It was late afternoon when the two men finished burying all the dead. Neither had eaten all day, but neither did they hunger for food as they finished tamping down the mounds of dirt that formed a single grave for eleven people.
“Do you want to say a prayer, Johnny?” Ben asked.
“No.”
“Do you want me to say one?”
“It don't make no difference to me. They can't hear you.”
There was that hardness in John, Ben thought. Getting harder all the time.
“I thought the prayer was for God,” he said.
“I already prayed in my mind, Ben. I don't need to hear no words.”
John had become almost primitive in his speech, Ben thought. Laconic. Like his namesake, a savage.
“All right, Johnny. I'll just say this, and be done with it.”
Ben cleared his throat and took off his hat. He bowed his head and closed his eyes.
“Lord, take these good people into your Heaven. They done nobody no harm. Take care of 'em. Amen.”
“Good enough,” John said.
Large, white billowing clouds rose from behind the snowcapped peaks, wafting slowly toward the prairie. They cast shadows across the meadow, towering high in the heavens, all fluffy and serene, looking soft as eiderdown, peaceful as a quiet summer afternoon. The two men put their shovels into the wagon and climbed in. They drove to the barn and unhitched the mules, grained them, and turned them onto the pasture with hobbles on their front legs.
Neither man spoke as they walked down the road toward the deserted and desolate camp. Their rifles rested flat on their shoulders, balanced there as if on fulcrums. John carried a box of .30-caliber cartridges in his left hand, his knife and scabbard in his right.
The sun disappeared behind the high snow of the thunderheads and a pair of doves whiffled past on whirring wings, twisting and turning in the air like feathered darts. They were mourning doves, the most gentle of birds, he thought. Ben looked at them as they winged past. John did not.
Ben sighed. Worry lines furrowed his forehead.
As the twig is bent, he thought, so grows the tree.
John's shoulders drooped. Ben thought he looked like an old man at that moment.
He hoped that John would also turn out to be a wise man, young or old.
7
THUNDERHEADS LINED THE SKY: GREAT, TOWERING WHITE BEHEMOTHS stretching from north to south, east to west, blotting out the sun, casting a giant shadow over the land. The creek waters turned from amber and gold and silver to a sullen murkiness of dark umber and coal black, running fleet with somber waters.
“I'll rig us up one of these tents,” Ben said. “Clear up some of this mess. You want to build us a fire? We need to cook some grub.”
“Sure,” John said, laying his rifle down on a rock higher up the slope above the campsite. He walked to the fire ring and held his hand over it to see if there were any coals left. There was no heat, only charred wood and ashes. He began to pick up the scattered sticks of kindling that lay strewn from the place where they had been stacked.
Ben walked some yards away to a tent that had not been spattered with blood. He gathered up the poles, pulled the top of the tent up and propped it with first one pole, then the other. He pulled the tent tight, and then searched for a hammer to drive in the stakes to give the tent its shape and stability.
A small flock of green-winged teals streaked low over the creek, heading south along its winding course. They flared out of formation when they saw the two men, then quickly rejoined their mates, their wings keening like silver whistles as they knifed through the air and became like mere whispers heard in passing.
John built a pyramid of sticks, started shaving one with his knife, flicking the dry chips into the base of the cone. When he was finished, he walked over to Ben.
“Borrow your matches?” he said.
Ben fished a box from his pocket, handed them to John, trying to read the blank expression on the young man's face. Something had gone out of John that day, he knew. But something else had gone into him, as well. Something dark and brooding, distant and unfathomable, as if he were holding in a tremendous amount of anger that could burst forth in a rage at any moment.
“You're not thinking of going after those men, are you, John?” Ben said. He drove a stake into the ground, slipped a tent loop over it, stretching the fabric taut.
“Soon as we eat, I'm going to saddle up Gent and get on the trail of those killers.”
“You going to ride your daddy's horse?”
“Why not? It's mine now, I reckon.”
“Yeah, I reckon it is. Thought you might take Blue Boy since he knows you.”
Blue Boy was a blue roan that had been John's horse. He liked the horse, but Gent was a distance horse, a Missouri-bred trotter that was as easy to ride as sitting on a cushion in a rocking chair. Tall and rangy, the horse had three white stockings, a star blaze, and a mane and tail like fine black silk. Blue Boy was stocky, just a little over fourteen hands high and was like riding a peg-legged barrel over a bumpy road.
“Gent's got good bottom. He's a distance horse. Blue Boy spooks at every shadow, balks at every bridge or gate, and rides like he's got four wooden legs.”
“You count how many there were, Johnny?”
“Eight.”
“Yep. Eight hard men. Every damned one of them a crack shot. You want to commit suicide?”
“I want those bastards to pay.”
“Never knew you to curse, John.”
“That's not cursing, Ben. That's what they are. Bastards. Every damned one of them.”
“Whoa up, boy. Don't get your dander up. I'm not saying they ain't bastards. I'm just saying, you can't rightly go up against eight armed men all by your lonesome.”
“I don't mean to,” John said.
“You like to explain that, Johnny?”
“Once I get on their track, I'll hunt them down like a flock of turkeys. Scatter them. Pick 'em off one by one.”
“How you going to manage that?”
“Call 'em out, one by one. Like scraping a turkey call. One comes at me, I blow his brains out. The others will likely run and I'll be on them like ugly on an ape. Call me another, and then another and another until every one of them is worm meat.”
“I never heard you talk in such a way, Johnny. You scare the living hell out of me.” Ben moved to the next stake, drove it, at a slant, into the ground, hooked it with a loop.
“I'll light the fire,” John said and walked away.
“God, he even walks different,” Ben said under his breath. It seemed to him that John had grown taller, his back had gotten straighter, as if he had iron in it, and he was no longer the gangly awkward kid with peach fuzz on his face. John had been shaving once a month, but his beard was soft and light, like down, and it was hard to tell whether he had shaved or not half the time.
Ben finished with the tent and began collecting pots and pans, searching through the detritus for food he might cook. He filled the coffeepot and put it on the fire to boil, then scooped ground coffee beans into it. He put some fatback in a fry pan, and set that on the stones next to the fire John had made. He mixed flour and water in a bowl, salted it slightly and formed the dough into lumps. He greased another fry pan, ladling spoonfuls of lard into the pan after it had heated, watched the lumps of lard skitter like some sentient beings, until they all melted. Then he dropped the doughballs into the pan. The grease sizzled in both frypans, and the coffee began to boil, spewing aromatic vapors from its spout.
“I'm going to dig it up,” John said enigmatically.
“Huh?”
“My strongbox.”
“Oh,” Ben said. He watched John pace off a distance from where his tent had been to a spot beneath where his uncle's tent had been pitched. He picked up a spade and began to dig.
Some of the white clouds began to develop dark gray underbellies, and they continued to push up from some far valley in the mountains, clearing the visible snowcapped peaks and spreading out. The air felt different now, slightly cooler and heavier than before, as if the clouds were pushing it down with some invisible force or weight. Ben sniffed the vagrant breeze that wafted down from the mountains and stirred the coals and made the flames whip and dance like a kind of fluttering dervish that lasted only a few moments. He shivered involuntarily, as if cold drops of water had trickled down his back.
“Gonna storm, Johnny,” Ben called, as John bent down and grabbed a box by the handle.
“Yeah, maybe. Why I want to get on the track of those murdering sonsofbitches while there's still tracks to read.”
He gave a heave and grunted, pulling a large metal box from the hole in the ground. He carried it over to the fire and set it down in front of one of the logs. He sat down and fished in his pocket for a key.
“You got it locked and all,” Ben said, reaching out for two tin cups. The fatback sizzled in the pan and the biscuits swelled. He spooned hot grease onto the biscuits, turning their edges a silky brown.
“Damned right,” John said, twisting the key in the lock. There was a clicking sound as the tumblers moved inside. John raised the top and reached inside. “Pa gave me this pistol and I aim to use it to avenge his death and all the others.”
“You ain't no killer, John,” Ben said softly.
Ben's eyes widened as John pulled out a rolled-up oilcloth with something heavy inside. John carefully unfolded the cloth and reached down, lifting the pistol by its butt.
“That's the pistol your daddy give you?” Ben said, scooting over closer to John for a better look.
“Yeah. On my last birthday. My legs gave out when I saw it.”
“I seen your daddy's Colt before. But not like that.”
“When we went to Santa Fe that time, Daddy said he had it done there. Isn't it beautiful?”
The pistol was truly beautiful, with fine scrollwork on the barrel that was inlaid with silver. On it were some words inscribed in Spanish.
“Just hold it right there, Johnny, whilst I pour the coffee. That's some pistol. I never saw one like it.”
Ben poured the coffee into the two cups. He handed one to John, who set it down on the ground. He laid the oilcloth on a smooth spot, then set the pistol down, displaying it for both of them to see. He picked up his cup, blew away the cobwebs of steam, and sipped.
Ben scooted still closer after he pulled the fry pans further away from the direct flames of the fire. He gazed at the pistol.
“Them pearl-handled grips?” he said.
John shook his head.
“Ivory. Pure African ivory. Daddy had those hand carved in Santa Fe, too. A silversmith done the scrolling and the inlays. Tasco silver, Daddy said.”
“What are them words written there? I can't see 'em right well, but they look like they're in a foreign language.”
“Spanish,” John said. “When you give me Lee's holster, they'll have more meaning, I reckon.”
“You know what they mean?”
“Uh-huh. Daddy told me, and I learned some Mexican while we were in Santa Fe.”
A cloud of small brown birds wheeled in the sky, all twittering on the wing. They flew in circles as if they were being chased, then darted in perfect synchronization up the side of the mountain and disappeared into the pines.
“Birds,” Ben said. “Antic before a storm.”
“What does that mean?” John asked.
“Just an old weather saying, I reckon. I think it's from literature. A poem, maybe. When birds fly like that, crazy as bedbugs, it means there's a whopping big storm coming. You can almost feel it now. Look at them underbellies on those big, white clouds. That's rain, Johnny. Getting ready to fall.”
John looked up. The sky was indeed darkening and the breeze was stiffening, making the fire flap like clothes on a line in a high wind. The smell of flour baking and the aroma of bacon wafted to their nostrils. John felt his stomach churn with hunger and he took another sip from his cup.
“Yeah, it's going to rain like a cow pissing on a flat rock,” John said.
“Where'd you ever hear that?”
“From Pa, I reckon.” He jiggled his shoulders and arms. “Getting colder, too.”
“That it is, Johnny. Now about them words on the barrel of that Colt.”
“There are two lines, Ben. One on the left side, where you're looking, and another on the other side.”
John lifted the pistol, turned it over. He held it close to Ben's face so he could see, but he didn't give the pistol to him. Nor did Ben make a move to touch it or take it from John's hand.
“This side,” John said, pointing to the left side of the barrel, “reads,
âNi me saques sin razon.'
And, on the other side, it says,
âNi me guardes sin honor.'
”
“You speak Mexican right good, Johnny.”
“Well, it's Mexican, all right. But, it's really Spanish, too, I reckon.”
“And, you know what it means?”
For the first time that day, John smiled. It wasn't a big smile. He didn't show his teeth. But his mouth bent and there was a twinkle in his eye. Ben decided that it was a smile.
From some high meadow far above them, a bull elk bugled. The notes rose to a high, shrill pitch, then spiraled back down into the low notes, ending in a grunt. The call echoed off rimrock, carrying a long way, then died out softly in the smothering density of the muffling pine forest.
“He's marking his territory,” Ben said. “A mite too early to be courting the ladies.”
“Sounds like a big one,” John said, his head cocked to hear the last dying notes of the plaintive call.