Never before or after did I hear coyotes howl the way they did that night. Seemed they were taking the woes of the world and flinging them back at the moon, and the moon didn’t care.
When the moon finally sank beneath the horizon, leaving us in darkness, the coyotes left off howling and I was finally safe to creep away from camp. Along the way, I stole half a dozen of the kerchiefs troopers had laid out to dry. When I was far enough off that the embers of the string of burned-down fires the troopers were bedded down next to were pinpricks of orange in the black night, I relieved myself. I tossed away the fouled bindings, replaced them with a pad of kerchiefs then sat down to consider my situation.
I had to conclude that Vikers and his boys were bound to find me out. For a second or two, I wondered whether it wouldn’t be better for me to walk on out into the night until I met up with the yellow eyes of a pack of lobos. I was wondering if having my guts strung across the prairie by Mexican wolves might not be preferable to getting done in by Vikers, when a rattler, attracted by my warmth, slithered up. I had a rock in my hand and his brains bashed out before he had a chance to raise his tail and shake out even one rattle.
“Thank you, Iyaiya,” I said, uplifted mightily by this evidence that my grandmother was still looking out for me. No telegram could of been clearer and I knew sure as creek run to river what I had to do.
Back in camp, I crept over to where Vikers and his boys lay curled around the ashes of their fire, dead asleep. Vikers’s special tin coffeepot set on a rock next to the cold fire. I swiped that pot. In exchange, I tucked Grandma’s messenger into bed with Vikers then slipped away.
I made for the remuda staked out at the far edge of camp. The mounted guard was Milton Favor, a wheelwright out of Illinois. This was bad luck for me as Favor was a bright-eyed lad when what I needed at that moment was a shirker slumped over in the saddle, dreaming his shift away. Quiet though I was, the horses caught my smell and started snorting and shifting about, eager for their morning grain.
“Hush, hosses, hush,” Favor said.
The horses quieted down. I eased forward, took a deep breath, gathered my courage, and chunked Vikers’s pot hard as I could into the middle of the herd. It clanged and clattered with a fearsome noise that would of given me away, except that the horses started whinnying and churning about. Favor was so occupied heading off a complete stampede that he didn’t notice even when I stood, passed among the milling animals, and retrieved what was left of the stolen pot.
As I’d hoped, it was trampled but good. The gooseneck spout hung on by the thinnest of welds. As soon as I was in the clear, I popped it loose. The spout was exactly the length I needed. Six inches. I worked it down into my drawers and between my legs and secured it so that it wasn’t poking me.
I slipped back into my bedroll and slept as easy as a babe in the cradle. I was filled with the kind of peace familiar to those who place their faith in Jesus and turn loose the reins on their lives. My faith was in my Iyaiya. She had made a way for me and I had no doubt that it would lead me out of the sorry place I now found myself in.