Friends (13 page)

Down below, but farther off than I hoped it would be, Clete's fire was a heart-warming sight, though I'd a rather it warmed my feet instead. No matter it was late, he still had it built up big. I drew my pistol and snapped off three shots. In a while he answered the same way. Since I was already wet to the skin and muddy as a pig, I sat down and rested. Right there in all that gumbo. Yes indeed, mud right underneath my sitter, cold and clammy, whether I could see it or not. I was thinking I would come around some and then make it down the slope to where Clete was, but twice I dozed off sitting there, wet and shivery as I was, and I knowed this would be it for me this night.

I front-hobbled the bay with an old piece of rope from my saddle bag. It was hard getting my bedroll and canvas off the horse and laid out when I couldn't see a damn thing, 'specially as I was doing my damnedest to keep my bedding dry. When my sogans was as good as I could get them, I took off my clothes, all of them, long johns too, and just tossed then beside me in the mud. I wouldn't be able to get to sleep wearing them things, and they couldn't get no wetter or muddier than they already was. Naked as a jay bird, I crawled into them wool blankets and pulled the top half of my canvas snug over me. The sound of rain falling on my waterproofing kept me awake for almost a full minute.

Morning come, the rain still fell, though it'd eased up some. First time in memory I'd let a saddle on a beast all night and went to sleep with my horse untended. Bay didn't hold it against me, though, for he hobble-jumped over after he seen my head poke out.

I stood and searched for my dry clothes in the bags, but they weren't there. In with Clete's things, most likely. Right away I wished I'd throwed my clothes over the saddle horn the night before. It was plain I was wrong about them not being able to get any muddier than they was then. I looked down at my sloppy longjohns and shirt there on the ground and knew I couldn't face putting them things on again. After a while, I took my knife and made a slit in the middle of one of my blankets, slipped it over my head and belted it around my middle. With my hat, that would do me 'til I got down below. Not very comfortable sittin' a saddle with no pants on, I can tell you-especially when it's soaked. I thanked the Lord I wasn't on a McClellan, anyway.

Wasn't 'til I walked my horse about halfway down that slope to Clete's camp that I thought about Mandy. I promised myself I'd go back and look again after I got some breakfast and dry clothes. Right about then the rain stopped. Clete'd camped in a grove of junipers close by a little pond with cattails clogging it. Probly had slept pretty good under them trees last night. But now he was laying at the rim of this overgrown shelf looking down at the valley floor with his glass. Before I got below the trees, I seen what he was looking at-a man with a horse down there doing something. I tied the bay beside the pack horse, only it was Clete's mount now, and walked up to where he was spying. He motioned me down and went back to looking.

I could see better beside him, peeking through some scrubby junipers right at the edge, than I did from above. The man down below wasn't our man. For one thing, his horse wasn't no paint. And for another, he was way too short.

"What's he doing down there, anyway?"

Clete's eye was glued to the glass. "Digging a stone out of the ground with a shovel. Maybe he's prospecting, but this is a strange place for it." We watched some more before he spoke again. "Couldn't find her, huh?"

"No," I told him. "She cut out, scared to death, I guess, and of course the rain … " I didn't have to finish it for him. "But I'm going back again after I'm dressed proper."

He took his eye off the glass and took a good look at me. Well, he started to laugh and then to hold it in, so's not to give us away to the man below. Tears come to his eyes, and about the time he could almost take charge of himself again, he'd start laughing again.

We crawled away from the rim and he let it loose then. He was still chuckling and looking at me from time to time while he dug for my clothes in his bags.

"You look like you're all set to go to Mexico," he said.

"Well, I'm not. I'm going back for Mandy after I get something to eat. You took all the food, as well as my pants."

"You're wasting your time," he said. "No tracks to follow now. You know how long it would take you to cover all these cut-up badlands? You even have any idea what direction to start in?" He handed me my clothes.

Well, I didn't.

Clete put his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye. "Let it go, friend.
Let
her go. You did all a man could. She cut out because she thought she'd be better off on her own than she would be with two hardcases chasing a dangerous killer. That's all there is to it. It was her decision, just like coming along. Now let her live with it. Who knows, maybe she was right."

"But, damnit, Clete, I was responsible for her!"

"No, you weren't," he said, packing up his gear. "You just believe a lot of old-fashioned bullshit about the way a man should act in regards to a woman. Maybe you've noticed that this isn't Michigan or Boston. A man takes his chances living here, and so does a woman. And sleeping with her doesn't make you her keeper. Anyone who doesn't like it here is free to go to some more citified place."

"That's just what she was trying to do," I told him.

"Yeah, but who said it was your lookout to see that she did it?" He waited for an answer, but I had none to give him. "Think on it. There are no tracks for you to follow. I'm going down there and talk to that man. Maybe he's seen that lean bastard, maybe not. If he hasn't, I'm traveling southwest, the way we were going before we got into this damned place. Could be we'll see his tracks down that way. If we have no luck in a week, we'll head back to Two Scalp and look for something more profitable. Like that money Wilson stole."

He had his gear all loaded by then. He climbed into the saddle, fixed his hat, and looked at me. "Up to you," he said. "I'd like you along, but I'm riding on now. Got no time to look for that girl further."

After I finished dressing, I mounted and followed him to the edge of the shelf, where a good path led downwards into the valley. I sat the bay and thought on it and looked at him going down and thought on it some more. The man down below must have heard Clete's horse, for he stopped what he was doing and just watched Clete ride down, same as I was doing. In a little while, the short man down there saw me too and took off his hat and waved. I took mine off and waved back before I started down.

Clete waited for me where the trail reached the valley floor. "That's a fine-looking animal you're riding," he called out. "Wanna sell him?" Clete's old roan scarcely raised his head when the bay and I got there.

"No, not if it means I have to ride that poor creature you're on."

"Didn't think you would. Let's go see what this man knows," he said, turning the roan and spurring him into a fast trot. The fellow we watched before had went back to his digging, but he stopped and stood with his hands on his hips when we come up to him.

"How do, gents?" he said, kind of surly and friendly together. "You're a long ways from nowheres, you know that?"

I'd seen from up above that he was a short man, but I didn't understand exactly how short 'til Clete stepped down. This man had a crookedy sort of smile on his face, but at the same time it looked like a thundercloud too. From a little distance, you might think he was a Mexican, so dark was his skin, but up closer you could see he was all freckles–freckles on top of freckles, too. Like a lot of short men, he was short mostly in the legs. He stood looking up at Clete with his weight on one foot, and, my, was he bowlegged. If someone could of throwed a strap around his knees and pulled them together tight, he would of been about as tall as the next fellow.

"Shannon's my name, and this is Willie Goodwin," Clete said, tilting his head in my direction. I nodded. "Seen anyone ride through this morning or yesterday?"

"Nope," the man said, just standing and looking at us like we was some kind of bugs that'd caught his fancy, but that he would as soon squash. Clete waited for him to say something more, but when it was plain after a while he wasn't going to, Clete walked up closer to him.

"We're from east of here. The law's our business. Man we're looking for killed some people in Two Scalp."

"Never heard of it," the short man said, and went back to scraping at the muddy clay.

"What are you doing there, anyway?" I ask.

"Why, I'm diggin'," he said, spitting the words out of his mouth real fast and sassy, but his tone made it sound like he was explaining something to children. "This here's a shovel," he declared, holding it up and pointing to it with his other stubby hand. "And I use it to dig the dirt. See that pile there? I done that." That man had the queerest ways. He wasn't exactly what you'd call nasty. I'd seen that plenty, a man saying kiss-my-ass with his eyes while his mouth curved up. No, it wasn't that, but you couldn't exactly say he was the kind of fellow you took to right off, either.

"You have a name, you little sawed-off sonofabitch?" Clete asked, "Or didn't your daddy figure you'd ever grow up enough to-"

I seen it in the little man's face before he done it, of course, for his eyes bugged out and the veins at the side of his neck swole up. He swung his shovel at Clete's head, but Clete was ready for that. He grabbed the shaft and yanked it down past his side, though the blade struck his shoulder a glancing blow. With his other hand, he punched the runty man square in the mouth. A short punch with plenty of steam on it. After that, it wasn't no trouble for Shannon to wrestle that shovel away and toss it down. No sooner did it hit the ground than Clete smacked him a backhander that spun him around and landed him on his arse in the dirt, leaning back on his hands. What you saw first when his hat come off was the color of his hair, somewhere between flame and a brand-new penny. I didn't notice 'til then that the man wore no gun, but I figgered my pardner must have. Strange, because short men always have a pistol around somewheres. Often they tote the biggest damn gun they can find, sometimes two.

Clete drew his pistol slow, cocked it, and aimed that big-bore Remington right at this little man's bleeding nose. "Now, I'm going to ask you the same question he did. And if you want to be a full head shorter than you already are, you little shit, just come out with another smart-ass answer. What're you doin here?"

The short man sat up straight and quick, got his hat and stuck it on. "Why, I'm collectin' bones for O. C. Marsh. What the hell you think I was doin, anyway, pannin' gold?"

I feared Clete was going to shoot him. But instead he holstered his Remington, walked over to where the man'd been digging, hunkered down, and brushed some dirt away from the thing that was sticking up. I got out the shotgun, just in case.

"Looks like a bone, all right," Clete said to me. "But it looks like it's turned to stone."

"Well, of course it has," the little man said, standing right up. "'t's a fossil bone, not a fresh one. That's what Perfessor Marsh pays me for, collectin' fossils." Then he strutted over to Clete and stuck out his hand like nothing at all had happened, even though there was still a trickle of blood dripping off his chin. "Name's Foote, Thomas Bell Foote, but most everbody calls me Banty. Banty Foote."

Clete looked at me and I had to laugh. "Go on and shake the man's hand," I told him. "Looks like he don't hold nothin' against you, you big bully."

Clete pushed his hat back and looked bewildered for a minute. For a while it appeared he was going to say something sharp to the little man, but then he changed his mind and shook the bowlegged bone-digger's hand. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Foote. I guess."

"Call me Banty. Everbody does. Mr. Marsh, the students, ever-body." All of a sudden he pulled hard on Clete's hand and stuck his face right up into my partner's, and I thought there was going to be more trouble. Clete was trying to draw back some, but they was so close their hatbrims was bumping into each other, and Foote wouldn't let go. "Wasn't no lie. I don't lie. Can't abide a liar, no I can't. Nosiree, Sheriff, I didn't see no one. Not this morning or yest'day either." The little man turned Clete's hand loose and walked straight over to his pony and mounted.

"Where ya goin'?" I asked him.

"You'll want to talk to the Perfessor. He's the one to talk to. C'mon, you two men. Haven't got all momin'."

"Don't you want to gather up your gear?" Clete ask as he walked back to his horse.

"Naaah," Banty Foote said. "I'll be coming right back here anyhow."

Foote took off on that thick-necked, stubby cayuse of hiscouldn't of been more than eleven hands-and Clete and me followed at a good clip. Banty knew the trails, all right. We dodged between them clay mountains and galloped into gullies that twisted and turned through little canyons and big ones, goin' like hell both uphill and down after the short man. I seen there were plenty of sign here, leading every which ways, but our guide wasn't following none of them. Half an hour later we come out into a fiat place with scrubby grass between a couple of low sod tables and there we hit a pretty big encampment. Maybe not so large as a trail drive outfit will have, but big enough. Five military tents in a row and as many or more of some other kind in a circle around the blackened stones of a campfire. Looked like they cooked on a stove, though, for they had one-with big pots and pans and kettles and basins scattered around it. A fellow cooking something there or cleaning up turned and watched us ride in. Four wagons-one that looked like it hauled provisions, one with forage, I saw, and two others, big ones, I couldn't tell what they carried. A stack of heavy wooden crates was piled behind the wagons.

They had a good rope corral made, and in it was draft horses and maybe ten riding horses. Beside a bigger tent, off by itself a little ways, someone'd strung some tarps up on poles to cast some shade and keep off the rain, and underneath them were tables and benches and desks and chairs and I don't know what-all. Whoever this was had been here a while and intended on stayin' longer. Banty trotted us right up to where the tarps was rigged, and two men walked out from under them and come toward us, one a wrangler by the look of him, and the other a hefty fellow with a mostly white beard, wearing a rawhide vest and a funny-looking Eastern kind of hat slanting toward the side of his head.