Killoe (1962) Page 13

  Zeno was going to be all right. He had caught two slugs, and he was in bad shape, but he was going to pull through. Tap Henry told me that some time later, for about the time that Conchita arrived everything faded out. I had started to speak, and then everything blurred. The next thing I knew it was hours later and I was in bed at the Fort.

  “Are the cattle all right?”

  “Sold ‘em,” Tap said, “all but a couple of hundred head of breeding stock.”

  “Looks like I’ll be here for a while,” I said, “so you’d better take the boys and start for home with that herd.”

  “‘Dan.” Tap hesitated, as embarrassed as I’d ever seen him. “I’ve been a fool. I’m … well, I never intended for the herd to go to Bosque Redondo. Banks and me wanted to use it to grab land on the Mimbres.”

  “I guessed it was something like that.”

  He looked at me for several minutes. “Dan, I’m going to let Karen ride back with the boys. I’ll wait here until you can ride, and we’ll go home together.”

  “Sure,” I said, “that’s the way Pa always wanted it.”