He approached them carefully, like he was just an-
other animal, an antelope or deer out there on the
grass with them. They didn’t even raise their heads
until he got pretty close, then the roan raised its head
and looked at him.
He said, “That’s okay, no problem,” and held out
his hand as though he had something in it, an apple,
maybe. The roan kept looking at him while the other
two continued to graze. He spoke to them in Co-
manche because the Creator gave the horse the ability
to understand his brother Comanche.
The roan snuffled and let him approach and in a
moment he was rubbing his hand along its neck and
stroking its mane, saying, “You look like a real good
horse,” and, “I bet whoever lost you is pretty sorry,
ain’t they, nice big old horse like you?”
The horse dropped its head and cropped grass
without answering.
“Well, I guess you belong to me now, eh? You and
your brothers here.”
He stepped into the saddle. The roan was nice and
tall, fifteen, sixteen hands, maybe. He liked the view
from up on its back a lot better than he liked the view
from walking. He gathered up the reins of the other
two horses and said, “I guess we better go before
somebody else comes along and wants to fight me for
you.”
He walked the roan off toward where the sun was
standing just above the land, leading the others by
their reins. It seemed as good a direction to go as any.
He hadn’t gone very far when he heard someone
shouting.
He looked back over his shoulder and three men
had risen out of the grass and were yelling something
at him and shaking their fists, and he saw one of them
draw his six-gun.
“I guess they must be the ones who used to own
you,” he said to the roan, knocking his heels against
its ribs. “We better get the hell out of here.”
The bullets came close enough he could hear them.
They sounded like angry bees buzzing around his
head. He stayed low over the roan’s neck hoping he
wouldn’t get shot in the ass or nowhere else as he
heeled the horse into a full-out gallop.
The Stone brothers had fallen into a nice lazy
drowse after having their pleasure with the women.
That sort of thing always made men sleepy afterward.
They weren’t in any hurry to be anywhere in particu-
lar since they weren’t sure exactly when or where
they’d catch up with the man they were after. And it
had been quite a long time since they’d had the plea-
sure of a woman. And the weather was decently
pleasant and the grass nice and thick and inviting. So
they’d lain down thinking to just catch a little siesta
under their hats till they got their energy back.
Trouble was they never counted on some big fat In-
dian coming along and stealing their goddamn
horses. And by the time they discovered their mistake,
that big fat Indian was too far out of range—though
they hoped they might get lucky and shoot him, any-
way. But when that failed, all they could do was
stomp and cuss and watch him ride off with their
horses toward the horizon, and that’s exactly what
they did.
The night came on early, rolled with thunder in it,
lightning dancing off behind the dark sky. The storm
had been brewing for hours and now swept along the
dark horizon. Martha thought she saw a light, per-
haps the town, she thought, and ran toward it. But it
wasn’t a light from the town at all, but rather a small
fire someone had built. She was cautious in her ap-
proach. But the sky threatened to burst open at any
moment and a few drops of rain fell as a prelude,
striking her as hard and cold as nickels.
“ ’S’cuse me,” she called.
The man sitting cross-legged at the fire looked up.
He had something cooking on a stick thrust into the
fire—some small game creature—prairie dog or rab-
bit. The fire’s light glittered in his dark eyes.
Big Belly was pleased to see a woman, even if she
was a white woman. He was relieved, too, that it
wasn’t the three owners of the horses who’d found
him. He spoke to her, told her to come to the fire,
made a motion with his hand.
Martha said, “Huh?”
She could see the man was an Indian of some sort,
dressed in greasy buckskins, his black hair parted
into long braids, what looked like a ragged old turkey
feather poking out. He had a broad face and a nose
shaped like a hawk’s beak. Next to him set a hat that
looked like horses had stomped, one or two holes in
its crown as well.
“I’m nearly froze,” she said, stepping to the fire
and stretching out her hands toward the flames. “That
a rabbit you’re cooking?”
Big Belly knew a little English—mostly cuss
words—but not enough to know what the woman
was saying to him. But the way she looked at his
prairie dog, he surmised she was talking about it,
