He pulled out his pistol and handed it to me.

“Shoot at the Death Dog if you see him,” he said. “You’re a better pistol shot than me.”

He pulled his shotgun out of its scabbard and cocked both barrels. Then he lay down and rolled up in his blanket, gripping the shotgun tightly.

“Billy, don’t go to sleep with it cocked,” I said. “You might jerk or something and shoot yourself.”

He didn’t answer.

I stayed awake as long as I could, hoping he would go soundly to sleep so I could lower the hammers on the shotgun.

But he didn’t go to sleep. After a while he put the shotgun aside and began to blow into the harmonica Cecily had given him. He couldn’t really make music, but he could make sounds, and he was still making them—soft, tentative sounds—when I went to sleep.

5.

The next morning mist and drizzle cloaked the great plain. Billy slept late, as usual, while I stared at the muddy trickle of water that constituted the Cimarron in late summer. I was wondering if there were any fish in it, and if so, whether I could catch any of them in the only net I had—my hat.

“All you’ll get if you try it is a wet hat,” Billy said when I informed him of my speculations. “I thought I heard sheep,” he added.

“That was my belly growling,” I said. I was feeling very hungry and gloomy.

“No, it was sheep,” Billy said. “Build up the fire. I’m gonna go kill one.”

He was gone all day, by the end of which I had burned every stick within a five-mile radius. I had also tried to catch a fish in my hat, and ended up with no fish and the wet hat Billy had predicted.

That night it occurred to me that Billy must have had an accident. Perhaps La Tulipe’s prediction had come true—perhaps his horse had fallen on him. I felt nervous and guilty for letting a whole day pass without having considered that possibility. To the north, the Mesa de Maya was already growing dark and I knew there was little chance of finding him until morning.

I ate the last of the pills and spent the night belching and worrying.