Blood and Gold

Lila shook her head. “Bury him, Dusty. Don’t leave him to lie out here.” She looked at me, her eyes pleading. “Jim died trying to save me. Years from now, I want to know that he lies here, that I did right by him.”

“But you’re losing blood, Lila,” I protested. “We don’t have time.”

“I’ll be all right,” the girl said. “Take time, Dusty. Jim was a brave man. Bury him right. Please, Dusty, do it for me.”

I rose slowly to my feet, knowing further argument was useless. “I’ll do it, Lila. I’ll bury him right, the way you say.”

There was a question I had to ask, nagging at me like a bad toothache, yet I feared to ask it. But it was not the question I feared—it was the answer.

“Lila,” I said, picking my words carefully, like a man chooses stepping-stones across a fast-running brook, “last night, did Wingo do anything. I mean, did he . . . ?”

“Dusty,” Lila said, her voice slashing across mine like a knife, “don’t ask me that question. As long as you live, never ask me that question again.”

I looked into her eyes and saw no anger, only a world of pain and hurt. It was plain that the hurt went deep, deep into Lila’s soul, everything that made her a woman scarred and cut about with terrible wounds that would be slow to heal, if they ever did. It was a pain I had never experienced, and thus I could only guess at its intensity, knowing I would always fall far short of the appalling reality.

Me, I looked into Lila’s eyes and saw all the answer to my question I’d ever need.

For a fleeting moment, I thought about getting on my horse and running away from all this, from Lila, from the SP Connected, from Texas, never taking a single glance back.

But I knew I would not.

I believed I was falling in love with this woman, and now I had some fast growing up to do. Lila needed a man, now more than ever, not a boy. Was I yet that man?

I could not find it in me to answer that question.

Gently, with much care, I took Lila in my arms and held her close. We clung to each other, neither of us finding any words to say. If I could, I would have turned back time and made things as they once were, but that was impossible. What was done was done, and now I would have to deal with it. To worry over what had happened would not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It would only empty today of its joy.

Finally, I kissed Lila and rose to my feet.

As I walked to the door, she said: “Do right by him, Dusty.”

I nodded, and stepped outside into the bright day.

Like me, Jim Meldrum bore an ancient name and the old fighting Celtic blood ran strong in him. He was a warrior and he would be laid to rest like one.

I laid his body across the saddle of the dun and led the horse to a quiet spot far enough away from the cabin. Gently, I lifted Jim off the horse and stretched him out on the grass.

That done, I rode back to the cabin and roped Wingo’s feet. Him I dragged back to the place I’d chosen and then I returned again to the cabin. I found Jim Meldrum’s rifle and Wingo’s Colt and these I kept with me.

There was a shovel in a small shed behind the cabin, but before I dug graves I had yet one thing more to do. I stepped inside, with Lila’s troubled eyes following me, and found what I’d hoped to find, a shallow bowl made of brick-colored Indian earthenware.

Wordlessly, I went back outside again and carried all the things I’d found to the spot where I’d left the bodies.

I dug Jim’s grave as deep as I could. Because of the thin, rocky soil, the task took me the best part of two hours. Then I dug Wingo’s, shallower, placed next to Jim’s to form the base of an inverted T.

Sweating, I took off my shirt, then kneeled beside Wingo’s body. Piece by piece, ending with the emerald ring on his finger, I stripped him of his gaudy silver finery, his necklace, the silver bracelets around his wrists. I laid all of it in the earthenware bowl and set it aside.

That done, I took my knife and cut the fancy buck-skins off Wingo, leaving him stark naked, his staring eyes looking up at a blue sky he could not see. Then I threw him into his grave.

Jim Meldrum I buried in the ancient way, as befitted a fallen Celtic warrior. I laid him out with his arms—his Colt revolvers, rifle and knife—and I placed the bowl of his enemy’s silver on his chest, the better to pay his way as he made his long journey to the netherworld.

Then I covered both graves with the good Texas earth, caught up my horse and returned to the cabin.

Lila, looking very pale, sat up on the bunk as I came in. “Did you do right by him, Dusty?” she asked.

I nodded. “I buried Jim Meldrum as befits a warrior, with his weapons. And I laid a dog at his feet.”

“Then I’m satisfied,” Lila said, sinking back into her pillow.

I stepped to the bunk, took up Lila in my arms and carried her out to my horse.

All the way back to the SP, she lay like a child in my arms, sleeping, her head on my chest. And as we proceeded on our journey, I kissed her hair, not once but many times.