"You also pushed my head underwater a few times," Zebulon said.
"All right," Hatchet Jack said. "And you slammed me out more'n once. That makes us even."
"Is that what Plaxico told you to say?"
"He told me I had to make it up to you, and Elijah and Annie May.
"What business is it of his?"
"Otherwise, he said — Do you want to know or not?"
Zebulon didn't answer, but Hatchet Jack told him anyway. "It was Plaxico that lost me in that poker game to your Pa. He tracked me down to tell me. Ever since, he's been tryin' to get straight with me, teachin' me things. Otherwise he says it won't sit right with him and he'll have a bad ride into the misty beyond. He says he ain't got much time left on this earth. Him bein' a lnw]o, who's to say he don't?"
They sat watching the setting sun slide behind the mountains. When the light was gone from the lake, Hatchet Jack removed the Colt from inside his belt, shifting it from one hand to the other. "You think it was me that drilled you back in that saloon?"
"Well, was it?"
"What do you think?"
"I think it was."
"Well, it weren't."
"Maybe you wish it was," Zebulon said.
"That's different."
Hatchet Jack lowered the Colt. "You left her and I never did. That's why she favors me more'n you."
He handed the Colt to Zebulon. "Go ahead and smoke me. I'm tired of chasin' and bein' chased. Tired of not knowin' what's a dream and what ain't. Tired of you, tired of what Plaxico is layin' on me, tired of poochin' or not poochin' your witch, and tired of ridin' down lost trails to the middle of nowhere."
Zebulon raised the Colt, more out of frustration than anger, and then handed it back to Hatchet Jack, who shoved it in his belt.
"We're fixed on the wrong target," Hatchet Jack said. "It's Delilah. No matter what Plaxico says, one of us should blow her away. Plaxico knows things we don't, but he don't know how bad she's been twistin' our tails. But we won't do that, will we?"
"No," Zebulon agreed.
"And I won't blow you away."
"True enough."
"So maybe we ought to let her decide who she favors?"
"She ain't capable," Zebulon said. "That's clear. Not when her belly's ready to spring loose and not knowin' who the Pa is. It could be you' Could be me. Or maybe the Count, or someone else. We didn't ask for it and neither did she, and that's just the way it is."
They beached the canoe and were walking along the shore towards the camp when Zebulon stopped.
Without warning he slugged Hatchet Jack on the jaw, then hit him in the stomach and pushed him backward into the lake.
"That was for bringin' up all that stuff, and for makin' it worse with Delilah. Bein' pushed into the lake was just for old time's sake."
Hatchet Jack waded out of the water, pointing the Colt at Zebulon's head.
Zebulon smiled, spreading out his arms. "Go ahead. Find out if the Colt fires when it's wet. Smoke one into me. You'll be doin' me a favor, somethin' you ain't never done before."
When Hatchet Jack pulled the trigger, the gun didn't fire.
He dropped the Colt, then brought Zebulon to his knees with a furious punch to the side of his head.
They stood toe to toe, slugging back and forth, neither of them giving in until Hatchet Jack pulled Zebulon into the lake and held his head under the water with both hands.
Zebulon knew that somehow it would end this way, his head underwater, the way Hatchet had tried to finish him off when they were kids — which was, of course, what he had tried to do to Hatchet in other ways, more than once.
Then his head was yanked to the surface and Hatchet Jack left him to make it to the shore by himself.
hen they staggered back to the camp, the Mexican fruit farmer and Large Marge were cooking up a large mess of trout.
"We found a canoe," Hatchet Jack explained. "We went out on the lake and the canoe sank. It took some time to get back."
"I'll bet," Large Marge said, looking at their swollen faces.
"Where's Delilah?" Zebulon asked.
Large Marge shrugged. "She ain't with you?"
Without a word, Zebulon and Hatchet Jack walked back to the lake.
They stood waist-deep in the water, shouting Delilah's name over and over, but all they heard was dense unforgiving silence.
he next morning, Delilah was still missing. Hatchet Jack and Zebulon searched around the lake while Large Marge and the Mexican fruit farmer rode into the woods, stopping every fifty feet to call out for her.
By the evening of the following day, everyone except Zebulon had given up. He rode inland, retracing the way they had come. When there was still no sign of Delilah, he considered riding to San Francisco, thinking she might have returned to Lu's Dream Palace, but after a few miles he realized it was hopeless and turned back.
When Delilah showed up the next day, they were sitting around the fire, eating rabbit stew Her clothes were torn and her face and neck were full of bloody welts and scratches. She sank down next to Large Marge, dropping her gold and ruby necklace on Marge's lap.
"Maybe it will bring you more luck than it's brought me," she said, turning her back to them.
She never mentioned where she had been, nor did anyone ask her.
HUNDRED MILES FROM THE COAST, THE SKY TURNED AN ominous slate gray and then let loose a relentless downpour that left them so ornery and full of spite that they were unable to speak or look at each other. In the middle of the third night of rain, the Mexican fruit farmer realized he had made a wrong turn with the wrong people and rode off towards the Mexican border with a horse, two rifles, and a blanket. When Large Marge tried to shoot him, her pistol was so caked with mud that the barrel exploded, leaving powder burns across her chest and face. Despite the fruit farmer's thievery, his departure proved auspicious. As if a curse had been lifted, the rain suddenly stopped and the sky exploded into fiery streaks of northern lights.
At dawn they crossed a valley covered with cedar and stands of alder. In the distance, giant redwoods stood framed against the horizon like a line of towering cathedrals.
As they approached the forest, now almost invisible behind layers of dense fog, Hatchet Jack jumped off his horse and dropped to the ground, his hands pointing towards the trees.
"Listen to me, wood spirits," he called. "We're a bunch of lame fools. Not only that, but nothin's been goin' right for us and we can't offer you more than a big `Howdy.' There's no blame if you turn us down or make trouble, but we need a break because we ain't sure who we're lookin' for or where we're goin' or what's waitin' for us when we get there."
They pushed on through shafts of brittle light into a forest as gloomy and wet as the bottom of a rain barrel. Overhead, there was no birdsong or living creature, only a soft rain dripping through thick carapaces of waterlogged branches.
Zebulon's heart began to pound like a drum.
In fact, there was a drum. It was coming from somewhere ahead, as if urging them on. Or, as Large Marge suggested with a wry smile, warning them of approaching doom.
The drumming was coming from all sides, growing louder and then almost inaudible, sometimes ahead and then behind them. Finally, when they had given up on any sense of direction, they were greeted by what sounded like a series of exuberant exhales:
"Oh…! Ha…! Ho…! Oh…! Ha…! Ho!"
Through a narrow avenue of trees, they saw the low silhouette of a wooden longhouse facing a narrow bay. The roof was supported by two rows of wide posts and covered with roughly hewn planks. A row of totem poles, several feet higher than the roof, stood on either side of the longhouse, decorated from top to bottom with carved figures painted in dark reds, apple greens, and blacks. Two Indians sat slumped on a bench on one side of the twenty-foot door. Both of the Indians wore army pants and bowler hats with eagle and raven feathers sticking up from the brims.