By now well over half their party lay dead on both banks of the river, in the water, and on the sandy beaches of the island. They had started the fight with the numerical advantage, but realized now that they were outnumbered.
One of the Indians turned and started riding away. Almost instantly, the others followed.
“Run! Run, you cowards!” Andy shouted, shooting at them as they fled.
The other cowboys began shooting as well, making certain to give the Indians a good send-off. Then, they began laughing and congratulating each other on the good fight.
“If you want to know who gets the most congratulatin’, it should be Miz Sally,” Andy said. “When she took ole Walkin’ Bear down, she took the fight right out of ’em.”
“Let’s hear it for Miz Sally!” Billy shouted.
“Hurrah! Hurrah!” the others called.
With all the laughing and self-congratulations, the men forgot all about Hank, until Sally spoke up. She saw him over by his brother’s body, hanging his head in sorrow.
“Hank,” she said. “We want you to know how sorry we are about LeRoy. He was a good man.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Hank said.
Chapter Eighteen
A small herd of no more than one hundred cows moved through the darkness, watched over by three riders. A calf called for its mother and, in the distance, a coyote sent up its long, lonesome wail. The moon was a thin sliver of silver, but the night was alive with stars…from the very bright, shining lights all the way down to those stars that weren’t visible as individual bodies at all, but whose glow added to the luminous powder that dusted the distant sky.
“Damn, Bobby, but it’s cold,” one of the riders said, the vapor of his breath glowing in the moonlight.
“Yeah, well, I tell you, if it wasn’t this cold, we prob’ly wouldn’t of been able to steal these critters. They’d of been someone watchin’ ’em,” Bobby said.
“Pat’s right, though. Stealin’ cows on a cold night like this is damn near as hard as punchin’ ’em,” a third rider said.
“Well, now, let me ask you this, Deekus. Would you rather be ridin’ out here in the cold tonight, pushin’ cows we’ll be gettin’ five, maybe ten dollars a head for? Or would you rather be punchin’ cows for someone at twenty dollars a month and found?” Bobby asked.
“Hell, you put it like that, I can take bein’ cold for a while,” Deekus said.
“Hey, Deekus, what are you goin’ to do with your money?” Pat asked.
“I’m goin’ to a whorehouse and get me a woman,” Deekus said. “What about you?”
“I don’t know, get some new duds, I reckon.”
“Duds? You goin’ to waste your money on clothes when you could get you a woman?”
“Why, dress me up in some new duds and I can get me a woman without payin’ for it,” Pat said.
“Whoo, boy,” Deekus said, laughing. “Did you hear that, Bobby? We got us a lover boy here.”
Bobby laughed.
“Yeah, well, you just watch,” Pat said. “You spend all your money on a woman and it’s over with. You make yourself look good so’s a woman wants you, why, you can get you a woman anytime you want, and you still got your new duds.”
Bobby laughed again. “Seems like ole Pat has got it all figured out,” he said.
The calf’s call for his mother came again, this time with more insistence. The mother’s answer had a degree of anxiousness to it.
“Damn,” Bobby said. “I told you we should’a left the heifer and her calf alone. Now I got to go get ’em back together.”
“Hell, why bother? It’ll find its own way back.”
“I don’t think so. And if it starts settin’ up too much of a racket, well, the three of us won’t be able to handle the rest of the cows,” Bobby said, slapping his legs against the side of his horse and riding off, disappearing in the darkness.
“Bobby’s as bad as an ole mama cow himself,” Deekus said, “watchin’ out for ’em like that.”
“Yeah, but he’s prob’ly right. In this cold, we don’t need the cows givin’ us any trouble.”
Suddenly, from the darkness came the sound of a gunshot.
“What was that?” Pat asked.
“Sounded like a gunshot,” Deekus answered.
“Bobby must’a seen a snake or something.”
“At night?” Deekus asked.
“A wolf maybe?”
