Helping him rig the horses, Buck Stevens said mildly in a voice too low to reach Vickers, “And I don’t even have Medicare. Amigo, one of these days they’re going to come and get you with a butterfly net. I hope they don’t write this up as kemo sabe ’s folly.”
“What’s the matter, white man, you fresh out of silver bullets?”
“Sam, the first time I ever laid eyes on you I knew you’d be one of those guys who had to do everything the hard way. You know damn well that story about me and the two cartridges and the two rabbits was as phony as a plastic flower. I wouldn’t be surprised if old Vickers is a hell of a lot better at it than I am.”
“The difference being, I can depend on you at my back.”
“You really think he’d cut out on you?”
Watchman shrugged. He doubted Vickers was a coward but he had no confidence in Vickers’ private idea of priorities. When you were in the middle of a play you didn’t want your pass receiver to change his mind and head for the wrong end of the field. Vickers might get that sort of wild-hair notion; Buck Stevens wouldn’t. He could be depended on to be where he said he’d be, when he said he’d be there, and to stay there until told to move.
Stevens smoothed the saddle blanket and heaved the saddle up. “You know Walker won’t be the only one gets reamed out in that report of his. The way you keep needling him you could end up unemployed.”
“I don’t want to lose these jokers on his account.”
“You’re making it into a crusade.”
“Jasper isn’t any less dead today than he was yesterday,” Watchman said, but then he had to think about that. He hadn’t been raised to believe in eye-for-an-eye retribution; that was a white man’s concept. Indian law didn’t lean hard on revenge and punishment; it emphasized compensation of the victim instead. But you couldn’t compensate Jasper Simalie. The question had run through his mind at odd intervals in the past two days and although he had never developed much of an introspective habit he was beginning to realize what was behind this dedication of his that had come out of nowhere and taken him by surprise and stripped away a good many superficial layers of easygoing indifference. When you came right down to it, it didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense: they had killed a Navajo, therefore they needed to be caught by a Navajo. It was a streak of-what? nationalism? tribalism? — he had never thought he had in him. And there was another idea, too, hard to articulate: somehow he needed to demonstrate that they couldn’t be allowed to kill a Navajo brother and get away with it.
He looked across the horse’s withers while he was snugging the cinch and saw Vickers by the fire, shouldering into his heavy coat. It didn’t strike Watchman until a moment later that ten minutes ago he hadn’t been able to see that far through the driving snow. Now the camp was quite clearly visible. Snow was falling at a slant, not too heavily, and the wind was breaking up into gusts, with intervals of near-silence. He turned, hung onto his hatbrim and threw his head back to look up. The cliff receded into a mottled gray haze of drifting snow but he could make out the rim a hundred feet-above him and the bellies of fast-moving clouds.
Vickers tramped over to him, boots kicking up little powder flurries. The snow was settling quickly onto the exposed flats, which it had not done before; until now it had blown across the open ground and collected in high drifts against windbreaks.
“We’ll all go,” Vickers said.
“Them too?” Watchman was astonished.
Vickers shook his head. “I didn’t mean that. We’ve only got three horses. They’ll be on foot-they wouldn’t get far in all this snow. I told them we’d come back for them within twenty-four hours. I think I impressed it on Walker that his best chance is to stay here and wait. If he doesn’t he’ll be run down and caught eventually. He’s not as important as the other four right now.”
“All right,” Watchman said, not displeased that Vickers was using his head for a change. “We’ll leave some of the provisions here.”
“I’ve taken care of that. Are we ready to go?”
“As soon as you saddle your horse.”
Vickers’ expression changed a little-a pinching of mouth corners. Evidently he had expected somebody to saddle up for him. Watchman didn’t take the hint. He was nobody’s hired wrangler.
Getting to be a pretty proud Innun, aren’t we. He chastised himself silently for his childishness and went over to the fire to gather his things. Mrs. Lansford was trying to comb wet tangles out of her walnut-brown hair with her fingers; she looked up at him and her smile showed him the same resilient strength he’d admired last night. “Thanks for what you’ve done, Officer.”
He said impulsively, “My name’s Sam Watchman. Sam.”
“All right. Thanks, Sam.”
Keith Walker said, “Remember what I said about the Major and Baraclough.”
“I will. Listen, if we’re not back here by daybreak tomorrow you’d better start down the mountain. And watch your footing in the drifts.”
Mrs. Lansford said, “You’ll be back.”
“They may have headed down the back of the mountain by now. Don’t wait past morning. All right?”
“All right, Sam.”
Walker only nodded bleakly and Watchman walked to his horse.