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… so Wiley and Midnight took the weasels down to the river edge for skinning. The water ran heavy with spring melt and the beach was halved. They scrubbed their knives with sand and it soaked up the blood. They pegged out the pelts to dry and threw the meat in the water because Wiley said these weasels and stoats and martens and so on carried disease like the rats in Europe.
Wiley said: “Plague.” He nodded in that way that meant he’d studied up on whatever he was saying.
Midnight said: “We better wash our hands real good then.”
The stink of copper smelters down the valley came on the freshening wind. Costain knew it was 1910. People were starting to laugh at just the idea of road agents.
Buzz kicked out at the barbed-wire fence. He said: “These Basque bastards and their sheep.”
But Costain knew better.
He said: “Perreault ain’t no Basque. He’s a general from France. Got drummed out of the Foreign Legion. Married a rich girl in Boston. Her father give him the ranch so’s he’d go away.”
Buzz said: “Fuck him anyway,” and took out his wire cutters.
Town was asleep at that time of day. There was only one horse tied to the railing in front of the pharmacy. The green mortar-and-pestle sign squeaked on its hinges. Costain and Buzz put on bear masks made out of paper. They busted the glass out of the door on their way in. Buzz swung on an old farmer who reached inside his black coat.
Costain warned him: “Watch my.38,” but the old man kept reaching and Costain spun him with one shot and put a hole through his neck. The outlaw pair took four hundred in gold and paper and a brass-bound chest full of cocaine syrup and ether and belladonna and sleeping powders. A boy ran up in the street outside and Buzz gut-shot him.
Buzz said: “Mask slipped. He saw my face.”
The boy went into convulsions in the dirt. Red foam came to his mouth.
Costain said: “Finish him.”
The cut load took the boy’s skull apart and Buzz wiped brain off his boots. Then they rode hard up the draw and crossed the Flathead at the first show of treeline. Costain swept their trail with pine boughs. Then they cut north through the shallows …
(remainder of page mutilated)
… and threw his cards down.
Midnight said: “Plainly it ain’t or I wouldn’t be asking.”
Wiley said: “Don’t you read three queens?”
The stove had gone out and night frost come up on the windows, but they paid no mind. Costain was rattling coins in his hand. Midnight was pawing at an empty syrup bottle. His face was all puffed up and had confusion in it.
Buzz said: “Should of seed it. First slug puts him in rotation like a top. Then High Wide gives him the cup of grass on the next one and near takes his head off clean.”
Midnight said: “Shut up and deal.”
Wiley had his eyes open like a trance, but he was snoring. The loghouse smelled of blankets. The wick of the lamp was turned low. Costain brought the bandanna soaked in ether up to his face.
Buzz said: “Fuck cards.”
Oil dripped off the edge of Midnight’s whetstone. Bits of steel shaved from the blade were too small to see. Midnight was nodding to the rhythm of scrapes. Hair fell over his eyes.
He said: “How ’bout I cut you a new asshole?”
Buzz shot out of his chair and flapped his hand over an empty holster. A fist came down hard on the table and it was Costain’s.
He said: “Quit now. Stow it before I have to lay both of you out.”
The rivals stared at each other a long minute and the heat came into their eyes.
Costain said: “Midnight. Get some air. Go find Juanito.”
It was so fresh outside. Midnight stood under the moon clear as water and threw up his arms. Trees and fenceposts made long shadows and his breath made steam. The stars seemed to flare. A chicken ran out from under the porch. Midnight caught her up and opened her throat on the blade. He sucked blood from his finger stumps.
In the morning Juanito was missing with two horses. Each man went alone to his cache and found it untouched. Then they looked for a trail sign. They walked in mist to their knees and a silence that was tense. Costain had been expecting something but not exactly this. He knew there was a supply of time being used up and nothing he could do about that.
To himself Wiley said: “We got to take steps.”
He was thinking how it would be sad to leave this place, where Juanito was sure to bring law on purpose or by accident. He liked being near water. He liked being right under the sky. Anywhere else would bring on his claustrophobia.
The search was called off at noon. Midnight stayed behind in the woods to drink cocaine syrup and curse the others. In the loghouse, Costain got out his maps.
Buzz said: “What the hell are you so calm about?”
Costain did not look up.
Buzz said: “Let’s just torch the place and ride.”
Wiley was stroking his pelt bundles. He said: “We made this. We worked it up and around and …”
Costain told them both to shut up. His eyes narrowed. He said: “Three will take a week’s provisions and head out for the Beaverhead. The other one will find Juanito and quiet him.”
Wiley said: “Can we go to the hot springs on the way?”
The deck of cards came out and Wiley volunteered to sit for Midnight.
Costain cut himself a red four. He said: “Low card wins. I’ll go.”
They agreed to meet at the needle rocks on the first day of May and swore a pact of blood to die free. Buzz had tears in his eyes. Midnight had to be clubbed to stop his raving and then tied to his pinto. They took off just at dusk and followed a feeder creek up across the ridge. Further on they found a cave dug out of the red rock that would conceal their fire. They made camp and Buzz and Wiley lit into one another over who should’ve put coffee on the packhorse and hadn’t.
Buzz said: “But for that greaser punk, we wouldn’t be asquat down in mud with fried biscuit for dinner.”
Midnight said: “You gone soft?”
They laid themselves down, but nobody slept. There was bat stink in the cave and a cold seep that had them all rucked up in their blankets.
COSTAIN knew how to be careful. He wore a false mustache and ordered rye whiskey with a Spanish accent. The pianola was playing “Strawberry Blonde.” The mine drudgers had already shed their pay, so all the tables were empty except the one where Perreault could be seen. He had a cigar in his mouth and his finger up the girl child on his lap. Costain would have got him outside and hijacked his pockets but for the business at hand.
He said to the barman: “Seen my cousin tonight? He berry thin witha long hair.”
The answer came: “Yah, I seen ten guys like that and I didn’t ask nobody’s name.”
This barman was a safecracker lammed from Cleveland first and then Denver. Talking the hour with Costain, he could boil it down and see they were comrades.
He said: “Want help with this Mex pigeon a yers, then I could be the man.”
Costain hadn’t dropped his guard for nothing. He could recognize an asset when it came up, and this one had a kind of city smarts that would fit.
Costain said: “Meet me on the back street with a bottle.”
THE drizzle lasted all morning. Wiley’s horse came up lame and had to be walked. They pulled up where aspens were in bud and scrounged for dry wood, but the fire was more steam than smoke. Midnight’s feet were swole up, so he couldn’t get his boots off.
Buzz thumbed Costain’s hand-drafted map and said: “Settler’s cabin marked right two mile off. I say we go down and get proper fed. See what else might look good while we’re in the neighborhood.”
Wiley said: “You go on. My gut burns fit to kill.”
That knife went clean through wet leather. Midnight had it figured to the minute. He was going to walk the mountain on bloody feet till he found the Virgin Mary and got clean.