by Bill Brooks
walking around here with a bullet wound. You see
him, make note and tell me when I get back.”
“They’s some men waiting down to the jail for
you,” Brewster said. He wasn’t keen on having con-
versations when he was eating his breakfast. He
didn’t like for his eggs to get cold.
“What do they want?”
Brewster shrugged.
“I was just coming past when I seen them out front
and I asked what it was they needed and they said
they needed to see the lawman, Horn, and I said was
there anything I could do for them and they asked if I
was you and I said no I wasn’t and they asked me
where you was and I said I didn’t know and they said
if I saw you to tell you they was waiting for you.”
“But they didn’t say what they needed?”
“No sir, they didn’t.”
“Okay, I’ll swing by there.”
Zimmerman, the Café’s proprietor, came over with
a pot of coffee to refresh what was in Brewster’s cup.
“You vant some of dis, Marshal Horn?”
Jake declined and headed up toward the jail.
There were three of them standing out front
slouched against the wall of the jail. They watched
him like curious dogs. Jake had a bad feeling about
them from the start. They could be bounty hunters,
he told himself. Men sent to find him, kill him, or
bring him back to Denver to stand trial for murder.
He felt his muscles tense. It wouldn’t be a fair fight.
He’d die and maybe one or two of them. But it was
too late to do anything about it. Some events, maybe
all, were out of his control.
“I’m told you men wanted to see the marshal?”
They looked him over good.
“You him?”
“Depends on what you want?”
They traded glances with each other. The one
looked young, hardly more than seventeen, eighteen.
Soft brown whorls of hair grew on his cheeks and
chin. All had wide-set eyes and flat noses. He figured
them for brothers.
“We’re looking for someone,” the one doing the
talking said. Usually the talker was the leader. He fig-
ured if it came down to shooting, this is the man he’d
kill first, the one most dangerous.
“Who might it be you’re looking for?” Jake said.
“Fellow named William Sunday,” the man said.
“William Sunday,” Jake said, like he was trying to
recall the name.
“They’s a bounty on him for a boy he killed. We
came to collect it.”
“What makes you think he’s here in Sweet Sorrow?”
The talker looked at the others.
“We been after him two, three months already. It’s
what we do, find men who don’t want finding. And
this is where we heard he was.”
Jake shook his head.
“No, I think you’re mistaken. Nobody here by that
name.”
“Maybe he’s going by another name.”
“I know who William Sunday is,” Jake said. “If
he was here, I’d know it. I can tell you he’s not
here.”
“It wouldn’t be he is and you just ain’t saying be-
cause you’d like to collect that bounty yourself,
would it, Marshal?”
Jake eyed him coolly. The man had colorless eyes.
He wondered the nature of a man who had colorless
eyes. He’d read once that most gunfighters were
clear-eyed, or gray. Maybe it was true.
“You see this?” Jake said pulling back his coat so
the badge he was wearing was exposed. “If William
Sunday or any other wanted man were in town, don’t
you think I’d arrest him, have him locked up in that
jail already, reward or no?”
“Maybe you do have him locked up in there.”
Jake inserted the key into the door lock and swung
the door open and said, “Have a look for yourself.”
Zeb stepped in and saw the cell was empty. He
stepped back outside again.
“Don’t prove he ain’t in town.”
“I’ve got business to take care of,” Jake said and
turned and walked away. He could feel their stares on
his back. Fuck them, he thought.
He made a circuitous route over to Doc’s, checking
to make sure he wasn’t being followed, and slipped in
the back door. He called out: “Sunday, it’s me, Jake
Horn,” then stepped into the bedroom where he
found the gunfighter lying on his side curled up, his
face dotted with sweat, his mouth drawn into a gri-
mace of pain.
“There’s men here looking for you,” Jake said.
“How many?” Sunday said through gritted teeth.
“Three.”
“Then it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time for it to end. You get hold of that attorney
about me buying this house?”
“What the hell you want a house for if you’re not
planning on being here to live in it?”
“Not for me, for Clara and the girls.”
“No,” Jake said. “I haven’t yet, but I will.”
“I’d be indebted if you could see it was taken care
of. There should be more than enough in that valise
over there to cover expenses and see I get buried.
Whatever is left, give to Clara.”
Jake glanced at the carpet bag.
“They find you like this they’ll kill you easy as they
would a dog.”
“Mister, you’re not telling me nothing I don’t al-
ready know. I just don’t want Clara in the middle of it.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I need another favor.”
“Go ahead.”
So William Sunday told him what the favor was.
“You sure that’s how you want it played?”
“I’m sure. Now if you’d be so kind as to help me
get dressed and hand me that bottle of laudanum I’ll
try not to ask any more of you.”
Jake had wanted to ride out and check on Karen
Sunflower and Toussaint, to find out how her horses
had ended up in Sam Toe’s corral. But he hadn’t
counted on the bounty hunters.
“You better let me go over and keep Clara from
coming here,” Jake said.
William Sunday seemed in too much pain to answer.
“Stay put till I get back,” Jake said.
“Where the hell would I go?” the gunfighter said
almost derisively.
Jake met Clara just as she was coming out of her
house with the children in tow. She had a small basket
with food she’d planned to take to her father for his
breakfast.
“Turn around and go back inside,” Jake said.
She looked startled, her eyes full of questions.
The children put up a slight fuss as they were
herded back inside.
Jake took Karen aside and said, “They’ve come for
him.”
“Who?”
“Bounty hunters,” he said. “Three of them.”
“Can’t you arrest them, run them out of town?”
“I’ve got no reason to arrest them,” he said. “They
haven’t done anyth
ing yet.”
“But they will.”
Jake saw the children were trying to listen to the
adult conversation. He leaned closer to her and whis-
pered: “He wants it to end. He said he’s glad they
came sooner rather than later—that he doesn’t think
he can stand going on like he is.”
He heard the sob break inside her.
“I have to go and see him,” she said. “Just one last
time.”
He shook his head.
“He’d prefer that you didn’t, Clara.”
“But . . .”
“He doesn’t want to have to worry about you and
the girls. You need to respect his right to have it this
way.”
“Then he’s just going to let them walk in and shoot
him?”
“Not exactly.”
Again he could see the questions filling her eyes.
“I’ll do what I can for him, Clara, but he’s got his
mind set on doing things his way . . .”
Tears spilled down her cheek then. She’d promised
herself she’d never again cry for William Sunday, but
here she was doing that very thing.
“Go and tell him I forgive him.”
Jake felt an unexpected tenderness toward her then
and it surprised him that what he did next was kiss
her wet cheek.
“I’ll come back for the boy when this is over,” he
said softly and went out the door.
*
*
*
“Walk with me to Dex’s grave,” Karen said.
“You sure you want to do that?”
She looked at him with that fiery determination he
remembered all too well.
“Okay,” he said. “You’ll need a coat; it’s a lot
colder outside than it looks.”
He got her a coat hanging from a peg in the mud
room and held it for her to put on.
“Winter will be all over us pretty soon,” she said.
“Snow’s pretty, but the older I get the less I care for it.”
Toussaint held the door for her, then closed it
behind them and walked alongside her out to the
grave.
The dry grass was turning the color of a fawn and
the sharp wind rippled through it causing it to sound
like whispers. Their boots crunched in it and the grass
stems swished against their dungarees. The headstone
stood bravely against whatever elements found it and
Karen was pleased she’d spent the amount of money
she had on it, wanting it to outlast time itself.
They came close to it and stood there and Tous-
saint caught glances of Karen out the corner of his
eye. In spite of her bruised face and swollen lips he
thought her a magnificently resolute and handsome
woman and something rose in his throat he had to
swallow down again.
“Dex would have liked that headstone,” she said.
Toussaint knew he didn’t know his son well
enough to know what he might have liked.
“It’s a hunk of stone for sure,” he said.
“I don’t want anyone to ever pass by here without
knowing he once existed,” she said.
He saw her close her eyes, the wind going through
her short coarse hair like curious fingers. He stepped
a bit closer to her and put his arm around her waist.
“I guess that stone will be here until the world it-
self comes to an end,” he said. “You did right by his
memory.”
She heard something in his voice that troubled her.
“Don’t go getting sentimental on me,” she said.
“It’s not your way.”
“I’m just saying if it were me, I’d want a nice stone
like that so folks could see it and know I was here
once.”
“If it were you,” she said, “you’d have somebody
burn you up and put your ashes in a clay pot, like you
did with your daddy.”
“No,” he said. “Them’s the French do that. Don’t
ever let nobody do that to me.”
“What would I have to say about it one way or the
other?”
He’d fished out the ring from his pocket and had
been holding it in his hand until he thought it would
burn a circle there in his flesh.
“Maybe nothing,” he said. “Unless you’ll take this.”
She looked at it.
A murder of crows came cawing through the lost
sky. They sounded like women arguing, he thought.
“Well?” he said when she did not reply.
“You’d want me still, after all we gone through, af-
ter what those men did to me?”
“I want you like those crows want to fly,” he said.
He saw her eyes water, felt a sting in his own.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s something I need to
give some thought to.”
“Fine by me,” he said. “Just hold on to it for me
will you, until you make up your mind? I’m afraid I’m
going to lose it somewhere.”
Her fingers touched the ring and in the doing,
touched lightly the palm that held it.
“You decide you don’t want it later,” he said.
“That’s okay. I mean, I’ll understand.”
She took the ring and looked at it for a long mo-
ment then slipped it into her pocket. Well, at least she
hadn’t taken it and flung it, he thought, or flat out
said no to the idea and that was progress when it
came to dealing with Karen Sunflower.
He watched as she knelt and touched her hands to
the cold stone, traced her fingertips over Dex’s name,
the year of his birth and death, the carved cherub,
then touched those fingers to her lips. She went to
stand again and was unbalanced and he took hold of
her and helped her up. Their faces inches from each
other, he did what was natural in him to do and
lightly kissed her mouth, sore and tender as it was,
and she did not pull away but let him do it. Then he
simply held her to him, the wind buffeting them, and
the crows had flown completely out of view and their
caws had faded till the world was silent again.
30
Big Belly slept the night on the grasslands with
wanting in his heart: wanting a hot meal, some
whiskey, maybe a woman. He dreamt of his wife and
fires and heads of Texas Rangers on sticks. He dreamt
of wild horses and buffalo like there were when he
was a child. He woke shivering under the saddle blan-
kets and his belly growling.
He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes and
looked off over the top of the grass toward the town.
Where the hell did all the white men come from, he
wondered. When he was a boy about the only white
men that came into Comanche country were the
whiskey peddlers and a few old traders. Now the
country was filling up with whites. Everywhere a man
could go there was a white settlement.
He was hungry enough to eat the ears off a wolf. If
he didn’t get something to eat soon, he might have to
eat one of his three horses. He looked them over. Of
the three, a smallish brown horse looked
like if he had
to eat one would be the one he’d eat. Only he didn’t
feature eating any of them if he didn’t have to.
The good thing was after he’d stolen the horses,
he’d found a few extra pistols in the saddlebags, some
shirts, socks, white man’s shit. He figured if he could
find a trading man, like one of those old Co-
mancheros or a nasty old whiskey peddler, he could
trade some of the goods he’d found for food, whiskey,
maybe even a woman. Well, there was only one way
to find out.
He tucked his long hair up under his greasy hat and
slipped out of his greasy buckskin shirt and slipped
on one of the found shirts so he’d look less like a true
Indian than maybe some half-breed or Mexican, and
white folks would be less likely to shoot him on sight.
He gathered up his horses and headed for the town.
Another man had spent the night on the grasslands as
well: Fallon Monroe. His shot arm ached like a bad
tooth. He’d run a clean kerchief through the wound
and plugged the hole with a wad of chewing tobacco,
then tied it off with the same kerchief and spent the
rest of the night cussing his poor luck. Had things
gone his way, he’d right this minute be waking up in
the bed of his wife. He could practically feel the body
heat coming off her, the sweet familiar breath. But as
it was he spent a lot of his time in between the cussing
shivering. Seemed like that bullet knocked all the heat
out of him. He didn’t know how much blood a body
had in it, but he reasoned he’d lost a fair amount of
what he had in him. His shirtsleeve was coldly stiff
from the blood and he had no feeling in the fingers of
his left hand. But at least he didn’t think there were
any broken bones in his arm and that was a good
thing.
He eased himself to a standing position, turned his
body away from the wind and made water as he stood
staring at the town off in the distance. He had gotten
a fair look at the stranger with Clara last night. To my
advantage, he thought, shaking the dew off the lily
before tucking it back in his drawers. I doubt he seen
a bit of me while I seen just about all I needed to of
him. I’ll just go back in there, find him, and kill him,
and that will be the end of that.
He looked down at his lame arm. It felt like dogs
were chewing on it. But when he looked it was just
hanging; there weren’t any dogs chewing on it.
I could be crippled, he told himself, his anger for