“I don’t know who I’ll get to catch that killing little Bill if Mesty’s done for,” he said. “I guess I’ll get Tully Roebuck.”

“But Tully’s a friend of Billy’s,” I reminded him.

“Well, I imagine the man needs money,” he said. “That blind child will be a passel of expense.”

“I think I’ll sack this slattern of a cook,” Cecily said. “She’s overcooked the mutton again.”

11.

One hardly ever got to sleep much past dawn at Winds’ Hill. Something unusual seemed always to be occurring, and whatever it was, it occurred early.

The next morning I was awakened by a sound I had not heard since Dora and I were in Cairo, after having done the Nile: the sound of a Mohammedan praying.

In this case, it was Mesty-Woolah, who slept in a room high up in one of the castle’s several towers. He came out of the tower onto a tiny balcony and prayed in a loud voice, prostrating himself toward Mecca.

He could have sung the bass line in an opera—his deep voice carried far out over the prairies. The cowboys, most of whom had already saddled up, stopped to listen. Isinglass was repairing a shoe on his old black nag’s hind foot; he did not look up.

Cecily Snow walked into my room, already in her riding habit.

“Noisy nigger,” she said. “Since you’re up I thought you might ride over with me and inspect the museum of failures. Allow yourself a little edification today, Ben.”

“I feel like I belong in just such a museum,” I said.

“I don’t want any moping, let’s go,” Cecily said.

Riding north from the corrals, we happened to pass the narrow grave where Joe Lovelady’s body had been put. It was the freshest of perhaps a dozen graves, the others belonging to Whiskey Glass cowboys who had fallen to the normal perils of range life: snakebite, gunshot, wild horse, high water, lightning, or stampede.

The previous day I had tried to help a little with the burying; I had felt mostly numb and dull. But as we rode by and I saw the poor grave, a flood of tears suddenly poured out of me. My bridle reins grew as slippery as if we were riding in a downpour.

Cecily, perched on her sidesaddle and surrounded by her dogs, found my display of grief rather trying.

“That man was exceedingly kind to me,” I said when I had control of myself again.

“I’m sure,” Cecily said. “Perhaps you’ll live to immortalize him in one of your popular novelettes.”