“We whipped some rough Comanches here,” Jim Saul said. “Maybe we could whip Isinglass.”

He was referring to the famous battle of Greasy Corners, in which forty buffalo hunters had held off three hundred Comanches some years before. Jim had been among the forty.

“Hell, yes, they’re just cowboys,” Billy said.

“The tall nigger’s no cowboy,” Joe Lovelady reminded him.

“Besides, the old man won’t be coming with no cowboys,” Tully said. “The word in Lincoln is that he ordered a trainload of gunmen to do the chore for him.”

“I don’t believe it,” Billy said. “Where would that old fool get a trainload of gunmen?”

“South Texas,” Tully said.

“Pshaw, that’s just a rumor,” Billy scoffed. “When’s this train supposed to arrive?”

“It arrived in Tucumcari two days ago,” Tully said. “That’s what I rushed over to tell you, only you wasn’t in the mood to listen.”

“Well, I’m still not,” Billy said.

“That old man’s a sight,” Ike Pumpelly said. “Why would he ride in to warn us if he had his army with him?”

La Tulipe chuckled. “Big Whiskey didn’t come to warn you,” she said. “He came to make corpses of you.”

Fear blew through the dark barroom like wind through an open window. The thought that Isinglass’s visit had simply been a distracting ruse, meant to disarm them, sobered most of the drinkers instantly—only Hill Coe, his disgrace still fresh and smarting, went on consuming whiskey.

“That dern old man,” Simp Dixon said, with a moody look. “What a damned old liar he is.”

Nute Rachal scrambled nimbly to his feet and hurried to the door.

“I felt the ground shake,” he said. “I guess they’re coming. Adiós, boys, if we don’t all make the fort.”

26.

Nute was speaking metaphorically, I assumed: there was no fort to make anywhere near Greasy Corners.

But the men, if not brilliant, were very quick. No doubt all of them had been required to hurry many times in their life on the plains. They poured out of the barroom like bees and, with no more than a glance at the line of riders racing toward the town from the east, made some lightning choices. Those who planned to fight hastily gathered weapons and ammunition, while those who preferred to run even more hastily flung saddles on their horses.

I was confused, and no doubt would have been the first man lost had not Tully Roebuck taken firm control of me, virtually pitching me on my mule.

“Let’s get!” he said. “Flail that mule!”

It was probably the general excitement, and not my flapping and flailing, that roused Rosy from her customary lethargy; she took off so rapidly that I almost lost my seat, but even so, Tully and I were far to the rear of the crowd. All the gunmen seemed to be ahead of us, including Billy and Joe.