“You kain’t do nothing else!” Hard eyes flashing, Sliver went on: “Didn’t we gamble, jest now, for who was to stay? An’ didn’t I win? Now you’re trying to renig?” As he noted the sweat standing out on Jake’s brow, he went on more quietly: “Look at it sensible. What ked you-all do with a wounded man? You’d on’y sign Lady-girl’s death warrant. And don’t worry about them wolves. They ain’t a-going to light no fires on my belly nor burn my feet. If I don’t get done up in the scrap—the last bullet will be for myself.”
Also he turned an adamant face to a proposal that Jake should stay too. “No, hombre, it’s still over a hundred miles to the border, an’ they need you. There’s nothing left for you but to take my horse an’ git.”
It had all been said and done without strain, effort, or self-consciousness; was entirely the expression of his hardy, careless soul that had never known the vice of self-pity. But when Jake still stood, his long, lean face working lugubriously in his attempts to hide his grief, Sliver did that which, for him, was a miracle in divination—entered into and felt the pain of another soul.
“Oh, shore, hombre!” His face lit up with sympathy. “You orter be glad. Ain’t it better to die clean, this-a-way, than to choke slowly at the end of some ranger’s rope? Go on, now, an’ catch up to ’em an’ keep ’em moving till night. With the least bit of luck, you’ll pull through all right.”
As before said, not one iota of self-pity entered into Sliver’s consciousness. Apart from a heavy fever and dull ache, the broken knee was behaving itself as well as could be expected and, after Jake’s departure, Sliver settled down to the business in hand; i.e., to inflate to the limit the current exchange of one gringo for seven revueltosos. Reckless, hardened scamp that he was, his remark, addressed to himself, had no reference to water, a canteen of which Jake had left at his elbow.
“Gosh, but I’d like a drink!”
His grin and following chuckle were natural and unaffected. “You’re going to be a good boy from now on, Sliver. You’ve taken your last.”
Pulling his Colt’s .45 from his belt, he laid it with the water-bottle. “Handy for the funeral.” He uttered a second grim chuckle.
The two extra rifles he placed within easy reach on his left. Then he lay quiet, hard blue eyes fixed on the opposite ridge—so quiet that a lone vulture poised above swooped down, alighted, then hopped mournfully away and stood poised on one leg, hopeful if disappointed. In recent history so much firing had invariably brought food.
From the first severe lesson when, from points a mile apart, the deadly rifles picked them off, the revueltosos had learned caution, only advancing when they were certain the two had retired. Riding away, Jake had exposed himself along the ridge; but, suspecting a trap, the revueltosos remained in hiding. Ten minutes elapsed before a couple of sombreros rose cautiously out of a clump of sage.