Zane while Zeb rode alone on Karen’s little horse.
The horses were sweated.
“You reckon this is it?” Zack said.
“What the hell you think it is if it ain’t it?” Zeb said,
his mood still foul in spite of the pleasure he’d taken
with the woman. Ever since that damn big Indian had
stolen their horses life had seemed a sour proposition to
him. It galled him no end that they’d been bamboozled
by an Indian. It was harder to swallow than a knife.
Zack shrugged as he slid off the rump of the horse.
A dog that looked like it was full of mange came
up and sniffed his heels and he said, “Git, guddamn
it!” and the dog scooted away but didn’t go very far.
They heard the laughter coming from the Three Aces
and Zack said, “We ought to go over to that tavern
and git us something to drink and something to eat.”
Zeb already was headed that way. He’d simply left
the horse standing with the reins dangling free and
entering the Three Aces, his mind set on liquor, food,
and maybe a woman; this time a woman who
wouldn’t fight him like a she cat and scratch his face
before she gave up the goods.
Zack fell in line then looked back at Zane and said,
“Ain’t you coming?”
“I’ll take care of the horses,” Zane said.
“Why? They ain’t ours.”
“Seems only right they get fed and watered.”
“Hell with ’em.”
Zane was feeling in a sorry enough state without
treating poor dumb creatures like they were nothing.
He rode over and leaned down and took up the reins
of the little mare and rode down the street until he
came to a livery. There were a couple of horses in the
corral and he unsaddled and turned out the two stolen
horses with them. Then he took up a pitchfork and
forked them in some hay. It was cold enough that he
could see them snorting steam. He didn’t figure the
owner would mind waking up and finding two extra
horses in his corral. Pay enough for the hay and keep.
Then without knowing what else to do, he walked
back up the street and found his brothers in the Three
Aces leaning against the bar drinking. Zeb was talk-
ing to a gal looked like she ought to be in school and
Zack stood conversing with a tall mulatto. Then
quickly he realized they were the exact same girls they
had come across on the grasslands two days previ-
ous—the ones in the broken wagon. He couldn’t re-
member their names but he didn’t want anything to
do with them now.
Zane found a seat in the farthest corner and hoped
nobody would pay attention to him. He’d been feel-
ing anti-social ever since the incident at the woman’s
ranch house.
It felt like he’d eaten something rotten and it was
inside his gut just lying there. Even shooting a man
down in cold blood never left him feeling sick in the
way he was now. He wondered if maybe he had done
her a favor by letting her live—if it might not have
been better for her to let Zeb shoot her. He hated
himself for even thinking such.
Ellis Kansas noted them as they came in, thought to
himself, well look what the cats dragged in. He no-
ticed the scratches on two of their faces, and wondered
what sorts of trouble they’d gotten in since last he seen
them. The two at the bar stood like gun gods the way
they wore their pistols high on the hip, butt forward.
Last time he was at their mercy, now they were in his
place. He figured the marshal might be interested in
them since he was interested in the other stranger.
Normally, he was a man who minded his own
business, but since the marshal had shown no interest
in getting greased and since these particular hombres
had taken advantage of him, it might be he could earn
the lawman’s favor by keeping him informed. He
drew near to his barkeeper and said in a low voice:
“Those two who look like they’re brothers, the ones
with scratched faces, and that one sitting over in the
corner? Make sure they don’t run out of liquor, and
tell Baby Doe and Narcissa to give them a cut-rate on
their price if they’re looking for that sort of action—
but not to give them nothing free, understood? Oh,
and do it on the q.t.”
“Yes sir.”
“Oh, and keep an ear listening to what they have
where they got them scratches and such and let me
know if you hear why.”
Curly nodded and set about doing his boss’s bidding.
Clara came outside again and said, “He’s sleeping.
Says the laudanum makes him sleepy most of the
time.”
“It will do that.”
“He wants to buy the house.”
“What house?”
“This one.”
“I’ll go and ask the attorney handling Doc’s trust
tomorrow,” Jake said.
Clara said, “It’s a really big house.”
She said it in a way that caused Jake to smile.
“It is,” he said. “Can I walk you back home?”
“Yes,” she said.
They walked in silence.
Then Clara said, “You seem like a very sophisti-
cated man, Marshal.
“Meaning?”
“Your manner, the way you talk and think. Not at
all like the sort of man to enforce things with a gun.”
“Hardly,” he said.
“Can we agree to something?” she said.
“Sure.”
“Let’s not lie to each other.”
“Play it straight,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Okay.”
“So what did you do before you became the mar-
shal of Sweet Sorrow?”
He was tempted to tell her the entire story of how
he’d been a physician with a good practice and a
good solid life and a great future until he met and fell
in love with a married woman who set him up to take
a murder charge for her husband’s death. He wanted
to tell someone who might believe him. But instead he
said, “I was in the banking business.”
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.
“Well, that didn’t last very long, did it?”
He stopped and she did, too.
“Truth is,” he said. “I can’t tell you what the truth
is. I’m a little like your father in that respect. The
more you know about me, the more danger it might
bring you. Any trouble coming my way I wouldn’t
want innocents caught in the middle of it.”
“You’re a bad man, then?” she said.
“Not as bad as some would say that I am.”
“Then you’re an enigma.”
“Yeah, somewhat, I suppose so.”
They reached her house.
“Whatever the truth is,” she said, “I don’t care.
All I know about you is what you’ve shown me and
my father and that little boy. No bad man in you that
I can see.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“I’m afraid we’ve all got our skeletons in the
closet, Mr. Horn, you’re certainly not alone in that
regard.”
“What are yours?”
She smiled softly, wearily.
“Maybe some day we’ll have us a real honest con-
versation and bring out those old bones and let them
dance,” she said.
“Maybe so.”
Standing off in the shadows Fallon saw her, for the
first time since she’d left. There she was, his woman.
But who was that son of a bitch standing there talk-
ing to her just the two of them this evening? His anger
raged inside him. Not gone but a few weeks and al-
ready she was letting other men court her. Well, I’ll
make sure you won’t be courting him long, he
thought. Then when she turned and entered the house
and the man turned, he saw the glint of metal pinned
to his coat.
Fucken lawman.
Well, they shot as easy as anyone else, lawmen did,
now didn’t they?
Big Belly squatted on his heels off in the darkness
watching the lights of the town. They twinkled like
stars fallen from the sky and he was tempted to take
his chances of going in because the weather had
turned damn cold and he wasn’t used to the cold, be-
ing from down in Texas, though some parts of Texas,
like up in the canyon country, could get awful cold,
too. Good thing those stolen horses had bedrolls tied
on behind the saddles or his bones would be shaking.
He’d found some beef jerky in the saddle pockets
of one of the horses and was chewing on one of the
strips as he watched the lights of the town. They’d
have whiskey in that town he could warm his insides
with. But they sure as hell wouldn’t serve no Co-
manche white-man-killing son of a bitch such as him-
self whiskey.
There had been some places down along the big
river in Texas where an Indian could get himself pretty
liquored up and fuck those big brown Mexican whores
if he had some money or something good to trade.
He’d once traded a chopped-off foot in a glass jar for a
bottle of pulque and a two-hundred-pound whore had
a mole on her face looked like a squashed bug. But any
place north of that river wasn’t one shitting place a In-
dian could just walk in and get himself a drink like a
white man could. He licked his lips thinking about it.
The horses cropped grass while Big Belly thought
of a way to get into that town without drawing overly
much attention to himself. It was a mean trick, but
he’d done a lot harder before. When he listened real
hard he could hear laughter drifting on the air.
Jake had turned back up the street when the shot
banged and something snatched his hat off his head.
Instinct caused him to whirl around in a semi-crouch
bringing out one of the Schofields, thumbing back the
hammer as he did. There was only the darkness. Clara
opened the door and called out, “What happened?”
“Get back inside!”
She did as he ordered as he darted for the shadows
himself.
He waited. Nothing. It was impossible to say
where the shot came from exactly.
Then he thought he saw movement and fired. A
man’s voice cursed.
*
*
*
The bullet caught Fallon in the left forearm, tore out a
chunk of meat he could stick his thumb in. He felt the
blood, warm like bathwater, dripping off his fingers
as he darted back in between the row of houses.
Lights were being lit inside those houses, voices
shouting. He kept going, came to an alley and ran
down it, guessed he was now in the rear of some of
the main businesses, turned up another alley and
came out on a wide street, crossed it and back down
between some more places of business.
He paused long enough to listen, to see if he heard
footsteps. He didn’t. Gathered his wits and figured
out where he’d left his horse and made for it.
Jake waited as long as he thought he should then
slipped inside Clara’s and asked for a lamp and went
back out again and found the blood spots on the
ground where he thought the man had been. The
blood trail led in between houses. Easy place to get
ambushed. Whoever it was, was obviously gone. He
turned and went back to Clara’s.
“What happened?” she asked. He could see the
fear in her eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But somebody just murdered my
damn hat.”
“God!”
“I think I hit him. I found blood. I figure he’s on
the run.”
They were both thinking the same thing: someone
had come for William Sunday.
“They probably mistook you for him,” she said.
“It doesn’t make sense that they would. They’d
have to put the two of us together. And for that to
happen, it would have to have been someone who
knew you were his daughter.”
“Or they may have trailed him here, seen him
come here the other night.”
“I’ll stay here with you tonight,” he said. “Just in
case.”
“You don’t have to do that, Mr. Horn.”
“Yeah, I do, Clara.”
The single pistol shot traveled out over the flat land
and reached Big Belly’s ears.
Somebody’s dead. I hope it’s a damn white man. I
got three good horses but no whiskey. Son of a bitch.
28
Karen awoke and found Toussaint still sleeping in
the chair next to her bed. He looked old, tired, and
she felt sad for him. It had been hard between the two
of them for so many years she hadn’t thought she’d
ever be able to feel sad or anything else for him. She’d
been angry so long she didn’t know how to be happy
anymore. But the assault had done something to her,
had broken something in her; her will, her spirit, in a
way nothing else ever had, not even the death of her
only child, Dex.
“Hey,” she said softly.
He opened his eyes, looked at her.
“What is it?” he said.
“I’m hungry.”
She saw the tension ease out of his face.
He didn’t say anything, simply got up and went
out into the kitchen and started fixing breakfast. She
could hear him out there, knew which pan he was us-
ing, the sound of the cured ham frying in it, him
opening the door to go out and pump water for cof-
fee, lighting a fire in the cookstove. It was like it had
once been when on certain days he would go and pre-
pare them breakfast without being asked to and it al-
ways charmed her when he did.
She eased herself out of bed and everything hurt
like hell. She examined her features in a hand mirror
she took off the top of her bureau and saw the
bruises, the swollen places, touched them and winced.
Jesus, it ain’t as if I was a handsome woman before
they beat me, she thought.
She slipped out of the cotton shift and took a fresh
shirt and pair of trousers from the old trunk that
stood at the end of the bed and did not feel curious
about the rest of her body. When she thought about it,
what they did to her, she felt angry and ashamed. The
clothes were worn soft from so many washings and
she was grateful for the comfort they provided against
her skin. She didn’t bother to put on socks or boots
but instead, quickly ran a brush through her short
thick hair and went out into the kitchen.
Toussaint turned to look at her, said, “You
shouldn’t be out of bed.”
“I can’t stand another minute of being in it,” she
said. She felt slightly light-headed, weak, unbalanced.
“Sit down there,” he said and when she did he
brought her a cup of coffee and set it before her. “You
still take it black, or has your tastes changed over the
years?”
She looked at him.
“No, I take it with sugar now, when I got sugar to
take it with,” she said.
He looked around.
“Up in the shelf, that little brown bowl, same place
I always kept it, if you remember,” she said. He got it
down and set it before her and watched her as she
spooned out two spoons of sugar. The room was
filled with the smells of breakfast and it somehow
comforted her to smell them, to have him there in the
room with her and know she didn’t have to be afraid.
He fixed her a plate and set it before her, then set
one for himself and sat down across from her.
“You need anything else?” he said.
She simply looked at him for a moment.
“How come you to come out here the other night?”
she said.
“Hell, I don’t know,” he said. “Just something I
been wanting to do. We found Martha Dollar and the
man who took her. The marshal took her on into
town, my job was finished, I hadn’t nothing better to
do. Just thought I’d check in on you.”
“I see,” she said. Knowing him as she did, she
knew he had more in mind than just to pay a visit.
“That was it, then, just wanting to check on me?”
He nodded, didn’t feel like he had much of an ap-
petite.
“I guess it’s good you came along when you did,”
she said. “Or I might have . . .” She saw the way he
flinched when she implied what might have happened.