approach and in a
moment he was rubbing his hand along its neck and
stroking its mane, saying, “You look like a real good
horse,” and, “I bet whoever lost you is pretty sorry,
ain’t they, nice big old horse like you?”
The horse dropped its head and cropped grass
without answering.
“Well, I guess you belong to me now, eh? You and
your brothers here.”
He stepped into the saddle. The roan was nice and
tall, fifteen, sixteen hands, maybe. He liked the view
from up on its back a lot better than he liked the view
from walking. He gathered up the reins of the other
two horses and said, “I guess we better go before
somebody else comes along and wants to fight me for
you.”
He walked the roan off toward where the sun was
standing just above the land, leading the others by
their reins. It seemed as good a direction to go as any.
He hadn’t gone very far when he heard someone
shouting.
He looked back over his shoulder and three men
had risen out of the grass and were yelling something
at him and shaking their fists, and he saw one of them
draw his six-gun.
“I guess they must be the ones who used to own
you,” he said to the roan, knocking his heels against
its ribs. “We better get the hell out of here.”
The bullets came close enough he could hear them.
They sounded like angry bees buzzing around his
head. He stayed low over the roan’s neck hoping he
wouldn’t get shot in the ass or nowhere else as he
heeled the horse into a full-out gallop.
The Stone brothers had fallen into a nice lazy
drowse after having their pleasure with the women.
That sort of thing always made men sleepy afterward.
They weren’t in any hurry to be anywhere in particu-
lar since they weren’t sure exactly when or where
they’d catch up with the man they were after. And it
had been quite a long time since they’d had the plea-
sure of a woman. And the weather was decently
pleasant and the grass nice and thick and inviting. So
they’d lain down thinking to just catch a little siesta
under their hats till they got their energy back.
Trouble was they never counted on some big fat In-
dian coming along and stealing their goddamn
horses. And by the time they discovered their mistake,
that big fat Indian was too far out of range—though
they hoped they might get lucky and shoot him, any-
way. But when that failed, all they could do was
stomp and cuss and watch him ride off with their
horses toward the horizon, and that’s exactly what
they did.
The night came on early, rolled with thunder in it,
lightning dancing off behind the dark sky. The storm
had been brewing for hours and now swept along the
dark horizon. Martha thought she saw a light, per-
haps the town, she thought, and ran toward it. But it
wasn’t a light from the town at all, but rather a small
fire someone had built. She was cautious in her ap-
proach. But the sky threatened to burst open at any
moment and a few drops of rain fell as a prelude,
striking her as hard and cold as nickels.
“ ’S’cuse me,” she called.
The man sitting cross-legged at the fire looked up.
He had something cooking on a stick thrust into the
fire—some small game creature—prairie dog or rab-
bit. The fire’s light glittered in his dark eyes.
Big Belly was pleased to see a woman, even if she
was a white woman. He was relieved, too, that it
wasn’t the three owners of the horses who’d found
him. He spoke to her, told her to come to the fire,
made a motion with his hand.
Martha said, “Huh?”
She could see the man was an Indian of some sort,
dressed in greasy buckskins, his black hair parted
into long braids, what looked like a ragged old turkey
feather poking out. He had a broad face and a nose
shaped like a hawk’s beak. Next to him set a hat that
looked like horses had stomped, one or two holes in
its crown as well.
“I’m nearly froze,” she said, stepping to the fire
and stretching out her hands toward the flames. “That
a rabbit you’re cooking?”
Big Belly knew a little English—mostly cuss
words—but not enough to know what the woman
was saying to him. But the way she looked at his
prairie dog, he surmised she was talking about it,
probably wanting him to share it with her. It was a
pretty small prairie dog. How he came across it fell
right in line with the rest of his luck that day: an eagle
had dropped it. Big Belly was just riding along when
all of a sudden this dark shadow floated across his
path and thunk! the prairie dog fell from the sky and
landed right in front of him and h
e looked up to see
an eagle circling and he guessed the eagle had
dropped it not meaning to, or perhaps the Creator
was still watching over him and had sent the eagle to
give him a gift of food to go along with the gift of
horses. For he had seriously thought about eating one
of the horses and now he wouldn’t have to.
Big Belly had made camp early, seeing the storm
forming off in the distance, he thought it best to make
a fire and eat his gift of prairie dog before it rained
and made it too wet for a fire. Now the Creator had
sent him a woman as well. This is the best damn day
I’ve had in ten moons, he thought.
He told her to sit down and he’d share his prairie
dog with her.
And when she just looked at him, he motioned for
her to sit and she did.
“Fire feels good,” she said.
Big Belly looked her over pretty good. He never
had a white woman before. He wondered what it
would be like to fornicate with one. He said, “You
like Comanche?”
Martha had no idea what the fat Indian was saying
to her, but he seemed friendly enough and she felt a
little less apprehensive. Still, she knew that men were
pretty much men, no matter what color their skin
was. She knew Indians could be dangerous, but then
so, too, could buffalo hunters and teamsters and min-
ers and youngsters who robbed banks and were dope
addicts.
“My name is Martha,” she said.
“Marda . . .” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Martha. And what’s yours?”
She pointed at herself when she said her name and he
took it to mean she was telling him what her name was.
He tapped his chest with a thumb and said, “Na-
han-o-hay.”
“That’s a real nice name,” she said.
He asked her if she’d like to fornicate with him af-
ter they ate.
She smiled, not understanding a single word of
what he said. He took that as a good sign.
She watched as he turned the critter over in the fire,
its carcass already burnt black. She couldn’t help but
swallow down her immense hunger.
“Marda . . .” he said, looking at her.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s my name, don’t wear it
out.” But she said it with a smile in order that he not
take it in his head to scalp her or worse, like she’d heard
Indians did to white women—at least the bad ones that
used to be around before the army killed most of them.
He had a face round as a fry pan, and only some
teeth, and the way his eyes were fixed at a slant made
him look scary with the fire’s light flickering over his
features. She’d only seen one other Indian in her
life—one that traveled with a medicine show that had
come through Sweet Sorrow two summers previous.
She remember his name was Chief Rain in the Face
and he whooped and did a war dance when the Pro-
fessor of the show gave him a bottle of his special
elixir to drink in order to demonstrate its curative
powers, the Professor saying, “Why this poor crea-
ture was lame with a severe case of lumbago and gout
when I first found him—near dead of half a dozen
maladies . . .” and so on and so forth, the Chief sit-
ting in a stupor the whole while. Then the Professor
gave him a swallow of the cure-all and the Chief got
up and did a rambunctious war dance and strutted
about like a young buck, yelped and shouted! Martha
wasn’t at all convinced the Chief was a real Indian at
all, but Otis bought a few bottles of the elixir to sell
in the store, anyway.
A few more cold rain drops fell into the fire caus-
ing it to hiss and pop.
“I don’t suppose you’d have an extra blanket?” she
said, wrapping her arms around herself to indicate
what she meant.
Big Belly wondered if she was asking him if he
wanted to get into his blanket with her and fornicate.
He nodded and said, “Sure, sure, but let’s eat this
puny little prairie dog first, okay?”
Every drop of rain that touched her skin was so
cold it felt hot.
She wondered if she would ever get back to Sweet
Sorrow alive.
20
Otis Dollar sat up and said, “I feel like I been
beat with a fry pan.” His head hurt something ter-
rible and all night he’d fallen in and out of a fitful
sleep, dreaming alternately of Martha and Jesus.
Only in his dreams Martha had glowing eyes like a
rabid wolf and laughed at him as she danced with the
Devil, and Jesus wore a fancy blue shirt with pearl
buttons and said to him, “I am going to walk across
that river” and pointed to a river that was wider
across than the Missouri in spring time. It looked aw-
ful deep and treacherous and mighty swift.
“I don’t believe you ought to try it,” Otis warned,
for he was afraid that even Jesus would drown in a
river that wild and raging.
“Him that believeth shall not fear,” Jesus said.
“Let him who believeth lay down his worldly goods
and follow me,” then stood up and started walking
across the river and Otis felt the greatest desire to fol-
low him, but his own fear of drowning paralyzed him
and the next thing he knew the Lord was on the far
side walking up the embankment by himself in that
nice blue shirt. Otis felt ashamed, for he knew he’d
been left behind to wallow in his fear and that he’d
never be anything but a coward when it came down to
the hard stuff.
“What’s the matter with you?” Karen said shak-
ing him by the foot until he came fully to. “You’re
yammering in your sleep like there was somebody
chasing you.” That’s when he said how it felt like
he’d been beat with a fry pan and she said, “The
marshal said you told him you were beat with a little
gun.”
Otis saw that it was sometime in the day, the
windows to the cabin full of white light. He could
smell something frying in the black iron skillet atop
the stove and it smelled good to him but his head
hurt so terribly that he fell back twice trying to
stand.
“I guess I was dreaming,” he said, but he didn’t
care to mention what his dreams were about, for he
was ashamed of his cowardice and knew the dream
that scared him only proved the type of the man he
truly was, for he’d let that madman steal his Martha
and hadn’t put up that much of a fight to save her.
Looking at Karen standing at the stove, he felt the
love he’d always had for her come to the surface.
Maybe he hadn’t really wanted to save Martha, he
thought. Maybe if Martha was to be taken off and he
became a single man again, Karen might . . . Oh, it’s
such a damn foolish notion!
They ate dinner in silence.
Then Karen said
, “I’ve been watching for that fel-
low who the marshal said bashed in your head. The
marshal is after him, but that crazy old Swede could
still come around here. I told the marshal if he did, I’d
shoot him.”
Otis said, “Good. He deserves shooting. He stole
my wife. I’ll help you shoot him.”
She looked at him hard across the table.
“How come you and Martha were out there in the
first place?” she said.
Otis was reluctant to say why, but Karen waited
for an answer.
“We were on a picnic,” he said.
“Picnic, huh. Sounds like something lovers would
do. You back in love with her, Otis, Martha?”
“I waited a plum long time for you to come
around, Karen. I waited twenty years and you never
came around, never so much as gave a hint you’d
want me . . .”
She shook her head as she poured them each a cup
of coffee, then turned the frying meat in the pan with
a fork.
“I never wanted you, Otis. I mean you’re a decent
fellow, more than decent, and what we had that one
time was just that one time and that’s all water under
the bridge now and always has been. Sure, I was
tempted at times to ask you to leave Martha and
marry me. But it wouldn’t have been love on my part
if I’d done it. I would have done it for Dex’s sake; so
he’d have a father.”
“You saying . . . ?”
“No, Dex wasn’t yours. Dex was his daddy’s, my
husband Toussaint’s child. Only he don’t believe it,
but then Toussaint is a dark trouble who has his own
mind about things and far be it from me to try and
convince him otherwise.”
“I wish it weren’t so, Karen. I wish Dex had been
mine and that you had asked me to leave Martha—I’d
done it.”
“And you’d ended up regretting it, Otis.”
“Maybe so,” he said. She filled his plate with
fried slices of ham, and mush from a pot and set a
plate of warm biscuits on the table to go along with
the coffee.
“You kept saying her name in your sleep, Martha’s,”
Karen said.
“Did I?”
They ate for a time without saying anything more,
then Karen said, “He killed his whole family. All but
one: a little towhead boy.”
Then she realized that she probably shouldn’t have
said anything about the Swede killing his family, that
it would only cause Otis to fret more, but it was too