“I’d like to know who he paid this money to,” Billy said. “You and me and Joe live here. Did he pay us? Did he pay the dern Apaches? If the old son of a bitch owns this whole part of the world, then I’d like to know who he thinks he bought it from.”

La Tulipe got off her cart and began leading Bonaparte, the donkey, back to town.

“Maybe he bought it from Texas, Billy—I can’t remember the details,” Tully said. “The Whiskey Glass has been a ranch ever since I can recall.”

“I bet he just took it, the rough old fool,” Billy said.

Tully Roebuck looked somewhat dismayed. I believed he felt the point was being missed; and, indeed, the dust cloud to the north was no longer blurring the far horizon—it was curling rapidly south, toward Greasy Corners.

“It don’t really matter if he bought it or took it,” Tully said. “The point is, he’s got it and he don’t want the buffalo hunters and the gunfighters interfering with him anymore.”

“Interfere? Why he don’t even know them,” Billy said.

“I’ve heard he suspects them of rustling,” Joe said. He, too, seemed a little surprised by Billy’s sudden vehemence.

“Rustle? It’s just his excuse,” Billy said. “Hill Coe and that crowd wouldn’t take a cow if you gave them one.”

“Bill, it’s hard to find a word you agree with today,” Tully said, cutting himself a chew of tobacco off a plug he took out of his chaps pocket.

“Is Isinglass coming to warn them or is he coming to kill them?” Joe Lovelady asked.

“Why, I wouldn’t know,” Tully said. “I guess it depends on how brisk a mood he’s in.”

The dust cloud to the north was coming steadily closer. I had no idea how many riders it represented or how brisk their mood might be, to adopt Tully’s phrase.

“I was thinking we’d drift on over to Van Horn,” Tully said. “Some of the ranches down there might be looking for hands.”

“Okay,” Joe said agreeably. “That’s nice airy country. I like it.”

“I ain’t going,” Billy Bone said bluntly. “I ain’t, and that’s it.”

19.

Joe Lovelady was a patient man. He seemed no more than mildly stirred by Billy’s stubborn ways, though they caused him not a little aggravation—and worse than aggravation—in the time I knew the two of them.

“You don’t even like those gunhands, Billy,” he pointed out. “Half the time you’re ready to spit in their faces.”

Billy shrugged. He disdained anything resembling reasoned argument.

“I ain’t going, and that’s it,” he repeated. “I won’t be run out of New Mexico by Isinglass or anybody else.”

With that he started back to town, grabbing my arm as he passed.