The small fire crackled and snapped in the March wind. They were camped on a barren slope in the Wichita Mountains, granite peaks that rose abruptly from the plain. Two days earlier, north of the mountains, Bent had sighted a cavalry column moving east to west ahead of him. He identified it as cavalry and not an Indian band because of its orderly march, and the colors and guidons raised above it. He'd dragged little Gus to the ground and forced the dapple gray to lie down until the column passed from view. He hadn't felt safe about building a fire until this evening.
He turned his head slightly, presenting the left side of his face to the boy, extra temptation as he jiggled the earring again. "Isn't it pretty?"
In a face unwashed for days, Gus's eyes shone like polished brown stones. Bent's discipline had left its mark in those eyes. It had also left a scabby welt on Gus's chin, another on his forehead, and a bruise like a splatter of mud around his right eye. Bent had reduced the boy to a state of perpetual fear and total dependence; the four-year-old was grateful for every scrap of stale beef and every swallow of tepid water his captor allowed him. He hardly said a word, afraid of goading Bent to anger. He'd learned quickly that the man's anger could flare without clear cause.
Bent kept jiggling the earring. Gus didn't know what his captor expected of him. Bent smiled and the boy decided he wanted him to touch the earring. He flexed his fingers. Raised his hand. Extended it tentatively —
Bent struck him so hard he fell over. He yanked Gus up by his hair, slapped his face twice. "Bad boy. Mustn't grab. If you're a bad boy, then my friend wakes up."
From the pocket of his filthy claw-hammer coat he took the straight razor. Flicked it open. Gus scooted backward, mouth open. He made no sound; Bent whipped him if he was noisy. But he'd seen the razor before. He'd been cut by it.
The campfire rippled silver flashes along the blade. Gus cringed back another foot or so, scooting on his bottom. Bent smiled again. "You know what my friend does to bad boys, don't you? He hurts them."
Bent got to his knees with great speed and flung his arms out above the fire. The edge of the razor sped toward Gus's throat. Gus screamed and fell on his side, covering his face. Bent had pulled his thrust at the last moment, stopping the blade six inches from the boy's neck.
Gus's scream was so piercing, it ruined the sport somehow. In his head Bent heard strange echoes of the cry, punctuated by a weird pinging. He dropped the razor, ran around the fire, and shook the boy by the shoulders. "You are a really bad boy. I told you never to make noise. If you make noise again, I'll let my friend bite you. You know how it feels when he bites you."
Gus began to whimper, wet sounds. Bent took off his plug hat and swabbed his shiny forehead with his sleeve, leaving streaks of dirt. "That's better. Pull up your blanket and go to sleep before I ask my friend to punish you for being so bad."
Carefully, silently, Gus hitched across the ground to a filthy saddle blanket. Lice had long ago migrated from the blanket to his body and hair. His eyes showed over the edge of the blanket after he pulled it up. Bent cleaned some dirt from the razor blade with the ball of his thumb. At certain angles the blade caught the firelight, throwing a scarlet-white reflection into Gus's eyes. The third time it happened, the boy hid beneath the blanket.
It was satisfying to hurt the boy. Each time he did, Bent felt he was hurting Charles Main too. Hurting Gus also had a practical benefit. It forestalled attempts to run. Gus was thoroughly cowed; he didn't chatter or display the energy typical of a four-year-old. When he was awake, he was as silent as a sick old man. Bent had broken him like a horse. He surveyed the huddled shape covered by the blanket. "Good," he said under his breath. "Good."
The picketed dapple gray had lain down on the ground for a roll almost half an hour ago and still hadn't gotten up. The horse looked at Bent with eyes that reminded him of the boy's. He was worn out. His ribs showed and he had sores in his mouth. Bent would have to shoot him in a day or two, and then they would have to travel on foot. At least they could eat the meat.
He put his hat on, folded up his razor, and sat with his back against an uncomfortable granite outcrop. He drew his revolver and laid it beside him, then pulled his own blanket over his legs. He listened for a while to the sullen whine of the wind across the treeless slope. Here and there some stunted brush swayed in a strong gust. It was time to give some thought to the future. He needed a refuge for the summer months. Food was running low, and he faced the constant threat of an Army patrol catching him in the Territory, where he wasn't supposed to be.
For a time, chasing across Kansas, deliberately leaving clues to his whereabouts to torment Gus's father, he hadn't worried about personal safety. Then he'd been forced to brain that storekeeper in Abilene, and soon after he'd aroused the suspicion of the fat slut who ran the rooming house in Ellsworth City. At that point he'd decided the game was no longer worth the risk. Charles Main knew he had the boy, which was good enough for the time being. He cut off his trail by turning south to the Territory, where he felt he could hide safely for an indefinite period. Because of the inherent danger, he was convinced Charles would never follow him.
With his shoulders painfully braced against the granite, he stared down at the dark distances of the lightless plain, thinking of Charles as he'd looked when they served in the Second Cavalry before the war. He was a handsome big lout, with the smarmy good manners typical of Southrons. Bent had found him sufficiently attractive to make an advance, which Charles rebuffed. Bent hated him all the more for that. His eyes shifted to the motionless lump of blanket. He wasn't finished with Gus, or his father, either.
Next day he shot the dapple gray and cut him up. When he insisted that Gus eat half-cooked horse meat, the boy resisted. Bent forced meat into his mouth and Gus vomited all over Bent's boots. He had the sharp edge of the razor against Gus's throat before good sense asserted itself. He needed the boy to fulfill his plan later.
Trembling with an excitement much like that produced by sex, he put the razor away and forced the boy to clean the vomit off his boots with small dry branches broken from the shrubs that clung to the slopes.
He left the old stolen saddle with the corpse of the horse, taking only the saddlebags. As he walked in a westerly direction, away from the mountain where they'd camped, little Gus followed one step behind and one step to his left, like a well-trained pet.
Vermillion Creek fed into the Elm Fork, sometimes called the Middle Fork. The creek ran into the river from the north, somewhat west of the Fork's confluence with the North Fork of the Red. It was a lonely region west-northwest of Fort Cobb, and by Bent's reckoning not far from the Texas border.
The barren Wichitas lay behind them in the east. This land was prairie with a lot of shale showing along the waterways, and thick growths of stunted-looking jack oak and post oak to break the horizon. There was abundant wildlife — plump jackrabbits, prairie chickens, even a deer Bent fired at and missed. They didn't starve; generally he was an excellent shot.
Bent began to feel the restorative effect of the spring weather as he and the boy trudged up Vermillion Creek, exploring. An almost constant wind swayed the patches of wild violet and blue indigo, and brought a pink rain of blossoms from a stand of flowering Judas trees. High overhead, wedges of geese flew north.
One moment Bent heard Gus's split-open shoes rattling the shale, and the next moment there was silence. He turned to discipline the boy but he didn't because of the boy's expression. Gus was looking farther along the creek. His eyes were momentarily free of fear and full of curiosity.