bones. Toussaint figured the skull must have got car-
ried off by some lobo, or possibly coyotes. The gun
lay a few feet away from the outstretched bony digits
of the man’s right hand. Toussaint had given some
thought about taking the finger bones and selling
them as trigger fingers of famed gunfighters—Billy
the Kid and Dick Turpin and such, like he had the
rabbit bones—but it wasn’t right to desecrate the
dead, and so he left perfectly good finger bones where
they lay and took up the rusty rifle instead and an old
butcher knife whose blade was equally rusty.
He spent hours cleaning and oiling the gun back to
workable condition, then gave it to Karen for her
protection.
“I’d just as soon keep my squirrel gun,” she said
when he told her his reason for giving her the Sharps.
“Why that squirrel gun wouldn’t shoot the hat off
a man’s head,” Toussaint had argued.
“Would you like for me to shoot you with it and
see what it can do?”
“Don’t argue with me, Karen.”
Still she did, like everything else. But he took her
out away from the house and set up targets—bottles
and tin cans—and showed her how to put a shell in
the chamber.
“It’s heavy as a log,” she said.
“Lean into it.”
She did and when she pulled the trigger it nearly
knocked her down. The sound of it rolled out over the
grasslands like small thunder. The sound pleased Tous-
saint, but not Karen.
“Thing is,” Toussaint said, blowing smoke out of
the chamber, “you don’t have to hit a man in a vital
spot to stop him with this; it will kick the slats out
from under anything you hit. Whereas that squirrel
gun you might have to shoot a man four or five times
to stop him. By then, it might just be too late.”
“Who is it I’m supposed to be stopping, anyway?”
she said quite soured on the idea of shooting the Big
Fifty again.
“Anyone who might set himself upon you, that’s
who.”
“It’s not like these prairies are teeming with hu-
manity,” she said. “Not like strangers pass by here
every day. I’ve not seen a stranger pass this way since
Coronado came through here searching for the lost
cities of gold.”
Toussaint looked at her with growing agitation.
“Coronado,” he said huffily. “What would you
know about Coronado?”
“As much as you, I reckon.”
“Well, for one thing, Coronado never got this far
north. And even if it is Coronado who comes through
here and decides he’s tired of looking for lost cities of
gold and gets it in his head he’d rather have the plea-
sure of a woman instead, you shoot him with this
damn gun, okay?”
“Lord,” she said. “Ain’t there nothing you’re not
an expert on?” Every day of their lives was like this.
They couldn’t agree on the color of the grass.
Well, she’d never had to use it yet to defend herself.
And now she was sorry it was the needlegun there in
the corner and not the Big Fifty as she heard the
voices outside, the sound of breaking glass.
She checked to see if there were shells in the
needlegun, and there were.
First one gets the slats knocked out from under
him Big Fifty or no Big Fifty, she told herself.
23
They were saddled by first light and cutting sign.
“Rain’s washed out her tracks,” Toussaint said.
“Let’s just keep riding the same direction,” Jake
said. “It’s all we can do.”
The air had an icy chill to it, the sky gray and
cheerless. The prairies looked long and lonesome un -
der the disheartened clouds.
They rode another hour before coming on fresh
tracks and a cold camp.
“Somebody was here last night,” Toussaint said,
fingering the carcass bones of the prairie dog.
“Whoever it was had more than one horse,” Jake
said.
“Three, it looks like.”
“You see any footprints look like a woman’s in
this?”
Toussaint looked closely.
“Yeah, she was here,” he said pointing at the
ground.”
“Let’s ride.”
They rode hard and shortly saw the rider ahead of
them, leading a pair of saddle horses.
Big Belly didn’t hear the riders coming up on him
until it was too late. He could let loose of the two
horses he was leading and maybe escape on the one he
was riding, but he sure hated to give up free horses.
And by the time he made up his mind they were al-
ready alongside him.
“Hold up,” Jake said, raising a hand.
