won't be no fight.'
'But we saw Indians,' Joe said. 'I bet it's them.'
'It might be them,' Roscoe admitted. 'But maybe they just kept running.'
'I hope they didn't run this direction,' Joe said. He hated to admit how scared he was, but he was a good deal more scared than he could remember being before in his life. Usually when they camped he was so glad to be stopped he just unrolled his blanket and went to sleep, but though he unrolled his blanket as usual, he didn't go to sleep. It was the first time he had been separated from July on the whole trip, and he was surprised at how much scarier it felt. They had been forbidden to build a fire, so all they could do was sit in the dark. Of course it wasn't cold, but a fire would have made things more cheerful.
'I guess July will kill 'em,' he said several times.
'That Texas Ranger done killed six,' Roscoe said. 'Maybe he'll kill 'em and July can save his ammunition.'
Joe held his new rifle. Several times he cocked the hammer and then eased it back down. If the Indians came, he hoped they'd wait for daylight, so he'd have a better chance for a shot.
Janey sat off by herself. She had seen the Indians first and had run back to tell July. Roscoe hadn't believed her at first, but July had. He had got off several shots once the Indians started firing.
Roscoe felt bothered by the fact that there were no more trees. All his life he had lived amid trees and had given little thought to what a comfort they were. Trees had been so common that it was a shock to ride out on the plains and discover that there was a part of earth where there weren't any. Occasionally they might see a few along the rivers, but not many, and those were more bushes than trees. You couldn't lean against them, which was a thing he liked to do. He had got so he could even sleep pretty well leaning against a tree.
But now July had left him on a river where there wasn't even a bush. He would have to sleep flat out on the ground or else sit up all night. The sky was pale with moonlight, but it didn't provide enough light to see well by. Soon Roscoe began to get very nervous. Everywhere he looked he began to see things that could have been Indians. He decided to cock his pistol, in case some of the things were Indians.
When he cocked his pistol, Joe cocked his rifle. 'Did you see one?' he asked.
'It might have been one,' Roscoe said.
'Where?' Janey asked.
When Roscoe pointed, she immediately went running off toward it. Roscoe could hardly believe his eyes-but she had always been a wild girl.
'It was just a bush,' Janey said, when she came back.
'You better be glad of that,' he said. 'If it had been an Indian you'd have got scalped.'
'Reckon they've had the fight yet?' Joe asked. 'I'll be glad when they get back.'
'It might be morning before they get back,' Roscoe said. 'We better just rest. The minute July gets back he'll wanta go on looking for your mother.'
'I guess she's found Dee,' Joe said. 'She likes Dee.'
'Then how come she married July, dern it?' Roscoe asked. 'It was the start of all this, you know. We'd be back in Arkansas playing dominoes if she hadn't married July.'
Every time Roscoe tried to think back along the line of events that had led to his being in a place where there was no trees to lean against, he strayed off the line and soon got all tangled up in his thinking. It was probably better not to try and think back down the line of life.
'I can't get to sleep for nothin',' Joe said.
Roscoe was glad he hadn't had to go with the other men. He remembered how weak he had felt that afternoon when he realized it was bullets that were hitting in the grass around him. It had sounded like bees sounded in the leaves, but of course it was bullets.
While he was thinking about it he nodded for a few minutes-it seemed like a few minutes-asleep with his gun cocked. He had a little dream about the wild pigs, not too frightening. The pigs were not as wild as they had been in real life. They were just rooting around a cabin and not trying to harm him, yet he woke in a terrible fright and saw something incomprehensible. Janey was standing a few feet in front of him, with a big rock raised over her head. She was holding it with both hands-why would she do such a thing at that time of night? She wasn't making a sound; she just stood in front of him holding the rock. It was not until she flung it that he realized someone else was there. But someone was: someone big. In his surprise, Roscoe forgot he had a pistol. He quickly stood up. He didn't see where the rock went, but Janey suddenly dropped to her knees. She looked around at him. 'Shoot at him,' she said. Roscoe remembered the pistol, which was cocked, but before he could raise it, the big shadow that Janey had thrown the rock at slid close to him and shoved him-not a hard shove, but it made him drop the pistol. He knew he was awake and not dreaming, but he didn't have any more strength than he would have had in a dream in terms of moving quick. He saw the big shadow standing by him but he had felt no fear, and the shadow didn't shove him again. Roscoe felt warm and sleepy and sat back down. It was like he was in a warm bath. He hadn't had too many warm baths in his life, but he felt like he was in one and was ready for a long snooze. Janey was crawling, though- crawling right over his legs. 'Now what are you doing?' he said, before he saw that her eyes were fixed on the pistol he had dropped. She wanted the pistol, and for some reason crawled right over his legs to get to it. But before she got to it the shadow came back. 'Why, you're a fighter, ain't you?' the shadow man said. 'If I wasn't in such a hurry I'd show you a trick or two.' Then he raised his arms and struck down at her; Roscoe couldn't see if it was with an ax or what, but the sound was like an ax striking wood, and Janey stopped moving and lay across his legs. 'Joe?' Roscoe said; he had just remembered that he had made Joe stop cocking and uncocking his rifle so he could get to sleep.
'Was that his name?' the shadow man said. Roscoe knew it must be a man, for he had a heavy voice. But he couldn't see the man's face. He just seemed to be a big shadow, and anyway Roscoe couldn't get his mind fixed on it, or on where Joe was or when July would be back, or on anything much, he felt so warm and tired. The big shadow stood astraddle of him and reached down for his belt but Roscoe had let go all concern, he felt so tired. He felt everything would have to stop for a while; it was as if the darkness itself was pushing his eyelids down. Then the warm sleep took him.
July found them an hour later, already stiff in death. He had raced as fast as he could over the rough country, not wanting to take the time to follow the river itself but too unsure of his position to go very far from it. From time to time he stopped, listening for shots, but the dark plains were quiet and peaceful, though it was on them that he had just seen the most violent and terrible things he had ever witnessed in his life. The only sound he heard was the wind singing over the empty miles of grass; in the spring night the wind sang gently.
July had never felt so inadequate. He was not even sure he could find his way back to where they had left the others. He was a sheriff, paid to fight when necessary, but nothing in his experience had prepared him for the slaughter he had just witnessed. Captain McCrae had killed six men, whereas he had not even fired his gun when the old bandit was aiming at him. It had all seemed so rapid, all those deaths in a minute or two. Captain McCrae had not seemed disturbed, whereas he felt such confusion he could scarcely think. He had met rough men in Arkansas and backed several of them down and arrested them, but this was different: the dying buffalo hunter had had nothing but a patch of blood between his legs. Death and worse happened on the plains.
When he saw the canyon where he had left his party he stopped to listen but heard nothing. It made him fearful, for Joe's horse would always whinny at his. But this time there was no whinny and he saw no horses. He dismounted and walked slowly down the canyon. Maybe they had forgotten to hobble the horses and they had grazed away. Roscoe was forgetful in such matters.
'Roscoe?' he said, when he came in sight of the camp.
He could see the three forms on the ground as if asleep, but he knew they weren't asleep because Janey lay across Roscoe's legs.
The only sound in the camp was the sound of flies buzzing on blood.
July didn't want to see it. He knew he had to, but he didn't want to.
He felt a terrible need to turn things back, all the way back to the time when he and Roscoe and Joe and Elmira had all been in Arkansas. He knew it could never be. Something had happened which he would never be free of. He had even lost the chance to stay and die with his people, though Captain McCrae had offered him that chance. 'I'd feel better in my mind if you'd stay with your party,' he had said.
He had not stayed, but when he had gone, he hadn't fought, either. He had done nothing but ride twice over the same stretch of prairie, while death had come to both camps. He had no doubt that if he had stayed with Roscoe and the children, it would have come to him too. The man who had killed them must be a fighter on the
