Friends (11 page)

I glanced at Clete, but I was surprised he seemed to be taking little pleasure from his victory over her, his jaw set so firm as it was. I didn't notice the scar by his ear before, since he caught up, but it was still red and nasty looking. It would be with him the day they lowered him into the ground, too.

When she got there, she looked pretty shamefaced.

"What'd he say?" Clete ask.

She took a minute to catch her breath. "I asked where he was going. He said he was going home. That he had avenged the death of his son and was going back to his home. He did not say where his home was and I did not ask him, so glad I was to be leaving there." She took off her wide-brimmed hat and wiped her brow with her sleeve. "I did not know that it was important, Mr. Goodwin, or I would have told you. He said some other things, too, but I did not understand him very well. He talked, how do you say, peculiar?"

She stopped talking and you could tell she was trying to remember.

"Think more would come back to you if we was to ride on?" I ask.

"I will try to remember all I can," she said, and it sounded like a promise.

"See that you do," Clete told her, tossing her the reins to my old buckskin. "Here. Take this rifle too. It's yours. No reason for me to carry it."

Riding bareback at the pace we was going was no picnic. It would be worse carrying that Remington-she had no rifle scabbard because she had no saddle. Which also meant she couldn't dolly welter it to the hom either. She'd have to carry it in her hands a long distance and that old piece had some weight to it. Not an easy man is Clete Shannon when he's crossed.

We rode a long ways saying nothing and making time, nearly ten miles before noon and gaining on him, I figured. The sign was easy to follow and getting easier all the time in the thin grass. His trailing horse was about on its last legs then and it slowed him down. The animal avoided putting that split hoof down as much as he could. He'd not be able to run at all soon, and I couldn't figure out why our man still trailed him. Maybe a bad spare horse was better than none at all.

We made damn good time that morning, but it wasn't good enough to suit Clete. Often he ask me couldn't we go no faster, but it was either the pace we was doing or wear out our horses like the man we was following. Midafternoon, we come onto the river again, and that's where he'd camped.

We dismounted and looked around. Still a few warm coals under the thick ash. He'd killed his trailing horse with a knife beside the river, its head under water. Blood all over the bank. Slit the critter's throat, probly while it was drinking its fill. The slope of the bank raised the dead animal's haunches up some, and it was from there that he'd sliced himself off a couple of steaks. His bootprints showed me where he'd stood when he done his butchering. The flies were helping themselves to the leftovers by the time we got there, so he had probably done it last night and then fed himself.

He'd stayed in camp a while this morning from the tramped-down look of things. Arranging his trap and resting some, I supposed.

"What kind of man eats his own horse, Mr. Shannon?" Mandy ask, looking at the dead beast.

"A hungry man," he told her. "Let's ride."

Along the river his sign was as clear as a Texan's conscience. We sailed along for several hours at a quick trot and even cantered some. "This fast enough for you," I called back to Clete.

"If it's the best you can do. I
would
like to catch him before you die of old age."

Well, we like to had a horse race then. Mandy kept slipping further and further back, and after about four miles I slowed down.

"C'mon," he yelled, up ahead of me. "That horse has a lot more left than that."

"Yeah, but Mandy don't," I told him, looking back down the river but not seeing her.

"Forget her," Clete yelled. "She'll catch up."

"Like them braves caught up to our man, most likely. No, I'm going to wait here for her. Go on ahead, if you want. You'll not catch him in the two hours of daylight left-nor even see him."

"Damn it, Willie, come on! For a dollar you can buy what she's got in any town."

I took a minute before I answered. "I told you what I was doin'. We'll take him tomorrow, maybe the day after. Soon enough for me. It's not worth risking this girl's life to catch him sooner. Not to me it ain't."

"I'm going on," he called back.

"Watch out for an ambush," I yelled after him.

After a while I seen her. She was coming up the river in a awkward sideways trot and she was bouncin' three different ways at once, like the dice in a chuck-a-luck cage. I had to laugh despite myself.

I fell into place beside her. "A slow canter would be easier on you. Try it."

My old horse caught the rhythm of the smooth-gaited bay I was ridin', and Mandy nodded her head. And damned if I didn't think of the night before. We kept at it solid 'til the sun set and the stars begun to come out. I was just starting to worry that Clete might try to go on in the dark when I seen a big blazing campfire far upriver.

Half a mile off, we dismounted and led the horses.

Mandy walked with a hitch and she had a time getting her breath back all the way. I felt as tired as she looked.

"How you doin'?" I asked.

"I am all right, Willie," she said, but I didn't believe it entirely, for I had rode beyond my means a time or two myself. "Why did we go so fast and so far today? You and I were not in such a hurry yesterday."

"Well, one reason is we was both on the same horse and I had to go slower. Another is, I didn't entirely want to catch up to him, not by myself."

"Yes," she said. "And another reason is that you are not a crazy man-like Mr. Shannon."

"'Aw, Clete's all right. A little impatient now and then is all. You got to remember that this man tried to kill him. You had a little taste today of how he gets when someone goes again him. Just can't abide it. I seen it before. Everbody's like that some. Clete's like that a lot. Makes him a difficult man, I agree, but it don't make him crazy."

She surprised me then. She put her arm across my shoulders like we was old compadres and laughed. "You are a good man, Mr. Goodwin. I hope you will be as good a friend to me as you are to Mr. Shannon."

Damned if I knowed what to say to that. How she could think a man could be just friends with a woman was as addled as her thinking me a big bug because I understood old Clete.

When we got close, I whistled to let him know it was us coming in. He was leaning back against his saddle beside the fire when we got there, and he give us a big wave and a howdy. I was happy to see he'd got over his mad.

Played out as she was, Mandy still offered to take care of both the horses. I got the idea she was trying to prove up on her worth to this outfit so's not to be in danger of being left behind again. I told her I'd rub down the bay, but she wouldn't hear of it, and to tell the truth, I didn't have enough spunk left to argue with her. I went over and sat beside Clete. "Reminds me of the time last fall when I had that big fire built for you. Long day in the saddle then, too, I recall."

"Yeah, I remember," he said. "That coffee should be about ready."

I poured myself some and another cup to cool for Mandy. "We covered a lot of ground today," I said.

"Yes, we did," Clete answered. "Gained almost a day on him. I was hoping to see his fire along the river here."

"Maybe tomorrow, if he's still goin' like he was today. Last time I could see his tracks clear, I'd guess he's about six hours ahead of us now. You know, if he spots us, we're in for it, because there's no chance to check out every place he could be layin' in wait. Along the river here it ain't so bad, but if we get into rough country-"

You could see from his face he knew what I was thinking. "Yeah, well, I'll look out for him. Can't slow down now, can we?"

"No, I guess not," I answered. "I suppose you saw he's been mostly walking that girl's paint, since he's got no spare now, I guess." Mandy joined us at the fire about then, spread her quilt and flopped down like a sack of turnips. I handed her a cup of coffee and got a pretty smile for my trouble. She looked awful sweet in the firelight, but you could see she was played out.

"Willie, where'd you ever learn to track like that?" Clete ask. "I never knew you could do that. Reminds me of an Indian down in Kansas who used to track for me, old Heavy Nose."

"It was an Indian who taught me," I told him. "A full-blooded Jicarilla Apache I spent some time with."

Clete laughed. "How in the
hell
did you ever come to throw in with an Apach?"

"You could say we was thrown together by fate, I suppose. More accurate, you could say we was linked together at the ankles for two years, two months and eleven days. Being a deputy in Abilene and all, I suppose you know what I'm talkin' about." I fired up my old corncob.

He looked at me square then. "Where'd you do time?"

"In Texas-the land of the free and the chained."

"You were chained to an Indian?" Mandy ask.

I nodded. "Good man. One of the most truthful men I ever knowed, too. He'd do exactly what he said he'd do, give you his food or break your arm, either way. But that old
Coyotero
was smart, too. He knowed it would be the white man's country before long, unlike most of his people. He wanted to learn to read the white man's language, and to pay me back for showing him how, he taught me what he knowed best, how to read sign-fair trade. All of what I know of following men and animals I learned from Stalking Bear." I yawned and finished my coffee.

"Did he learn to read English?" Mandy ask.

I tossed two of the branches Clete'd gathered into the fire and sent a passel of sparks up into the night. "He did. But he changed his mind about the worth of it after he could do it good. He learned real quick, and the only thing I had for him to read, once he knowed how, was that old Bible of mine. The first winter, after the work got slow, he read that book straight through, cover to cover, and it had a good many more pages in it then than it does now. Asking me questions the whole way, not that I could explain much of it to him. He liked the stories best. He 'specially liked the part about Noah, I remember. But the way he saw it, if white men said they believed what was in that book and still acted like they did, he wouldn't live among 'em. Either they was crazy or untruthful at heart. After that he never wanted to read nothing more. By the time he died, I don't think he could even remember the alphabet. Not the whole thing, anyway." I stood and brushed off the seat of my pants after I stretched good.

They was both quiet then.

"Shall I prepare some food?" Mandy ask after a time.

"Not for me," I said, gathering up my canvas and the blanket Clete brought me. "I'll eat in the morning. I'm going down by the river there and make a bed in the sand."

"I thought we were going to ask Mandy about-"

"Go ahead, if you want," I said, ambling toward the bank. "I'm done in. Need sleep bad. If you want me in on it, it'll have to wait 'til tomorrow. Suit yourself."

I planned on finding the softest spot I could, roll and wiggle around 'til the sand took my shape, and spend a comfortable night. Truth is, I settled for the first level place I hit and barely got my canvas spread and my blanket around me before I was out. Only thing I saw before leaving this weary world was the clouds rolling in from the northwest.

Come morning, the sky was threatening rain about as much as it can without dripping water, and Clete was in a like mood, anxious to get going. The temperature'd dropped like a stone down a well and the fire felt welcome. Spring in Dakota will do that. One minute it's warm as summer and the next you'll see snow flakes drifting down. I finished all the beans Mandy saved me from the night before, fixed with a big hunk of salt pork. And I ate what was left of the biscuits, though they wasn't what you'd call fresh no more, nearly a dozen, with my coffee.

"Come on, let's go," Clete yelled while I was washing my face in the river. "It's going to rain soon." He'd saddled his horse and mine and'd loaded just about all our gear on the pack animal by then. Lord, I was dragging my tail that morning.

They started without me, but I didn't care, stiff and sore as I was. When I caught up, they was stopped about a half mile from where we'd camped, beside the river, letting their horses drink where his had. Beyond, his tracks led south along a little creek. This boy knew the country by its water, that was clear.

"I'd a never found his fire last night if I'd gone more upriver," Clete said. "I'd a been lost this morning, too. Would have had to come back to here."

"He's a fox, all right," I said.
A fox against a wolf,
I said to myself, but Clete'd never of understood that. "A real careful one. Even when he thinks no one's following him. Probly just his nature by now. How old you guess this fellow is, Mandy?" I ask.

"As old as you, perhaps. Younger than my father." She looked off across the prairie, sulky about something, but damned if I knowed what.

"You talk to her about our man last night?" I ask Clete.

"Not much," he said. "Let's get on him and get done with this."

A few miles up the creek we run into the twin of the butte where he'd shot them bucks. Thick gray clouds draped the sky.

"Careful," I told Clete, who was getting up even with me, off to the side. "Good spot for an ambush." But instead of leading close into the butte, like his tracks done before, they angled west around it, beyond where the stream petered out. Another mile further, another butte, this one wider and higher than the last.

"We can't keep slowing down, Willie," Clete said. "It's going to rain and then we've lost him. Let me go first. I'll take the risk of going faster. You and the girl stay up if you can and follow
his
trail if I go the wrong way. He's still walking his horse, ain't he?"

"My
horse," Mandy said.

"Yes, he is," I told him. "We'll keep you in sight if we can. If it rains and we lose your sign, we'll look for a day and then head back to the river. Think you can find it?"