Blue-Eyed Devil

41

WE SAT OUR HORSES with Pony Flores behind Red Castle Rock. Chauncey Teagarden was with us. Pony raised his hand and then put his finger on his lips. The horses stood quietly. There was no wind. We listened.

Then Virgil said, “Callico.”

Pony nodded. The sound was very faint. A low murmur of hoofbeats. Virgil scanned the horizon.

Then he said, “From the northeast.”

And there it was, a faint drift of dust, kicked up by the faint beat of hooves.

“Kah-to-nay leave big trail toward river,” Pony said.

“Over there.”

We looked west, where, in the distance, the river ran straight north to south in the deep trench it had dug itself.

“Square Stone River,” I said. “Hard river to get across. Deep, ten-foot banks straight up and down.”

“Kah-to-nay lead them to ford,” Pony said.

“And across?” Virgil said.

“Sí.”

Virgil nodded to himself. There were things Virgil didn’t get. But none of them had to do with his profession. And the things he did get, he got right away.

“Everett,” Virgil said. “You done a lotta Indian fighting when you was soldierin’.”

“I did.”

“You know the ford?”

“I do,” I said.

“How many men would it take to hold the ford?” Virgil said.

Pony smiled. I thought about the ford for a bit.

Then I said, “Depends how bad the enemy wants to cross, but probably ’bout four with Winchesters.”

“So,” Virgil said. “Kah-to-nay makes it look like he and his men crossed. Which they didn’t. Callico goes hell for leather across the ford, ’cause he don’t want to get caught in the water. Kah-to-nay puts, say, four riflemen in the rocks to hold the ford and takes the rest of his bucks hell-bent for Appaloosa. Where the only gun in town is the derringer Pony gave Laurel.”

Teagarden looked at Pony.

“That right?” he said.

Pony smiled.

“Sí,” he said.

“Smart Indian,” Teagarden said.

“Younger brother,” Pony said.

“That how he learned stuff like this?” Teagarden said.

“Sí,” Pony said.

“He tell you he was gonna do this?” Teagarden said.

“No,” Pony said.

“But you know,” Teagarden said.

“Sí.”

“Because that’s what you’d do,” he said.

Pony nodded.

“What I would do,” Pony said.

Teagarden looked silently at Pony for a moment.

“Me, too,” he said.

We sat and watched the barely discernible dust cloud move ahead of the barely audible sound of the horses.

Then I said, “Time to head back to Appaloosa?”

“I believe it is,” Virgil said, and turned his horse northeast.