Jake could see then he was an Indian. The front of his
shirt was dark with wetness, a bloody flower blos-
soming. And each time the man moaned, the blood
oozed out a little more. A man shot thus, through the
gut, was sure to die a painful death. He felt sorry for
the man, but the wound was fatal.
The final bullet from Zack’s gun before he went
down had struck William Sunday almost dead center
and Sunday could feel the struggle going on inside
him. Getting shot so many times without getting
killed instantly was a whole lot worse than he could
have imagined. His guns empty, he tried the best he
could to reload one of them thinking he’d have to fin-
ish the job himself. But his hands didn’t want to co-
operate and the bullets fell to the floor in a clatter.
It was like all the wires in him had been cut and all
he could do was barely manage to sit upright.
Jake approached him slowly.
“Just my damn luck they couldn’t shoot worth a
shit . . .” Then the shootist coughed and spit a mouth-
ful of blood and Jake knew the bullet had gone
through his lungs.
Each breath carried a bubbling sound.
Jake sat down across from him.
“What’s your medical opinion?” the gunfighter
said.
“I think it won’t be long.”
“How come . . . you . . . got involved in . . . this?”
“I couldn’t do anything legal to them until they did
something,” Jake said. “When they shot the little
man, I had to step in—it was my job.”
“Bull . . . shit.”
“Yeah, maybe, but that’s the way it had to be.”
The gunfighter coughed again. Jake could see the
life going out of him.
“You want me to stretch you out on the floor?”
Sunday shook his head. His fingers reached inside
his coat and tugged at something, then gave up. Jake
did the job for him, took out an envelope.
“Give . . . her that . . .”
Jake said he would and that he’d help her take care
of everything and explain it to her, what had hap-
pened here. But before he could get it all said, he saw
the gunfighter had closed his eyes and wasn’t going to
open them again. He fell face forward onto the table.
“That’s okay, partner, you go ahead and sleep,”
he said. He took the envelope and put it in his
pocket, then stood and returned to the Indian whose
moans had shrunk to a few grunts. He knelt by the
man and looked at him carefully, drawing back his
eyelids to peer at his pupils, try and access how much
longer he had.
Big Belly saw the vague figure of a man looking
at him.
He said, “You come to get me . . . ? I only screwed
her once . . .” He thought it was Missing His Moc-
casins who had appeared above him ready to seek re-
venge for that time he and Cut Nose fought over the
old man’s wife.
Jake didn’t know what he was saying.
“I ain’t sorry I killed no damn Rangers—every one
of them I killed deserved killing. They killed my wife
and family. Shot them all to hell, and all I ever did
was kill a few of them, but not enough to make no
difference.”
The world was tumbling out of order for him and
he couldn’t keep his thoughts on one thing and he was
angry about it. He tried to sit up but couldn’t more
than lift his head before it dropped back again.
“You ought to save your breath, my friend,” Jake
said.
Well, at least they can say I died a successful fellow
before I got rubbed out, Big Belly thought, thinking of
the three horses. How many Comanche these days
could say they owned three good horses they stole off
white men the day they died?
Jake wondered why a dying man would suddenly
smile.
“All you white men can kiss my ass,” Big Belly
said with his final effort.
Jake watched as the Indian took a deep breath,
then another, then tried to take a third before he gave
up. Some died harder than others.
32
Toussaint said, “Were you serious earlier?”
“About what?” Karen said.
“That Swede boy?”
“Yes,” she said. “He needs a family and I need a
son. Don’t seem much point in both of us lacking
what we need when it’s the same thing and doesn’t
have to be that way.”
“Then, let’s go,” Toussaint said.
“No, I can’t leave here. You go and get him and
bring him back.”
He could see the fear coming back into her eyes.
“What are you afraid of?” he said.
“Nothing.”
“You’ll have to get off this place some time or
