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  Fifty yards higher, Charlie pointed and blurted, “Look there!”

  Several elk were off in the shadows under tall firs. Willis peered hard but could not tell if any were bulls. Probably not. It would be another month yet before rut set in and the bulls set the slopes to ringing with their trumpeting cries and clash of antlers as they fought for their harems.

  “Say, did I tell you about the gunfight?” Charlie asked out of nowhere.

  Willis looked at him. “There are days when I want to beat you with a branch,” he said in mild disgust.

  “Sorry. It plumb slipped my mind. I missed it myself, but I heard all about it the last time I was in Cottonwood.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Sure. Johnny Vance. He tangled with three drifters who accused him of cheatin’ and now one of them is six feet under and the other two are on the mend.”

  Willis knew Johnny Vance well. He had played cards many a time at the gambler’s table in the Lucky Dollar, and on several occasions Vance had bought him a drink after cleaning him out. As gambler’s went, the Reb was damned decent. Vance was also as deadly as a rattler when riled. “That’s it? Hell, if you were a newspaper, no one would read you.”

  “Oh. It’s details you want?” Charlie said with a smirk. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  Willis made a show of gazing all around. “Where’s a handy tree limb when you need one?”

  “All right.” Charlie grinned. “It was two Fridays ago. Three drifters came into Cottonwood from the East. Scruffy bunch. One wore a Union cap and another wore a Union coat.”

  “Uh-oh,” Willis said. Johnny Vance was from the Deep South. Vance had served on the Confederate side during the war and was known to be touchy about the subject of Rebels and slaves and such.

  “Exactly,” Charlie said. “Anyway, they tied up outside the Lucky Dollar and went in and paid for a bottle and hunkered at a table for a while, drinkin’. Then one of ’em got the bright idea to go over and sit in on Johnny’s card game.”

  Willis was watching for tracks. He had not seen any in a while and was beginning to worry they had lost the trail.

  “Slim the bartender saw the whole thing,” Charlie related. “Those three boys went on drinkin’ and playin’ and losin’ their money, and along about midnight they were plumb broke and didn’t take it well.”

  “A man who can’t afford to lose shouldn’t gamble.”

  “I hear that,” Charlie said, “but these three peckerwoods didn’t have the sense of a lump of coal between ’em. They started makin’ remarks. They could tell by Johnny’s accent that he was a Southerner, so one of them said as how the South got what it deserved for darin’ to fight the North and another one said as how all Southerners were lower than pond scum and the third one said as how the only thing worse than a Southerner was a gambler and the only thing worse than that was a Southern gambler.”

  “Hell in a basket,” Willis said.

  “Slim says Johnny Vance took it pretty well until that last comment. Then he stood up and pulled his frock coat back from that fancy pearl-handled Remington of his and told those three gents they were Yankee trash with no more manners than a billy goat, and their mothers were whores, besides.”

  “How did that go over?”

  “About as you’d expect. The three Yankees took to cussin’ and blusterin’ and then one of them went for his hardware and the other two took that as a sign they should be as dumb as he was.”

  “Damn. Wish I’d been there,” Willis said. He had only ever witnessed one shooting in his whole life, and he witnessed that only because he was involved in it.

  “You and me both, pard. Slim says it was a wonder to behold. Johnny Vance drew and put a slug into the chest of the first Yankee before the jackass cleared leather. Shot him smack through the heart, it turns out. The second one took a slug in the shoulder. The third one was hit in the neck and blood was sprayin’ everywhere and he dropped his revolver and screamed like a little girl. Slim’s own words.”

  “Only the one died?”

  “The one who was shot in the neck lost a lot of blood but the wound wasn’t that deep. Babies come in all sizes, I reckon.”

  Willis drew rein. He had spotted another partial print but this one was to his left and not ahead or to his right as the others had been. He reined over and announced, “The cat has changed direction.”

  “Goin’ south now,” Charlie observed.

  The ground was harder. Willis had to go slowly or risk losing the sign. After a while he asked, “Vance get into any trouble with the law?”

  “Are you kiddin’? Marshal Keever says the three idiots had it comin’. The two who lived were lucky he didn’t throw them in jail and throw away the key.”

  “How is Johnny doin’?”

  “How do you mean? It ain’t like that’s the first time he’s pulled on a man. Slim says after he shot ’em, he sat back down as calmly as you please and shuffled the cards and asked if anyone else wanted to sit in the game.”

  Willis chuckled. “That sounds like him.” He sobered. “But killin’ always leaves its mark on a man.”

  “How would you know?” Charlie teased. “You’ve never shot anyone your whole life.”

  Willis did not reply.

  “You would think most folks had put the war behind them,” Charlie rambled on. “It’s been, what, pretty near fifteen years? I guess some hatreds run so deep there’s no ever gettin’ over them.”

  “I reckon.” Willis finally asked about the thing that was uppermost on his mind. “The Flour Sack Kid. How do folks know he’s headin’ our way?”

  “He robbed a drummer near Fort Collins and a sawbones up toward Cheyenne,” Charlie revealed. “Popped out of the dark with that flour sack on his head and hollered for them to fork over their valuables or go straight to hell.”

  “He robbed a doctor?” In Willis’ estimation, that was almost as vile as robbing a schoolmarm.

  “The sawbones was in his buggy, returnin’ from a call. He didn’t have any money on him so the Flour Sack Kid took his watch and a ring and a couple of cigars.” Charlie chortled. “What sort of outlaw steals cigars? If the Flour Sack Kid ain’t careful, he’ll become a laughingstock.”

  “He hasn’t amounted to much as an outlaw,” Willis agreed. “Him and his shortcuts to the top.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Nothin’,” Willis said, and abruptly drew rein. The mountain lion had changed direction again.

  “Now that contrary cat is headin’ east,” Charlie noted. “Maybe it’s lost.”

  The idea of a mountain lion not knowing where it was going was so silly, Willis laughed.

  “You don’t think animals can get lost?” Charlie asked. “Critters do it all the time. Horses, dogs, cats, turtles.”

  “Turtles?”

  “My brother had one when we were small. He’d set it out in the yard on sunny days for it to warm itself. One day he set it out, and the next we looked, it was gone. It strayed off and never found its way back.”

  Willis looked at him. “Remind me again why I put up with you?”

  “Because I’m about the only cuss who can put up with you,” Charlie rejoined. “It might come as a shock, but you don’t have the sunniest disposition around.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “See?” Charlie grinned at his triumph. He glanced at another partial print in the dust and then down the mountain, and stiffened. “I just had me a thought, pard.”

  “There’s a first.”

  “I’m serious,” Charlie said. “Is it me, or is this cat of yours headin’ back the way we came?”

  Willis blinked, and recoiled as if he had been slapped. “Son of a bitch.” He resorted to his right spur and descended as fast as he dared, which was not fast at all because the slope was too sleep.

  “Don’t get all agitated,” Charlie hollered. “It could be I’m wrong. Since when do they hunt in broad daylight?”

  Not often, Willis thought, but it di
d happen. He recalled a sheepherder who lost twenty or thirty sheep to a cat that got into the pen in the middle of the day and went on a slaughtering spree. “Oh God,” he said softly. He was responsible for the other two horses. If anything should happen to them—

  “Didn’t you hear me? I could be wrong. Or is it you want to break your fool neck?”

  “You could be right, too,” Willis yelled. Lord help him, but he had a feeling deep in his gut that the cougar had drawn them off and was circling back for a purpose.

  Willis buckled down to riding. Once, he had been as good a rider as Charlie. But now whole days and weeks went by and he refused to step into the stirrups and be reminded of the man he had once been.

  The thud of hooves, the clatter of dirt and stones, the breathing of the zebra dun and the feel and the creak of saddle leather conspired to make Willis feel the loss that much more. God, how he had loved to ride! His father had thrown him on a pony when he was six and he had been on a horse every day thereafter. Truth was, he had lived on horseback. Twelve, fourteen hours a day in the saddle had been nothing to him. What did he care if he was saddle sore so long as he could ride.

  Willis gave an angry toss of his head. He had not thought about how much he loved riding in a long time. It always made him sad and mad. Sometimes more of the one and sometimes more of the other, depending on whether he was feeling sorry for himself or mad at the world and everyone and everything in it.

  The line shack came into view. It was still a long way off and partly hidden by the trees. So was the corral. Willis started to rise in the stirrups and caught himself in time. His left knee had a habit of giving out when he did that, brace or no brace. He reined to the right in the hope the corral would be visible but there was too much vegetation in the way. His gut was balled into a knot and his mouth had gone as dry as a desert.

  “Over yonder, pard!” Charlie bawled.

  Willis glanced at his friend and then in the direction Charlie was pointing. There was the cat. The mountain lion was streaking to the south in long bounds that would put an antelope to shame. The cat had seen them and was running away from the corral, not toward it.

  The tightness in Willis’ belly lessened. They were in time! Shifting, he snatched his Winchester from the saddle scabbard and levered a round into the chamber. He wedged the stock to his shoulder to fire one-handed but the cat was too far off. They came to level ground and he spurred the zebra dun into a gallop, holding himself and his right arm as steady as he could.

  The mountain lion looked back and ran faster. A tawny streak, it flowed across the ground like feline quicksilver.

  “Shoot, damn it!” Charlie urged.

  Willis had always been the better shot. He was not much good with a pistol but with a rifle he was more than passable. When he was younger, much younger, he had won the Thanksgiving turkey shoot two years in a row. But it was one feat to hit clay targets and another to hit a running animal, especially one as swift as a cougar. He fixed the best bead he could, led the cat by a yard or so, and squeezed the trigger.

  A dirt geyser erupted next to the mountain lion’s forepaw. Willis had missed but not by much. Levering in another round, he centered the sights but the Winchester would not steady no matter how hard he tried to hold it level. He banged off a shot anyway. Predictably, he missed.

  “Don’t let it get away!”

  Willis would like to see Charlie try. Again he worked the lever one-handed. Again he jammed the stock to his shoulder. Again he tried to sight down the barrel. He might as well have done it from the back of a bucking bronc. His frustration mounting, he slowed so he could use his left arm as well as his right.

  “There!” Charlie cried.

  The mountain lion was almost to the pines. Another thirty seconds and it would be lost amid the boles.

  Willis slowed even more, took a deep breath and held it, and stroked the Winchester’s trigger. At the same instant as the sharp crack, the mountain lion veered to the right and moments later was swallowed by shadows.

  “You missed.”

  Bringing the zebra dun to a stop, Willis slowly lowered the Winchester. “Tell me somethin’ I don’t know.”

  “Do we go after it?” Charlie asked.

  Willis would have liked to but he had seen flecks of red on the mountain lion’s jaw and neck when it glanced back. Reining around, he galloped toward the line shack. He told himself he was mistaken, that it had not been blood, that the horses were fine and he shouldn’t fret.

  Then the zebra dun rounded a small pine and another part of Willis deep inside shriveled. He reined in shy of the rails and sadly stared at the twin scarlet pools. In all his days he had never felt so useless. “I should do the world a favor and die.”

  Chapter 3

  Burying the horses took hours but it had to be done. Left to rot, they would stink and draw every scavenger for miles. Willis refused to let Charlie Weaver help. “It’s mine to do.”

  “But I can spell you diggin’,” Charlie offered for the third time. “Why wear yourself out if you don’t need to?”

  “No,” Willis said, and that was that. It was noon before he finished. He had to dig the holes a good distance from the shack, then use the zebra dun to haul the bodies over. He let Charlie lend a hand dragging but only because with the bay to help it was easier on the zebra dun.

  “Want me to say a few words over them?” Charlie asked after the last shovelful of dirt had been tamped down.

  Willis glanced sharply at him but his friend was serious. “I never took you for religious.”

  “I’m not,” Charlie admitted, “except when it comes to dyin’. When my time comes, I want you to have the parson do me proper.”

  “You’ll outlive me,” Willis predicted. He had long thought—it could be said he had long hoped—that he would die before he was fifty.

  “You never know.” Charlie took off his hat, bowed his head, and intoned, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Then he put his hat back on and adjusted his bandanna.

  “That’s it?”

  “No need to make that much of a fuss,” Charlie said. “They were only horses.” He stretched, then yawned. “I reckon I’ll catch up on my sleep before I head out.”

  “I’ll be in shortly,” Willis said. He wanted to be alone a while.

  A log a stone’s throw from the line shack was his favorite spot to sit and ponder. His right elbow on his right knee, his chin in his hand, he gazed off down the mountain and forlornly contemplated his future. “What future?” he asked himself, and regarded his left leg with loathing. He couldn’t bend it more than an inch or two, so when he sat down, he always had to stick it out in front of him like the useless appendage it was.

  Willis was lower than he had ever been, and he had been low a lot since his knee was shattered. He closed his eyes and thought of the old days and a dreamy smile creased his face, despite his mood. It was a shame people could not go back into the past and fix their mistakes. He would go back to that fateful morning when he tried to break the man killer and do what he should have done in the first place: shoot it.

  Horses that killed were always shot. It was an unwritten law. But Willis thought he could tame that stallion. He would do what no one had ever done and turn a man killer into a usable horse.

  That had been his first mistake: thinking he was God Almighty. His second mistake had been to go into the corral alone. His third had been to let himself be distracted for a few seconds. That was all it took. The stallion had him down and nearly stomped him to death. As it was, he had lost the knee, and his other broken bones took months to mend. He would have died that day if not for Abe, who saw what was happening and ran into the ranch house for his shotgun and rushed back out and did what should have been done in the first place.

  Willis suspected Abe felt partly to blame. After the stallion killed Joe Sennet, the smart thing to do, the only thing to do, was kill the stallion. But Abe had let him try to break it, and now he would spend the rest of his days half
the man he used to be.

  “I wish the damn critter had killed me.”

  Clouds were scuttling in from the west, darkening the sky to match his mood. It was early in the year for rain but rain it did, forcing him indoors. He sat at the table a while listening to the patter of drops on the roof, what he could hear above Charlie’s snoring.

  The hours crawled by, as they always did. When Charlie woke, Willis fed him, and soon his friend was saddled and ready to leave.

  “You should come down with me and tell Abe about the horses.”

  “You tell him,” Willis said. “My job is to be here for the line rider when he comes.”

  “I told you Hank won’t be here for weeks yet, but you do what you want.” In a rare show of emotion, Charlie placed a hand on Willis’ shoulder. “Are you all right, pard?”

  “What kind of fool question is that? Of course I’m all right.”

  “Then why do you always look as if your ma just died and you’re waitin’ for the funeral to commence?”

  “My mother died years ago.”

  Charlie sighed and slung his saddlebags over a shoulder. “You know what I mean.” His spurs jangled as he went out.

  Willis leaned in the doorway. The rain had stopped but the sky was overcast. “Give my regards to the boys in the bunkhouse.”

  “Will do.” Charlie tied his saddlebags on and swung onto the saddle with a fluid ease his plump form be-lied. “Try not to be so hard on yourself—you hear?”

  “I’ll try.” Willis watched until his friend melted into the timber lower down. The ache deep inside him grew worse and he went to the cupboard for his flask. He had half left, the best sipping whiskey money could buy. He sat at the table, his right leg propped on the edge, his useless left leg jutting under it, and sipped and thought and sipped and thought.

  Thinking was bad for him but Willis had nothing else to do. The shack was tidy and clean, the beds all made, the floor swept. There was enough venison to last a week so he did not need to go hunting.