switch of yours down on your desk and snarled at me to shut up. I tried to explain that I was just telling this boy about Indian dancing-but you said if I knew all that much about dancing, then I'd better come up to the front and dance for everybody. Are you telling me you don't remember that?'
'I don't remember! I swear to God I don't.' There was a whimper in his voice, and the drool flowed freely.
'You don't remember, huh? Well, let me paint the picture for you. I was eight years old. Skinny little barefoot kid in short pants. You told me to dance for the class, but I told you I didn't want to. I was dying of shame, but you got me by the hair and you started hitting the backs of my legs with your willow switch, and I started dancing. Dancing and whooping. And the harder you hit, the higher I danced and the louder I whooped!' Hard tears filled Lieder's eyes, and his jaw muscles rippled. 'And you said: 'Well, well, it seems our little Indian can sing as well as dance.' And everyone laughed. And that willow switch of yours came down across my bare legs again and again and again! And I danced for you, Mr. Ballard! And I sang for you!'
Both the followers stood, their mouths open with rapt attention. They were entranced by the way their leader could flow words out like that!
'I assure you, young man, that I never meant to-'
'And your pet, that Polish girl with the yellow curls? The one that was always dressed up in pink and white? She laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks! And there we were, that girl and me, both of us with tears running down our cheeks!'
'I don't remember any of that. But if I did what you say, it was wrong. I admit that. But please don't — '
Lieder brought the cane down across the side of the teacher's head with such force that it tore the top of his ear. The old man's eyes rolled up as he slipped toward unconsciousness from shock, but Lieder grasped his hair and snatched his head up.
The big bullet-headed man stopped eating and looked on, grinning, as the honey dripped from his bread and made a little puddle on the table. The small barrel-chested man at the window stepped over to where he could see better.
'And from that day on, Mr. Ballard!' Lieder thrust his rage-contorted face to within inches of the old man's half-paralyzed one. 'From that day on it was war between you and me. You'd beat me every chance you got, and I used to raise hell in the back of the class, and hurt kids during recess. I even snuck over to your house one night and shit in your well. You been drinking my shit ever since! But our war wasn't a fair contest, Mr. Ballard, because you were a man and I was only a kid. And you had the stick. You always had the stick! Then one day you dragged me up to the front of the class and whipped me so hard that you broke your stick on my ass. Broke the goddamn stick! You wanted me to beg for mercy, but I wouldn't! I wouldn't, 'cause I was all through singing and dancing for you, Mr. Ballard! I clamped my jaw so tight to keep from crying that I broke this tooth. Look! You see? You see? All the kids laughed. They never did like me 'cause I was smarter'n they were and I used to make them play games my way. That little pink-and-white polack pet of yours, she laughed hardest of them all! And do you wonder if I was humiliated, Mr. Ballard? I was humiliated! Well, guess whose turn it is to be humiliated now, Mr. Ballard. Bobby- My-Boy? Grab this old turd and bend him over the table.'
The bullet-headed giant stuffed his bread into his mouth and dragged the old man to the table and bent him over the edge until his cheek lay in the puddle of honey.
'Snatch his pants down!' Lieder ordered. 'I'm going to whup his ass! Who knows? Maybe he'll sing and dance for us.'
Grinning, Bobby-My-Boy undid Mr. Ballard's belt and pulled down first his trousers then his flap-seated drawers, and Lieder began methodically to rain blows on the shrunken old buttocks. With each of the first half- dozen clouts, the old man's body convulsed as he whimpered into the honey, then suddenly his muscles sagged, and he lay still and silent, but Lieder's rage fed off his exertion, and the blows came ever swifter and harder until the buttocks were the color and texture of currant jelly. 'Don't die on me! Don't you dare die on me, you son of a bitch!' he cried through bared teeth. 'Don't you cheat me! I got revenge coming! I got years of revenge coming!'
The small barrel-chested man hissed from the window, 'Somebody's coming!'
Panting, sweat running from his hair, Lieder blinked his way back toward reality. 'Wh-? What are you saying?'
'Somebody's coming!'
Lieder went to the window and looked out through the lace curtain. There was a woman approaching from the far end of the long dirt lane, carrying a metal lunch pot.
'Looks like she's bringing the old man his dinner,' the short man said. 'We better slip out the back and push on into Colorado.'
'We ain't going to Colorado. We're heading north, up into the Medicine Bow country. There's gold and silver up there. Precious metals to finance my crusade.'
'But… but if we were going north, why'd we come south in the first place? Don't make no sense!'
'Don't you tell me what makes sense and what don't! I came here because I had business to attend to. Now that account is closed and my mind can rest easy. We're heading north. So you two better start looking around this place. Fast! Take anything you can carry: guns, clothes, money, food… anything.'
But the small one couldn't believe what he was hearing. 'We're heading back toward Laramie and the prison?'
'You heard me. The last place they'd look for us. We'll slip around Laramie and head for the high country. I got two rules. Always do what they don't expect. And always do it real sudden. They'll find out what happened here, and they'll think we slipped down into Colorado. So either they'll chase after us or they'll-Hey, I know her!'
'What?'
'That woman! I remember her blond curls and her pink-and-white dresses! Now look at her, will you? All grown up, plump and proper.'
'We better get going. She's almost here!'
'N-no. No, I think we'll just sit tight and let her come. Pass me that cane, Bobby-My-Boy.'
'You're going to whup her?' The neckless giant asked, his nostrils flaring in anticipation.
'I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do to her.' Lieder's eyes became soft and distant. 'But one thing's sure. She won't laugh at me this time… not even a little snicker.' Bobby-My-Boy smiled and sighed, contented.
FRIDAY MORNING, AFTER ATTENDING to his chores and exchanging with the hotel girls the half-joshing, half-flirting banter that had become ritual, Matthew had a couple of hours on his hands before dinner with the Kanes, so he drifted up to the only grassy spot in Twenty-Mile, the triangular, up-tilted little meadow crossed by a rivulet running off from the cold spring that provided the town's water. This meadow belonged to the livery stable, and half a dozen of its donkeys lazily nosed the grass while, at the far end, a scrawny cow stood in the shade of the only tree in Twenty-Mile, a stunted skeleton whose leafless, wind-raked branches stretched imploringly to leeward, like bony fingers clawing the clouds. The meadow couldn't be seen from any part of the town except the Livery, so Matthew felt comfortably secluded as he sauntered along, intending to investigate the burial ground that abutted the donkey meadow, but B. J. Stone called to him from the Livery, so he turned back and began the chore they had found for him to do: oiling tools.
While Matthew applied himself to a task he knew was invented to give him some wages, B. J. and Coots continued their ill-tempered game of whist, slapping down the limp, greasy cards with cries of victory for each trick taken or sullen growls at each trick lost.
'I saw you exchanging social niceties with our local sin-merchant yesterday morning, Matthew,' B. J. Stone said as he tentatively tugged a card from the tight fan of his hand… then tapped it back into place with his forefinger… then gnawed on his lower lip and hummed an uncertain note… then- 'Are you going to play or not!' Coots snapped.
'Hold your bladder,' B. J. advised. 'Problem is, I can't quite remember. Whether or not you've played the queen of clubs?'
'That's for me to know and you to find out.'
'Hm-m-m.' He looked over at Matthew. 'What was going on between you and Twenty-Mile's version of Billy Sunday-except that unlike the inexhaustible William Ashley Sunday, our Hibbard never played professional baseball, and God knows he isn't a fulminating proponent of prohibition- or maybe he is. No depths of hypocrisy would
