Thirty-Three
When Nance rolled out of his blankets the next morning, he found that half a dozen of his own kin had quietly packed up their few possessions and slipped away during the night, taking off for safer parts.
Nance cussed for a moment, but it was halfhearted. The move really didn’t surprise him very much. He looked out past the camp: The bodies of Rod Stegman and his men had been dragged out a few dozen yards and covered with rocks and brush. He felt no emotion at the loss of his brother-in-law. The only emotion Nance was experiencing was the one involving his someday killing Falcon MacCallister. That emotion filled him with a great deal of satisfaction.
Nance didn’t notice that he and his men were stinking and filthy, their clothing dirty and soiled. He didn’t notice that they all looked like a bunch of bums. He didn’t care about going back and trying to round up his cattle and starting over. He just wanted to kill Falcon MacCallister and the man’s kids.
Nance Noonan had quietly slipped over the line into the darkness of insanity.
The only brothers he had left alive, Penrod and Hodge, were watching him closely. They knew something was very much wrong with their brother, but they didn’t know what. Neither one of them was smart enough to understand it was insanity that had taken over their brother’s mind. They would figure that out before too much longer.
Nance sat on the ground long after the sun had edged over the horizon and drank coffee and muttered to himself. He drew strange symbols in the dirt while his kin waited for him to tell them to mount up and ride.
But Nance was slipping deeper into the world of madness. He was no longer capable of telling anybody anything that would make any sense.
Most of Nance’s cousins saddled up their horses and rode out without saying a word to Nance. Penrod and Hodge and the few kin who were left made no attempt to stop them.
Nance’s brothers began talking, talking about Nance. Nance didn’t hear them, or if he did hear the words, they didn’t register in his sick mind. Words to Nance were now incomprehensible.
One of Nance’s cousins walked over to him and slipped his guns out of leather. Nance didn’t notice. He continued to hum and talk to himself and draw those strange symbols in the dirt. Occasionally, he would laugh out loud and look around him with eyes that were strangely vacant.
Nance soiled himself, peeing in his already dirty underwear. That was what finally got through to Penrod and Hodge.
“I think somethin’ done snapped in his head,” Penrod remarked in a low voice.
“He’s gone crazy,” Hodge said. “I seen an ol’ boy lose his marbles one time. He acted just like Nance is actin’.”
“What are we gonna do?”
“Hell, I don’t know.”
Only a few miles away, to the south, Falcon had fixed his breakfast, packed up his gear, and was riding back toward the camp of Nance and his Double N crew. He had made up his mind to finish this little war that day. Hell ate up the distance, moving Falcon closer to what he thought would be a showdown. It would be, but not the kind that he imagined.
Penrod walked over to his brother and shook him by the shoulder. “Nance. We better get movin’ now, boy. You hear me, Brother?”
Nance didn’t look up. His brother’s words were nothing but a roaring in his head.
“Nance, we got to do somethin’, boy. We got to move out of here. It’s time to go.”
Nance hummed a little song. Penrod walked away from his brother and sat down a few yards away. He rolled a cigarette and smoked it, then rolled and smoked another one. He did not know what to do. He couldn’t just leave his brother out in the middle of nowhere.
Penrod looked around the camp at the others. At that moment he saw them all, including himself, for what they really were. They were all filthy and nasty and they all needed a good long hot bath . . . some of them more than one.
“Pitiful,” Penrod said, loud enough for all to hear. “We sure don’t look like very much.”
“You sure as hell don’t.” Falcon spoke, just a few yards away.
Heads turned, eyes wide in surprise that anyone could slip up on them that easily.
Falcon stood there, both hands filled with .44s. “Unbuckle your gunbelts and kick them away from you,” Falcon ordered. “And if you want to die, just touch the butt of a gun and I’ll start shooting and I won’t stop until my guns are empty and all of you are on the ground.”
Gunbelts quickly hit the ground.
“That’s better,” Falcon said. “Now then, what’s wrong with Nance?”
“Somethin’s gone bad in his head,” Penrod replied. “He’s real sick, MacCallister. We got to get him to a doctor.”
Falcon looked at Nance. The man was slobbering down the front of his shirt and humming a little melody over and over. Falcon could smell the stink of him from where he stood. It was really rank. Nance had soiled himself, from the way he smelled, more than once.
“A doctor won’t be able to do Nance any good,” Falcon said. “Just commit your brother to an asylum, probably.”
“Reckon where one of them is?” a Noonan cousin asked.
“I don’t know,” Falcon said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, either. I came back to kill you.”
That produced a babble of excited voices. Penrod’s voice finally overrode all the others. “We’re done huntin’ you, Mr. MacCallister. That was all Nance’s idea anyway. Yeah, we went along with it, ’cause he was the boss. But he ain’t nothin’ no more. He’s . . . goofy.”
Falcon certainly couldn’t argue that. Falcon looked at each member of the Noonan clan. They were a sorry-looking bunch, for a fact. All the fight was gone from them. They were finished; there was no doubt in Falcon’s mind about that.
“All right, Falcon said. ”Pack up your possibles and get Nance on a horse. There’s bound to be some sort of asylum for the insane down at the capital. Take him down there. But hear me good, boys: Stay clear of Colorado. If I see any of you there, I’ll kill you. I won’t say a word to you; I’ll just shoot you where you stand. You understand all that?“
They all did, and said so several times in very excited voices.
Falcon nodded his head. “Leave your six-guns where they are and ride out of here. Keep your rifles to hunt meat. Move! Get gone right now!”
The Noonan clan was gone in five minutes. Out of sight. Heading for the capital. Nance sat his saddle and hummed and slobbered and peed his underwear.
Falcon walked out from the camp to look at the hastily covered bodies of Rod Stegman and his kin. Coyotes had already been working on them during the night, pulling away the branches and small logs and moving the rocks to get at the bodies. Falcon looked up into the sky. Great black carrion birds were gathering, slowly circling in patient expectation of something to eat.
“Hell with it,” Falcon muttered. “It’s all over, far as I’m concerned. I’m going home.”