“Awful long shot, sun or no sun,” I said.
“Better to be closer,” Virgil said. “And not facing the sun.”
Cato nodded and tapped himself on the chest. Virgil nodded back. Cato stood and walked away from the group and around the corner of the lumber office. Everyone watched him go. No one said anything.
So I said, after a time, “You need to stay careful. Keep your pickets posted on the road, and above the camp, too. Lujack and his posse may not come prancing up the road for you.”
Stark and Faison nodded.
“So that’s it?” Redmond said. “That’s your plan? They’re stealing our land and killing our people, and we sit here and wait for them to starve us out?”
Virgil looked at Redmond.
Since he never showed anything, only somebody who knew Virgil as well as I did would know how close Redmond was coming to the edge of Virgil’s patience.
“That’s what you should do,” I said. “We got other plans.”
“I want to know what they are,” Redmond said. “I got a right. I got a right to know. I got a right to know where Tillson went. What’s he doing? I…”
“Redmond,” Virgil said.
His voice was so soft it was barely more than a whisper. But it was clear and hard, and all of us turned toward it. And Redmond stopped talking.
“You need to understand coupla things,” Virgil said. “We got no quarrel with Wolfson. He hired us. He paid us, and when he didn’t need us no more, he paid us off. Nothing wrong with any of that.”
Redmond nodded.
“And we all need to make a living,” Virgil said. “And there ain’t one to be made here.”
Virgil paused and looked around. No one said anything.
“And Everett and I need to get on down to Texas,” Virgil said.
Redmond nodded.
“So we stayin’ here is a big pain in the ass for us, and a big favor for you,” Virgil said. “You got that part of it, Bob?”
Redmond nodded.
“Now, here’s the other thing,” Virgil said. “What we do, me, Everett, Cato, and Rose, what we do is a thing where you kind of feel your way along, extinctual, you might say.”
“Instinctual,” I said.
Virgil nodded approvingly.
“That’s right. So people always askin’ us what we gonna do and how and when, we find that very annoying, especially when we doin’ those people a big, large fucking favor for nothing.”
Nobody said anything.
“You understand that?” Virgil said to Redmond.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Then shut the fuck up and do what we tell you.”
Redmond opened his mouth and couldn’t seem to think of anything to say and shut it and nodded yes.
Virgil looked at him silently for another moment, then looked at me and nodded.
“So you got women and children here,” I said. “And you got a lot of men with Winchesters, and nothing else to do. Put the men around the perimeter.”
“Any advice on exactly where?” Stark said.
“You know the place better than I do,” I said. “Just keep them close enough together so nobody can slide in between ’em. Change the guards often so they don’t get skittish and shoot each other.”
“Even though you don’t think they’ll come,” Stark said.
“Ain’t no reason for them to come,” I said. “But people ain’t always reasonable. And Wolfson’s probably less reasonable than most.”
“There’s the riders,” Rose said.
Squinting into the sun, I could see two horsemen on the top of the treeless hill. One might have had a telescope. As I watched, both of them whirled suddenly and reached for their guns. Before they cleared leather they toppled slowly from their horses, and the sound of two shots rolled down the hill toward us, slowed and softened by the distance.
“That’d be Cato,” Rose said.
64.
Cato Tillson rode down the hill and into camp, hazing two riderless horses ahead of him.
'Figure it’ll confuse ’em a little,” Cato said, “if the horses don’t come back.”
“Spoils of war,” Rose said.
Cato nodded and dismounted.
“You know how to take care of horses?” Virgil said to Redmond.
“’Course,” Redmond said.
“Then take care of these,” Virgil said.
Redmond looked sorta sullen about it, but he took the reins and led both horses off. The rest of the men drifted away. It was like Cato made them uneasy.
“Odds are improvin’,” Virgil said. “You give them a chance.”
“Yep,” Cato said. “Called ’em out.”
“What I hear,” Virgil said, “that ain’t much of a chance.”
“It ain’t,” Cato said.
“Didn’t expect it would be,” Virgil said.
“There was two of ’em,” Rose said.
“Ain’t being critical,” Virgil said, “just thinking about it.”
“What’s to think?” Rose said. “Cato’s maybe the best I ever seen at this. He’s supposed to slow down?”
“Nope.”
“We’re all good at this,” Rose said. “Most fellas go up against any one of us in a fair fight, they ain’t got much of a chance.”
“So the fight ain’t exactly fair anyway,” Virgil said.
“No,” I said. “It ain’t. Never was.”
Virgil nodded and walked a little distance away and looked silently into the woods. Redmond came back to the lumber office.
“How come you didn’t bring them bodies down with you,” Redmond said to Cato.
“Why?” Cato said.
Virgil turned when he heard Redmond.
“Them horses taken care of?” he said.
“Unsaddled ’em myself,” Redmond said. “Fed ’em. Gave ’em water.”
Virgil nodded.
“My older boy’s currying them now,” Redmond said.
Virgil nodded.
“Cato left them bodies up there,” Virgil said, “so that by the time Lujack and his people found them, they’d be a mess.”
“That ain’t Christian,” Redmond said.
“That’s true,” Virgil said. “But a body left out for the sun and the buzzards and such to work on it ain’t a pretty thing to find. Lujack’s posse might find it discouraging when they do.”
“My God,” Redmond said. “You people actually think like that.”
Cato had gone into the office and gotten himself some coffee. He came out in time to hear Redmond’s question, and he smiled faintly to himself and sat on the step and blew on the surface of the coffee, which was still
