Billy was in excellent spirits when he finally got up. He even helped with the grave-digging. A bad conscience would never be one of Billy’s problems; I’ve often wondered how such a likable boy could be such a blank domino when it came to conscience. I’ve never come up with a respectable theory about it, though. In general Billy tended to do all his thinking when he was miserable, and then all this thinking centered on his own misery. He may have given some thought to Katie and Cecily occasionally; he may have spared a little for Joe Lovelady at some point; but Billy Bone didn’t spend many hours of his life thinking about his fellow human beings. The notion that they had some sort of a right to life probably never entered his head, and might have struck him as comical if it had.

The long and short of it was, killing people just didn’t bother him. It didn’t excite him, as it does some killers, but I don’t believe any of his killings caused him a moment’s depression.

As soon as we had buried Esteván’s little ones, and heaped the warm dirt over them, Billy saddled up and got ready for the long ride to the Rio Animas, where the two remaining children of Will Isinglass and the first Lady Snow lived with Esteván’s brother. They too herded sheep, and they too were mutes.

“You better hurry and saddle your mule or you’ll get left again, Sippy,” Billy said. Esteván had quite a bit of jerked mutton hanging on a little line behind his cabin, and Billy was stuffing his saddlebag with it.

“I don’t think I’ll be going, Billy,” I said.

He seemed startled, but after a moment went on packing his jerky.

“Well, this is a free country,” he said. “What do you plan to do, help Esteván herd these dern woolly sheep?”

“I hope he does, Señor Billy, you killed my helpers,” Esteván pointed out in a practical tone.

“I don’t really have any plans,” I said. “I just don’t want to tag along while you do Cecily Snow’s killing for her. All these boys do is herd sheep. How can they possibly be a threat to Cecily?”

“You don’t know everything, Sippy, just because you’re a Yankee,” he said. He was really just brushing my question off.

“You don’t even believe they’re a threat yourself,” I said.

He mounted his horse, still perfectly amiable.

“Dern, you’d argue with a stump, Sippy,” he said. “You know I ain’t gonna change my mind now. I hardly ever change my mind.”

“This time you should try it, Billy,” I said. “Otherwise you’ll be riding a long ride just to do a dirty deed.”