Brimstone

24

A TEAMSTER WITH HIS COLLAR up came into the sheriff’s office just as it started to rain. He told us there was a dead man two miles south of town, on the river road, and he thought it was Indians.

“We’ll take a look,” Virgil said.

“Ain’t you gonna get a posse?” he said.

“Me and Everett’ll go,” Virgil said, and got up and got a Winchester, put on his slicker, and put a box of bullets in the pocket.

I took the eight-gauge.

The horses were very lively from standing around too long at the livery. But after the first mile they settled down in the cool rain, which was now coming pretty steady. The river had cut deep into the land along here, with banks maybe twenty feet high. As we topped a rise we saw the wagon, and on the wagon seat was a man with an arrow in his stomach. We stopped the horses. Virgil scanned the area. It was flat at the bottom of the rise and went flat for a long distance along this side of the river. There was no one in sight. We rode on down.

There were no horses with the wagon, and no cargo. Just the dead man on the wagon seat with the arrow sticking out.

“Musta stole the horses,” Virgil said.

“Maybe why they killed him,” I said. “For the horses.”

We dismounted and took a look.

“Didn’t bleed much,” I said.

“Did in the back,” Virgil said.

I reached up and pulled the arrow out. It hadn’t gone in very deeply.

“No arrowhead,” I said.

“Think it pulled loose?”

“No,” I said. “It’s just a sharpened stick with some feathers on the shaft.”

Virgil jumped into the bed of the wagon and examined the man’s back.

“Didn’t need no arrowhead,” Virgil said. “Man’s been shot at least twice.”

“So, what’s the arrow for?” I said.

“Maybe somebody just stuck it in him after he was dead,” Virgil said.

“Like that steer that Lester found?” I said.

“You done a lot of Indian fighting,” Virgil said. “You tell what kind of arrow that is?”

“They make ’em out of what they can find,” I said. “So they ain’t all the same. Nothing to say it ain’t Comanche.”

“Most of ’em got rifles now, don’t they?” Virgil said.

“Yep. Bows and arrows are mostly sentimental,” I said. “Like a tradition.”

“Why no arrowhead?” Virgil said.

“They’re hard to make; nobody want to waste them,” I said.

“And he didn’t need to,” Virgil said. “ ’Cause he already shot the guy dead, ’fore the arrow went in.”

“I’d say it’s a kid’s arrow, I had to guess. They give them blunt arrows and small bows to play with. Can practice with them and don’t hurt themselves. I’d say this fella took a kid’s arrow and sharpened it up and stuck it in.”

Virgil nodded.

“So it may be a sign, like Abe Lester’s steer,” he said.

“Don’t know why else you’d do it,” I said.

He got down from the wagon and looked at the ground.

“You read sign better than I do,” Virgil said. “You make anything outta this?”

I looked at the muddy muddle around the wagon.

“All I can make out is that it’s raining hard,” I said.

“Hell,” Virgil said. “I figured that out.”

I straightened up. Virgil was standing stock-still, looking through the rain across the river, which was maybe two hundred yards wide here. I looked, too.

There was a big Indian sitting on a smallish paint horse, watching us. He appeared to be wearing buckskin leggings and moccasins, and a long black cloak and a big wide-brimmed black hat like the Quakers wear. The hat was pulled down low on his head. He had a rifle in a fringed rifle scabbard balanced across the horse’s shoulders in front of him. He didn’t move.

“Can’t get across,” I said. “ ’Less he’s willin’ to wait while we find a place to ford.”

Virgil didn’t say anything. He kept looking at the Indian.

“And a’course if he’s willing to wait for us,” I said, “who else is waiting behind the swale over there.”

Virgil and the Indian kept looking at each other. I wondered if the Indian knew that Virgil would know him twenty years from now if he saw him again. On the other hand, maybe the Indian would know Virgil, too.

“You could probably shoot him from here,” I said. “Bein’ as how you’re Virgil Cole and all.”

“He ain’t done nothing,” Virgil said.

“Might have,” I said.

“Can’t shoot a man for sitting on his horse.”

“Hell, Virgil, he’s an Indian,” I said. “Mighta killed this poor fella and stole his horses.”

“Can’t shoot a man for sitting on his horse,” Virgil said again.

“What are we gonna do about the dead gentleman,” I said.

“Wagon’s too heavy for our two horses,” Virgil said. “And he’s starting to smell. We’ll go get the undertaker.”

“And leave him here?” I said.

“He ain’t in no hurry,” Virgil said.

“I suppose he ain’t,” I said.

We mounted up and turned the horses back toward town with the river on our left. The Indian turned his horse and rode along with us.

“He stays with us to the edge of town, there’s a ford,” I said.

“He’ll be gone by the time we reach the ford,” Virgil said.

And he was.