Big Belly stopped.
“You come across a woman last night?”
Big Belly looked at him, not understanding a word
the man was saying, but noticing as he did the badge
the man was wearing. Not too dissimilar to the
badges the Texas Rangers wore.
“You ain’t going to shoot a big old Indian are you,
mister?”
“What’s he saying?” Jake asked Toussaint.
“Goddamn if I know.”
“You know any sign language?”
“Some.”
“See if you can find out if he’s seen Martha.”
“I think if he’d come across her and she’s not with
him now, she’s probably dead somewhere, but I’ll give
it a try.”
Toussaint asked Big Belly questions in sign about
Martha, Had he come across a woman the night be-
fore?
Big Belly replied, No, I didn’t see no woman.
I think you’re lying, Toussaint said. Because her
tracks led right to that camp you made.
No, Big Belly said, slicing the air with the edge of
his hand. It’s a big insult where I come from to call a
man a liar.
I don’t give a shit about that. We’re looking for this
woman and if you seen her you better tell us or I’ll cut
your nuts off.
Big Belly was getting pretty indignant with this
son of a bitch calling him a liar and threatening to
cut his nuts off.
Well, if I seen her, he asked, where the hell do you
suppose she’s at now? Do you think I ate her?
Toussaint raised his shotgun and leveled the barrels
at the Indian.
Jake stepped his horse forward and said, “What
the hell you planning on doing here, anyway?”
“I’m going to kill this goddamn Indian for lying to
me about Martha.”
“No,” Jake said. “You don’t know he’s not telling
the truth.”
Big Belly sat stoically upon his stolen horse. At
least, he told himself, he’d die a rich man with three
nice horses and saddles if this son of a bitch was go-
ing to shoot him.
“Tell him if he tells us where the woman is we’ll let
him go in peace,” Jake said.
Toussaint lowered his shotgun, let it rest on the
pommel of his saddle again and said in sign, My boss
here says if you tell us where the woman is we’ll let you
go. Hell he knows you stole those horses. But he says
he don’t give a shit about the horses, he just wants to
find this woman. But I’m telling you, it’s your last
chance to tell where she is, or I’m going send you to the
great beyond.
You just want to steal my horses.
Toussaint shook his head no.
Shit, I hate goddamn horses. You see what it is I’m
riding? I don’t even much like riding a mule. So I ain’t
interested in those nags.
Okay, then, I guess if you’re going to kill me you’re
going to kill me either way. She showed up last night
and ate my prairie dog, then she ran off, Big Belly said.
I don’t know why she ran away. I thought we were hav-
ing a good time. I was planning on fornicating with
her, but she must have gotten scared or something.
Which way?
Big Belly pointed.
“He says she was in camp with him but she headed
off east.”
Jake looked in that direction.
“East?”
“You want me to shoot him?”
“No. It wouldn’t do any good to shoot him. If he
killed her we would have come across the body or a
grave. Let him go.”
“You know he stole those horses, don’t you?”
“Not our problem. Can’t prove he did, can’t prove
he didn’t.”
You’re a lucky son of a bitch, Toussaint gestured.
You better get out of here with those stolen horses be-
fore some white men meaner than this one comes
along and hangs you. You better go back to where
you came from.
Big Belly grunted, made sign: Comanche don’t run
from white men or from no goddamn half-baked In-
dians like you, neither.
Get!
*
*
*
Martha awakened feeling cold, realized she was with-
out a stitch under the blankets. She saw the man
standing at the open window looking out, his back to
her. She saw her dress hanging over the back of a
chair with a busted bottom.
She didn’t remember anything that might have
happened during the night and for that she was grate-
ful. Still she fretted she might have been unfaithful to
