laughed, and Wylie's mouth tightened. Clyde stared at the boy and said, 'If you meant anything by that, you better watch your mouth.'
Wylie said, 'We can't stop buffalo from stampedin'.' Clyde grinned now.
'Maybe he's drunk . . . maybe he favors his pa.'
'Take it any way you want,' the boy said. He stood firmly with his fists clenched. 'You knew better than to give him whiskey. You took advantage of him.'
Wylie looked up at the rumbling sound of the wagon string coming in, the ponderous creaking of wooden frames, iron-rimmed tires grating, and the never-changing off-key leathery rattle of the traces, then the sound of reins flicking horse hide and the indistinguishable growls of the teamsters.
Wylie moved toward the wagons in the dimness and shouted to the first one, 'Ed . . . water down!' pointing toward the creek.
'You bedding here?' Leo Cleary asked after him.
'Just water.'
'Moving all night?'
'We're meeting a party on the Salt Fork . . . they ain't going to stay there forever.' Wylie Foss walked after the wagons leading away their horses. Clyde paid little attention to the wagons, only glancing in that direction as they swung toward the stream. Stoop shouldered, his hand curling the brim of his sweat-stained hat, his eyes roamed lazily over the drying hides. He rolled a cigarette, taking his time, failing to offer tobacco to the boy.
'I guess we got room for your hides,' he said finally.
'I'm not selling.'
'We'll load soon as we water . . . even take the fresh ones.'
'I said I'm not selling.'
'Maybe I'm not asking.'
'There's nothing making me sell if I don't want to!'
The slow smile formed on Clyde's mouth. 'You're a mean little fella, aren't you?'
Clyde Foss dropped the cigarette stub and turned a boot on it.
'There's a bottle in my saddle pouch.' He nodded to Leo Cleary, who was standing off from them. 'Help yourself, Leo.'
The old man hesitated.
'I said help yourself.'
Leo Cleary moved off toward the stream.
'Now, Mr. Gordon . . . how many hides you say were still dryin'?'
'None for you.'
'Forty . . . forty-five?'
'You heard what I said.' He was standing close to Clyde Foss, watching his face. He saw the jaw muscles tighten and sensed Clyde's shift of weight. He tried to turn, bringing up his shoulder, but it came with pain-stabbing suddenness. Clyde's fist smashed against his cheek, and he stumbled off balance.
'Forty?'
Clyde's left hand followed around with weight behind it, scraping his temple, staggering him.
'Forty-five?'
He waded after the boy then, clubbing at his face and body, knocking his guard aside to land his fists, until the boy was backed against his The Big Hunt wagon. Then Clyde stopped as the boy fell into the wheel spokes, gasping, and slumped to the ground.
Clyde stood over the boy and nudged him with his boot. 'Did I hear forty or forty-five?' he said dryly. And when the boy made no answer--
'Well, it don't matter.'
He heard the wagons coming up from the creek. Wylie was leading the horses. 'Boy went to sleep on us, Wylie.' He grinned. 'He said don't disturb him, just take the skins and leave the payment with Leo.' He laughed then. And later, when the wagons pulled out, he was laughing again.
Once he heard voices, a man swearing, a never-ending soft thudding against the ground, noises above him in the wagon. But these passed, and there was nothing.
He woke again, briefly, a piercing ringing in his ears, and his face throbbed violently though the pain seemed to be out from him and not within, as if his face were bloated and would soon burst. He tried to open his mouth, but a weight held his jaws tight. Then wagons moving . . . the sound of traces . . . laughter.
It was still dark when he opened his eyes. The noises had stopped. Something cool was on his face. He felt it with his hand--a damp cloth. He sat up, taking it from his face, working his jaw slowly.
The man was a blur at first . . . something reflecting in his hand.
Then it was Leo Cleary, and the something in his hand was a half-empty whiskey bottle.
'There wasn't anything I could do, Will.'
'How long they been gone?'
'Near an hour. They took all of them, even the ones staked out.' He said, 'Will, there wasn't anything I could do. . . .'
'I know,' the boy said.
'They paid for the hides with whiskey.' The boy looked at him, surprised. He had not expected them to pay anything. But now he saw how this would appeal to Clyde's sense of humor, using the same way the hide buyer had paid his dad four years before.
'That part of it, Leo?' The boy nodded to the whiskey bottle in the old man's hand.
'No, they put three five-gallon barrels in the wagon. Remember . . . Clyde give me this.'
The boy was silent. Finally he said, 'Don't touch those barrels, Leo.'
He sat up the remainder of the night, listening to his thoughts. He had been afraid when Clyde Foss was bullying him, and he was still afraid. But now the fear was mixed with anger, because his body ached and he could feel the loose teeth on one side of his mouth when he tightened his jaw, and taste the blood dry on his lips and most of all because Clyde Foss had taken a month's work, four hundred and eighty hides, and left three barrels of whiskey.
Sometimes the fear was stronger than the anger. The plain was silent and in its darkness there was nothing to hold to. He did not bother Leo Cleary. He talked to himself and listened to the throb in his temples and left Leo alone with the little whiskey he still had. He wanted to cry, but he could not because he had given up the privilege by becoming a man, even though he was still a boy. He was acutely aware of this, and when the urge to cry welled in him he would tighten his nerves and call himself names until the urge passed.
Sometimes the anger was stronger than the fear, and he would think of killing Clyde Foss. Toward morning both the fear and the anger lessened, and many of the things he had thought of during the night he did not now remember. He was sure of only one thing: He was going to get his hides back. A way to do it would come to him. He still had his Sharps.
He shook Leo Cleary awake and told him to hitch the wagon.
'Where we going?' The old man was still dazed, from sleep and whiskey.
'Hunting, Leo. Down on the Salt Fork.'
HUNTING WAS GOOD in the Nations. The herds would come down from Canada and the Dakotas and winter along the Cimarron and the Salt and even down to the Canadian. Here the herds were big, two and three hundred grazing together, and sometimes you could look over the flat plains and see thousands. A big outfit with a good hunter could average over eighty hides a day. But, because there were so many hunters, the herds kept on the move.
The Big Hunt In the evening they saw the first of the buffalo camps. Distant lights in the dimness, then lanterns and cook fires as they drew closer in a dusk turning to night, and the sounds of men drifted out to them on the silent plain.
The hunters and skinners were crouched around a poker game on a blanket, a lantern above them on a crate. They paid little heed to the old man and the boy, letting them prepare their supper on the lowburning cook fire and after, when the boy stood over them and asked questions, they answered him shortly. The game was for high stakes, and there was a pot building. No, they hadn't seen the Foss brothers, and if they had, they wouldn't trade
