certain crossings, they've got to pay for the privilege. If they won't pay in cash, then they've got to pay in cattle.'
'Is it the law in Kansas, or what?' Jake asked.
'It ain't, but some folks think it ought to be,' Dan said.
'Us folks, mainly,' Roy said, spitting.
'I see,' Jake said. 'If Call and Gus try to take some cattle across one of them rivers you're regulating, then you stop 'em and tell them they have to pay? Is that how the scheme works?'
'That's it,' Dan said.
'I'd like to see you tell Woodrow Call he has to pay you money to drive cattle across a river,' Jake said. 'I ain't a friend of the man-he's recently treated me poorly. But unless there's a law and you can show it to him, you won't be collecting no double eagles.'
'Then he'll have to suffer the consequences,' Dan said.
Jake laughed. 'The consequences of that would be that somebody would have to dig your grave,' he said. 'If Call didn't shoot you, Gus would. They ain't used to taking orders from you regulators.'
'By God, then they'll learn,' Roy Suggs said.
'Maybe, but you won't teach them,' Jake said. 'You'd be sitting dead in your saddle if you tried it.' Though he was annoyed with Call and Gus, it amused him that three scraggly bandits thought they could beat them.
Dan Suggs was not pleased with the conversation, either. 'I thought you might be a man with some gumption,' he said. 'I see I was wrong.'
'I can supply enough gumption,' Jake said. 'But I don't ride with inexperienced men. If you think you can ride up to Call and McCrae and collect money from 'em with a few threats, then you're too inexperienced for me.'
Dan was silent for a bit. 'Well, they're just one bunch,' he said. 'There are plenty of other herds on the trail.'
'That's right,' Jake said. 'If I was you I'd try to regulate some of the ones that ain't been led by Texas Rangers.'
Roy and Ed looked at him hostilely. They didn't like hearing it suggested that they weren't up to the job. But Dan Suggs was a cooler man. After they'd played some cards and worked through a bottle of whiskey he admitted that the regulating scheme was something he'd just thought up.
'My notion was that most cowboys can't fight,' Dan said. 'Hell, they're just boys. Them settlers up there can't fight, neither. A lot of them might pay us to keep the beeves out of their corn patches.'
'They might, but it sounds like you're speculating,' Jake said. 'Before I leave this here easy life to go and get shot at I'd like a little better prospect to think about.'
'How about robbing banks, if the regulating don't work out?' Dan asked bluntly. 'You got any objections to robbing banks?'
'It would depend on the bank,' Jake said. 'I wouldn't enjoy it if there was too much law stacked up against me. I'd think you'd want to pick small towns.'
They talked for several hours, Roy Suggs resolutely spitting tobacco on the floor. Dan Suggs pointed out that all the money seemed to be in Kansas. If they went up there and weren't too particular about what they did they ought to be able to latch onto some of it.
Jake found the Suggs brothers unattractive. They all had cold, mean eyes, and no great affection even for one another. Roy and Ed almost got into a gunfight over a hand of cards. He offered to get them whores, for he had stayed friendly with several of the girls who had come over from Fort Worth, but the Suggs brothers weren't interested. Drinking and card playing appealed to them more.
Had it not been for the threat of July Johnson somewhere around, he would have let the Suggs brothers head for Kansas without him. He was comfortable where he was, and had no appetite for hard riding and gunfighting. But Dallas wasn't far from Fort Smith, and July Johnson might arrive any time. That was an uncomfortable thought, so uncomfortable that three days later Jake found himself riding north with the three Suggs boys and a tall black man they called Frog Lip. Jake equipped himself with a new rifle before they left. He had made the Suggs brothers no promises, and as soon as he found a nice saloon in Kansas, he meant to let them go their way.
Frog Lip owned five guns of various calibers, and spent most of his time cleaning them. He was a fine marksman. The first day out he brought down a deer at a distance Jake would have considered impossible. Frog Lip seemed to take the shot for granted. Jake had the strong feeling that the black man's guns would soon be pointed at something besides deer, but he himself didn't plan to be around to see it.
65.
JULY RODE FOR DAYS without seeing any person, or, for that matter, many signs of life except the hawks and buzzards circling in the blue prairie sky. Once he saw a wolf loping along a ridge, and at night he heard coyotes, but the only game he saw were jackrabbits, and it was mostly rabbit he ate.
He kept going north, reminding himself that it was a long way to any towns; but soon the unvarying emptiness of the country began to disturb him, and he was already disturbed enough by the deaths of the three people buried on the Canadian. He thought of them more or less all day. Waking in the gray dawn, he would have Roscoe's face in his mind; when he dreamed, it was of Roscoe and Joe and the young girl. Several times he cried at the thought of the finality of it. He had a longing to get them back in places they belonged: Fort Smith, in the case of Roscoe and Joe. He didn't know where the girl had belonged, though it wasn't in a grave on the Canadian.
What he was doing-indeed, his whole life-now seemed to him completely futile. He rode through the empty land without hope of anything, simply going on because he had to do something. As he went farther and farther onto the plains, he ceased to be able to imagine Fort Smith as a place where he might ever live and work again. What would he do if he did go back? Sit in the jail where he had worked with Roscoe? Or in the cabin where he had lived with Elmira?
July didn't see how things could get worse, since he had lost his wife and led three people to their deaths. But four days after he left Augustus, his horse went lame. Some small spiky cactus hidden by the tall prairie grass proved more deadly than a snake. A thorn worked its way far up into the horse's hoof. July had to tie the horse down to get the thorn out, and even then he was not sure he had got it all. They were three days north of the Cimarron when it happened. Water was scarce and the horse soon too lame to ride. He led the horse, taking it slow, hoping the hoof would get better, but it did no good. The horse was lamed and could put no weight on the hoof at all.
Finally, sadly feeling that he was parting with his last companion in life, July unsaddled the horse and shot him. He left his saddle but took his rifle and started walking east. The next day, from a ridge, he saw a great cloud of buzzards over the place where the horse lay. The sight made him cry.
He walked all day, hoping to cross a creek but finding none. He had a half canteen of water-not enough to get him back to the Cimarron. And he had nothing to eat. He made a dry camp and sat all night on his blanket, so wakeful he thought he would never sleep again. He sat for hours, watching the moon climb high amid the bright stars. He remembered the cold nights in their Arkansas cabin when he was a boy-how his mother piled quilts on top of him and his brothers, how peaceful it seemed under the quilts. Then it seemed like sleep was one of the most wonderful things in life.
July wondered if perhaps the sleep of death would be as good, as comforting and warming, as his boyhood slumber. He had a rifle and a pistol-one pull of the trigger would bring him all the sleep he wanted. In his five years as a lawman he had never shot anyone, though he had a reputation as a dangerous fighter. It would be a joke on everyone if the only person he ever killed was himself. He had always assumed that people who killed themselves were cowards. His own uncle had done it in a painful way, by drinking lye. His uncle had been deep in debt.
Now, as he sat and watched the moon, killing himself merely seemed sensible. His life had been ruined- surprisingly, inexplicably, swiftly, but ruined for sure. He had made wrong choices all along, and it had cost three lives. Killing himself would put him at one with Roscoe, Janey, Joe-and the horse. They had started traveling together; it would be fitting that they all ended in the same place.
He began to think about which gun to use. The barrel of the rifle gleamed in the moonlight; the pistol was heavy in its holster. He took out the pistol and slowly turned the cylinder, listening to the heavy clicks. But he didn't
