Brimstone

49

WE LAID THE INDIAN SIDEWAYS over the back of his horse, and tied him in place. We got our own animals and went down the slope, leading the paint horse with Buffalo Calf’s body. We rode for maybe half an hour on the flat plain before we came up to the posse. Pike was riding in the lead. When he saw us he stopped the posse and sat waiting for us, peering at us through the rain, until we got close enough for him to make everything out.

“You got to him first,” Pike said to Virgil.

“We did,” Virgil said.

Pike swung off his horse and walked to the dead Indian. He took hold of the Indian’s hair and raised his head and looked at his face.

“Buffalo Calf,” Pike said.

“Buffalo Calf,” Virgil said.

Still holding the Indian’s head up, Pike reached behind him and took a knife from his belt.

“No,” Virgil said.

I never did understand how Virgil got that sound in his voice. But when he said “No,” it was like the closing of an iron valve. Everything stopped.

“I want his scalp,” Pike said.

“No,” Virgil said.

Pike stepped back away from Virgil. I eased my eight-gauge out of its scabbard and rested it across my thigh. On Virgil’s left, Pony looped his reins over the horn of his saddle. Pike looked at Virgil and then looked back at his posse.

“Virgil,” he said. “There’s twenty of us.”

Virgil said, “Anybody puts a hand on a weapon, Pike, and I’ll kill you.”

“For a dead fucking red nigger,” Pike said, “stole two women, killed three men, we know of?”

“Four,” Virgil said.

“You’d fight all of us for that?”

“Be my plan,” Virgil said.

Pike looked at me.

“Everett?” he said.

“I’m with Virgil,” I said.

He looked to Virgil’s left.

“You, Pony?” he said.

“Virgil,” Pony said.

Pike backed off another step.

“You think you’re good enough to kill me?” he said.

“Yes,” Virgil said.

The rain was still coming down. Not hard but steady. The horses all had their heads down so it wouldn’t get in their eyes and nostrils.

“You think you can kill us all?” Pike said.

“Be some of you left when we go down,” Virgil said. “But you won’t be one of ’em.”

Virgil scanned the posse.

“Rest of you can try to figure which ones’ll be left,” he said.

We all sat our horses, except Pike, who still stood in front of Virgil. He took off his hat and held it at his side. The rain began to bead on his bald head. It might have been kind of a pleasant rain if I hadn’t been wet since yesterday. Then, very deliberately, Pike put the knife back in his belt. He shook the water off his hat and put it back on. He grinned.

“Just a damn Comanche buck,” Pike said. “No need for white men to die over him.”

Virgil didn’t speak.

“Hell, Virgil,” Pike said. “We’ll all ride back together.”

“We’ll trail along behind you,” Virgil said.

“You don’t trust me, Virgil?”

“Never did,” Virgil said. “You’re too damned jolly for me.”

Pike laughed.

“I don’t think you can beat me anyway,” he said.

“Never know till we’ve tried it,” Virgil said.

Pike laughed again and swung his bulk up onto his horse.

I put the eight-gauge back in its scabbard. Pike turned the posse. We fell in behind it.

And we headed back to Brimstone.