“Bama.”
The fever had gone from his face and left it weak and flabby, like the face of a very old man. I felt that my face must look something like that. He opened his eyes and I got the canteen and dribbled water between his lips.
“How do you feel?”
He moved his shoulders just a little in the barest hint of a shrug.
“Your fever's gone,” I said. “You're going to be all right in a day or two.”
But I wasn't fooling anybody. The sickening smell of rotten flesh still hung heavily over the wash. Bama worked his mouth a few times, licking his cracked lips.
“Why don't you go?” he said. “You and the kid. You can still make it if you go now.”
“The kid's not here,” I said.
He fumbled that around in his mind.
“Where is he?”
“Headed for Texas,” I said. I was suddenly tired of thinking about it and talking about it. “What difference does it make? He's old enough to have a mind of his own.” I got up and paced the wash. “He can go clear to hell as far as I'm concerned.”
Bama didn't say anything. He just lay there with those wide staring eyes watching me as I marched up and down.
“Well, what are you looking at?”
But he only gave that whisper of a shrug again. “Did you tell him to go?”
“Sure, I told him to go. I was goddamn sick and tired of looking at his stupid face.”
Bama closed his eyes again, as if the conversation had worn him out. He lay there for a minute, half-smiling, or grimacing in pain. I couldn't tell which.
“Have you got a cigarette?”
I built a cigarette out of the last of my makings, put it in his mouth, and fired it.
“I guess I never knew you, Tall Cameron,” he said. “Several times I thought I did, but about that time you always did the unexpected.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Not a thing.” He dragged on the cigarette, burning it quickly to his lips, and then he spat it out. “You've got to get out of here,” he said. “Take the horses and silver and try to make it to the border. There's no sense in your staying here. Nothing is going to help me now.”
“Nothing's going to help you if you don't shut up. Now, try to get some sleep.”
He lay there for a while with his eyes closed and I thought that he had gone to sleep. Then he said, “I wonder if she ever married.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
But that was all he said. And pretty soon he went to sleep again.
I squatted down in the wash and listened to his breathing, coming strong for a while and then almost stopping completely. He was a crazy sort of galoot and I had never understood him any more than he had understood me. I had hated him and liked him in spells. There was no foolishness about him. He saw himself as he really was —not just rarely, like most people, but all the time. Except maybe when he was drunk.
I unholstered my off-hand gun—Marta had the other one—and wiped it clean with my shirttail. Then I punched out the cartridges and wiped them clean and put them back in the cylinder. I couldn't help wondering about the cavalry. They must be somewhere in the neighborhood by now. Marta must have told them the direction we had headed.
I climbed out of the wash and got my rifle and began cleaning it off the way I had the pistol. I went down and got the horses and picketed them there in the draw where they would be out of sight. Once again the thought crossed my mind that I ought to get out of there. But it just wasn't in me to let Bama die by himself. He had lived by himself. That seemed to be enough.
It was then, I guess, that I first heard it. Or I thought I did. Maybe I just felt it. I listened hard and there was nothing but the sound of wind. But that feeling was there.
I saddled the black horse, and holstered the rifle, then I rode as quietly as I could up to a hogback ridge just east of our wash. When I got near the crest I crawled the rest of the way to the top and looked over. Sure enough, there they were, the United States Cavalry.
There were eight of them about four or five hundred yards down the slope, and they had got together for a powwow, trying to decide which way to go, I guess. The lieutenant was pointing toward the ridge, and the sergeant was pointing to the south, and then they both dismounted and put their noses to the ground, looking for sign.
The wind must have blown most of the sign away, because they still looked pretty undecided when they climbed back on their horses. Then they did what I was afraid they were going to do. They spread out to scour the whole area. I got the lieutenant in the sights of my rifle once, but about that time the wind changed, and by the time I made the changes in sighting he had ridden around the side of a hill. Well, it was just as well. I would only have brought the other seven troopers down on me. The best thing to do was to go back to the wash, where I had a good line of defense, and make my stand there.
So that was what I did. I got that black horse in the draw and wrapped his forelegs and made him lie down. I picked out a place about a dozen yards from Bama.
And there I stood, waiting for them to find me and come after me...
