“If you betray me for a white woman, you won’t be alive when the northers come,” she said. “My pa won’t have to kill you, or my brother, either. I’ll find you and I’ll kill you myself, no matter where you go.”

She turned loose of the horse and started back to her room.

Billy Bone looked stunned. That Katie knew what he was about to do must have struck him as more incredible than any prophecy of La Tulipe’s. He had not learned Lesson One about women—I tried to take him through it later in the day, but he was still too shocked to listen.

He could only sit on his horse and look at Katie, astonished and dismayed.

Katie kept walking toward her room. Then the sobs rose in her—I saw them rising. She walked faster, then she ran. She disappeared into the darkness of the tiny room, one hand to her mouth to check her sobs; she never looked back at Billy.

I had little to pack except my scribblings. Rosy tried to bite me as I was saddling her, but I at least knew Lesson One about mules.

As we were about to cross the river, Billy stopped and looked at me angrily.

“Did you tell her about Snow?” he asked.

“Of course not,” I said.

“I can’t think who told her then,” he said.

“Oh, I expect you told her,” I said.

“I did not!” he replied, indignant that I would suggest it.

“Billy, you were out of your head and babbling for two days,” I said. “You told her about killing the mutes—and the Indian boy. Maybe you mentioned Cecily Snow.”

The indignation immediately left his face; he looked aghast at the thought that he might have mentioned his new love to his old. Many a more experienced man might have been given pause by such a realization.

“I wish I’d never come here!” he said.

“But if you hadn’t, you’d have missed knowing Katie,” I pointed out. “Not only did she save you—she loves you.”

“I ain’t worth loving!” he said, almost in tears. “Do you really think I talked about Snow when I was sick?”

“Billy, it doesn’t matter,” I said. “Women always figure these things out. Katie would have known about Cecily if you’d never said a word—and maybe you didn’t say a word.”

“But how do they do it, Sippy?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but they do it,” I said.

He sighed and nudged his horse into the Rio Grande. A few minutes later we were in the Texas desert once again.

PART VI

I looked to the East, I looked to the West;
I saw his Coffin coining. . . .

1.