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  swatted the rump with his hat. The mount bolted.

  The hide held, stretching, then jerked from the

  carcass, coming with a quick sucking, sliding gasp.

  They kept at it through most of the afternoon,

  sweating over the carcasses, both of them skinning,

  and butchering some meat for their own use. It was

  still too early in the year, too warm, to butcher

  hindquarters for the meat buyers. Later, when the

  snows came and the meat would keep, they would

  do this.

  They took the fresh hides back to their base

  camp and staked them out, stretching the skins

  tightly, flesh side up. The flat ground around the

  wagon and cook fire was covered with staked-out

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  hides, taken the previous day. In the morning they

  would gather the hides and bind them in packs and

  store the packs in the wagon. The boy thought

  there would be maybe two more days of hunting

  here before they would have to move the camp.

  For the second time that day he stood stretching,

  rubbing a stiffness in his body, but feeling satisfied.

  He smiled, and even Leo Cleary wasn’t watching

  him to see it.

  At dusk they saw the string of wagons out on the

  plain, a black line creeping toward them against the

  sunlight dying on the horizon.

  “Hide buyers, most likely,” Leo Cleary said. He

  sounded disappointed, for it could mean they

  would not return to Leverette for another month.

  The boy said, “Maybe a big hunting outfit.”

  “Not at this time of day,” the old man said.

  “They’d still have their hides drying.” He motioned

  to the creek back of their camp. “Whoever it is,

  they want water.”

  Two riders leading the five Conestogas spurred

  suddenly as they neared the camp and rode in

  ahead of the six-team wagons. The boy watched

  them intently. When they were almost to the camp

  circle, he recognized them and swore under his

  breath, though he suddenly felt self-conscious.

  The Foss brothers, Clyde and Wylie, swung

  down stiff legged, not waiting for an invitation, and

  arched the stiffness from their backs. Without a

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  greeting Clyde Foss’s eyes roamed leisurely over the

  staked-out hides, estimating the number as he

  scratched at his beard stubble. He grinned slowly,

  looking at his brother.

  “They must a used rocks . . . ain’t more than

  forty hides here.”

  Leo Cleary said, “Hello, Clyde . . . Wylie,” and

  watched the surprise come over them with recognition.

  Clyde said, “Damn, Leo, I didn’t see you were

  here. Who’s that with you?”

  “Matt Gordon’s boy,” Leo Cleary answered.

  “We’re hunting together this season.”

  “Just the two of you?” Wylie asked with surprise. He was a few years older than Clyde, calmer,

  but looked to be his twin. They were both of them

  lanky, thin through face and body, but heavy

  boned.

  Leo Cleary said, “I thought it was common talk

  in Leverette about us being out.”

  “We made up over to Caldwell this year,” Clyde

  said. He looked about the camp again, amused.

  “Who does the shooting?”

  “I do.” The boy took a step toward Clyde Foss.

  His voice was cold, distant. He was thinking of another time four years before when his dad had introduced him to the Foss brothers, the day Matt

  Gordon contracted with them to pick up his hides.

  “And I do skinning,” the boy added. It was like

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  What are you going to do about it! the way he

  said it.

  Clyde laughed again. Wylie just grinned.

  “So you’re Matt Gordon’s boy,” Wylie Foss said.

  “We met once before.”

  “We did?”

  “In Leverette, four years ago.” The boy made

  himself say it naturally. “A month before you met

  my dad in the field and paid him for his hides with

  whiskey instead of cash . . . the day before he was

  trampled into the ground. . . .”

  ✯ ✯ ✯

  The Foss brothers met his stare, and suddenly

  the amusement was gone from their eyes. Clyde no

  longer laughed, and Wylie’s mouth tightened.

  Clyde stared at the boy and said, “If you meant

  anything by that, you better watch your mouth.”

  Wylie said, “We can’t stop buffalo from stampedin’.” Clyde grinned now.

  “Maybe he’s drunk . . . maybe he favors his pa.”

  “Take it any way you want,” the boy said. He

  stood firmly with his fists clenched. “You knew better than to give him whiskey. You took advantage

  of him.”

  Wylie looked up at the rumbling sound of the

  wagon string coming in, the ponderous creaking of

  wooden frames, iron-rimmed tires grating, and the

  never-changing off-key leathery rattle of the traces,

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  then the sound of reins flicking horse hide and the

  indistinguishable growls of the teamsters.

  Wylie moved toward the wagons in the dimness

  and shouted to the first one, “Ed . . . water down!”

  pointing toward the creek.

  “You bedding here?” Leo Cleary asked after him.

  “Just water.”

  “Moving all night?”

  “We’re meeting a party on the Salt Fork . . . they

  ain’t going to stay there forever.” Wylie Foss

  walked after the wagons leading away their horses.

  Clyde paid little attention to the wagons, only

  glancing in that direction as they swung toward the

  stream. Stoop shouldered, his hand curling the

  brim of his sweat-stained hat, his eyes roamed

  lazily over the drying hides. He rolled a cigarette,

  taking his time, failing to offer tobacco to the boy.

  “I guess we got room for your hides,” he said finally.

  “I’m not selling.”

  “We’ll load soon as we water . . . even take the

  fresh ones.”

  “I said I’m not selling.”

  “Maybe I’m not asking.”

  “There’s nothing making me sell if I don’t want

  to!”

  The slow smile formed on Clyde’s mouth.

  “You’re a mean little fella, aren’t you?”

  Clyde Foss dropped the cigarette stub and turned

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  a boot on it. “There’s a bottle in my saddle pouch.”

  He nodded to Leo Cleary, who was standing off

  from them. “Help yourself, Leo.”

  The old man hesitated.

  “I said help yourself.”

  Leo Cleary moved off toward the stream.

  “Now, Mr. Gordon . . . how many hides you say

  were still dryin’?”

  “None for you.”

  “Forty . . . forty-five?”

  “You heard what I said.” He was standing close

  to Clyde Foss, watching his face. He saw the jaw

  muscles tighten and sensed Clyde’s shift of weight.

  He tried to
turn, bringing up his shoulder, but it

  came with pain-stabbing suddenness. Clyde’s fist

  smashed against his cheek, and he stumbled off

  balance.

  “Forty?”

  Clyde’s left hand followed around with weight

  behind it, scraping his temple, staggering him.

  “Forty-five?”

  He waded after the boy then, clubbing at his face

  and body, knocking his guard aside to land his fists,

  until the boy was backed against his wagon. Then

  Clyde stopped as the boy fell into the wheel spokes,

  gasping, and slumped to the ground.

  Clyde stood over the boy and nudged him with

  his boot. “Did I hear forty or forty-five?” he said

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  dryly. And when the boy made no answer—“Well,

  it don’t matter.”

  He heard the wagons coming up from the creek.

  Wylie was leading the horses. “Boy went to sleep

  on us, Wylie.” He grinned. “He said don’t disturb

  him, just take the skins and leave the payment with

  Leo.” He laughed then. And later, when the wagons pulled out, he was laughing again.

  Once he heard voices, a man swearing, a neverending soft thudding against the ground, noises

  above him in the wagon. But these passed, and

  there was nothing.

  He woke again, briefly, a piercing ringing in his

  ears, and his face throbbed violently though the

  pain seemed to be out from him and not within, as

  if his face were bloated and would soon burst. He

  tried to open his mouth, but a weight held his jaws

  tight. Then wagons moving

  . . . the sound of

  traces . . . laughter.

  It was still dark when he opened his eyes. The

  noises had stopped. Something cool was on his

  face. He felt it with his hand—a damp cloth. He sat

  up, taking it from his face, working his jaw slowly.

  The man was a blur at first . . . something reflecting in his hand. Then it was Leo Cleary, and the

  something in his hand was a half-empty whiskey

  bottle.

  “There wasn’t anything I could do, Will.”

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  “How long they been gone?”

  “Near an hour. They took all of them, even the

  ones staked out.” He said, “Will, there wasn’t anything I could do. . . .”

  “I know,” the boy said.

  “They paid for the hides with whiskey.” The boy

  looked at him, surprised. He had not expected

  them to pay anything. But now he saw how this

  would appeal to Clyde’s sense of humor, using the

  same way the hide buyer had paid his dad four

  years before.

  “That part of it, Leo?” The boy nodded to the

  whiskey bottle in the old man’s hand.

  “No, they put three five-gallon barrels in the

  wagon. Remember . . . Clyde give me this.”

  The boy was silent. Finally he said, “Don’t touch

  those barrels, Leo.”

  He sat up the remainder of the night, listening to

  his thoughts. He had been afraid when Clyde Foss

  was bullying him, and he was still afraid. But now

  the fear was mixed with anger, because his body

  ached and he could feel the loose teeth on one side

  of his mouth when he tightened his jaw, and taste

  the blood dry on his lips and most of all because

  Clyde Foss had taken a month’s work, four hundred and eighty hides, and left three barrels of

  whiskey.

  Sometimes the fear was stronger than the anger.

  The plain was silent and in its darkness there was

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  nothing to hold to. He did not bother Leo Cleary.

  He talked to himself and listened to the throb in his

  temples and left Leo alone with the little whiskey

  he still had. He wanted to cry, but he could not because he had given up the privilege by becoming a

  man, even though he was still a boy. He was acutely

  aware of this, and when the urge to cry welled in

  him he would tighten his nerves and call himself

  names until the urge passed.

  Sometimes the anger was stronger than the fear,

  and he would think of killing Clyde Foss. Toward

  morning both the fear and the anger lessened, and

  many of the things he had thought of during the

  night he did not now remember. He was sure of

  only one thing: He was going to get his hides back.

  A way to do it would come to him. He still had his

  Sharps.

  He shook Leo Cleary awake and told him to

  hitch the wagon.

  “Where we going?” The old man was still dazed,

  from sleep and whiskey.

  “Hunting, Leo. Down on the Salt Fork.”

  ✯ ✯ ✯

  Hunting was good in the Nations. The herds

  would come down from Canada and the Dakotas

  and winter along the Cimarron and the Salt and

  even down to the Canadian. Here the herds were

  big, two and three hundred grazing together, and

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  sometimes you could look over the flat plains and

  see thousands. A big outfit with a good hunter could

  average over eighty hides a day. But, because there

  were so many hunters, the herds kept on the move.

  In the evening they saw the first of the buffalo

  camps. Distant lights in the dimness, then lanterns

  and cook fires as they drew closer in a dusk turning

  to night, and the sounds of men drifted out to them

  on the silent plain.

  The hunters and skinners were crouched around

  a poker game on a blanket, a lantern above them

  on a crate. They paid little heed to the old man and

  the boy, letting them prepare their supper on the

  low-burning cook fire and after, when the boy

  stood over them and asked questions, they answered him shortly. The game was for high stakes,

  and there was a pot building. No, they hadn’t seen

  the Foss brothers, and if they had, they wouldn’t

  trade with them anyway. They were taking their

  skins to Caldwell for top dollar.

  They moved on, keeping well off from the flickering line of lights. Will Gordon would go in alone

  as they neared the camps, and, if there were five

  wagons in the camp, he’d approach cautiously until

  he could make out the men at the fire.

  From camp to camp it was the same story. Most

  of the hunters had not seen the Fosses; a few had,

  earlier in the day, but they could be anywhere now.

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  Until finally, very late, they talked to a man who

  had sold to the Foss brothers that morning.

  “They even took some fresh hides,” he told them.

  “Still heading west?” The boy kept his voice

  even, though he felt the excitement inside of him.

  “Part of them,” the hunter said. “Wylie went

  back to Caldwell with three wagons, but Clyde

  shoved on to meet another party up the Salt. See,

  Wylie’ll come back with empty wagons, and by

  that time the hunters’ll have caught up with

  Clyde. You ought to find him up a ways. We’ll all


  be up there soon . . . that’s where the big herds are

  heading.”

  They moved on all night, spelling each other on

  the wagon box. Leo grumbled and said they were

  crazy. The boy said little because he was thinking

  of the big herds. And he was thinking of Clyde Foss

  with all those hides he had to dry . . . and the plan

  was forming in his mind.

  Leo Cleary watched from the pines, seeing nothing, thinking of the boy who was out somewhere

  in the darkness, though most of the time he

  thought of whiskey, barrels of it that they had

  been hauling for two days and now into the second night.

  The boy was a fool. The camp they had seen at

  sundown was probably just another hunter. They

  all staked hides at one time or another. Seeing him

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  sneaking up in the dark they could take him for a

  Kiowa and cut him in two with a buffalo gun. And

  even if it did turn out to be Clyde Foss, then what?

  Later, the boy walked in out of the darkness and

  pushed the pine branches aside and was standing

  next to the old man.

  “It’s Clyde, Leo.”

  The old man said nothing.

  “He’s got two men with him.”

  “So . . . what are you going to do now?” the old

  man said.

  “Hunt,” the boy said. He went to his saddlebag

  and drew a cap-and-ball revolver and loaded it before bedding for the night.

  In the morning he took his rifles and led his horse

  along the base of the ridge, through the pines that

  were dense here, but scattered higher up the slope.

  He would look out over the flat plain to the south

  and see the small squares of canvas, very white in

  the brilliant sunlight. Ahead, to the west, the ridge

  dropped off into a narrow valley with timbered

  hills on the other side.

  The boy’s eyes searched the plain, roaming to the

  white squares, Clyde’s wagons, but he went on

  without hesitating until he reached the sloping finish of the ridge. Then he moved up the valley until

  the plain widened again, and then he stopped to

  wait. He was prepared to wait for days if necessary,

  until the right time.

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  From high up on the slope above, Leo Cleary

  watched him. Through the morning the old man’s

  eyes would drift from the boy and then off to the left,