"I don't know. Would you?"
"Go with m' hat in hand an' say, 'Well, Pa, here's your wanderin' boy'? No, I dunno as how I'd be makin' that kinda play neither. Never was one to unspool th' bedroll till I was sure o' th' brand I was ridin' for. An' you an' me's kinda hide-matched there. Glad you wised me up in time."
"Maybe I didn't," Drew admitted.
"You mean that Shannon? I know you think he's filin' his teeth for you, but I'd say he was too busy countin' stars from that skull beltin' to make sense out of our hurrawin'. I'll give him th' eye though. Lissen now, you're Kirby—so am I called for a rebrandin', too? Seems like two Kirbys turnin' up in a town this size is gonna make a few people ask some questions."
"You're my cousin—Anson Kirby." Drew had already thought that out. "Now, you've some tall talkin' to do your[pg 081] ownself. I saw you roll out of your saddle back in Tennessee. How come you turn up here and now?"
Anse sluiced water over his head and shoulders with cupped hands.
"Do I tell it jus' like it happened, you'll think I'm callin' up mountains outta prairie-dog hills, it's that crazy. But it's range truth. Yeah, I landed outta that saddle on some mighty hard ground. If you'll remember, I had me a hole in the shoulder big enough to let th' wind whistle through. I rolled between th' bushes jus' in time to see you get it—plumb center an' final, so I thought. Then ... well, I don't remember too good for a while. Next time I was able to take a real interest I was lyin' on a bed with about a mountain of quilts on top me, weaker'n a yearlin' what's jus' been dragged outta a bog hole. Seems like them Yankees gathered me up with th' rest of them bushwacker scrubs, but when they got me a mile or so down th' road they decided as how I'd had it good an' there was no use wastin' wagon room on me. So they let me lie....
"Only," the Texan paused and then continued more soberly, "Drew, sometimes—sometimes it seems like a hombre can have a mite more'n his share of luck; or else he's got him Someone as is line ridin' for him. We had us friends in Tennessee, an' it jus' happened as how I was dropped where one of them families found me. They sure was good folks; patched me up an' saw me through like I was their close kin. Hid me out by sayin' as how I had th' cholera.
"An' most of th' time I didn't know a rope from a saddle—outta my head complete. First there was that shoulder hole; then I got me a good case of lung fever. It was two months 'fore I could crawl round better'n a sick calf what lost its ma too early. Then, jus' as I got so I could stamp m'[pg 082] boots on th' ground an' expect to stand straight up in 'em, this here Yankee patrol came 'long an' dogged me right into a bunch o' our boys they had rounded up. I had me some weeks in a prison stockade, which ain't, I'm tellin' you, no way for to spend any livin' time. Then this here war was over, an' I was loose. No hoss, no nothin'. Some of th' boys got to talkin' 'bout trailin' back to Texas, tryin' out some ranchin' in the bush country. A lotta wild stuff down there—nobody's been runnin' brands on anythin' much since '61. We planned to get a herd of mavericks, drive up into Kansas or Missouri, an' sell. A couple of th' boys had run stuff in that way for th' army, even swum 'em across the Mississippi. It would maybe give us a start. An'—well, there weren't nothin' else to do. So we tried it." Anse sat staring down at the water lapping at his lean middle. His was a very thin body, the ribs standing out beneath the skin almost as harshly as did the weal of the scar on his shoulder.
"And it didn't work?"