“Our Philadelphia gentleman doesn’t seem to think so,” she said. “Was yours not jugged to your taste, Ben?”

“It was fine,” I said. “It’s just that I’ve a poor appetite when I’m nervous.”

“Sippy doesn’t like all this bloodshed—he just come out here to rob trains,” Billy said, in my defense.

“Yes, I’ve noticed he’s a fastidious man,” Cecily said. “Not brute enough for these circumstances, I’m afraid.”

“But I’m brute enough, ain’t I?” Billy asked. The cutting way she spoke to me seemed to give him a moment of doubt.

“You certainly are,” Cecily said. “I expect I’d have to roam this world far and wide to find a more perfect little brute than you, Bill. How glad I am you’re mine.”

I didn’t say another word, but Billy Bone was still basking in the glow of that strange compliment when Cecily led him to the tent and drew the flaps.

8.

I was too nervous to sleep—too heavy with foreboding, too depressed. The Tulip sat on her stool outside the China Pond. Except for the lovers in the tent, she and I were the last citizens of Greasy Corners. When I walked up, she was tapping tobacco into her long pipe.

“I can’t get Billy to examine the situation,” I said, ignoring formality. “You talk to him. Persuade him to go.”

La Tulipe seemed half asleep, even as her old fingers moved on the pipe. She didn’t say a word.

“He’s only a boy yet,” I said. “He might change.”

“Let the worms change him,” La Tulipe said. “He killed my old man.”

It surprised me—she had shown no trace of sentiment as we dragged Des Montaignes away. And yet she had followed the old trader across the West, from the Columbia River Gorge to the Rio Rojo. I had come to think of her as a kind of oracle, I suppose—I had forgotten that she, too, had a woman’s heart.

“The Indian’s coming tonight,” she said. “Old Whiskey’s coming too. They’re all coming.”

I went back to my chair, my forebodings in no way lightened. I wondered if I dared wake Billy and tell him what the Tulip had said.

In Bulwer such a night would be dark and gloomy; lightning would flash and the Death Dog might appear. But this night was as beautiful as any I spent on the plains. The moon was an ivory slice, the stars intense, the breeze soft. Once I heard Cecily sigh from within the tent.

At midnight Billy came out, his shirt hanging loose. He walked over near my hut to relieve himself, and saw me sitting there. I believe he even realized how tense I was—it may have been one of the few times Billy Bone really noticed me.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked.