“Who was the man I killed?” he said.
“He was a bad man,” said Ramon. “He was a killer and a drunk.”
Ramon ordered two more drinks and toasted to Bird again.
“To our newest hired gun,” said Ramon. “You’ll sleep with us tonight. In the mission.”
“Where is it?”
“At the end of the road. You cannot miss it. You will like it. Your wife will like it. There is a bathhouse nearby, and you can use it as you see fit.”
“I did not expect this to come as easily as it has,” said Bird.
“You were ready for it,” said Ramon. He set his hand on Bird’s bad shoulder, and Bird flinched but did not pull away.
“I am ready for it,” said Bird.
“To fight evil,” said Ramon.
“To face it head on,” said Bird. “With everything within me.”
“You are a very brave boy,” said Ramon.
Bird found the postal office locked when he set to fetch Mary. He peeked in the windows and spotted nothing. He went around the side of the building and into the back alley. There, he spotted the shack and the smoke and approached the front door. He knocked and Gretta answered.
“Have you seen my wife?” said Bird.
“I have seen no wives,” said Gretta. “It is late and you are drunk, boy.”
“I can’t find her,” said Bird. “Her name is Mary.”
“She has likely run away or is staying with her mother.”
“What are you saying?” said Bird.
“She is likely with her mother,” said Gretta again.
“She doesn’t have a mother.”
“Then you have yourself a problem, boy. Do you know what time it is?”
“I am not a boy,” said Bird.
“You are no bigger than my gut,” said Gretta.
“I am bigger than your gut,” said Bird.
“You must go now,” said Gretta. “My husband is sleeping and he will not be happy for you to wake him.”
“But I cannot find my wife,” said Bird.
“I know this,” said Gretta. She shut the door.
Bird stumbled back into the alley. A cat darted past and vanished beneath a crate.
“That cat is like my wife,” Bird said, to no one.
Ramon was waiting for him at the staircase. He was bent over, as if talking to the eagle.
“We have drunk, my friend,” said Ramon.
“I’m sick,” said Bird.
“You are not a drinker,” said Ramon. “But you will get better.”
“I do not trust you, Ramon,” said Bird.
“Nor should you!” said Ramon.
Suddenly, Bird was laughing. Then Ramon was laughing. They were drunk in the street together and the stars were out. The windows around them were lit and dark and in-between. There was singing coming from the bar. Someone was banging out something on a loose-keyed piano. A man led his horse down the center of the road. Bird withdrew his pistol and stuck it back behind his belt.
“Come,” said Ramon, “to the mission. We’ll sleep now and get baths tomorrow. I’ll introduce you to the boys and to the boss. I have a bottle in my room. We will drink before bed and in the morning to cure our stomachs and clear our heads.”
“You are not the boss?” said Bird.
“I like you, little bird,” said Ramon. “Do you like me just a little?”
Bird said nothing.
The mission was raucous, but clean. Men and women crowded the halls, and the enormous chapel space at its center. Corridors of rooms lined the edges and Ramon took Bird to his. It was sparsely decorated, but lined with empty bottles. They drank on the rug in the center of Ramon’s room, and when Ramon began to touch him, Bird did not resist. Ramon removed Bird’s shirt, and then his own. He touched the scar where the boy’s arm had been.
“I was pinned beneath a rock,” said Bird, “and I freed myself.”
“You are a very brave boy,” said Ramon. He kissed him then, and Bird retracted.
“No,” said Bird.
“My mistake,” said Ramon. “I thought you liked me.”
“I will sleep outside,” said Bird, and he gathered his shirt and dressed while exiting.
As he left the chapel, Ramon followed. The men and women in the hallways laughed at themselves and then at Ramon and Bird. They went back to laughing at themselves as Bird and Ramon left.
Outside, Bird found a fountain with a smooth bench carved into its outer wall. He set himself on the bench and told Ramon not to come any closer. He withdrew his pistol. When Ramon stopped, Bird set the pistol at his side.
“I will be fine here,” said Bird.
“I can show you to your room,” said Ramon. “I will leave you there.”
“I will sleep outside,” said Bird.
“You’re upset,” said Ramon. “I have upset you.” He was distressed, but soft in his manner.
“I’d like a safe distance between us,” said Bird. “You’ve made me feel uneasy, but I am not upset.”
“I apologize, little bird,” said Ramon. He was missing a tooth and the gap sometimes whistled as he spoke. “I did not mean to upset you.”
“In the morning,” said Bird, “you will introduce me to the boss?”
“Yes,” said Ramon. “But you can sleep inside.”
“I will sleep outside,” said Bird. He pulled back the pistol’s hammer and set it in his lap.
Ramon left him then. Bird sat alone. He set his hand in the still water of the fountain. Mary had abandoned him. He would be alone forever. He was better off alone. He would be a traveler and a gunfighter. He would be quick and steady, and they would not expect it.
The bodies in Wolf Creek were arranged as if the townspeople had been executed in a group. The wagon train had sped in to greet the buildings, but now lingered at the mouth of the town’s central road. They kept their distance, for fear of a plague, until Brooke volunteered to approach the corpses. He promised to remain at a good distance if he could not produce another viable cause of death. He approached the bodies with a bandana at his mouth, and yet the stench still struck him like a hand.
“They are shot,” said Brooke. He coughed and retched from the smell. The sight was less than pleasant too, but nothing he had not seen before. “They are days dead. Maybe weeks.”
Slowly, the wagon trainers approached.
“Who killed them, John?” said Irene.
“I do not know,” he said.
“It’s likely the same riders what killed the men in the stagecoach,” said Jack.
“Or other riders altogether,” said Marston.
Wendell fired his rifle in the air to announce their arrival.
“If anyone is still breathing in these walls, show yourself,” he said. “We are not here for trouble. We’ve been traveling for endless days and we’ve come only to make a home. We will work. We will be good citizens of Wolf Creek.”
There was no response. The wind howled through the hollow buildings. Wendell set the boys to gathering the bodies and burying them on the edge of town. He asked the women to go from door to door and check for life or supplies. He would go with them, for protection. He gave his young confidante a pistol, as well.
Working together, the men had the graves dug before sundown. They set the bodies one by one at the bottom of each, and filled in all the dirt.
They found the homes vacant. Some looked as if they had been lived in but abandoned with haste, others seemed to be packed away, as if the owners had had their fair share of life in Wolf Creek and had decided to seek fortune elsewhere. There was an endless turning over of property happening, explained Wendell. Some element of the life desired was always off and people were hunting down something quiet and peaceful, leaving their shells behind like the crabs he’d read about in books. Each of the wagon trainers had a theory to explain what had happened there. Most involved the sudden oncoming of some great misery. The homes that were packed away, Marston explained, likely belong to the people who were smart enough to avoid the snowfall, people who had some sense of what was coming. It had been almost unbearable that year, nearly everywhere. But the bodies he could not explain. Nor the unshakable feeling that the town had been caught by surprise in some way or another. There was blood all over the prison. Something tragic had occurred and had left the town full of bodies and ghosts.