The wind blows steadily across the rolling Texas prairie. A rust-muddy river flows some hundred yards away, marked on either side by cottonwoods with white seeds floating all about. I am standing only a few yards from an old man who is tossing pieces of bone onto the wrinkled surface of a spread-out blanket. No, wait. There is no wind, just a stillness of arid air. Monument Valley. Spires of red rock rise into the cerulean sky, a blue bluer than blue. An old man, gray haired and weathered, tosses bones on a tattered blanket. Other men, younger men, watch.
“We go on,” the old man says.
One of the younger men turns to me. “You know that DeChenney and his army ain’t gonna let us go. They want us back to work their land.”
“Buck,” an older man says, “we’s a-goin’ on. If Old Deke says we go on, then we go on.”
“All right then,” I say. I take off my Stetson and wipe my brow, stare out across the plains at the mountains in the distance. “Be ready by the time I get back here tomorrow. Be about midday.”
“We be ready, Buck.”
“Good. And you’re going to have to pare down some. Those mules gonna have to pull you a long way.”
“All de way to de green valley,” he says.
I nod. I step away, nodding at the women who were cooking over the fire, tip my hat. I mount my bay quarter horse and rein him in a tight circle and then trot, no, canter off away from the camp and not on a bay but on a palomino, flaxen mane and tail full of the wind.
A shake of the head. A clearing. I am saying again:
“All right then.” I push up the brim of my Stetson and look at the unforgiving western sky. Then I look at the mountains in the distance. Lavender hills capped with snow. “You all be ready,” I say. “I’ll be back tomorrow around midday and you all just be ready. You hear me?”
“We be ready, Buck.”
“You see all this furniture and these heavy trunks. You gotta pare down something fierce. These same sad mules gonna have to pull you all the way over those mountains.”
“All de way to de green valley,” he says.
“Why are you talking like that?” I ask.
“Sorry, Buck.”
I step away and acknowledge the women who are cooking at the big fire. I tip my hat to them and smile. They giggle at the sight of my smile. I mount my palomino and ride off; his flaxen mane and tail are full of the wind.
I ride through a stream and through a canyon as my horse kicks up a steady red cloud. I approach a cabin, a homestead. I am looking for my woman, Bes. But something isn’t right. The farm is too quiet. The cabin is too quiet. There are the usual animal sounds — chickens, pigs. The cow is standing where she always stands. Bes’s brother and his wife and children have been living here too, and there’s no sign of them. One of them is always outside. The cabin is small, two rooms, and it gets crowded inside, but where are they? I dismount some distance away and lead my horse to a teamless buckboard next to a sycamore. Bes steps out into the shadow on the porch, stands there. A breeze moves her blue gingham dress. Her yellow dress. She slowly raises her hand to wave, a stiff wave. I wave back, knowing that something is bad wrong. I slip off the leather keep from the trigger of the pistol holstered on my hip. I study Bes’s eyes. I look closely at the windows of the cabin, at the barn, at the smokehouse. The chickens walk about in front of Bes. Then she runs, and a white man behind her starts shooting his pistol at me. No, he pushes Bes to the side, she loses her balance, falls into the dust. He shoots, and other men shoot from the windows of the cabin, the smokehouse, and the open barn doors. I dive to take cover in the pig corral, sliding through the mud to the far side where I kick out the bottom fence rail and roll out. Bullets whiz by my head, and I can’t see where to shoot back. I spot Bes running to the trees, her skirts full of the wind, and I wave for her to keep going, to get clear. The faces of the white men are fierce, evil, full of hate. I run and slip and slide and squirm to more cover and still more cover as the bullets ricochet by my ears. I get to my horse and dash away, hunched low over the saddle, a cloud of dust pluming behind me. Soon, the white men have found their horses and are chasing me and though I can’t see them, I can feel the posse’s hooves drumming the ground. I ride into the night. No, I’ve ridden hard for a couple of hours. My horse is slick and foamy with sweat. He is walking now. I’ve ridden him so long and hard.
At a watering hole I see a man bathing, wearing nothing but a hat. He splashes around in the pool on skinny brown legs while I admire his chestnut horse, no, black horse. The animal is hobbled next to the man’s camp, his clothes are laid out on some big rocks next to a dead fire. I remove my saddle and the sweat-drenched blanket from my palomino and quietly approach the black horse. He becomes nervous, whinnies, and I put a hand on his neck to settle him down.
“Who’s that up there?” the man calls from the water.
I draw my pistol and point it at the man’s chest as he climbs naked up the hill toward me.
“Excuse me, brother, but there seems to be a misunderstanding here. That horse, the one you’re putting a saddle on, belongs to me.” He holds his hat over his private parts.
“We’re trading,” I say. I nod over to my palomino.
“A trade usually requires agreement, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t have time for agreement. My horse is a good one. You’ll find that out once he’s rested.”
“I’m sure that’s true, brother. So, why don’t you sit here for a while and have some coffee and let him rest?”
“Don’t have time.”
“My name is Jeremiah Cheeseboro and I’m a man of the cloth. Does that make any difference to you, friend?”
“Another day it might.”
The man makes a move toward his clothes.
“That’s far enough,” I say and pull back the hammer on my nickel-finished peacemaker pistol.
“I was just reaching for my drawers,” he says. “I’m feeling a little exposed out here in my altogether, if you know what I mean.”
“You’re doing just fine.”
“So, you’re just going to steal my horse,” he says.
“Trade.”
“You say.”
“I say. Now, why don’t you just walk on back down that trail and get in that water.”
“I’m clean enough,” he says.
“Go on.”
“You’re no Christian, brother,” he says as he shuffles backward to the water and in. “Your deeds will catch up to you.”
“Better them than the posse that’s chasing me,” I say. I climb onto the back of the black horse, give a final nod to the preacher, and then gallop away.
I’m seeing this from high above, like a god, only shorter, I suppose. That preacher from the watering hole is dressed in black, dusty from the trail, dismounting and tying my palomino to the post in front of a livery. The preacher is minding his own business, his big Bible under his arm, no, held to his chest. He makes his way down the side of the livery to the back door of a saloon.
He takes off his hat and bows to a young boy. “Son, I would be much obliged if you would see fit to take my two bits into this here establishment and procure for me a bit of the spirits.”
The boy stares at him, dumbfounded.
“I want you to go in and buy me a whiskey.”
“Why didn’t you say that?”
“I’m sorry, lad. I’m afraid I overestimated your ability to comprehend simple language.”
“What?”
“I didn’t realize that you’re stupid.”
The boy goes inside and slams the door.
The preacher walks back to the street where he finds his horse encircled by dirty, dusty white men. “Is this here your horse?” a lanky man asks, stepping close and spitting tobacco juice onto the preacher’s shoes.