Then he had stood there with a rifle in his hands and let the man be killed. They had all concluded the Indians were too starved down to do anything. It was a mistake he would never forgive himself.

"I think he knowed it was coming," Augustus said, to Call's surprise, as they rode through the cracked valleys toward the Salt Creek.

"What do you mean, knowed it?" Call asked. "He didn't know it. It was just that one boy who showed any fight."

"I think he knowed it," Augustus said. "He just stood there waiting."

"He had that baby in his hands," Call reminded him.

"He could have dropped that baby," Augustus said.

They came back the second night to where the herd had been, only to find it gone. Josh Deets had begun to smell.

"We could bury him here," Augustus said.

Call looked around at the empty range.

"We ain't gonna find no churchyard, if that's what you're looking for," Augustus said.

"Let's take him on," Call said. "The men will want to pay their respects. I imagine we can catch them tonight."

They caught the herd not long before dawn. Dish Boggett was the night herder who saw them coming. He was very relieved, for with both of them gone, the herd had been his responsibility. Since he didn't know the country, it was a heavy responsibility, and he had been hoping the bosses would get back soon. When he saw them he felt a little proud of himself, for he had kept the cattle on grass and had moved them along nicely.

"Mornin', Captain," he said. Then he noticed that something was wrong. There were three horses, not counting the stolen ones, but only two riders. There was something on the third horse, but it wasn't a rider. It was only a body.

"Who's that, Gus?" he asked, startled.

"It's what's left of Deets," Augustus said. "I hope the cook's awake." After feeling nothing for two days, he had begun to feel hungry.

Newt had taken the middle watch and was sleeping soundly when dawn broke. He was using his saddle for a pillow and had covered himself with a saddle blanket as the nights had begun to be quite cool.

The sound of voices reached him. One belonged to the Captain, the other to Mr. Gus. Po Campo's voice could be heard, too, and Dish Boggett said something. Newt opened his eyes a moment and saw they were all kneeling by something on the ground. Maybe they had killed an antelope. He was very drowsy and wanted to go back to sleep. He closed his eyes again, then opened them. It wasn't an antelope. He sat up and saw that Po Campo was kneeling down, twisting on something. Someone had been hurt and Po was trying to pull a stob of some kind out of his body. He was straining hard, but the stob wouldn't come out. He stopped trying, and Dish, who had been holding the wounded man down, turned away suddenly, white and sick.

When Dish moved, Newt saw Deets. He was in the process of yawning when he saw him. Instead of springing up, he lay back down and pulled his blanket tighter. He opened his eyes and looked, and then shut them tightly. He felt angry at the men for having talked so loud that they had awakened him. He wished they would all die, if that was the best they could do. He wanted to go back to sleep. He wanted it to be one of those dreams that you wake up from just as the dream gets bad. He felt that was probably what it was. When he opened his eyes again he wouldn't see Deets's body lying on the wagon sheet a few yards away.

Yet it didn't work. He couldn't go back to sleep, and when he sat up the body was there-though if it hadn't been black he might not have known it was Deets.

He looked and saw that Pea Eye knelt on the other side of the body, looking dazed. Far away, toward the river, he saw the Captain and Lippy, digging. Mr. Gus sat by himself, near the cook fire, eating. The three horses had been unsaddled but no one had returned them to the remuda. They grazed nearby. Most of the hands stood in a group near Deets's feet, just looking as Po Campo worked.

Finally Po Campo gave up. "Better to bury him with it," he said. "I would have liked to see that boy. The lance went all the way to his collarbone. It went through the heart."

Newt sat in his blankets, feeling alone. No one noticed him or spoke to him. No one explained Deets's death. Newt began to cry, but no one noticed that either. The sun had risen, and everyone was busy with what they were doing, Mr. Gus eating, the Captain and Lippy digging the grave. Soupy Jones was repairing a stirrup and talking in subdued tones to Bert Borum. Newt sat and cried, wondering if Deets knew anything about what was going on. The Irishman and Needle and the Rainey boys held the herd. It was a beautiful morning, too-mountains seemed closer. Newt wondered if Deets knew about any of it. He didn't look at the corpse again, but he wondered if Deets had kept on knowing, somehow. He felt he did. He felt that if anyone was taking any notice of him, it was probably Deets, who had always been his friend. It was only the thought that Deets was still knowing him, somehow, that kept him from feeling totally alone.

Even so, the Deets who had walked around and smiled and been kind to him day after day, through the years-that Deets was dead. Newt sat in his blankets and cried until he was afraid he would never stop. No one seemed to notice. No one said anything to him as preparations for burying Deets went on.

Pea Eye didn't cry, but he was so shaken he went weak in the legs.

"Well, my lord," he said, from time to time. "My lord." An Indian boy had killed him, the Captain said. Deets was still wearing a pair of the old patchy quilt pants that he had favored for so long. Pea Eye scarcely knew what to think. He and Deets had been the main hired help on the Hat Creek outfit ever since there had been a Hat Creek outfit. Now it was down to him. It would mean a lot more chores for him, undoubtedly, for the Captain only trusted the two of them with certain chores. He remembered that he and Deets had had a pretty good conversation once. He had been vaguely planning to have another one with him if the chance came along. Of course that was off, now. Pea Eye went over and leaned against a wagon wheel, wishing he could stop feeling weak in the legs.

The other hands were somber. Soupy Jones and Bert Borum, who didn't feel it appropriate for white men to talk much to niggers, exchanged the view that nevertheless this one had been uncommonly decent. Needle Nelson offered to help dig the grave, for Deets had been the man who finally turned the Texas bull the day the bull got after him. Dish Boggett hadn't said much to Deets, either, but he had often been cheered, from his position on the point, to see Deets come riding back through the heat waves. It meant he was on course, and that water was somewhere near. Dish wished he had said more to the man at some point.

Lippy offered to help with the grave-digging, and Call let him. It was the task that usually got assigned to Deets himself, grave-digging. Call had laid many a compañero in graves Josh Deets had dug, including, most recently, Jake Spoon. Lippy was not a good digger-in fact, he was mostly in the way, but Call tolerated him. Lippy also talked constantly, saying nothing. They were digging on a little rise, north of the juncture of where Salt Creek joined the Powder River.

Augustus wrapped Deets carefully in a piece of wagon sheet and tied the sheet around him with heavy cord.

"A shroud for a journey," Augustus said.

No one else said anything. They loaded Deets in the wagon. Newt finally got out of his blanket, though he was almost blind from crying.

Po Campo led the team down to the grave and Deets was put in and quickly covered. The Irishman, unasked, began to sing a song of mourning so sad that all the cowboys at once began to cry, even the Spettle boy, who had not shed a tear when his own brother was buried.