“Maybe thirty-five, forty, somethin’ like that. When one is killed he picks up another saddle tramp or army deserter.”
“One Dog kills all black men he sees, no? He wants all blacks to remain under the white man’s whip, to work and sweat and be sold like cattle to other white men, to take a man from his woman and children. Is this not true?”
“It’s true,” Will said. “He raids farms, rapes the women, kills them, kills the men and children, and steals the stock—cattle and horses. He sells them in Mexico.”
“Austin—you and Will have killed some of One Dog’s men?”
“Four. We carve HW on the chests of their corpses.”
“What is this HW?”
“My brother’s name was Hiram. We were going to use our first initials as the name of our ranch.”
“What is this ‘initials’?”
“First letter of each of our names.”
“I do not read. You will need to show me HW. Then I too will carve it into the chests of these pigs.”
“Sure.”
“Is good. Now we will eat and drink and make some plans, no?”
The ’tender was still crouched behind the bar, white-faced, trembling. “Barkeep,” Austin said. “You cook us up three of the best an’ biggest steaks you got—blood rare, they gotta be—an’ set up a couple of bottles of whiskey and three glasses.”
“Three bottles,” Jane said. “We will go to a table where we can see the door. Bring bucket of beer, too.”
Gentle Jane faced Will for a long moment. “I see hatred and flame in your eyes, Will. That is good. We will make blood flow. No?”
“We’ll do that, Gentle Jane.”
“Only way is sneak attacks—like the snake after the mouse. If the three of us charge together—even at night—we will be killed.”
“Yeah. Austin an’ me been doin’ it that way. Seems to be working good.”
“How many you kill so far?”
“I dunno—eight, ten.”
Jane spit on the floor. “Shit. I kill that many for you my first night. Still, for a couple of white eyes, you not done too bad.” Jane took a long drink. “You are fast with your gun?”
“Yeah,” Will said. “I am.”
“Fast is good. Accurate is more important. How accurate are you, Will Lewis?”
Austin answered for Will. “This boy can shoot the short hairs offa a hog’s back without touchin’ the pork.”
“Is good. If Austin say so, is true.” Gentle Jane thought about that for a bit. “I am faster and more accurate with my knife than you are with your .45,” he said as if he were stating a known and accepted fact.
Austin was on his feet. “C’mon, Jane—ain’t no reason for this horseshit. We’re all three of us goin’ to ride together, no? If you an’ Will get into it, there’ll—”
Gentle Jane laughed. “I am not talking about fighting—I am talking about a contest, is all. No blood flows in a contest, and no one dies. Is fun, is all.”
Austin sat back down.
“Here is the contest I am thinking,” Jane said. “The picture there, the puta, over the bar. Let Austin start us and we see who puts a knife or a slug into her—how do you say?—bally button first. Is simple contest.”
“Where would you draw your knife from?” Will asked.
“From my holster, just like you pull your pistol. Is fair. Is good.”
“You can’t win,” Will said. “No goddamn way.”
“Jane,” Austin said, “Will’s right. You can’t win. An’ I’m scared when you lose it’ll piss you off an’ you start goin’ . . .”
Jane laughed. “No. No. Is a fun contest. I would have no anger if Will is more faster than I am.”
“Bullshit,” Austin mumbled.
“We will stand,” Gentle Jane said. Both men stepped in front of the table. Will touched the grips of his Colt, lifted the weapon a bit, and let it go. Jane went through essentially the same ritual with the knife sheathed on his right holster.
“We are ready,” Jane grinned. “On three, my brother Austin?”
“Sure. On three.”
“Will,” he said, barely louder than a whisper, “don’t win, fa crissakes. I mean it.”
“Count,” Will said.
Austin nodded, his face showing his trepidation.
“One . . .
“Two . . .
“Three!”
Jane’s hand seemed to barely move before his knife was in the air, crossing the fifteen feet to the nude. Will, on the other hand, didn’t seem to hurry, although his pistol suddenly appeared in his hand. He fired once.
Jane’s knife, barely two feet from its target, seemed to have been struck by lightning. The blade, bent into a useless U, clattered to the floor. The grip sailed a few feet away before it dropped.
“Madre de Jesús,” Jane said.
Austin seated, hand under the table, drew his .45.
“You are as fast and as accurate as I have ever seen,” Jane said.
“I got lucky.”
“There is no luck with weapons. Only skill.” He held out his right hand to Will. “I shake hands with very few men. I will shake with you.”
Will took Jane’s hand. The two men grinned at one another. “Is good contest, no?”
Will nodded. “Now we drink like brothers.”
“And Austin—holster that pistol before I rip your hand off and stick that .45 up your ass.”
Chapter Five
The three men sat at the table, drinking and talking. Austin and Gentle Jane had many memories of long rides, bloody battles, whores, and horses to rehash and, perhaps, to embellish slightly. Will tapped away at his bottle of whiskey but concentrated on scribing arcs on the wet wood of the table in front of him with the bottom of his schooner, having next to nothing to add to the conversation. Austin’s and Will’s bottles were a third gone when Gentle Jane’s was empty and he went to the bar for another. Will noticed that there wasn’t the slightest stagger or weave to his stride—it was as if he’d just downed a bottle of sarsaparilla rather than West Texas rotgut.
“It is not good alcohol,” Jane said, sitting down. “But even bad alcohol is better than none at all.”
“I’ve noticed that you speak very well—clearly and without cussin’, Jane,” Will said. “How did that come to be?”
Gentle Jane downed a double shot before answering. “Many years ago,” he said, “the army came and took me away from my parents and carried me to a missionary school. They cut my hair off and they beat me for speaking in Arapahoe, which is the tribe with whom I lived. The missionaries told us of their God and struck us if we refused to pray to him. They said our gods—the earth, the sky, the water, the wind—were foolish and sinful and to pray to them would damn us to the missionaries’ hell, a lake of fire in which we’d burn eternally. To think of holding a girl, to envision her privates and how they’d feel, look, and taste, was also a grave and mortal sin, punishable in the lake of fire. Even thinking of these things—without doing them—was another mortal sin.”
“But you learned to speak as you do, no? You—”
“I decided I’d need to speak proper English but I refused to write or read their letters. I suffered many beatings from the missionaries—particularly Brother Thomas. Brother Thomas was a cruel pig. One night I took the ice pick from the kitchen and went to his room. He was sleeping. I touched the point to his eyelid and he came awake. ‘Do I need to write in your letters to tell you what will happen now?’ I asked him. He started to sit up. I drove the ice pick through his eye and inside his head. He fell back on his cot. I had a barlow pocket knife in my pocket—which was, of course, forbidden. I took my first ear that night. I was eleven years old. I stole a horse from the stable and went on my way, the ear strung on a piece of latigo around my neck.”