leaned back against his saddle. The pastels at the western horizon made the prairie seem inviting, benign. He remembered what an old scratch miner leading a ribby mule told him years ago.
Will had to admit the ol’ boy had a point.
Austin came in not twenty minutes after he went out, swinging a fat jack by its ears in either hand. He dropped them in front of Will, smirking, proud. “I fetched ’em in,” he said. “You gut ’em. An’ watch you don’t nick that sack in there. I hear tell whatever’s in it can kill a man, or make him awful sick. It ain’t no bigger’n your thumb, so you gotta be careful.”
“I guess I never cleaned a rabbit before,” Will growled. “Thanks for learnin’ me how. I think maybe I’ll start me a goddamn rabbit ranch.”
Austin took his bottle from his saddlebag, took a long glug, and handed it to Will. “Yer damn near as testy as a sidewinder in a hot skillet,” Austin said, but he smiled as he said it.
“I always kinda thought of myself as a kindly man of God, spreadin’ cheer an’ happiness all over the world.”
Eating raw rabbit isn’t terribly unlike eating a cow’s udder—or any other uncooked flesh, for that matter. It’s somewhat stringy, but there’s a singular flavor to it, almost as if it were dusted with a light spice of some kind. And there was still a tad of warmth in the meat.
“Good rabbit,” Will commented.
“Got the first two I thrown at,” Austin said proudly. “Stove their heads in so’s they didn’t run. Thing is, I wisht we could make a fire. I cook near’s good as I throw.”
“Can’t risk it. One Dog’s men would smell the meat cookin’ even if they didn’t see the smoke. Then it wouldn’t take ’em long to find the fire—an’ us.”
“Sure.” Austin hesitated for a bit, as if rehearsing what he had to say. “You was sayin’ you’re gonna check out the camp tonight, an’ maybe send one a them sonsabitches off to wherever scum like them go. But we’re pards, least in this affair, an’ I figure we should go together. I ain’t a man to let my partner get . . .”
Will put his hand on Austin’s shoulder. “We’re pards OK, Austin. But all I’m doin’ is a little scoutin’ tonight— see what the lay of the land is. There’ll be plenty of fightin’—I guarantee that. There ain’t nobody I’d favor to be with than you when we come down to a battle. But I wanna go tonight. See, it’ll be our first strike an’ I want to be the one to do it. It’s important to me, Austin. I want—need—to be the one to show One Dog we’re after him, an’ that I’m gonna kill him.”
“Well,” Austin said.
“Well?”
“I see what you’re sayin’, Will. First blood always counts an’ I know you ain’t comin’ back here without makin’ it flow.” Austin took a quick suck from his bottle and offered it to Will.
“Nah, not now,” Will said. “When I come back I’ll have a sip. What I’m gonna do now is wait out a few hours an’ then go for a walk. And I gotta do like you did: shed my boots. Those boys would hear boots no matter how careful I was. You have yer drink. I’m gonna rest a bit.”
There wasn’t much moon—a selfish crescent—when Will took his boots off. It was better than no moon at all, but the darkness was thick.
Will thought Austin was passed out or asleep or both. He was wrong. Austin said quietly, “Kill at least one a them goat turds, pard.”
Will tested the edge of his boot knife with his thumb and smiled. “You can count on it.”
The prairie floor was no more kind to Will’s feet than it’d been to Austin’s. He stumbled once and went down, and would have loved to yell out a curse, but remained silent. A jagged rock cut his face under his left eye, and the impact of his shoulder with the ground shot lightning bolts all the way to his fingertips. He stood up slowly, wiped the blood from his face with a sleeve, and flexed his left arm and hand until everything seemed to work. He went on.
The moonlight cast shadows that made Will reach for his .45, which, of course, wasn’t there. The mile or so seemed like the longest stretch in the world, but Will kept walking, picking his steps as well as he could and making not a sound. The cut under his eye was weeping blood and he wiped it away impatiently with his sleeve.
He topped a gradual rise and dropped to his stomach, gazing down at the camp. There was a fire going, with the rump of a beef or horse on a spit, a man wearing a Union officer’s outfit turning the crank.
A half dozen or so of the men near the fire were passing a bottle; others walked about, hanging close to the cooking fire. There was but one tepee—the rest of the gang had bedrolls and army blankets spread protectively around the tepee. The scent of the cooking meat reached Will, and in spite of himself, his mouth began to water. Raw rabbit will fill a man up, but it doesn’t smell or taste like a real meal.
One Dog had a rope corral set up for the horses he was taking to Mexico—any decent horse brought a real good buck across the border—with or without legal papers. The cattle were calm, either grazing or nudging one another, shagging flies, calves stuck close to their mothers. Will saw one outrider, half asleep on his pinto, riding at a walk around the cattle, swinging over to the horses ever so often.
He knew that there must be at least a couple men standing guard around the camp; One Dog was too bright to assume he and his crew were safe. Will swept his eyes fairly rapidly all around the camp and then slowed his gaze. It took a while but he was finally able to pick out a man leaning back against a boulder, his rifle across his chest. Will couldn’t tell if he was an Indian or a deserter, but it made no difference. Whoever the guard was, he was involved in the killing of Will’s brother and his family. That bought the figure in the dark a death sentence.
The guard had positioned himself nicely to be killed. Although the slope to his right was steep and rocky, he had chosen the easy way—an almost gentle slope to the boulder he rested against.
Will drew his knife from his belt and grasped it between his teeth. He wanted both hands free as he crawled down the slope headfirst, moving his hands across the soil and rock in front of him, making sure there was nothing he’d loosen that would roll on down, alerting the guard.
Images of his brother floated before him as he moved cautiously. This wouldn’t, Will decided, be like killing a man. It’d be like crushing a scorpion under his boot.
Will’s hands touched the rock and the sandy surface pressed against his palms. He eased his legs and lower body into position and got his feet under him. Then, shifting the knife from his mouth to his right hand, he began a tortoise-paced movement around the boulder and to his prey.
Peeking around the boulder, Will could see the guard wore a Union uniform, although his hair was heavily greased and tied into a pair of braids that hung over his shoulders and almost to his belt. He smelled like rancid meat, old sweat, and whiskey.
Will crouched, knife ready in his hand, feet under him to spring him forward. He’d take the guard from the right side, grab his hair . . .
Will let his body settle, gave his heart time to stop pounding. He took the knife in his left hand and wiped the sweat from his right on his denim pants. When he grasped the knife again in his right hand again it felt as if it belonged there—as if he and the blade were partners—and he was ready. All it would take would be a quick step around the jagged edge of the rock . . .
The fight would go to the death—there was no doubt about that. And One Dog was known and feared for making his captives scream for death, plead for it, beg for it. As suddenly as a bolt of lightning from a clear, blue sky, Will saw himself and Hiram as deeply tanned children of the summer, barefoot, smoking corn-silk cigarettes out behind the barn.
Will stepped around the rock, snatched a greasy braid with his left hand, and sawed his blade across the man’s throat. Blood spouted in a quick gush a foot or so and then slowed. It was black in the night light, but the heavy, coppery scent was always the same, day or night. Will didn’t look at the man’s eyes. When the blood
