35
MURDERERS. AND WE ARE ALONE UP HERE.
How did they find us?
My heart sinks when I remember the gray smoke from our fire.
My legs lose all feeling, and my tongue petrifies. The only part of me capable of movement is my mind, which jumps like a cricket in the cage of my head.
They don’t yet see the others lying by the stream. I have to lead them away. But I can barely work my lungs, let alone walk. I have solidified, as if I have looked upon the Gorgon Medusa and turned to stone.
Pull it together—the others depend on you. You are a rattlesnake and you have a bite. I unholster the Dragoon. The pearly handle slips in my sweaty grip, but I hang on. “Don’t come any closer!” My voice comes out weak and raspy.
The man removes something from beneath the flap of his coat. A gun, long as his forearm, with a black nose. He points it at me with more conviction than I point mine. He steps closer. “And if I do?” he rumbles.
Good Lord, could I really shoot this man?
Step by step, death comes for me, steady as a plow. The twin sinkholes of his eyes trap me, rendering me motionless once again and I forget all about being a rattlesnake. All I can think about is how I am the easiest catch on the prairie, not even a moving target.
When the man stands only spitting distance away, the queerest thing happens. I see myself in him: hunted and outraged. Set upon a dishonest scale. They are runaway slaves, just like Andy. As bad as my luck has been, I know there is no worse life than one that is not your own to live. No, I could never kill a slave in cold blood.
But how can I protect us?
Father called himself a translator, but he was much more. He was a negotiator, a diplomat. When the German farmer and the Spaniard restaurateur were at loggerheads for the price of bratwurst, Father always moved the conversation to areas of common interest. What were the preferred methods for cooking? Did beer or wine best accompany the meat’s richness?
Stop struggling, and you will find common ground.
I drop my gun, shaking, back to my side.
The man flexes an eyebrow. The nose of his weapon dips, then rises, like he’s trying to decide where to put the hole.
Then, miracle of miracles, he uncocks his gun.
I nearly fall over in relief.
“Never seen a yella before,” he says.
“You going to kill me?” My voice goes high. Curse my idiot’s tongue. Might as well ask a bear if I should season myself up before becoming dinner.
“You got something worth killing for?”
“No,” I say quickly, then curse myself again. Now he thinks I’m hiding something. “But my fish stew’s half decent.”
A puff of air blows through his nose and his chest twitches. Is he amused? Provoked?
The boy sniffs and runs his sleeve across his face. Only now do I notice his pant leg is torn and bloodied, and his teeth clenched. He looks younger in person than in his Wanted picture, with no facial hair that I can see, and no bump on his throat.
The man eyes my pot. “You by you’self here?”
If I say no, he might hurt the others. But I can’t say yes, when it’s obvious I’ve made enough fish stew for a pod of whales. While I root around for the best answer, it dawns on me: Just tell the truth. “My companions have the cholera.”
“Where are they?”
“By the stream.”
In five steps, the man overtakes me and peers down the length of the stream at the blanketed forms of Andy, Peety, and Cay, twenty yards away. Their heads are half covered with the wet rags I’ve placed on their foreheads.
“Well then, we won’t be staying long,” he says, returning to me. “How ’bout we have ourselves an understanding? We won’t kill you, if you let us borrow your fire and some clean water. Do we have a deal?” He extends his hand for a handshake.
Even though I suspect he’s just humoring me, I solemnly shake his hand, pumping extra hard to make up for my scrawniness.
The man helps the boy off his mule and to our fire. Blood glistens on the fabric of the boy’s trousers near the thigh, soaking through at an alarming pace. Beads of sweat trace a path around his high cheekbones and trembling upper lip. He sucks in air through his nose, then hisses it out through the spaces of his gritted teeth.
The man carefully cuts away the trousers, exposing a large wound below the boy’s hip bone. Quickly, I fetch clean rags and boiled water, plus the bandages and salve that Cay bought in Fort Laramie.
“Disease gonna set in if I don’t get out that bullet,” the man tells the boy.
The boy shakes his head, his eyes large with terror. “It hurts. Don’t do it, Badge.”
The man glances at me when the boy says his name. “Shh, it’s gonna be all right.”
Now the boy starts whimpering. “I says, don’t do it. Just leave it. Ain’t gonna help.”
Badge starts sopping up blood with the rags. “What did Paul write to the Romans about suffering?”
The boy’s eyes flick to me. “Don’t remember.”
Badge helps him out. “‘Suffering leads to patience, and patience, to experience, and experience, to—’?”
“Hope?” The boy gasps.
“That’s right, and without hope, we ain’t got no business in this world.” Badge sighs and looks at his right hand. It’s nearly as big as my foot, the fingers wide and muscular. Then his eyes cut to my own hands, tiny by comparison. The boy begins to cry.
Badge fetches a bottle from his saddlebag and uncorks it. The sour scent of fermented hops stings my nose. Badge holds it to the boy’s lips, but the boy pushes it away and covers his face. His tears leak through the cracks between his fingers.
The sight of his suffering, and his shame at crying makes my head throb, filling my own eyes with hot tears. It is indecent, grotesque even, that someone could shoot a child.
“I can do it,” I hear myself say.
Badge narrows his eyes at me. Slowly, I show him my bow hand, wiggling what I always considered to be bony digits. “My fingers are nimble, and it will hurt less.”
The boy uncovers his face. His eyes are so swollen they appear shut.