Friends (10 page)

But she rolled me off too soon and climbed on top, mostly sitting up. "Relax, now," she whispered, pulling the quilt up over her shoulders. She come forward some, so the rings of her dark hair made a kind of tent around our faces. "No, don't move at all," she told me. "Let me do that. Just look at the moon,
Monsieur
Rooster, and let your Pullet do the movement. Let your body go to sleep."

I took a deep breath and done as she said and right then the world changed all around me. The air smelled sweet and new and the moon looked right at me with the most satisfied look I ever seen on his face, before or after, and I've looked for it a hundred times since. The sounds of the prairie night filled up my ears and my brain so they could hold no more.

She was moving slow and easy, but I barely noticed the gait any more. Mostly, I was aware of her body, I think. Of her breath and the feel of her skin, and of the rich scent of her, the most female part of her, of its silk and wetness and warmth.

I don't know how long she had been making the cries she was making, but I knowed I had been hearing them without hearing them for some time, impossible as that sounds. And then I heard the cries I was making, and they was almost screams. I never felt closer to heaven or dying than I did right then. After a while we lay still, catching our breath.

"You learned all that from the young fellow who took you away from here?" I ask her.

She giggled like a schoolgirl. "No, that last I learned from watching Mamma and Papa, after I came back from St. Louis. Perhaps I should not have watched, but what is a girl to do out here?" The fire was out by then and she took a good look around her. "Are we in danger here, Willie? Will the man we are chasing come back in the night?"

"No, ma'm," I told her. "He's bedded down, just like we are." She give me a funny look then, and finally I saw what she was thinking. "Well, not
just
like we are, I suppose, but you know what I mean." She laughed a little and I suppose I did too. "After killing them Sioux, he thinks his backtrail is clean. I figure them braves done us a favor." She breathed easier for a minute. "But there is the wolves," I said.

She looked around again. "Are they …
dangereuse?
" she ask, saying it peculiar.

"Sometimes they are and sometimes they ain't."

"Would they attack us as we slept?" She wasn't smiling no more.

"Well, let me tell you," I began. "I was camping with a lady up beyond the Yallerstone, a Paiute lady, in the dead of winter. And we was running from her husband and his brother-but that's another story. It'd snowed hard, like it does up there, and we had a nice fire going. Past midnight I woke up and saw a big white wolf, tall at the ears as my friend Clete Shannon. Well, almost, anyways. He was sitting beside that died down fire, right next to us, keeping warm like a dog on a hearthstone. I figured, if he was content there, so was I–and went back to sleep. Come morning, I discovered that damn critter had eat a dozen eggs and a large slab a bacon. That wasn't what bothered me, though." I settled in on my piller, Clete's jacket rolled up. It felt strange being out of my longjohns.

Took her a minute 'til she ask. "What
did
bother you, Willie?"

I rolled over and looked her in the eye. "Why, that big wolf had made himself breakfast of our last food there beside our campfire and didn't even think to wash out the frying pan." I give her a little goodnight kiss. "Don't you worry, Mandy."

My, that girl had a pretty laugh. "Goodnight, Willie."

A gunshot. Right beside my face. I rolled for my pistol, but a hundred hooves was right on top of me. Mandy screamed. Horses stamping and turning all around the quilt and kicking up the canvas. Mandy fired her rifle again, sitting up, and someone hollering at the horses.

I yelled, pushing the barrel of her Winchester toward the ground. But she got off another shot anyway, making the horses even wilder. I throwed myself over her, partly to protect her from the hooves flying all around and partly to keep her from shooting.

It took a while, but they started to move away. I laid still as I could, trying to hold her, squirming as she was. The dust settled some and things got quieter. That big strong girl finally laid still beneath me.

"Morning, Deputy," Clete called from a little distance off. "Looks like you've caught somebody, but I thought this was a
man
hunt."

I rolled off of her and sat up, mustering as much of my dignity as I could. "About time you showed up. What kept you?" It wasn't 'til then that I remembered I was in my birthday suit, bare as a new-hatched magpie. When I reached for the quilt to cover myself, I found Mandy had wrapped it around her. There was nothing else to do but stand up, put on my hat and then my longjohns. Clete, he watched the show still sitting his horse and smiling like the devil does when a Baptist gets drunk.

"This is your friend?" Mandy asked.

"That's right," I told her, buttoning my shirt. "This here's Clete Shannon. You almost put a hole through the sheriff of Two Scalp, Dakota Territory." I sat back down to put on my boots. "And if he's anything at all like he usually is, he won't let you fergit this 'til the day you die."

I went over to where he was. He looked tired and kind of smirky, but I was glad to see him. "Clete, this here's Miss Amanda Bowden, or something Frenchy like that."

"Boudoin," she corrected me, and then said it slow for both of us. "Boo-dwanh. I call myself Mandy." She pushed at her hair and reached for her boots. "You will excuse me if I do not stand up to curtsy, Mr. Sheriff."

"Of course, Miss Amanda," he said, that grin still on his face. You could tell he was taking her in and liked what he saw. When he looked back at me, he was surprised that I caught what was on his mind. "I'm sorry, you two. I didn't figure on finding anyone asleep, seeing as how the sun's already up."

"It is I who must apologize for shooting at you," Mandy said. "I thought you were the other man, the man we follow, Mr. Sheriff."

"Call me Clete, ma'm," he said, touching the brim of his Montana. "When you fired, those two horses I've been leading busted loose and yours got mixed in with them. rn go round them up now and let you get yourself dressed. We got a long day on the trail ahead of us and need to get started right away."

Mandy sat and looked back and forth from Clete to me 'til he rode off a ways. I tied on my bandanna, grabbed my saddle, and walked out after him. Before long he caught my horse and brought him in. Clete stayed on Buckshot while I saddled mine. "Whyinhell'd you bring her?" he ask.

"Had no choice," I told him. "Her parents died and no one else lived around there. She didn't slow me down, though."

"Except maybe at night," Clete said.

"I can't see as that's any of your damn business, just like my drinkin'," I told him flat. "Long as I do my job."

"Didn't know you liked them quite so fresh out of their swaddles."

I was about to tell him I was no older than her pappy was compared to her ma when I seen that damn grin back on his face. He was just hoo-rahing me was all, so I gave him a good wink and let 'er go at that. I looked back toward where Mandy and me had camped, and she was gettin dressed, putting a clean shirt on.

"Where's her horse?" Clete asked, watching her too.

"Our man took it. Ridin' it now, 'cause his is about lame."

"Damned inconvenient, Willie," he said. "And dangerous for her, but I suppose you know that."

I mounted up. "Yessir it is. And I told her so, too, but she still decided she had to come. I'm sorry, Clete, but I saw no other way for it."

"Well, I'm sorry too for actin' like a jackass back there at Nell's. If we catch him, it'll be to your credit, for I'd a never done it, starting out by myself like I had a mind to. I'd have lost him back at Medicine Creek where he covered his tracks. I've been thinking on it, following behind, and I was wrong as shit, so I guess we're even again, huh?"

"Suits me," I said. "Now, are we going to go catch them other horses and get after that hardcase, or are we going to sit here and just apologize all over each other for the rest of the morning?"

Well, it took no time at all to catch them other two and bring them back. He had brought me a fine-looking bay gelding, almost short enough in the barrel to be an Indian pony and long enough in the legs not to be. Sounds like an awkward sort of horse, I know, but he was smooth as the seat of a banker's britches. But what surprised me even more was that the citizens of Two Scalp had sprung for him. The pack horse carried more provisions than we could eat in a month, even with an extra mouth to feed. Clete got out the shotgun he'd brought from the office and I gave him back his Henry.

"I found this with your trail clothes," Clete said, handing me the tied-up skin I kept my pistol and powder and balls in. "Is that a Navy .36?"

"Yes it is," I said. "Stopped wearing it a few years ago when I finally saw I'd never learn to hit anything with it. Don't know why I ever bought it in the first place."

"Pretty old piece and not the best gun for the job we've got here, but I'd appreciate it if you'd strap it on anyway," he said.

"All right, only don't expect much."

"I know better than that," he said, starting out.

He'd brought ammunition enough for a regiment on patrol and even a tent. But of course he didn't bring another saddle for the horse he brought me, so Mandy had to go bareback on the buckskin. She didn't seem to mind.

I rode beside Clete, leading the pack animal, and Mandy followed, keeping well up with us. He looked back every so often to see how she was doing, and then he'd give me that big shit-eating grin. But once when I seen him looking back, I noticed it wasn't just her welfare on his mind, and it was me had the smile on my face after that. While we rode he told me about how everyone in town had gone to Nell's and Jesse's funerals, and thought nothing much about them two old timers sleeping together, though Mary'd been a little funny about it.

"Looky there," I said, after we'd been on the trail for a while. "He's heading back up to the Cheyenne again," for his sign struck out toward the northwest.

Clete stopped and took out his map. "Looks like he's heading back toward the river, all right, but it ain't the Cheyenne. That's a lot west of here. The one you followed him along, that's the Bad."

"The Bad? I never heard of no Bad River. What's bad about it? Looked pretty peaceful to me."

We dismounted and studied the map he'd brought and soon Mandy joined us. "It is called the Bad River because it begins in the
Mauvaises Terres
," she said, as if that should mean something to us. Clete looked at me and I shrugged. "It means 'bad lands to travel through,'" Mandy explained. "I have heard my father talk of it. 'Where hell comes up to the earth,' Papa said. It would be better not to go there, I think. We should go south 'til we come to a town."

Clete give her a look and then walked over to his horse and snap-mounted him. "If that bastard's going into the Badlands then that's where we're going. At least I am."

I climbed up too. "I didn't sign on for half ways," I said. "Mandy, you're welcome to that old buckskin of mine if you want him. Take my compass, too, and some food. Head south by east and you'll find someone in a few days. Course, there are Sioux and Cheyenne running around. And I'd miss you plenty, especially if you was dead."

She shook her head and I couldn't tell whether she was just refusing my offer or if she thought we were crazy. Maybe both. But she didn't mount. Just stood there looking at the ground and sulking like a kid.

I turned my horse and went over close so I could say a word to her private. "Now look, Mandy. I didn't say nothin' about you not doing what I told you this morning. I yelled at you to stop shooting and you went ahead and did anyway. You was startled and so was I. But this is a whole different thing entirely. Now, either mount up and go along without trying to change our minds or else head off on your own, don't matter to me. If you go with us, I'll look out for you best I can, but you'll have to keep your ideas about going elsewhere to yourself. You promised to do like I told you. If you go on with us, I'll expect you to live up to your side of the bargain."

"Oh, I will go along, Mr. Goodwin," she said, sharp as a spider bite, "for I cannot go by myself. But I see who makes the orders here and who follows them. It is senseless to chase this man! He is a killer and will kill again. Your friend he shot is well now, so why chase him?
Le meurtrier,
he was only trying to kill the man who shot his son!"

I guess Clete heard her, for he rode right over. "What's that? You talked to him?"

"Back at her place, before he took her horse," I told him.

"What'd you say about him killing someone who shot his boy?" Clete ask, and not very gentle.

She stood with her hands on her hips and kept her mouth shut, glaring at us like a rattler in a den.

Clete waited a time before he spoke, and when he did his voice was raspy. "I need to know who I'm chasing, Missy."

She smiled at him but it weren't one of her pretty ones. "I will be happy to tell you what I know, Mr. Shannon, as soon as you take me to a place when I can board a stagecoach." She crossed her arms and looked real pleased with herself after that.

Clete wheeled his horse around, grabbed the reins of my buckskin, and turned to me. "Leave her!" He nudged that big black and headed off with her mount. I seen her face good then, and she looked a whole hell of a lot different than she did a minute before.

"Hold on," I called to Clete. I caught up in a few yards, for he was only walking the horses at a good clip. "You can't do this, leave her out here all alone!"

"Don't think I'll have to," he said kind of soft, though there was no need for it, she being then three or four rods behind. "Just let her think on it."

Well, I didn't know what to do. Before I decided, we heard her call out and we stopped.

She was running after us, her hair streaming out behind. "Wait! I will tell you! Wait for me!"