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Deelie screamed and Terry lifted the boy off of Repper, saying, “Wait a minute!” Then, in Spanish, he was talking more quietly, calming the boy.

Repper sat up with his hand to his face. He had a welt across his forehead where the rifle barrel hit, but he was more mad than hurt. He said, “You think I’m going to let you get away with this?”

Terry was himself again. He said, “I don’t think you got a choice.”

“I haven’t?” Max said. “I’ll make damn sure he gets put the hell on that reservation.”

“If you can prove he’s Indian,” Terry answered.

Max gave us his sly look. “Either way,” he said. “If he ain’t Indian then he’s white, with white kin, and no authority’s going to let him get adopted by a saddle tramp who ain’t worked in two years.”

It was a good thing Max was sitting down when he said that. Max was through, and he probably knew it, but if Terry wanted the boy, then he’d sure make it plain hell for Terry to keep him.

I told Repper, “That’s up to the authorities. The thing is, this boy’s got no recollection of white kin and the only other person who knew his parents is dead. And he’s said himself he wants to live with Terry.”

Max grinned. “And I imagine Terry wants the boy, and his nugget, to live with him. But like I said, the authorities won’t see it that way.”

And then Deelie had something to say. She was looking at Max Repper, but I think talking to Terry, and she said, “No, they wouldn’t let the boy live with a saddle tramp who hasn’t worked in two years… but I’m sure they would agree that a successful mining man of Mr. McNeil’s character would be more than they could hope for… especially since he’ll be married within the week.”

That was exactly how Deelie did it. I’ve often wondered if she ever thought Terry married her just so he could raise the boy. I didn’t think he did, knowing Terry, and I doubt if Deelie really cared …long as she had him.

28

Only Good Ones

Western Roundup, New York, Macmillan, 1961

(Western Writers of America Anthology)

PICTURE THE GROUND rising on the east side of the pasture with scrub trees thick on the slope and pines higher up. This is where everybody was. Not all in one place but scattered in small groups: about a dozen men in the scrub, the front-line men, the shooters who couldn’t just stand around. They’d fire at the shack when they felt like it or, when Mr. Tanner passed the word, they would all fire at once. Other people were up in the pines and on the road which ran along the crest of the hill, some three hundred yards from the shack across the pasture. Those watching made bets whether the man in the shack would give himself up or get shot first.

It was Saturday and that’s why everybody had the time. They would arrive in town that morning, hear about what had happened, and, shortly after, head out to the cattle-company pasture. Almost all of the men went out alone, leaving their families in town: though there were a few women who came. The other women waited. And the people who had business in town and couldn’t leave waited. Now and then somebody came back to have a drink or their dinner and would tell what was going on. No, they hadn’t got him yet. Still inside the line shack and not showing his face.

But they’d get him. A few more would go out when they heard this. Also a wagon from De Spain’s went out with whiskey. That’s how the saloon was set up in the pines overlooking the pasture and why nobody went back to town after that.

Barely a mile from town those going out would hear the gunfire, like a skirmish way over on the other side of a woods, thin specks of sound, and this would hurry them. They were careful, though, topping the slope, looking across the pasture, getting their bearings, then peering to see who was present. They would see a friend and ask about this Mr. Tanner and the friend would point him out.

The man there in the dark suit: thin and bony, not big but looking like he was made of gristle and hard to kill, with a mustache and a thin nose and a dark dusty hat worn