Appaloosa

18

There was a night rider. I couldn’t see him, but I heard his horse blow from the direction of the hill. We had a livery horse, saddled, on a lead. We were on foot, leading the horses as we went in the darkness down along the row of trees. We stopped fifty feet away from the privy. It was still too dark to see, but we could smell it. I took the shotgun off my saddle. We tied the horses loosely to one of the hedge apples. And we stood. Somewhere far off, some prairie chickens boomed. The sky in the east began to lighten. A rooster crowed. We stood. I smelled wood smoke. The sky was pale now in the east. We could see the outhouse on the other side of the trees. Uphill toward where we always sat and watched, I could see the night rider moving across the slope halfway up.

In back of us, I could hear the bunkhouse’s door open, as some of the hands went to their privy. I smelled coffee mixed with the wood smoke. Then bacon. Beside me, Cole murmured.

“Here he comes.”

I didn’t hear anything. But I was used to that. Cole always heard things sooner than I did and saw things sooner. I heard his footsteps. I heard the door to the privy open and swing shut. Then nothing.

Cole gestured toward the privy. I slipped through the trees and along one side of it. Cole went around the back to the other side. And we waited. When Bragg came out, we were on either side of him. Cole took a handful of Bragg’s hair in his left hand and pressed the barrel of his Colt against Bragg’s temple.

“Not a fucking sound,” he said softly.

I pressed the two barrels of the eight-gauge up under Bragg’s chin. And packed close together, we walked back behind the Osage orange trees toward the horses. When we reached the horses, Cole let go of Bragg’s hair.

“Mount up,” Cole said.

I eased off on the shotgun so Bragg could climb into the saddle. It made him a little braver.

“You can’t do this,” he said.

“Can or can’t,” Cole said. “Won’t make no difference to you. First time there’s trouble, we kill you.”

Bragg’s mount had no reins. The horse was on a lead, tethered to my saddle horn.

“Ride,” Cole said.

We moved down the line of trees, walking the horses. Cole rode on one side of Bragg and I rode on the other with the eight-gauge resting across my saddle, pointing at Bragg. As we cleared the trees near the stream, the nighthawk spotted us and came down the hill at a gallop, shouting.

“Pull the horses in tight as we can,” Cole said. “Make it hard to shoot us without shooting Bragg.”

We kept walking. By the time we neared the river, there were half a dozen horsemen coming toward us on the run.

“Put that brush cutter right up against him, if you would, Everett,” Cole said. “Being sure that it’s cocked.”

It was too hard to ride tight and keep the gun under Bragg’s chin. I settled for pressing it into his side. We reached the river and moved toward the ford. At the ford, there were maybe twelve riders with guns.

“Tell them to let us pass,” Cole said.

Bragg was silent. We kept walking toward the ford. Holding the reins in his left hand, Cole drew his Colt, cocked it, and placed it carefully against Bragg’s cheekbone. If it began, Bragg didn’t have a prayer. We were bunched together, so we were barely more than a single target. Cole had a gun against Bragg’s face. The two barrels of my shotgun were digging into his side.

“What you want us to do, Mr. Bragg?” one of the riders said.

“Hold off, Vince,” Bragg said.

His voice was hoarse and strained. Vince was hatless, and there was a pale line on his forehead. He was smallish, with big hands and a big blond moustache stained with something. Tobacco juice, maybe. Maybe coffee. He sat on a blue roan gelding that looked like a runner, and he held a Winchester in one hand, the butt resting on his thigh. We kept walking our horses toward the ford. The sun was up now, still low, and the western edge of the sky still dark purple, but everyone could see clearly.

As we reached them, Bragg’s riders parted, half to one side, half to the other, and the three of us rode slowly between them. No one spoke. I could feel the pressure of the silence all through me. The only sound was the horses’ hooves and their breathing, and the creak of saddle leather. The horses hesitated at the water, but Cole and I kicked ours forward and the three of us went in. The line of riders that had parted to let us through closed ranks behind us and turned toward the river. It was as if I could feel them looking at us. It made the muscles across my back tighten. The water was higher than the stirrups; my boots and the lower half of my pants were wet. The river smelled very fresh in the early morning air. The horses climbed the far bank, and we stood for a moment on the other side. Without lowering his gun, Cole turned in the saddle and looked back across the river.

“Tell them not to follow,” he said to Bragg.

Again, Bragg was silent. I could see the flush of redness on his cheekbones.

“I’d like you dead, Bragg,” Cole said quietly. “I’m taking you in legal, like a law officer, but if you attempt to escape or impede me in my duty, I got every right to shoot you dead, and no one will say no.”

“If you kill me,” Bragg said, “then there ain’t no reason for my men not to chase you down and kill you.”

“If they can,” Cole said. “Either way, won’t make no difference to you.”

Bragg was silent. Cole was silent. The horses stood quietly, tossing their heads every once in a while for reasons of their own.

“Tell ’em not follow us,” Cole said to Bragg, “or I’ll shoot you dead right here. Right now.”

Again, there was silence. Cole’s face showed nothing. I could hear Bragg’s breathing. He looked at me.

“You?” he said.

“Both barrels,” I said.

He turned his head slowly away from Cole’s gun and looked back at the line of riders back across the river.

“Vince,” he hollered.

“Yessir, Mr. Bragg.”

“Don’t follow us. You understand.”

“They making you say that, Mr. Bragg?”

“They are. But I mean it. Stay put.”

“You say so, Mr. Bragg.”

We moved the horses forward again. A half mile from the ranch, Cole holstered his Colt, and I slid the shotgun back in the saddle scabbard.

“Do hope you’ll make a run for it,” Cole said to Bragg. “Save us all a lot of time and trouble.”

“I’m riding in with you,” Bragg said.

Which he did.