"About Annie's baby?"

"What about Annie's baby?"

"No, not Annie's baby. That terrible Indian man, what always keeps coming in here with dead men and their horses."

"That one from down Texas way, the Marshal says leave him alone?"

"The one that, fresh off killin' three wanted men, helped deliver a white woman's baby in a snowstorm, and left her untouched -- even left her a big pot of stew until the menfolk came home?"

*silence*

*silence*

"... well, that's what I hear tell ..."

"Yes, that one. I hear tell he's back around again, even brought in another dead man -- this one wanted out further west a ways. Brought him past the Marshal's tent, dropped the body off, took them two pretty Sioux horses he got, and went off a ways."

"Don't he usually stay at the boardin' house?"

"That's what I thought."

"Yup, but -I- hear they didn't want him nor his knife near the place. Turned him down flat."

"Well, I don't blame them. I wouldn't want no Injun living in the room next to mine, either. Nor anywhere near me, not with that long rifle o' his. Imagine that good gun, goin' to waste on a redskin."

"Think the Army's gonna want him again, to help hunt down the Sioux?"

*silence*

*silence*

*bashful silence*

"Now, what about Annie's baby?"

"Well, what I hear is that..."

Return to the Archive