“Maybe he’s got family in town. Go on in, Jonah.”
“I s’pose I could sell some dogs to Mr. Ling while I’m about it.”
The moment Jonah and Nelly turn away, Dewey releases his held breath, breaks a sweat and, although his head remains still, his eyes move back and forth. He’s very conscious now, but not ready to show it.
The next morning, with the collapsed barn in the background, Jonah makes final preparations for the long ride. He ties two cages of prairie dogs to a travois. He puts on the buffalo hide jacket. James, looking sickly, runs into the outhouse. Dewey, still pretending to be semi-conscious, in diaper and boots, sits in a chair near the front door of the house staring into the sun.
Nelly fills a canteen with well water. “Have you got everything you need, Jonah?” Jonah ties off his last knot. “Well, Honey Pie, it looks to me like there might be just one more little thing. Why don’t you and me go on in, git nekid, and I’ll make you happy till I git back.” He grins like a sheep dog and begins to unbutton her dress.
Nelly backs away from Jonah, pulling the hem of her dress away from him. “Stop acting like a billy goat!”
“Gosh darn, Nelly. Don’t you know a man can’t control his-self once a gal gits his Johnny Brown all excited. Don’t make me force you, now. ‘Member how you got hurt that one time?”
He encircles her with his arms and thrusts himself against her. She tries to push him away, but her arms are pinned to her sides. She kicks him in the shin, to no effect other than a slight whimper of pain. He continues thrusting until he ejaculates in his britches, then releases her.
Dewey steals furtive glances at the goings on until a grasshopper lands on his forehead, crawls to his nose and perches there. He struggles against the urge to swat it away by pooching out his lower lip and blowing upward, which only succeeds in driving the insect backward to a new perch just above Dewey’s eye. This is more than he can stand. He pitches forward off the chair into the dirt.
Nelly rushes to him immediately, cradles his head in her arms. A moment later, James staggers out of the outhouse, walks dizzily a few steps and collapses. No one pays him any mind. Jonah mounts his horse and rides off, dragging the prairie dog-laden travois behind him.
Aboard the wind wagon, Ratoncito steers. Peppard lies in the bed with Katie, smooching and drinking rum. “Let’er go, Ratoncito,” he says. “Take the brake off! Full in the wind! Yahooo!”
Katie is drunk. “Sailing, sailing, da da da da da da.”
Peppard shouts, “Open ‘er up, Ratoncito, give ‘er a little more sail! Follow the wind wherever it takes us! More sail! More sail! Let off on the brake!”
Ratoncito lets out more sail, eases off on the brake. When the wind hits the canvas, the wagon lurches forward, nearly throwing him out, yet he keeps control of the helm.
Behind the wagon and riding fast to catch up with it comes a small band of Kiowas. Katie turns, sees them giving chase. “Luther! Look what’s coming after us! A bunch a’ Kiowas.”
“The scalpin’ist bastards there is. Gimme the helm, Ratoncito!” He draws his gun. “If they git close, let ‘em taste some lead.”
Katie clasps her hands in prayer. “Lord, I beg your forgiveness for all my transgressions. Mostly I’ve been good and decent. And when I wasn’t, it wasn’t my fault.”
The Kiowas draw even with them, but show no signs of hostility. One of them laughs. “White man fly like a bird!”
Fascinated with the strange wagon, the Kiowas try to keep up with it at first, then attempt to pull ahead.
Peppard takes the helm. “They want a race.” He holsters his gun. “There ain’t no horse ever bounded as fast as the wind.”
The Kiowas kick their ponies and the race is on.
The open prairie. A strong wind blows as a storm approaches. After hours of hard riding, Jonah stops to rest. He walks off a bit to urinate. As he stands there looking toward the setting sun, the wind wagon’s sails appear on the horizon. Disbelieving his eyes, he rubs them and looks again, now realizing he is in a direct line with the wild race. He mounts his horse, but it rears up, throwing him to the ground. The prairie dog cages come loose from the travois and break open as they fall, allowing the prairie dogs to escape. The wind wagon roars past, barely missing Jonah, who falls to the ground. In a moment he sits up in shock, dusty but unhurt. He watches the wind wagon/Kiowa race until it disappears and quiet returns.
The homestead, nightfall. Wind rattles windows in their frames. James, on his pallet in the dark, moans feverishly. Nelly, looking fevered, cuts Dewey’s beard with a razor. Still in a diaper, hat and boots, he sits at the dining table, continuing to feign a semi-conscious state.
Nelly feels her forehead with the back of her hand. “I’m taking the fever.” She gets into bed. Later, she sleeps fitfully. James is delirious. Moonlight pours through the window, a dying wind outside. Dewey awakens on the table, the dog curled near his feet. He sits up, pets the dog to keep him quiet, puts on his boots and hat.
He walks unsteadily to Nelly’s bed. The moonlight enhances her sickly look. “Ma’am?” He feels her forehead. He feels James’ forehead. “Looks like I done passed on the plague to you folks. I’m awful sorry. I sure do hope you git better soon.” He exits the house with a lantern.
Disoriented by the collapsed barn, he isn’t sure where he buried the gold. He lifts a board, lifts another, clears a space and digs while the little dog watches. The first hole yields nothing. He chooses another spot, clears it, and begins digging.
Early the next morning, while most of the house remains in shadow, a shaft of bright sun enters through a small window above the bed where Nelly lies delirious. James looks bloodless, stiff on his pallet, probably dead.
Dewey pours himself a cup of coffee, spoons some beans into a tin bowl.
He eats voraciously, glancing toward Nelly now and then with his mouth full.
Outside, the windmill creaks and shrieks and rattles as the wind picks up for the day.
Jonah rides along the trail at an easy pace, slumped a little in the saddle, not well. Face crimson, soiled trousers, he brings the horse to a slow stop, slides out of the saddle, vomits, crawls to the travois and ties himself on. He lifts his arm with every bit of strength he has left, and pulls the horse’s tail as hard as he can. The horse bolts as Jonah falls unconscious.
An old buffalo wallow, mud the consistency of pudding. The wind wagon’s wheels are stuck two feet deep. While Ratoncito tries to adjust the sails for maximum push, Katie nods out on a tincture of opium and Peppard grunts away at the hand crank. He holds his stomach, as if having abdominal pain, lets out a long, orchestrated belch. “I got me a spell o’ dyspepsia like I never done had before. Gimme some o’ that tincture, Katie.” She hands him the bottle and he has a healthy swig. She opens the Poe book and reads aloud. “We passed to the end of the vista, but were stopped by the door of a tomb — By the door of a legended tomb; /And I said — ‘What is written, sweet sister, On the door of this legended tomb?’ She replied — ‘Ulalume — Ulalume — Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!’ Ain’t that the prettiest name you ever heard? Yoo-la-loom…. When I have a child, that’s gonna be her name. Ulalume.”
Early morning. Peppard and Katie sleep in one another’s arms in the bed of the wagon. Ratoncito, pissing over the side, sees a horse and travois in the distance. Reaching the edge of the wallow, the horse hesitates, assesses the situation, then plods out to the stuck wagon, dragging Jonah through the muck. Ratoncito climbs down to the wagon’s axle, just above muck level, and has a close look at Jonah, pale, mudcaked and dead, flies carpeting his face. Peppard and Katie stick their heads over the side and look down.