knife still in her hands. She made another swipe at him, making a big slice in the calf of his leg.
“Ahhhh!” Ponci shouted with pain. Pulling his pistol, he shot her. His bullet hit her in the forehead, and she fell back, dead before she even hit the ground.
“Son of a bitch!” Fargo shouted. “You shot her!”
“Hell, yes, I shot her! This Indian whore damn near cut my leg off,” Ponci replied, his voice strained with pain. “If you want to know why I done it, that’s why I done it.”
Fargo rode back to Ponci and looked down at the Indian girl. She was lying on her back alongside the road, a black hole in her forehead, blood and brain matter on the ground at the back of her head.
“Shit, Ponci, you killed her,” Fargo said angrily. “Damn it, what’d you do that for?”
“Why did I do it? I did it because she cut me. She cut me bad.”
Fargo looked toward Ponci and saw blood streaming down his leg.
“Yeah, I’d say she did cut you,” he said. “If you didn’t keep that knife honed like a razor all the time, maybe it wouldn’t of been so bad.”
“No sense in having a knife if you don’t keep it sharp,” Ponci said.
“Yeah, well, maybe that’s true when you’re butcherin’ cows and pigs, but you ain’t butcherin’ anymore,” Fargo said.
“Damn, it hurts,” Ponci said, his voice raw and edgy with pain.
Fargo looked back toward Cloud Dancer and sighed. “She was supposed to be our hostage,” he said. “You can’t have a hostage if she’s dead.”
“Yeah, and besides that, now we can’t have no fun with her,” Dagen said. “I hope you’re happy, Ponci. You dumb son of a bitch, you’ve done screwed it up for everyone now.”
“Fargo, we better get a bandage on ole Ponci there or he’s goin’ to bleed to death,” Monroe said, pointing to Ponci’s leg. The bottom of his trousers was soaked red with blood.
“You want to patch ’im up, you do it,” Fargo said with a scowl. “If you ask me, the son of a bitch got just what he deserved. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t feelin’ her up or something.”
“What are we goin’ to patch him up with?” Monroe asked.
Dagen laughed. “Pull the dress off the Indian woman,” he said.
“What?”
“Why not? We need a bandage, don’t we? And we ain’t goin’ to have no fun with her, so we might’s well see what she looks like nekkid.”
“Dagen, you are one crazy son of a bitch,” Monroe said.
“You don’t have to look none if you don’t want to,” Dagen said, starting for Cloud Dancer’s body.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t goin’ to look,” Monroe said. “I just said you was one crazy son of a bitch for thinkin’ about it, that’s all.”
Dagen tore the dress off, then handed it to Monroe. “Tear strips out of this,” he said.
Ponci weaved back and forth in the saddle a couple of times, then fell, raising a little puff of dust as he hit the ground.
“Son of a bitch, he fell off,” Dagen said.
“Is he dead?” Fargo asked.
Dagen leaned over for a closer look. “No, I think he’s just passed out.”
“Now what?” Monroe asked.
“Son of a bitch,” Fargo said disgustedly. He sighed. “Shit,” he swore. “All right, get the son of a bitch bandaged up and get him back into the saddle. And be quick about it. We got to keep movin’.”
Dagen pulled Cloud Dancer’s petticoat, camisole, and underdrawers off while Monroe wrapped strips around Ponci’s wounds. Ponci came to while Monroe was working on him. He groaned.
“Ponci, you son of a bitch,” Dagen said as he stared at the Indian girl’s nude body. “Lookit them nice little titties. Damn me if she ain’t better-lookin’ than any whore I’ve ever seen.”
“Get Ponci back on his horse and let’s get out of here, you dumb bastards,” Fargo said.
The stagecoach was under way again. Timmy and Johnson were sitting in the front seat; Falcon was in the backseat. Jane Stockdale was sitting beside Falcon.
“Let me get a closer look at your wound,” she said.
Obligingly, Falcon lifted his hat and lowered his head so she could examine it more closely. After a moment of study, she lifted the hem of her skirt, then tore a strip off her petticoat.
“I know this isn’t very ladylike,” she said. “But what has to be done has to be done.”
She took a dipper of water from the water barrel, then poured it over the piece of petticoat. Then, using the wet cloth, she gently cleaned the wound on Falcon’s head.
“It doesn’t look as bad now as I thought it did at first,” she said as she worked. “The crease wasn’t very deep, and there’s not much blood. Nevertheless, I think you should hold this against your wound for a while, just to keep out some of the dust that’s coming in through the stage windows.”
“Thanks,” Falcon said, holding the compress to his head. “You did that well.”
