'Nope, white folks singin',' Deets said.
That was even more puzzling. 'Maybe you hear Gus,' Call said. 'Surely he wouldn't be crazy enough to sing now.'
'I'm going a little closer,' Deets said, handing Newt his reins.
Newt felt awkward, once Deets left. He was afraid to speak, so he simply stood, holding the two horses.
It embarrassed Call that his own hearing had never been as good as it should be. He listened but could hear nothing at all. Then he noticed the boy, who looked tense as a wire.
'Do you hear it?' he asked.
At any other time the question would have struck Newt as simple. Either he heard something or he didn't. But under the press of action and responsibilities, the old certainties dissolved. He did think he heard something, but he couldn't say what. The sound was so distant and indistinct that he couldn't even be sure it was a sound. The harder he strained to hear, the more uncertain he felt about what he heard. He would never have suspected that a simple thing like sound could produce such confusion.
'I might hear it,' Newt said, feeling keenly that the remark was inadequate. 'It's a real thin sound,' he added. 'Haven't they got birds down here? It could be a bird.'
Call drew his rifle from his saddle scabbard. Newt started to get his, but Call stopped him.
'You won't need it, and you might just drop it,' he said. 'I dropped one of mine once, and had to go off and leave it.'
Deets was suddenly back with them, stepping quietly to the Captain's side.
'They're singing, all right,' he said.
'Who?'
'Some white folks,' Deets said. 'Two of 'em. Got 'em a mule and a donkey.'
'That don't make no sense at all,' Call said. 'What would two white men be doing in one of Pedro Flores' camps?'
'We can go look,' Deets said.
They followed Deets in single file over a low ridge, where they stopped. A flickering light was visible some hundred yards away. When they stopped, Deets's judgment was immediately borne out. The singing could be plainly heard. The song even sounded familiar.
'Why, it's 'Mary McCrae,' Newt said. 'Lippy plays it.'
Call hardly knew what to think. They slipped a little closer, to the corner of what had once been a large rail corral. It was obvious that the camp was no longer much used, because the corral was in poor repair, rails scattered everywhere. The hut that once belonged to the wranglers was roofless-smoke from the singers' fire drifted upward, whiter than the moonlight.
'This camp's been burnt out,' Call whispered.
He could hear the singing plainly, which only increased his puzzlement. The voices weren't Mexican, nor were they Texan. They sounded Irish-but why were Irishmen having a singing party in one of Pedro Flores' old cow camps? It was an odd situation to have stumbled onto. He had never heard of an Irish
'I guess we better catch 'em,' he said. 'We'll just walk in from three sides. If you see one of them make a break for it try to shoot his horse.'
'No horses,' Deets reminded him. 'Just a mule and a donkey.'
'Shoot it anyway,' Call said.
'What if I hit the man?' Newt said.
'That's his worry,' Call said. 'Not letting him ride away is your worry.'
They secured their horses to a little stunted tree and turned toward the hut. The singing had stopped but the voices could still be heard, raised in argument.
At that point the Captain and Deets walked off, leaving Newt alone with his nervousness and a vast weight of responsibility. It occurred to him that he was closest to their own horses. If the men were welltrained bandits, they might like nothing better than to steal three such horses. The singing might be a trick, a way of throwing the Captain off guard. Perhaps there were more than two men. The others could be hidden in the darkness.
No sooner had it occurred to him that there might be more bandits than he began to wish it hadn't occurred to him. The thought was downright scary. There were lots of low bushes, mostly chaparral, between him and the hut, and there could be a bandit with a Bowie knife behind any one of them. Pea had often explained to him how effective a good bowie knife was in the hands of someone who knew where to stick it-descriptions of stickings came back to his mind as he eased forward. Before he had gone ten steps he had become almost certain that his end was at hand. It was clear to him that he would be an easy victim for a bandit with the least experience. He had never shot anyone, and he couldn't see well at night. His own helplessness was so obvious to him that he quickly came to feel numb-not too numb to dread what might happen, but too dull-feeling to be able to think of a plan of resistance.
He even felt a flash of irritation with the Captain for being so careless as to leave him on the side of the house where their horses were. Captain Call's trust, which he had never really expected to earn, had immediately become excessive, leaving him with responsibilities he didn't feel capable of meeting.
But time was moving forward, and he himself was walking slowly toward the house, his pistol in one hand. The hut had seemed close when the Captain and Deets were standing with him, but once they left it had somehow gotten farther away, leaving him many dangerous shadows to negotiate. The one reassuring aspect was that the men in the shadows were talking loudly and probably wouldn't hear him coming unless he lost control completely and shot off his gun.
When he got within thirty yards of the house he stopped and squatted behind a bush. The hut had never been more than a lean-to with a few piles of adobe bricks stacked up around it; its walls were so broken and full of holes that it was easy to look in. Newt saw that both the men arguing were short and rather stout. Also, they were unarmed, or appeared to be. Both had on dirty shirts, and the older of the two men was almost bald. The other one looked young, perhaps no older than himself. They had a bottle, but it evidently didn't have much left in it, because the older one wouldn't pass it to the young one.
It was not hard to make out the drift of their conversation either. The subject of the debate was their next meal.
'I say we eat the mule,' the younger man said.
'Nothing of the sort,' the other said.
'Then give me a drink,' the younger said.
'Go away,' the older man said. 'You don't deserve my liquor and you won't eat my mule. I'm beholden to this mule, and so are you. Didn't it bring you all this way with no complaint?'
'To the desert to die, you mean?' the young one said. 'I'm to thank a mule for that?'
Newt could just make out a thin mule and a small donkey, tethered at the entrance of the hut, beyond the fire.
'If it comes to it we'll eat the donkey,' the bald man said. 'What can you do with a donkey anyway?'
'Train it to sit on its ass and eat sugar cubes,' the young one said. Then he giggled at his own wit.
Newt edged a little closer, his fear rapidly diminishing. Men who could engage in such conversation didn't seem very dangerous. Just as he was relaxing a hand suddenly gripped his shoulder and for a second he nearly fainted with fright, thinking the bowie knife would hit him next. Then he realized it was Deets. Motioning for him to follow, Deets walked right up to the hut. He did not appear to be worried in the least. When they were a few feet from the broken adobe wall, Newt saw Captain Call step into the circle of firelight from the other side.
'You men just hold steady,' he said, in a calm, almost friendly, voice.
It evidently didn't sound as friendly to the men around the fire.
'Murderers!' the young one yelled. He sprang to his feet and darted past the Captain so fast the Captain didn't even have time to trip him or hit him with his rifle barrel. For a fat man he moved fast, springing on the back of the mule before the other two could even move. Newt expected the Captain to shoot him or at least step over and knock him off the mule, but to his surprise the Captain just stood and watched, his rifle in the crook of his arm. The boy-for he was no older-pounded the mule desperately with his heels and the mule responded with a short leap and then went crashing down, throwing the boy over its head and almost back to the spot he had left. Looking more
