white folks would be less likely to shoot him on sight.
He gathered up his horses and headed for the town.
Another man had spent the night on the grasslands as
well: Fallon Monroe. His shot arm ached like a bad
tooth. He’d run a clean kerchief through the wound
and plugged the hole with a wad of chewing tobacco,
then tied it off with the same kerchief and spent the
rest of the night cussing his poor luck. Had things
gone his way, he’d right this minute be waking up in
the bed of his wife. He could practically feel the body
heat coming off her, the sweet familiar breath. But as
it was he spent a lot of his time in between the cussing
shivering. Seemed like that bullet knocked all the heat
out of him. He didn’t know how much blood a body
had in it, but he reasoned he’d lost a fair amount of
what he had in him. His shirtsleeve was coldly stiff
from the blood and he had no feeling in the fingers of
his left hand. But at least he didn’t think there were
any broken bones in his arm and that was a good
thing.
He eased himself to a standing position, turned his
body away from the wind and made water as he stood
staring at the town off in the distance. He had gotten
a fair look at the stranger with Clara last night. To my
advantage, he thought, shaking the dew off the lily
before tucking it back in his drawers. I doubt he seen
a bit of me while I seen just about all I needed to of
him. I’ll just go back in there, find him, and kill him,
and that will be the end of that.
He looked down at his lame arm. It felt like dogs
were chewing on it. But when he looked it was just
hanging; there weren’t any dogs chewing on it.
I could be crippled, he told himself, his anger for
the man who shot him growing hot in his head as he
began planning where exactly he was going to shoot
the man who shot him: in the spine first, then through
the neck. Make the sumbitch suffer a little before I
put out his lights altogether.
It made him feel some better thinking about how
he was going to make the man suffer.
Felt like those invisible dogs had their teeth sunk in
all the way to the bone and wouldn’t let go.
Shit fire.
“Well, now, what do you think of that high and mighty
son of a bitch just turning his back and walking away
like we wasn’t any more to him than dog shit?” Zack
said to his brothers when Jake left them standing there.
“I think he’s lying to us,” Zeb said. “I think he in-
tends on collecting that reward for himself.”
Zane remained quiet, squatting on his heel. His
head ached from drinking too much the night before
and the thought of his sins, like God was pressing his
thumbs into his eye sockets.
“What do we do now?” Zack asked.
“I’m thinking,” Zeb said.
“We could follow him,” Zane said, standing.
Both his brothers looked at him with surprise.
“See where he goes, see if he’s got that fellow lo-
cated somewhere. Might be he’s going there right
now to arrest him, or kill him and collect the reward
money.”
“Guddamn, would you listen to that,” Zeb said.
“Our little brother’s got his thinking cap on.”
All Zane wanted was to get it over with so he could
start confessing his sins, collect the reward money for
a stake to make a fresh start—get shut forever of his
brothers. The sooner the better, the way he figured it.
They stood there for a bit waiting, Zeb saying how
they’d have to play it cool and not let on they were
watching the lawman.
“We might have to fight him over Sunday,” Zack
said. “You see those double pistols he was wearing
when he flashed you his badge?”
“Two-gun man,” Zeb said. “You ever fought a
two-gun man?”
“I ain’t never fought one, have you?”
“I ain’t never fought one, neither, but it don’t make
monkey shit to me ’cause we got three guns to his
two.”
“We’d have had more guns if they hadn’t got stole
with our horses,” Zack said.
“Shut your pie hole about them damn stole
horses!” Zeb was easily irritated by what he consid-
ered foolish and unnecessary comments. “You wasn’t
so stupid, we wouldn’t be needing to discuss the
matter!”
They waited until the lawman turned a corner then
began to follow. They came around the same corner
in time to see him enter a big house then come out
again. They watched as he walked up the street and
entered a smaller house and come out again. He
hadn’t stayed long in either place.
“I think he’s trying to shuck us off his trail,” Zeb
said. “Thinks he’s smart by acting like he don’t know
we’re following him.”
Fact was, Jake hadn’t noticed the trio until he left
Clara’s.
He could think of only one thing to do and he did it.
