‘I have decided not to sell him,’ I said.
‘I will give you six dollars, including the shoes.’
‘No, I have changed my mind. Let us discuss the black horse.’
‘Seven dollars is my final offer for the low-backed animal.’
‘What will you give me for the black horse?’
‘I cannot afford the black horse. I will give you eight dollars for the other.’
‘Make me an offer on the black horse,’ I said.
‘Twenty-five dollars.’
‘He is worth fifty dollars.’
‘Thirty dollars with the saddle.’
‘Don’t be ignorant. I will take forty, without the saddle.’
‘I will give you thirty-five dollars.’
‘Thirty-five dollars without the saddle?’
‘Thirty-five, without the saddle, minus a dollar for the shoes.’
‘You expect me to pay for shoes on a horse I’m not keeping?’
‘You asked me to shoe him. Now, you must pay for the service.’
‘You would have shoed him anyway.’
‘That is neither up nor down.’
‘Thirty-four dollars,’ I said.
The hand disappeared into his quarters to fetch his money. I could hear him arguing with a woman about it. He spoke in a hiss, and though I could not grasp the words, I understood the sentiment: Shut up! The man out there is a fool! Charlie entered the stable then, green at the neck but hoping to hide it. When the hand came out with the money, he also brought a bottle of whiskey to toast the deal in good faith. I offered a drink to my brother and he swooned. He was so distracted by his own suffering he did not notice my business dealings until we were ten miles out of town.
Chapter 23
‘Where is the black horse? Why are you still riding Tub?’
‘I had a change of heart and have decided to keep him.’
‘I don’t understand you, brother.’
‘He has been a faithful animal to me.’
‘I don’t understand you. That black horse was one in a million.’
I said, ‘It was a few days ago you were holding me back from selling Tub. You were only converted to my way of thinking when a suitable replacement showed up on the wind, free of charge.’
‘You are always harkening back in arguments, but another time is another time and thus irrelevant. Providence brought you that black horse. And what will become of the man who shuns Providence?’
‘Providence has no place in this discussion. An Indian ate too much and died, that was the source of my good fortune. The point of my argument is that you were only keen on Tub’s departure when it suited you financially.’
‘So I am a drunkard and a miser?’
‘Who is harkening back now?’
‘A drunken miser. There is my sorry fate.’
‘You are a contrarian.’
He lurched, as if hit by a bullet. ‘A drunken, miserly contrarian! The heat of his vicious words!’ He chuckled to himself. In a moment he grew thoughtful and asked, ‘What did we make on the black horse, anyway?’
‘We?’ I said, and I laughed at him.
We quickened the pace of our animals. Charlie’s sickness was stubborn and twice I watched him spit out mouthfuls of bile midstride. Was there any greater agony than riding a horse while brandy-sick? I had to admit my brother took his punishments without complaint, but I knew he could not keep up the pace for longer than a couple of hours, and I believe he was about to call for a rest when we spied a grouping of wagons at the base of a pass in the distance. He headed in their direction, riding purposefully, with an air of dutiful seriousness, but I knew he was only counting the seconds until he could dismount and rest his tortured innards.
We rode around the three wagons but saw no sign of life save for the small fire at its center. Charlie called out a greeting but received no response. He dismounted and moved to enter the circle by climbing over the hitches of two adjoining wagons when the barrel of a bulky rifle emerged silently, viperlike from one of the canopies. Charlie stared up at the gun, his eyes slightly crossing. ‘Okay,’ he said. The barrel rose to his forehead, and a boy of fifteen years or less looked upon us. His face was dirt caked, blistered at the nostrils and mouth, his expression a permanent sneer; his hands were steady and his posture was at ease with the weapon—I believed he was well acquainted with it. His eyes were full of mistrust and dislike and he was in short a most unfriendly young man, and I was concerned he would murder my brother if we did not communicate ourselves, and quickly. ‘We don’t mean you any mischief, son,’ I said.
‘That’s what the last ones told me,’ said the boy. ‘Then they hit me on the head and took all my potato cakes.’
‘We don’t want any potato cakes,’ Charlie said.
‘We’re a good match then, because I haven’t got any.’
I could see the boy was near starved, and told him he was welcome to our pork if he was hungry. ‘I bought it just this morning, in town,’ I said. ‘And flour, too. Would you like that, boy? A feast of pork and biscuits?’
‘You are a liar,’ he said. ‘There’s no town near here. My daddy went searching for food a week ago.’
Charlie looked over at me. ‘I wonder if that is the man we met on the trail yesterday. He was in a hurry to get back and feed his son, remember?’
‘That’s right. And he was heading this way, too.’
‘Was he riding a gray mare?’ asked the boy, his expression transformed to one of pitiful hopefulness.
Charlie nodded. ‘A gray mare, yes he was. He told us what a fine boy you were, how proud he was of you. He was worried sick, he said. Couldn’t hardly wait to see you.’
‘Daddy said that?’ the boy asked doubtfully. ‘Did he really?’
‘Yes, he was mighty glad to be heading back. It’s a shame we had to kill him.’
‘W-what?’ Before the boy could recover Charlie snatched the rifle away and jammed him hard on the head with the stock. The boy fell back into the canopied wagon and was silent. ‘Let’s get some coffee on that fire,’ Charlie said, jumping over the hitches.
Chapter 24
Charlie had been invigorated by this latest adventure —the blood rush had banished his sickness he said—and he fell to preparing our lunch with an uncommon enthusiasm. He agreed to make enough for the boy, but not until I checked his condition, because for all we knew the blow had killed him. I put my head in the canopy and saw he was alive, sitting up now, and turned away from me. ‘We’re cooking some food out here,’ I told him. ‘You don’t have to eat with us if you don’t want to but my brother’s making you a plateful.’
‘Bastards killed my daddy,’ said the boy, choking on his tears.
‘Oh, that was just a ruse to get clear of your rifle.’
He turned and looked at me. The blow had split his forehead and a trickle of blood was thickening over his eyebrow. ‘You mean it?’ he asked. ‘You put it on God?’
‘That wouldn’t mean anything to me, so I won’t bother with it. I’ll put in on my horse, though, how about that?’
‘You never saw a man on a gray mare?’
‘We never saw him.’
The boy collected himself and began climbing toward me over the wagon benches. I took his arm to help him down; his legs were weak as I walked him to the fire. ‘Look who’s back from the brink of lonely death,’ Charlie said cheerfully.
‘I want my rifle,’ said the boy.
‘Best to brace yourself for disappointment then.’
‘We’ll give it back on our way out,’ I told the boy. I handed him a plate of pork and beans and biscuits but he did not eat, he only stared mournfully at the food, as though the meal itself was somehow melancholy to him. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.