if he had some money or something good to trade.
He’d once traded a chopped-off foot in a glass jar for a
bottle of pulque and a two-hundred-pound whore had
a mole on her face looked like a squashed bug. But any
place north of that river wasn’t one shitting place a In-
dian could just walk in and get himself a drink like a
white man could. He licked his lips thinking about it.
The horses cropped grass while Big Belly thought
of a way to get into that town without drawing overly
much attention to himself. It was a mean trick, but
he’d done a lot harder before. When he listened real
hard he could hear laughter drifting on the air.
Jake had turned back up the street when the shot
banged and something snatched his hat off his head.
Instinct caused him to whirl around in a semi-crouch
bringing out one of the Schofields, thumbing back the
hammer as he did. There was only the darkness. Clara
opened the door and called out, “What happened?”
“Get back inside!”
She did as he ordered as he darted for the shadows
himself.
He waited. Nothing. It was impossible to say
where the shot came from exactly.
Then he thought he saw movement and fired. A
man’s voice cursed.
*
*
*
The bullet caught Fallon in the left forearm, tore out a
chunk of meat he could stick his thumb in. He felt the
blood, warm like bathwater, dripping off his fingers
as he darted back in between the row of houses.
Lights were being lit inside those houses, voices
shouting. He kept going, came to an alley and ran
down it, guessed he was now in the rear of some of
the main businesses, turned up another alley and
came out on a wide street, crossed it and back down
between some more places of business.
He paused long enough to listen, to see if he heard
footsteps. He didn’t. Gathered his wits and figured
out where he’d left his horse and made for it.
Jake waited as long as he thought he should then
slipped inside Clara’s and asked for a lamp and went
back out again and found the blood spots on the
ground where he thought the man had been. The
blood trail led in between houses. Easy place to get
ambushed. Whoever it was, was obviously gone. He
turned and went back to Clara’s.
“What happened?” she asked. He could see the
fear in her eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But somebody just murdered my
damn hat.”
“God!”
“I think I hit him. I found blood. I figure he’s on
the run.”
They were both thinking the same thing: someone
had come for William Sunday.
“They probably mistook you for him,” she said.
“It doesn’t make sense that they would. They’d
have to put the two of us together. And for that to
happen, it would have to have been someone who
knew you were his daughter.”
“Or they may have trailed him here, seen him
come here the other night.”
“I’ll stay here with you tonight,” he said. “Just in
case.”
“You don’t have to do that, Mr. Horn.”
“Yeah, I do, Clara.”
The single pistol shot traveled out over the flat land
and reached Big Belly’s ears.
Somebody’s dead. I hope it’s a damn white man. I
got three good horses but no whiskey. Son of a bitch.
28
Karen awoke and found Toussaint still sleeping in
the chair next to her bed. He looked old, tired, and
she felt sad for him. It had been hard between the two
of them for so many years she hadn’t thought she’d
ever be able to feel sad or anything else for him. She’d
been angry so long she didn’t know how to be happy
anymore. But the assault had done something to her,
had broken something in her; her will, her spirit, in a
way nothing else ever had, not even the death of her
only child, Dex.
“Hey,” she said softly.
He opened his eyes, looked at her.
“What is it?” he said.
“I’m hungry.”
She saw the tension ease out of his face.
He didn’t say anything, simply got up and went
out into the kitchen and started fixing breakfast. She
could hear him out there, knew which pan he was us-
ing, the sound of the cured ham frying in it, him
opening the door to go out and pump water for cof-
fee, lighting a fire in the cookstove. It was like it had
once been when on certain days he would go and pre-
pare them breakfast without being asked to and it al-
ways charmed her when he did.
