ready to believe that. They can spare the half a dozen to round up this ranch’s herd and bring it to New Mexico. They enjoy that trip. And the Comanchero told them he is not a man to pull out of a bargain once it’s been struck. That made them extra touchy about their own honor. Also ... Quanah didn’t argue either way, but they know he has an idea for taking the house that he would like to try, and they are curious what it may be.” He stood silent for part of a minute. “I did my best. I really did.”
“Of course,” Tarrant answered. “Thanks.”
“I want you to know I don’t like what will happen, either. Let’s ride off and not come back till morning, you and me— Rufus if he wants.”
Tarrant shook his head. “I’ve a notion I’d better stay around. Don’t worry. I’ve seen enough sacks in the past.”
“I suppose you have,” said Peregrino.
The meeting broke up. Tarrant gave Quanah his respects and walked among knots of warriors, whose looks on him ranged from sullen to gleeful, toward Herrera’s camp. It was several yards from the nearest tipi. The New Mexican found men to talk with and thus delayed himself.
His sons had a fire started. They were busy with preparations for supper, before the quick prairie dark should fall. Long sunbeams trailed through smoke. Bedrolls waited. Rufus sat idle, hunched, a bottle in his single fist.. He looked up when Tarrant approached and asked, needlessly once he had seen, “What happened?”
“No dice.” Tarrant lowered himself to the trampled grass and reached out. “I’ll take a swig of that whiskey. Not much, and you’d better watch it closer.” Its bite went beneficent down his gullet. “I’ve failed altogether. Peregrino won’t leave the Comanches, and they won’t take ransom.” Curtly he described the situation.
“That son of a bitch,” Rufus breathed.
“Who? Quanah? He may be enemy, but he’s honest.”
“No, Herrera. He could have—”
The trader glided into view. “Did I hear my name?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Rufus lurched to his feet, bottle in hand. He stayed with English, except for, “Vipera es. You snake. You greaser. You could’a—could’a—sold Hanno—sold the boss those guns an’—”
Herrera’s right hand moved toward his Colt. His sons edged left and right, not yet drawing their knives. “I could not change a bargain that had been made,” he said. Spanish was too soft a language to convey the full coldness. “Not unless they agreed, and they refused. That would have hurt my reputation, damaged my business.”
“Sure, you breed, you’re always ready for sellin’ white men, white women, sellin’ ‘em for—for money. Blood money.” Rufus spat at Herrera’s feet.
“We will not speak of blood,” said the trader most quietly. “/ know who my father was. And I saw him weep when the Yanquis robbed our country from us. Now I must step aside for them in the streets of Santa Fe. The priest tells me I should not hate them, but need I care what becomes of them?”
Rufus groaned. His hook slashed. Herrera slipped back in time. The pistol sprang forth. Tarrant jumped to his feet and caught Rufus by the arms before the redbeard could try to draw. Slowly, the boys sheathed their blades.
“Behave yourself,” Tarrant panted. “Sit down.”
“Not with these!” Rufus coughed in Latin. He shook free of the grasp on him. “And you, Hanno. Can’t you remember? Like that woman we saved, way back when hi Russia. And that was just a single man, and he wouldn’t have cut her belly open afterward, or given her to the females with their knives and torches—“ He stumbled off, away from everybody, still gripping the bottle.
Looks followed him for a little. Then Tarrant said to Herrera, “Let him be. Hell get his wits back. Thanks for your patience,” with less than total sincerity.
6
Twice during the afternoon, Tom Langford ventured outside. When he saw the encampment, he stepped quickly in again and rebarred the door. Toward evening he said, “I s’pect they’ll try a night attack. Why else would they hang around this long? Maybe again at dawn, but could be any time. We’ll just have to keep alert. If we stand ‘em off then, they ought to up and go. Injuns don’t know how to lay a siege.”
Bill Davis laughed softly and richly. “We ain’t wuth it,” he opined.
“Los vecinos vendrdn indudablemente a ayudarnos—‘Elp weell come,” Carlos Padilla ventured.
“I dunno how fast, if ever,” Langford sighed. “S’posin’ Bob got through, the neighbors are scattered pretty thin these days. Maybe a cavalry troop is somewhere close enough.”
“We are in the hands of God,” Susie declared. She smiled at her husband. “Yours too, dear, and strong hands they are.”
Ed Lee tossed and muttered on the Langfords’ bed. His injury had lit a fever in him. The children were more than ready for sleep.
First there was supper, cold beans, bread, the last milk. They had no firewood to speak of, and little water. Langford asked his wife to say grace. Nobody minded when Carlos crossed himself. Afterward the men one by one and bashfully went behind a sort of curtain Susie had rigged in a corner to hide the bucket all muSt share. Langford had emptied it whenever he stepped out. He hoped nobody more would have any real business there till the Indians were gone. That would be kind of nasty, in these close quarters with a woman and a girl. The privy was sod, it ought to be around yet. If not, well, they’d have the tall grass for walls, the freedom of these acres for which he had saved and toiled and now fought.
Dusk thickened to night. A single candle burned on the table amidst the guns. The Langfords and the hale men stood watches, two peering out loopholes taken in turn while two caught naps, on the floor or alongside poor Ed. Stars crowded what they glimpsed of sky. The ground was gray-black vague. A waning sliver of moon would be scant help when it rose shortly before the sun. Meanwhile the cold and the stillness gnawed away.
Once the wife whispered from her side of the room, “Tom?”
“Yeah?” He allowed himself a look at her. In this dim light he couldn’t see dirt, exhaustion, hollowed cheeks and black-rimmed eyes. She was the girl of his courting days, from whose front porch he’d walk home on the rainbow.
“Tom, if—if they do get in and you have the chance—“ She must take a breath. “Would you shoot me— first?”
“Christ, no!” he choked, and could taste the horror.
“Please. I’d bless you.”
“You might live, honey. They do sell prisoners to our people.”
She stared at the floor, then quickly, remembering her duty, out a loophole. “I wouldn’t want to live. Not after—”
“Do you s’pose I’d ever turn my back on you? Reckon you don’t know me as well as I thought.”
“No, but you— I’d be without you on earth. Why not together in Heaven, at once?”
He knew the redskins wouldn’t spare his life. Unless he was lucky, he wouldn’t be a man when he died. Not that knives and fire, or being staked out under the sun with his eyelids cut off, would leave him in shape to think much about that. “Well, you might still manage to get the kids through.”
Again her head drooped. “Yes. I’m sorry. I clean forgot. Yes, I was bein’ selfish.”
“Aw, don’t you fret, sweetheart,” he said as cheerfully as he was able. “Nothin’ bad’s goin’ to happen.’Next week our biggest worry will be how we can keep from braggjn’ too loud.”
“Thank you, darlin’.” She turned her attention outward.
The night wore on. They had divided it into four watches, then all to be afoot in advance of dawn, when attack was likeliest. About three in the morning by the grandfather clock, the Langfords finished their second trick, roused the hands, and stretched themselves out, he on the floor, she beside Ed. Should the hurt man stir from the heavy sleep into which he had dropped, she’d know it and see to whatever need was his. The other men would shoot better, the more well rested they were.
A shotgun blast kicked Langford awake.
