Appaloosa

37

We can build a fire,” Bragg said. “Ain’t like they don’t know we’re here.”

We had dug us a small hollow by the river, and dragged some brush and tree limbs around.

“Sure can,” Ring said. “And then maybe cook a little something over it.”

“I could use some coffee,” Bragg said.

“So build the fire and make some coffee,” Ring said. “And if they decide to sneak in closer, maybe swim the river and shoot at the fire from behind us, they might miss you.”

“You think they’d do that?” Bragg said.

Ring glanced at Cole.

“What’s that thing you always used to say, Virgil? Read it in some book?”

“Clausewitz,” Cole said. “Clausewitz says you gotta plan for what your enemy can do, not what you think he’ll do.”

“Fuck Clausewitz,” Bragg said.

But he didn’t start a fire.

“Everett and I will go up front now.”

“Be sure and let Mackie know it’s you,” Ring said. “You know how quick he is.”

Bent nearly double, Cole and I went through the cottonwoods toward the fallen tree behind which Mackie and Russell were watching.

When we were maybe a hundred feet away, Cole said, “Virgil Cole, Mackie.”

“Come on,” Mackie said.

We dropped to our knees and crept to the watch spot.

“You boys can head back now, get some sleep,” Cole said.

They left us without a word. Both of them moved very quietly in the woods. Ahead of us, the land was treeless. The Sheltons’ fire had died away entirely. The moon was already declining but still bright enough to fill the land between the woods and the low hill with pallid emptiness. Nothing moved. There was no sound except the water behind us. The sky was vast and dark. There were stars, but they seemed pitiless.

“They’ll come in the morning,” Cole said.

“Not right at us,” I said.

“No. I figure they’ll send some riders around out of rifle range and cross the river and come back up behind us. They’ll wait for the trackers to go upstream and find our trail. See who we are, how many we are.”

“Woods aren’t that thick,” I said. “In the day, they’ll get a fair idea even ’fore the trackers come back.”

“We can try to keep down,” Cole said. “Not move around.”

“When the trackers come back, they’ll know anyway,” I said.

“Still ain’t good battlefield for ’em,” Cole said. “They got to cross that open land between us and the hill.”

“Or swim the river.”

“Either way, they got to come at us with no cover and six of us shooting.”

“They know that,” I said.

“Expect they do.”

“If they do, then we’re back to seeing how long they’ll sit there,” I said. “We got all the water we need, and we got some food.”

“Might be smart to parcel it out small,” Cole said.

“Might be.”

“We don’t know what they got,” Cole said.

“Or how far they’d have to go to get it.”

“Water’s not a problem for them, either.”

“Nope,” I said. “They just go down the river out of range and get it.”

Behind us, a small voice said, “Virgil.”

“Yes, Allie,” Virgil said.

“Can I come up and sit with you and Everett?”

“Yep.”

She came up crouching, in her ridiculous clothes, looking very small, and sat cross-legged on the ground between us.

“You ever fire a pistol,” Cole said.

“No.”

“Best you learned. Everett, you got that little hideout dingus you usually carry?”

“I do,” I said, and took an over/under derringer out of the side pocket of my pants.

I broke it open, took out the two .45 cartridges, and closed the weapon.

“It’s unloaded now,” I said. “But pretend it isn’t.”

I handed it to her. She handled it as if it were some vile reptile.

“Just a piece of equipment, Allie,” I said. “Like a cherry pitter. Won’t do anything ’less you operate it.”

“It’s not very heavy,” she said.

“It’ll be a little heavier with the bullets in it.”

I had her dry fire it a few times, then I took it and reloaded it and gave it back to her.

“I… what am I supposed to do with it?”

“Keep it with you,” I said.

“Indians win this,” Cole said, “cock that thing, put it in your mouth, pull the trigger.”

“Kill myself?”

“ ’Less you want to be the bottom squaw in some buck’s string,” Cole said.

“Oh, God,” she said.

Neither Cole or I said anything. I don’t imagine Cole could think of anything to say, either. Awkwardly, Allie put the derringer in the pocket of her too-big pants. The three of us sat, looking out over the short stretch of empty prairie.

Finally Allie said, “I’m sorry, Virgil.”

Cole didn’t speak.

“I don’t know what to say, Virgil. I… how are we going to make this right?”

Cole stayed silent, looking toward where the Kiowas were.

“I was so alone,” Allie said, “and Bragg was… Ring protected me, and he told his brother to protect me. And they both did.”

Cole didn’t turn his head.

“So you fuck Mackie, too?” he said.

“I… no… It was Ring. Ring was in charge. What was I supposed to do?” Allie said.

Cole didn’t say anything else. I didn’t want any part of this and had nothing to say.

“I was alone… I want to fix this between us, between you and Ring.”

Cole turned his head slowly and looked at her in the faint light.

“I’ll think about that another time,” Cole said. “Right now, I’m thinking about Indians.”

38

At first light, we spotted the tracker. He swung out in a big arc from behind the hill, staying out of rifle range, and headed upstream. Another rider came out on the other side, described the same wide arc out of range, and headed downstream.

“He ain’t a tracker,” Cole said. “They come from down there they know we didn’t.”

“He’ll cross downstream, come up for a look on the other side of the river,” I said.

“And we just sit here?” Bragg said.

“Not if you got a better plan,” Cole said.

“Maybe we send somebody out after them two bucks,” Bragg said. “Got ’em isolated from the rest, kill ’em off, improve our odds.”

“Ain’t a bad idea,” Ring said. “Course them other Kiowas up there will see us send somebody, so they’ll send somebody, too. So our man is outnumbered two to one.”

“Maybe our man can kill them both. We got some gun hands here.”

“Maybe,” Ring said. “Which one you want to follow? Upstream or down?”

Bragg was silent. Then he shook his head.

“Might make a fire this morning,” I said. “It won’t stand out so much in the day.”

“Indians can’t get close enough to shoot,” Cole said, “in the daylight.”

We made our fire, and we all had coffee and fried salt pork. Coffee made me feel better. In about an hour, we saw one of the Indians on the other side of the river, squatting beside a big rock, looking at our campsite. About midmorning we saw the upstream Indian come back, swinging wide away from our guns and disappearing behind the hill. When we looked again, the one across the river was gone. After that, nothing. We sat with our weapons, watching the hill. Nobody appeared. No sound drifted down across the grassland. Nothing happened. We drank some more coffee and ate some jerky and hardtack. We dipped the hardtack in the coffee to soften it. We took turns sleeping. For supper, Allie made fry biscuits. We ate them with salt pork and coffee and hardtack. We dipped our hardtack. We took turns sleeping.

On the second day of this, Bragg said to us, “How do we know they’re still there?”

“We don’t,” Cole said.

“How we going to find out?” Bragg said.

No one said anything for a time, then I said, “I’m going to ride up and see.”

All of them looked at me. I thought Cole was going to say something. But he didn’t. Instead, he nodded. I got up and went to the brush-and-branches pen we’d made and saddled my horse. I put the Winchester in its saddle sleeve, checked my Colt and holstered it, picked up the shotgun, and got on my horse.