Late that night, while the big house slept and the only sound was the coughing of the men whose lungs had gone black, I sat on the edge of my narrow bed with the pine box perched upon my knees. Shadows cast by the lantern’s jittery flame jumped across it.
The box was light. I shook it. There was a muffled rattle. That meant there wouldn’t be uniform, I wouldn’t have Wager’s living scent to inhale. But something. I would have something of his.
My fingers trembled to where I could barely open the box. When I lifted the lid the trembling stopped and my hands fell still as death onto my lap when I saw what was inside: a straight-edge razor with a fine four-masted sailing ship scrimshawed upon its whalebone handle nestled upon a faded yellow kerchief with a tear through it stained by blood that had turned the color of rust.
I picked up the razor to make sure I wasn’t seeing things then dropped it for I had to cover my mouth and stuff down the bark of bewilderment that leaped out of me. I fetched my own box, the small one made of cedar that I had returned Wager’s kerchief to only a few hours before. Inside, folded neatly again, was the only kerchief Wager Swayne had owned. The one he had given me, leaving his own neck bare.
I ran my fingers over the engraving of the sailing ship. It was exactly as it had been when I gave it to Lem to tell him I was sorry. Next I studied the kerchief. I scratched at the splotches of blood that surrounded one of the holes in the cloth and saw my friend again, an arrow shot through his throat.
The body hanging from the soapberry tree had been Lem’s.
My heart slammed against my chest once, twice, three times.
The patrol had found Lem’s grave at the springs and taken him back to the fort. But instead of a proper burial, Drewbott had hooded my friend’s face and hung him in Wager’s place as a warning to those who would mutiny. Who would not be captives.
Wager had escaped.
For a long time I sat there still as a stone while the north of my life for the past twenty years became south and all the meridians I’d pegged that life to shifted and reset themselves to a whole new compass.
Wager had escaped.
I rose to my feet. I would leave tonight. Now. I would ride to Mexico and find Wager. But after punishing my ruined feet all that long day, no amount of want to would make them hold me up. I tottered a moment or two before coming down in a heap onto the bed.
The questions battered me. Did Wager wait at the border for me? Did he sneak back over and try to come after me? Did he return to the crossing again and again over the years? Did he question every gringo, white or black, asking, as I’d once asked if anyone had seen rows of black pearl scars like jewelry no one could ever steal?
Did Wager believe that I had broken my promise to find him?
Near dawn I was overtaken by a vision so real I knew it to be the truth of what had really happened to Wager.
In that vision, I galloped hard following Wager. The lowering sun cut into our eyes and set the Rio Grande ablaze as we crossed it. Bullets from the long-range Sharps pocked the dirt, but we paid them no mind. Wager laughed as the tiny dust devils fell farther and farther behind, never touching us. Never even coming close.
Ahead of me, Belle splashed through the river. Her back hooves crunched against the gravel bed then flung up rooster tails of drops that fanned out and shone in the low evening light. I was so close to Wager that the drops Belle kicked up hung before me bright as handfuls of gold Liberty dollars tossed into the air before they pattered down, cooling my face.
Wager reached the other bank and rode onto the free side to wait for me there.
Overhead the clouds ripened with the most marvelous blooms of color. Strawberry red and kumquat orange against a background of sky so blue it went all the way to heaven. Ahead was an ocean of rabbit brush bursting with yellow blossoms. The prairie under hoof was lavender in the dimming light.
As the sky dimmed from marigold to turquoise to darkest indigo, I drew up next to Wager and we rode, side by side, into Mexico, captives no more.