The red camel began a swift stride toward him, but Mesty-Woolah had disappeared. One moment he was in the saddle, tall as a tower, and the next moment he wasn’t.

It confused Jerry, and you can’t blame him—the long-legged camel was upon him in a few strides, but the long-legged rider had vanished. Dust from the camel’s hooves blurred the action briefly; then Mesty-Woolah reappeared atop the camel, a long sword shining in his right hand.

Wild Horse Jerry doubled over as if he had been seized by a stomach cramp; then he fell facedown. A second later he scrambled to his hands and knees and gave a chilling shriek.

“That tall nigger spilled his guts with the big sword,” Billy said, stunned. “Look, they’re hanging out beneath him. But how’d he do it?”

They were certainly hanging out, more of them than you would think a small man could contain.

The sight of his own innards shocked Wild Horse Jerry so much that he died after that one shriek.

The red camel nearly strode into the gunfighters before Mesty-Woolah turned him. His face beneath the white turban was coffee-colored; his age was hard to guess.

Isinglass rode over and looked down at the dead man—no doubt he had seen far worse sights during the Indian wars.

“Mesty learned that trick from the Comanches—lean under your mount and slice,” he said. “It’s easier on a camel than on them short ponies, I guess, but it still helps if you have long arms.”

He left, Mesty-Woolah slightly behind him.

Des Montaignes, acting as if he were the mayor, grabbed Wild Horse Jerry by the pants leg and dragged him off to the little graveyard just beyond the China Pond.

“It’s the grave for Jerry,” Billy said with no great feeling. “That threat he slung at me this morning didn’t amount to much, did it?”

24.

Wild Horse Jerry’s disembowelment promptly brought my own stomach up, though I had had no breakfast and there was nothing in my stomach except fear. I stepped around the corner of the China Pond and heaved away violently for a time.

Des Montaignes squatted nearby, picking through Jerry’s pockets. A couple of skinny whores who occupied a shanty behind the saloon came out and helped him. The state of the corpse made scavenging messy, but the whores were in no position to be fastidious, and Des Montaignes evidently had a considerable tolerance for mess.

The sight of them stripping Jerry hardly soothed my fluttering stomach—I was so weak and dizzy by the time I stopped heaving that I propped myself against a wall of the saloon and shaded myself with my hat. I was sitting there feeling blank when Joe and Tully finally found me.

“We thought you might have run,” Joe said.

“I don’t think I could run,” I said. “I might be able to crawl, though.”