The Cadillac still gave off a red glow and an acrid reek from the smoke of the burning tires. It was a strange beast to encounter on a night like this, in its death throes more like a living thing than it had ever been when it was just another machine. The pinto wanted no part of it. Spuds had to dig his heels hard into its flanks to get close. He found a post left from an old fence, snubbed the horse tight. He suspected the wreck might be Eli Paint’s Cadillac before he got close enough to see the man himself, lying on his back on the far side of what was left of the automobile. Two Spuds went to him, his boots crunching through the frozen snow. There was just enough light from the sliver of moon so he could see that it was Eli, his face a mask of congealed blood. The Choctaw saw the broken leg, the way it made a hard right turn halfway down the shin, the tracks in the snow where Eli had dragged himself back and forth, the cinders of the burned lariat lying on the snow. Eli must have lit a fuse to the gas cans to burn the car for warmth. That was the explosion he’d heard, the gasoline going up in a ball of fire. Tough old bird, to manage that with a leg busted that bad and who knew what else. Two Spuds grabbed Eli’s left wrist, held it tight to get his thumb on the pulse. He wasn’t sure he felt anything, but Eli was shivering so hard he couldn’t tell. Then Eli muttered something in Lakota about an Indian named War Bonnet. Two Spuds joked in Choctaw, telling Eli that he was lucky a Choctaw warrior had come to save him and not some thieving dog of a Sioux. Eli muttered something, but Two Spuds couldn’t make out what he was saying. Other than the cut on his head, Eli didn’t seem to be bleeding, but he moaned in pain when Two Spuds pressed on his chest.