22

Randall had taken to watching the stars on most nights and his feelings for all that looked back at him were changing. The expanse of the universe had once filled him with anxiety and uncertainty and brought with it in its enormity a questioning of faith and purpose and other ego-driven notions which he in turn rebelled from, shutting away the immeasurable illimits of all that is, and focusing rather on what he could control.

Yet the more he forced himself to look the more he saw, and though he understood no greater truth than before he now found a calmness to the magnitude of the night sky and the sweltering symbols upon it. Each constellation the same and always creeping up from the horizon and taking its turn and then settling back into the abyss and leaving the supremacy of the night to some other cluster of brilliance and all the while ignoring the shooting stars as they emblazoned their legacy across the sky in an extremity of drama and dying, never to be seen again by this world or another.

The constellations are strong and sturdy, Randall thought, and he kept that in his mind and he told himself he would work in every moment to display the steadiness of twilight and when he woke in the morning he would face his first test.

“People coming,” Tad said in a manner more frantic than the last and he shook Randall awake. “Coming hard.”

Randall’s sleepy eyes were slow in adjusting and when they did his mind was still a fog and it was all he could do to look in the same direction as the others and when he did he saw nothing. He and Charlotte and Tad watched the western horizon with intent but the sun had yet to touch the far side of the world, the things in it still forsaken to darkness. The small boy seemed unaware of any happening and stood brushing the horses in his underwear and boots.

They had crossed the plains and flats and forests beyond the Organ Mountains and had seen no trouble, and Randall in his life had laid eyes upon very little of the world’s wickedness and these things together made him blind. A man who has found fortune the once will attempt to see it again in every prospect, just as a man who has felt sorrow will brace for it at every changing of the winds.

“I don’t see anything,” Randall said and it was true all around.

“They’re out there,” Tad replied, and Randall closed his eyes and felt his son tug at his sleeve.

“They’re out there, Father,” he heard Harry’s words replay in his mind, “in the barn with the horses.”

When he opened his eyes again he saw the first of the riders as they began one by one to emerge onto the far plain as if some portal had swallowed them up and dropped them here without a single horse breaking stride.

Randall extended his spyglass and confirmed the uneasiness of the boy.

“Banditos,” he said aloud at the same moment he thought it and barely was the word spoken that Charlotte was beside him with the long rifle.

“How many,” she asked, not looking up from her loading.

“Eight. Ten, maybe.”

“You reckon they might not of seen us?” Tad asked, scared but hopeful.

The riders in the distance began to fire their pistols into the air and let loose high-pitched yells and crows.

“They seen us,” Charlotte said, raising her rifle.

* * *

By full sunup the gun smoke was drifting east toward the light, and Randall lay on his back and tried to look at the stars but found only a swirling dawn of pale blues and pinks and he muttered to himself memories of long ago and moments before.

“Quiet now,” Charlotte said and turned her head to one side and inspected him and he saw the orphan boy still brushing the horses.

“I don’t know why,” he said and he wasn’t sure what he meant but he said it again. “I don’t know why.”

“It’s alright. You’re alright,” Charlotte said, and he might have believed her if not for the fire in his stomach.

He looked down and regretted it and was dizzy.

“Tad,” he said and she nodded.

“He’s fine. He’s over yonder spilling up the breakfast he ain’t even had yet. He done good though.”

“I’m sorry,” Randall said and he closed his eyes.

* * *

The pines near the ranch followed the slope of the ridge and it seemed every other tree had its branches turned up or down and to look through the limbs it was like lattice work and from it came the short green needles of spring, each bunch pointed upward in offering to the sun or the sky or nothing at all. The deer migration was ever the spectacle and the gray beasts called timber ghosts in the winter were now brown and their antlers velvet and Randall’s grandfather took his hand and pointed at one of the bucks moving through the high wood.

“It’s a rebirth, boy,” he said in a gruff whisper, leaning down to where his face was near Randall’s. “Every year. They shed and grow and shed again. Changing, but never changing. Do you understand?”

Young Randall shook his head.

“The Indians out here, they got their ways. White folk, we got ours. Something has to give, you see. It’ll be the ones who can change, who can evolve—that’s who’ll rule these lands. The rest will just be velvet on the ground.”

* * *

Randall opened his eyes and must have still been dreaming, he decided. The young Indian man hovering above him blocked out the sun so that it seemed the outer edges of the man’s body were radiating with some magic glow to hold in his spirit.

“You drink deep now,” Charlotte told him and held a bottle to his lips and he swallowed and his throat immediately set fire and the pain in his gut was overwhelming and he longed to close his eyes again but knew if he did it may well be for good, or at least forever.

“Can you dig it out?” he heard Charlotte ask, and the man answered in a language unknown to Randall and Charlotte in turn spoke the same tongue and Randall felt his sanity slipping.

There was black and then sky and then Tad over him wearing a concerned face.

“You don’t want that Indian coming close to you with a knife, you just let me know and I’ll kill him like I did them banditos.”

More black and then agony so great it forced open his eyes and he cried out and Charlotte and Tad held him down as the Indian dug for the bullet.

“Alive!” Randall screamed and the adrenaline for a moment felt soothing and so he continued screaming.

“Alive!”

The Indian held up the bullet and judged it under the sun as if to ensure he’d taken out the right one. He held the knife over a flame and the blade turned to steel fire and he pressed it against Randall’s stomach and this time it was too much and Randall fell back onto the cold ground and screamed no more.

“Alive,” the small boy said and pointed at Randall.