61

I LEFT ALLIE to stay with Laurel in the little shed next to the livery corral, where she and Pony lived while he wrangled the livery string and broke an occasional mustang.

“She talk?” I said.

“Some,” Pony said.

“Enough?” I said.

“Yes.”

It was cloudy and gray riding north, but there was no rain.

“She mind you going?” I said.

“When see you, she know why you here,” Pony said.

“She say she understand.”

“Does she?”

“Yes.”

“Wish Allie did,” I said. “She bitched the whole way down here yesterday.”

“Why she bitch?”

I did a high-voiced imitation of Allie.

“ ‘What if he’s killed? What happens to me? This isn’t his fight. . . . Why is he involved at all. . . . If he loved me, he wouldn’t . . .’ ”

Pony looked at the dark sky.

“Apache man warrior,” he said. “Apache woman proud.”

“I know,” I said.

Pony grinned.

“In land of Blue-Eyed Devil, not so simple,” he said. “Man can’t always be warrior. Man get to be cowboy and store man and saloon man. And man who sit in office. Not warrior, I just man who saddle horse. Pitch hay. Pick up horse shit. But I go with you and Virgil, I warrior.”

“Not everybody wants to be a warrior,” I said.

“No. But nobody want to be pick-up-horse-shit man, either,” Pony said.

“Some people like it ’cause it’s safe, I guess.”

“Life not lived to be safe. Safe make you weak,” Pony said. “Make you slow. Make you tired.”

We pretty much gave the horses their head, keeping them pointed north but letting them pick the trail. Half a day on the trail and it began to rain again. Not too hard but steady. The horses paid no attention. We put on our slickers and buttoned them up and pulled the brims of our hats down and hunched a little forward over the necks of the horses.

“Things turn out the way they heading,” I said, “you ain’t gonna be tired for a good while.”