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had something to show the boy while we were still alone.
* * *
About halfway between the ranch and Debaria, I spied a deserted sheepherder’s lean-to, and suggested we shelter in there for a bit and have a
bite. Bill Streeter agreed willingly enough. He had lost his da’ and everyone else he’d known, but he was still a growing boy and he’d had nothing to
eat since his dinner the night before.
We tethered our mounts away from the wind and sat on the floor inside the lean-to with our backs against the wall. I had dried beef wrapped in
leaves in my saddlebag. The meat was salty, but my waterskin was full. The boy ate half a dozen chunks of the meat, tearing off big bites and
washing them down with water.
A strong gust of wind shook the lean-to. Millie blatted a protest and fell silent.
“It’ll be a full-going simoom by dark,” Young Bill said. “You watch and see if it ain’t.”
“I like the sound of the wind,” I said. “It makes me think of a story my mother read to me when I was a sma’ one. ‘The Wind Through the Keyhole,’
it was called. Does thee know it?”
Young Bill shook his head. “Mister, are you really a gunslinger? Say true?”
“I am.”
“Can I hold one of your guns for a minute?”
“Never in life,” I said, “but you can look at one of these, if you’d like.” I took a shell from my belt and handed it to him.
He examined it closely, from brass base to lead tip. “Gods, it’s heavy! Long, too! I bet if you shot someone with one of these, he’d stay down.”
“Yes. A shell’s a dangerous thing. But it can be pretty, too. Would you like to see a trick I can do with this one?”
“Sure.”
I took it back and began to dance it from knuckle to knuckle, my fingers rising and falling in waves. Young Bill watched, wide-eyed. “How does
thee do it?”
“The same way anyone does anything,” I said. “Practice.”
“Will you show me the trick?”
“If you watch close, you may see it for yourself,” I said. “Here it is . . . and here it isn’t.” I palmed the shell so fast it disappeared, thinking of Susan
Delgado, as I supposed I always would when I did this trick. “Now here it is again.”
The shell danced fast . . . then slow . . . then fast again.
“Follow it with your eyes, Bill, and see if you can make out how I get it to disappear. Don’t take your eyes off it.” I dropped my voice to a lulling
murmur. “Watch . . . and watch . . . and watch. Does it make you sleepy?”
“A little,” he said. His eyes slipped slowly closed, then the lids rose again. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”
“Did you not? Watch it go. Watch it slow. See it disappear and then . . . see it as it speeds up again.”
Back and forth the shell went. The wind blew, as lulling to me as my voice was to him.
“Sleep if you want, Bill. Listen to the wind and sleep. But listen to my voice, too.”
“I hear you, gunslinger.” His eyes closed again and this time didn’t reopen. His hands were clasped limply in his lap. “I hear you very well.”
“You can still see the shell, can’t you? Even with your eyes closed.”
“Yes . . . but it’s bigger now. It flashes like gold.”
“Do you say so?”
“Yes . . .”
“Go deeper, Bill, but hear my voice.”
“I hear.”
“I want you to turn your mind back to last night. Your mind and your eyes and your ears. Will you do that?”
A frown creased his brow. “I don’t want to.”
“It’s safe. All that’s happened, and besides, I’m with you.”
“You’re with me. And you have guns.”
“So I do. Nothing will happen to you as long as you can hear my voice, because we’re together. I’ll keep thee safe. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“Your da’ told you to sleep out under the stars, didn’t he?”
“Aye. It was to be a warm night.”
“But that wasn’t the real reason, was it?”
“No. It was because of Elrod. Once he twirled the bunkhouse cat by her tail, and she never came back. Sometimes he pulls me around by my hair
and sings ‘The Boy Who Loved Jenny.’ My da’ can’t stop him, because Elrod’s bigger. Also, he has a knife in his boot. He could cut with it. But he
couldn’t cut the beast, could he?” His clasped hands twitched. “Elrod’s dead and I’m glad. I’m sorry about all the others . . . and my da’, I don’t know
what I’ll do wi’out my da’ . . . but I’m glad about Elrod. He won’t tease me nummore. He won’t scare me nummore. I seen it, aye.”
So he did know more than the top of his mind had let him remember.
“Now you’re out on the graze.”
“On the graze.”
“Wrapped up in your blanket and shinnie.”
“Shaddie.”
“Your blanket and shaddie. You’re awake, maybe looking up at the stars, at Old Star and Old Mother—”
“No, no, asleep,” Bill said. “But the screams wake me up. The screams from the bunkhouse. And the sounds of fighting. Things are breaking. And
something’s roaring.”
“What do you do, Bill?”
“I go down. I’m afraid to, but my da’ . . . my da’s in there. I look in the window at the far end. It’s greasepaper, but I can see through it well enough.
More than I want to see. Because I see . . . I see . . . mister, can I wake up?”
“Not yet. Remember that I’m with you.”
“Have you drawn your guns, mister?” He was shivering.
“I have. To protect you. What do you see?”
“Blood. And a beast.”
“What kind, can you tell?”
“A bear. One so tall its head reaches the ceiling. It goes up the middle of the bunkhouse . . . between the cots, ye ken, and on its back legs . . .