Parker was silent. To him, Retch sounded like a man scared right down to the soles of his shoes but desperately trying to pretend he wasn't.
"It was a warning sent by them," Peg-leg whispered, gesturing up toward the cliff in the darkness. "A warning to us to mend our ways."
"It was no such thing!" Retch shouted.
Peg-leg did not argue. He got slowly and silently to his feet. The group was silent, perturbed, and afraid. Even Gotch was silent. Whatever had passed overhead, had cast a pall of fear over them.
"You bilious, yellow-livered cowards!" Retch raged at them.
They made no response. The fear the Jezbro had inspired in them seemed to have made even his anger unimportant.
"But what is the Jezbro?" Parker questioned again. "I mean—"
"I told you it's nothing and that's enough of an answer. Hey!" The guns that Retch held came up sharply as another figure came soundlessly out of the forest and moved toward them. An old, bent, wrinkled Indian who hobbled along with the aid of a staff.
"Oh, it's you, Pedro!" Retch said. "What the hell do you want?"
For all the sign he gave, the Indian, Pedro, did not hear Retch's question. He hobbled straight to Parker.