building, his back against the wall, a sombrero tilted down over his face.
“There’s dust kicking up some ways off,” Milk River reported. “Wouldn’t surprise me none if we got our company along towards dark.”
Darkness had been solid for an hour when they came.
By then, fed and rested, we were ready for them. A light was burning in the house. Milk River was in there, tinkling a mandolin. Light came out of the open front door to show the dead Mexican dimly—a statue of a sleeper. Beyond him, around the corner except for my eyes and forehead, I lay close to the wall.
We could hear our company long before we could see them. Two horses—but they made enough noise for ten—coming lickety-split down to the lighted door.
Big ’Nacio, in front, was out of the saddle and had one foot in the doorway before his horse’s front feet—thrown high by the violence with which the big man had pulled him up—hit the ground again. The second rider was close behind him.
The bearded man saw the corpse. He jumped at it, swinging his quirt, roaring:
“ Arriba, piojo! ”
The mandolin’s tinkling stopped.
I scrambled up.
Big ’Nacio’s whiskers went down in surprise.
His quirt caught a button of the dead man’s clothes, tangled there, the loop on its other end holding one of Big ’Nacio’s wrists.