“That your real name?” Virgil said.
Pony shook his head and said something in Apache. “Means what?” Virgil said.
There was a brief expression on Pony’s face that might have been amusement.
“Pony Running,” I said.
“Okay if we stick with Pony?” Virgil said to Flores.
“Okay.”
“Father’s Mexican,” Pike said.
“Can he talk for himself?” Virgil said.
Pike smiled.
“Try him,” Pike said.
“Live with your mother’s people?” I said.
“Some.”
“Track as good as Pike says?”
“Yes.”
“Speak English okay?” I said.
“Speak it good,” Pony said.
“Just not often,” Virgil said.
Pony looked like he might have smiled for a moment, but he didn’t say anything.
“Speak Spanish?”
“Sí.”
“Any Comanche?”
“A little bit,” Pony said.
“Shoot?” Virgil said.
“I can shoot,” Pony said.
“Will you?”
“Sure.”
“Why do you want to track for us?” I said.
“Two women,” Pony said.
“You know them?”
“No.”
“But you want to help us save them,” I said.
“Yes.”
Virgil and I looked at each other.
“He’s good,” Pike said. “Been with me a long time.”
“Good how?” Virgil said.
“Colt, Winchester, knife,” Pike said. “Best tracker I ever saw.”
“Keep his word?” Virgil said.
“I do,” Pony said.
Virgil looked at me.
“Everett?” he said.
“He can probably track better than I can,” I said. “What I learned I learned from Apache scouts.”
Virgil nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “I can pay you half a dollar a day. You supply your own horse and saddle, your own weapons and ammunition.”
“Yes,” Pony said.
29
WE SAID GOOD-BYE TO ALLIE on the front porch of the house we were renting. It was just after sunrise, and she was barefoot and in her nightgown. She and Virgil put their arms around each other. But they didn’t kiss, and when he stepped back and swung up onto his horse, she smiled at me and patted my cheek.
“Take care of each other,” she said.
I got up on my horse.
“Have somebody milk that cow every day,” Virgil said.
“I will,” she said.
None of us moved. Virgil looked down from the saddle at Allie.
“I’ll come back,” he said.
Then he wheeled the horse and I followed with the pack mule on a lead, and we rode up Third Street toward Arrow. Pony was mounted and waiting outside Pike’s Palace, and he swung in beside us as we rode south out of town. We stopped at the Ostermueller farm shack. Pony got down and spent maybe ten minutes looking at the ground, then mounted his horse and led us out toward the river where the tracks led.
Once we were into the open, I took the mule off the lead. He’d follow the horses, and if he didn’t, one of us could haze him back.
“You see more than one Indian?” I said.
“No,” Pony said.
“And two shod,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Tell if anyone’s riding the shod horses?”
“Need to see tracks when no one rides them, and tracks when someone does,” Pony said.
We rode south along the river most of the day. Pony rode quietly, looking at the tracks. Occasionally he would lean out of the saddle and study them, then he would resume.
“Don’t seem worried ’bout covering his tracks,” Virgil said.
“No,” Pony said. “But he don’t know I the one following.”
Virgil grinned.
“Figures we can’t track?” he said.
“Yes,” Pony said.
We came to a ford at the end of the day, and the tracks led into it. The sun was down, and it was hard to see the bank on the other side of the river.
“Might want to camp this side,” Virgil said. “Kinda hate to get caught in the middle of the river in the near dark by a man with a rifle.”
“We can cross in the morning,” Pony said.
We made a fire and cooked some bacon and beans. I took a jug from the pack, and we passed it around while the supper cooked.
“How long you work for Pike?” I said to Pony.
“Since wild times,” Pony said.
“Outlaw times,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Always the way he is now?”
“Sure,” Pony said.
“Big, friendly bear,” Virgil said. “Everybody’s friend.”
“Sure.”
“ ’Cept when he ain’t,” Virgil said.
Pony frowned for a moment, translating Virgil’s remark into whatever language he thought in.
“You mean when he kill people,” Pony said.
“Uh-huh.”
“He like to kill people,” Pony said.
“I know,” Virgil said.
