John hunkered down next to Fritz, while Ben tickled the fire with a willow stick to keep it stirred up. He sat next to it, close enough to see both Fritz and John and hear every word they said.
“Fritz, can you talk some?” John asked, his voice strangely pitched, sounding almost kindly.
“What about?”
“I want to know about Rosa Delgado,” John said.
“Rosie? What about her?”
“She sweet on Ollie?”
Fritz started to laugh and choked on his breath. He went into a spasm and Ben thought that might be the end of him, but he recovered and gazed up at John with red-rimmed eyes glazed over like Christmas caramel apples.
“Ollie's put the dally on her, if that's what you mean,” Fritz said. “Him and Rosie are going to get married and start a new life out in Californy.”
“That so,” John said. “They know each other a long time?”
“A long time, yeah. Ollie staked her in the cantina business. Back in '88. Met her in Taos, in '87, brung her to Pueblo right about then.”
John didn't say anything for several moments. He appeared to be thinking about what Fritz had told him, trying to piece together why his own father had taken up with the Mexican woman.
“Pretty, is she?” John said.
“Who? Rosie? Yeah, she's pretty as a flower. Wears red ones in her hair. Eyes that melt a man's heart. Legs of a thoroughbred out of Kentucky. Yeah, she's pretty all right. How come you want to know about her?”
“How come she and my father, Dan Savage, got in the blankets?”
“You're Dan's kid? Well, don't that beat all.”
“You knew him?”
“I seen him a time or two. He was sparkin' Rosie all right. Didn't mean nothin' to her. That was Ollie's doin'.”
“You don't say,” John said.
“Well, this Dan come down with all this gold and brag-gin' about a strike up in Cripple Creek, so Ollie took notice. Hell, we all did.”
“And so Rosa Delgado became Dan's friend.”
“Hell, he didn't have no chance. Pretty woman like that breathing smoke in his ear, runnin' her fingers through his hair. Dan was a goner the minute he walked into that cantina. Yeah, too bad. I think maybe Ollie was the one who shot your pa. Kind of paying him back for the liberties Dan took with Rosie.”
John shook his head and drew in a deep breath as if he were trying not to cry, not to think about his father with that treacherous woman.
“I ain't sayin' no more,” Fritz said, and tried to wriggle on his back so that his guts would stop falling out.
Ben poked at the fire, kept his head down so that he wouldn't have to look at John, see how miserable he was, hearing all that from Fritz Schultz.
Without a word, John got to his feet and walked away, disappearing into the darkness. Ben watched him go, thinking he probably had gone to relieve himself. Then he heard a stirring in the brush, and a few moments later, John appeared on horseback, riding Gent. He rode up to Frtiz, pulled his lariat from the saddle and dismounted. As Ben watched, John built a loop and slipped it over Fritz's boots.
“What are you doing, John?” Ben asked.
“I don't want this bastard stinking up our camp. You just sit tight. I'll be back.”
Fritz looked up, saw his feet rise in the air as John mounted Gent and took up the slack in the rope.
“What's goin' on?” Fritz said.
“You're going for a little ride, Fritz.”
“You goin' to drag me?”
“That's right. You can think about what you and Ollie and your brother outlaws did to my family and all the others up on Cripple Creek. You can look up at the stars and say your last prayer, you sonofabitch.”
John ticked Gent's flanks with his spurs and Fritz's body jerked from where it had lain. Fritz put out his hands to stop himself, but all he did was burn his palms with rocks. John put Gent into a gallop and Fritz screamed. He kept on screaming for several moments as Ben stared after the two men, his mouth opened in abject bewilderment.
Ben could heard the bouncing body for some time as it tore over rocks and bounced against trees. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about it.
After a while, John rode back, his rope coiled up neat and attached to his saddle. He rode back to where Dynamite was tethered and soon joined Ben by the fire. He sat down and stared into the fire, then looked away.
“Johnny, you make me wonder,” Ben said.
“Yeah? About what?”
“About what makes your clock tick, son. What you did to that man. He was wounded bad and you dragged him. He dead?”
“Yeah, he's dead. That leaves only four.”
“You get any satisfaction out of what you just done?”
“Not in particular, no. I killed a snake, dragged him away from our camp, that's all.”
“You got a mean streak in you what wasn't there before, Johnny.”
“I guess everybody's got one, to some degree or another.”
“Not civilized folk.”
“If Ollie and that bunch are examples of civilized folks, that's mighty pitiful, Ben.”
“You don't have to go down to their level.”
“Maybe I do.”
“No, Johnny. You got to get a hold of yourself. You're turning into a savage.”
John chuckled.
“I was born a Savage,” he said.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. What those owlhoots took away from me I can never get back. But they don't deserve to live. I keep thinking of poor little innocent Alice. She's gone and they took her. You try getting over something like that, Ben.”
“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord, Johnny.”
John was silent for a long time. Beyond the last foothill, they heard a coyote yapping, followed by a chorus of others. Then the yaps changed to a melodic chorus, trilling calls that traversed up and down the scale like bright ribbons floating on the night air, unearthly, haunting, as if the hounds of hell had suddenly been unleashed upon the world.
The sounds faded as the coyotes chased whatever they were chasing.
It was quiet, with only the soft crackling of the flames nibbling on dry wood, to punctuate the private thoughts of Ben and John, who spoke no more that night and finally turned in, grabbing their blankets up and rolling themselves in them to stave off the chill that would descend upon them before morning.
19
OLLIE HOBART DIDN'T LIKE BEING ALONE. HE WAS USED TO HAVING hard men around him, men he could trust to watch his back, men he could count on when the proverbial chips were down. Now he rode within sight of Fountain Creek, the sun painting the waters with streamers of gold and silver, burnt umber, ochre, touches of viridian from the aspen leaves that shone like green fire on the limbs of the trees.
Red Dillard was the first to ride up. Ollie saw him come down the slope of a hill, descend into a fold of land, and emerge on the flat. His horse, a bay mare, looked worn out, and when he caught up to Ollie, Red's skin was twitching beneath his eye as if some formless inchworm was working its way across part of his face underneath the skin.
“You get any shut-eye, Red?” Ollie asked. He had an unlit cheroot in his mouth, had chewed the end into a shapeless mass.
“Not much. You?” His blue eyes shifted back and forth, making the twitch on his face even more pronounced.
“I slept on my horse until just before the crack of dawn. I swear, what with the coyotes and the wolves a-howlin' half the night, I just couldn't keep my eyes closed for more than a few minutes at a time.
“Any sign of the others?”
Ollie shook his head.
He looked back up the creek, saw nothing.
“You got a lucifer, Red?” Ollie held up the cheroot.
Red dug out a box of matches, struck one, and lit the end of the cheroot. Ollie pulled on it, getting very little smoke. He bit off the chewed end, spat it out, and tried again. The smoke filled his mouth.
“We goin' to wait here for the others?” Red asked.
“They know the meetin' place. Let's ride on.”
“Now I see why you kept all the gold, Ollie. No tellin' where everybody else is. I'm stickin' with you.”
Ollie chuckled and puffed his cheroot. They continued along the road that bordered the creek. A black-and-white magpie landed on the opposite bank, strutted alongside until it found a suitable place to drink. It flapped its wings, dipped its beak into the water, withdrew it quickly, and shook its head. Another magpie flew down, landed next to it, and began squawking. The two birds argued for a minute and then the first magpie flew off, landed in a cottonwood, sputtering invective.
“Yonder comes old Army,” Red said, pointing to a shallow draw where a rider had just emerged.
Ollie watched Mandrake negotiate the brush. His hat brim was pulled low to block out the rays of the low sun.
“His horse looks tuckered,” Ollie said.
“It's hell bein' chased.”
“Chased by a damned kid,” Ollie griped.
“And an old man.”
“Army can take care of him,” Ollie said.
Red laughed. Army was the oldest among them, and they all joked about that. Behind Army's back; never to his face.
The two men waited for Army to ride up. He wore a worn corduroy vest over a woolen shirt the color of olive drab. The vest was covered with dirt, and so were his duck trousers. He touched a finger to his hat in greeting.
“Army,” Ollie said. “With that face you're wearin' you got to be the bearer of bad news.”
“We ain't goin' to see Schultzie no more, Ollie. Found him on the other side of that hill back yonder, deader'n a doornail.” He cocked a thumb in the direction of the hill some two miles or so distant.
“Shot?” Red said.
“Didn't see no bullet holes in him. Found his head about two hunnert yards away. He was cut up pretty bad, his guts strewn out for nigh a mile, a big slash in his belly. Didn't see no bullet hole in his head, neither.”
Ollie swore. “So, he didn't just fall of his horse and get dragged,” Ollie said.
Army shook his head. He spit out a stream of tobacco juice and shifted the cud to the other side of his mouth. His face was furrowed with deep lines, and these were caked black with grime so that he looked like he was wearing a cut-down version of war paint.
“No, and that's another thing,” Army said. “I found his horse, and tracks of two others up on the sunny side of that foothill yonder. Them two miners come up and shot that horse in the head. Looks like they used Fritz's Big Fifty to put the horse down and then just threw the rifle down next to him.”
“Was Fritz still wearing his pistol?” Ollie asked.
Army shook his head.
“Nope. And his blade was gone, too. Looks like he got in a knife fight with them two miners.”
“Fritz was good with a knife,” Red said. “And mean with a knife.”
“Well, I didn't see the other feller,” Mandrake said, “but Fritzie was cut up in his hand pretty bad and gutted like a Red River catfish. Gave me the pure-dee willies.”
“Let's get on to Pueblo,” Ollie said. “Hell, them two miners could be most anywhere. You boys keep your eyes peeled right sharp, hear?”
Less than an hour later, they saw Dick Tanner waiting for them up ahead, flapping his arms back and forth like he was sending semaphore signals. When they rode up on him, his face was bone white, and it was plain he'd washed some of the dirt off in the creek.
“What the hell's the matter with you, Dick?” Ollie asked.
“I tell you, Ollie, I was plumb spooked all night, thinkin' about that kid and that fancy pistol of his. I rode around in circles half the night, come up on a she-bear and her pair of cubs and she liked to scare the shit out of me. Take a look at Bessie's hind end.”
The three men looked at the steeldust gray's rump. Raw flesh showed on three deep gouges more than half a foot long.
“Bear did that?” Red said.
“Bessie liked to run out from under me. She caught its scent, but it was too late. Them two cubs come tumblin' out of the brush and Bessie shied. Never saw the she-bear until we heard it roar and come out of nowhere on all fours. She jumped at Bessie. Bessie scooted, but that bear's claws caught her and that horse screamed, whooeee, I tell you.”
“You get any sleep?” Ollie asked.
“Nope. I was too busy gettin' lost.”
“And gettin' chased by a bear,” Mandrake said, drily. “You really know how to live, don't you, Dick?”
“You can poke all the fun you want, Army, but you wasn't in my boots. I kept hearin' brush crashin' and twig's poppin' and I swear them two jaspers was doggin' me half the night.”
“No, they weren't,” Ollie said. “They were too busy putting Fritz's lamp out.”
“Fritz?” Tanner's face lost another shade or two of pink. He was beginning to look like someone who had fallen into a trough of whitewash.
“Yeah,” Dillard said. “Fritz bought the cotton-pickin' farm, Dick.”
“I told you,” Dick said. “That kid's unnatural as all get out. He's got that look, you know?”
“What look, you peckerhead,” Ollie said, losing patience.
“I don't know, Ollie. He's got that look a preacher gets when he's talkin' about sin and damnation. He's got the look a snake oil drummer gets when he's got an old crippled woman up and walkin' when the docs have give up. You know, that goddamned look.”
“Let's get the hell to Pueblo,” Ollie said. “Tanner, you better take some of that snake oil and get rid of them heebie-jeebies you got in your yellow belly.”