Far Bright Star Read Online Free PDF Page A

them yet.
    They waited and soon the beeves appeared, scrawny range cattle, but if spooked their lumbering bodies were capable of running like antelope.
    “They’ll be tougher than Zip’s ass,” Napoleon said, snugging the butt of the Springfield to his shoulder.
    “Who’s Zip?” Bandy whispered.
    “How the hell do I know who Zip is. It’s a saying,” he hissed.
    “Zip’s ass,” Bandy said, trying it out for himself.
    Grazing beyond a thick band of creosote were the cows with their young and the vigilant bulls among them. He counted fifteen, five large, and stopped counting. The beeves had suddenly became uneasy. They were aware of a presence. He sniffed at the wind—rising and coming in. Why so uneasy?
    He steadied in position and inside the eye of the prismatic scope he found the sight picture he wanted. He calculated three hundred yards. He set the range to correspond and placed his aiming point a little behind the shoulder blade and two-thirds down from the spine, a heart shot. The box magazine held five rounds. Breathing calmly, he squeezed the trigger and fired, absorbing the shock and feeling the grind in his shoulder.
    He immediately adjusted the sight picture. The cross-hairs found their spot and another bull crumpled. A cow turned to look at the bull when it groaned. Then the cow fell, the shot breaking her neck when she looked up. A fourth cow began running, jinked left and went down, skidding nose first in the red dirt.
    At the fifth report the herd hared off in a single curving direction. Their bony pitching bodies closed with the ground as their strides lengthened and dodged for safety. Five times he’d squeezed the trigger and the five large animals fell.
    “Bravo,” Preston shouted, punching the air with his fist.
    He waited until Extra Billy, Stableforth, and Turner rode out with knives to bleed the carcasses and only then did he sit up and pass the Springfield to Bandy who cradled it in his arms. He was starting to feel twitchy in the heat. He surveyed the surround, his eyes half closed to see better.
    Bandy was holding out a canteen of water. He heard words. The boy was talking to Preston.
    “Wheeler says there was a soldier who died at Fort Yuma and went to hell only to come back for his blanket. Ask me why.”
    “Why?” Preston said.
    “Because it was too cold down there in hell and I’d say right now it is hotter than Yuma ever was.”
    “Over there,” Napoleon said and pointed to a dusty mountain pass. “We’ll get in there for the noon spell.”
    He’d rest the men and the weary horses and perhaps a few moments of sleep for himself. Soon the wagons would come along. He’d chip ice to melt inside his mouth.
    He told them to direct the others to follow and then rode into the blind spot where the trail was so thin there was not room to turn a horse around. On the other side the trail descended into a little box canyon, more an empty column of stone, where it wasn’t so bad a place to spend some time.
    He knew the place well. He’d been there before, a place where there was a dry falls and water jetting from a port in the rock face, and at the base of the dry falls a series of water tanks, one lipping into the next. The bottom ones were full of sand, but higher up there was water. There was an alcove with ancient artwork and handprints made from blown paint. The last time he was there pollen was floating in the tank.

6
    B Y THE TIME the others rode in Napoleon had unsaddled the Rattler horse. He told the horse to lie down and it rolled in the sand as if a great cheerful dog. He then yelled, Hup! and it scrambled to its feet where it shook and stood sheepishly for how undignified its display. It blinked its eyes as if shy and abashed and not the malevolent it truly was.
    “Tend to your horses first,” he ordered them. “Then wash your faces and change your socks.”
    The day only half over and already he was bone weary.
    “Eat your food,” he said. He had to teach them how