It was a worrisome thing, and as we rode through the blazing heat of the day, my churning mind uncovered only more and more problems but no solutions.
Above me, I saw buzzards wheel in the sky, grim messengers of death.
But whose death?
I didn’t know it then, but I would have that answer sooner than I expected.
Chapter 14
That night we made camp in a stand of cottonwoods by a wide creek with a couple of feet of milky alkaline water running along its pebbled bottom.
As far as the eye could see, the country around us was flat, dry and sandy with few trees. Here and there clumps of sage and mesquite competed for space with low-growing cactus and the scarred land had still not healed from the passage of the spring herds. This was featureless, unlovely country, indifferent to all human enterprise or desire, a wild place where a man’s dreams dried up under the relentless sun and blew away like dust in the wind.
Many had tried to live here and all had failed, leaving the plain to brood alone over its fading memories of the buffalo and the Comanche and a time gone that would never return.
Ned Tryon guided the wagon into the cottonwoods and I helped him unhitch the oxen. We lifted Hank from the back of the wagon and laid him on the ground and the wounded gunman cursed us for our clumsiness, his face stark white from pain and the fear of death.
Wingo, who did not seem to care much for honest labor, told me to gather some dry wood for a fire, since the Apaches, if any were in the vicinity, would be reluctant to attack at night over open ground where there was little cover.
I did as he said and then filled the coffeepot and placed it on the coals to boil.
Later I helped Lila prepare a meal of corn pone and sowbelly, and although she accepted my assistance, we worked in silence, things said and unsaid standing like a barbed wire fence between us.
All this time, I was aware of Ezra’s black eyes on me, following my every move. The gunman’s suspicions were aroused and I knew he wouldn’t let it go until he remembered where he’d seen me.
After we’d eaten and the day died around us, the sickle moon rose in a pale blue sky and a rising wind set the flames of the fire to dancing.
Wingo rose and stepped to his blanket roll, reached inside and found cigars and a bottle of whiskey. The man had an odd smile on his face, cruel and calculating, and I felt uneasy, wondering what was to come next.
I didn’t have long to wait.
Wingo squatted by the fire, the bottle held loosely in his hand. He turned and winked at Ezra, then said across the fire to the intently watching Ned, “Hey, Pops, you like whiskey?”
Ned Tryon ran his tongue over his dry lips, fascinated, his eyes on the bottle like a man watches a rattlesnake. He rubbed the back of his mouth with a trembling hand and finally said: “Sure I like whiskey.”
Wingo nodded. “Thought you did.”
The gunman had read all the signs and pegged Ned for a drunk, and now, his eyes glittering scarlet in the firelight, he asked: “You care for a swig or two?”
Unable to speak, all Ned could do was nod.
“My pa doesn’t want your whiskey,” Lila flared at Wingo. She rose and placed a protective arm around her father’s shoulders. “He’s unwell. Leave him alone.”
Wingo smiled, his face sadistic. “That right, Pops? You gonna take orders from your daughter and make me drink this here bottle all by my ownself?”
“Let him be, Wingo,” I said.
The gunman snapped his head around. “Puncher, you keep the hell out of this.”
“The man has a problem with whiskey,” I said. “You’ll do him no favor.”
“Seems to me, Ned,” Ezra said, his voice smooth, “that if a man wants a sup of whiskey, why, that’s his own business.”
Ned nodded, reckless eyes fixed on the bottle. “My own business, that’s right,” he mumbled. Ned turned his head to Lila. “Just one sup, daughter. It will steady me.”
“Of course it will,” Wingo said. “Make a new man of you. Ain’t that right, Ezra?”
“Sure enough,” Ezra agreed. “Nothing like a drink of good whiskey to steady a man down, make him see things in a better light.”
Wingo held up the bottle and shook it, the amber contents sloshing. “Come an’ get it, Pops.”
Despite Lila’s anguished cry of protest, Ned rose unsteadily to his feet. He rubbed his mouth again with an unsteady fist and stepped toward Wingo.
The gunman held up a warning hand. “Not so fast, Pops.” He smiled, his yellow wolf’s teeth shining like wet piano keys. “You don’t think you’re gonna get this fine Kentucky whiskey for free, do you?”
Ned stopped. “What do you want?”
“Want? Why, I don’t want much.”
“Name your price,” Ned said.
Wingo turned to Ezra. “Well, this man said it straight up, all honest and true blue as could be. He said, name your price. What should I charge him, Ezra?”
The dark gunman’s smile was thin, without humor. “Can you sing, Pops?”
Startled, Ned shook his head.
“He can’t sing, Lafe,” Ezra said, pretending deep disappointment.
“Well, maybe he can dance.” Wingo looked up at Ned. “Well, how about it, Pops? Can you dance? Maybe one of them Missouri jigs I’ve heard so much about.”
Dumbly, Ned Tryon nodded, looking impossibly old and wearied in the revealing firelight.
I’d seen enough. I sprang to my feet, rage simmering in me. “Wingo, give him the bottle or don’t, but leave the man his dignity.”
Wingo’s draw when it came was a blinding blur of motion and I suddenly found myself staring into the business end of a Colt that looked as big as a railroad tunnel.
“Boy”—Wingo smiled, his voice level and conversational—“you got two simple choices: Sit down or die right where you stand.”
Ezra was studying me closely. He hadn’t drawn his gun, but he was coiled and ready and I knew when it came his draw would be as fast as a striking snake.
Now wasn’t the time.
I gulped down my touchy, eighteen-year-old pride like a dry chicken bone and sat, humiliation burning in my cheeks. I caught Lila looking at me and saw something in her eyes, sympathy maybe, and something else . . . contempt? Disappointment? I could not tell.
Wingo holstered his Colt. “Excellent choice, boy.”
He turned his attention to Ned. “Now, Pops, where was I afore I was so rudely interrupted? Oh, yeah, now I recollect. Let’s see that Missouri sodbuster’s jig.”
“You’ll give me whiskey?” Ned asked, pleading words rustling quiet from his lips like falling leaves.
“Sure,” Wingo said. “Hell, that’s what whiskey is for, ain’t it? To be drunk.” Wingo laughed and began to clap his hands, and Ezra joined in with him. Over by the fire, even Hank, hurting and dying slow like he was, grinned.
Ned put his hands on his hips and began to dance. He kicked his feet in a dreadful parody of a country jig, the desperation in his eyes awful to see. Ned Tryon knew how complete was his humiliation, but the lure of whiskey drove him on and his jig became more and more frenzied, his booted feet pounding again and again into the dusty earth, stomping out a demented, detestable dance of the damned.
Wingo and Ezra grinned and clapped faster, quickening the pace, and Ned tried to keep up, sweat beading his forehead, drenching his shirt, his mouth hanging open and slack as he gasped for breath.
“Heee-haaa!” Wingo yelled, clapping even faster, his hands blurring.
Ned danced for five terrible minutes before he faltered to a halt and fell flat on his face. The man lay there for
