Ulysses smiled.
—You did well, Billy.
—What the hell is going on?
Billy and Ulysses looked up to find Stew standing behind them with a butcher knife in hand.
—You’re bleeding too, Billy said with concern.
Stew had been hit on the side of the head so the blood had run down from his ear onto the shoulder of his undershirt.
Ulysses was suddenly feeling better now, more clearheaded and sure of foot.
—Billy, he said, why don’t you go over there and fetch us the basin of water and some towels.
Sticking his knife through his belt, Stew came alongside Ulysses and looked at the ground.
—Who is it?
—A man of ill intent, said Ulysses.
Stew shifted his gaze to Ulysses’s head.
—You better let me take a look at that.
—I’ve had worse.
—We’ve all had worse.
—I’ll be all right.
—I know, I know, said Stew with a shake of the head. You’re a big, big man.
Billy arrived with the basin and towels. The two men cleaned their faces and then gingerly dabbed at their wounds. When they were done, Ulysses sat Billy down beside him on one of the railroad ties.
—Billy, he began, we’ve had quite a bit of excitement tonight.
Billy nodded in agreement.
—Yes, we have, Ulysses. Emmett will hardly believe it.
—Well, that’s just what I wanted to talk to you about. What with your brother trying to find his car and having to get you to California before the Fourth of July, he’s got a lot on his mind. Maybe it’s for the best if we keep what happened here tonight between us. At least for now.
Billy was nodding.
—It’s probably for the best, he said. Emmett has a lot on his mind.
Ulysses patted Billy on the knee.
—One day, he said, you will tell him. You will tell him and your children too, about how you bested the preacher, just like one of the heroes in your book.
When Ulysses saw that Billy understood, he got up in order to speak with Stew.
—Can you take the boy back to your tent? Maybe give him something to eat?
—All right. But what are you going to do?
—I’m going to see to the preacher.
Billy, who had been listening behind Ulysses’s back, stepped around him with a look of concern.
—What does that mean, Ulysses? What does that mean that you’re going to see to the preacher?
Ulysses and Stew looked from the boy to each other and back again.
—We can’t leave him here, explained Ulysses. He’s going to come to just like I did. And whatever villainy had been on his mind before I crowned him is going to be there still. Only more so.
Billy was looking up at Ulysses with a furrowed brow.
—So, continued Ulysses, I’m going to take him down the stairs and drop him— —At the police station?
—That’s right, Billy. I’m going to drop him at the police station.
Billy nodded to indicate that this was the right thing to do. Then Stew turned to Ulysses.
—You know the stairs that go down to Gansevoort?
—I do.
—Someone’s bent back the fencing there. It’ll be an easier route, given what you’ll be carrying.
Thanking Stew, Ulysses waited for Billy to gather his things, for Stew to put out the fire, and for the two to go back to Stew’s tent before he turned his attention to the preacher.
Taking him under the armpits, Ulysses raised him up and draped him over his shoulders. The preacher wasn’t heavier than Ulysses had expected, but he was gangly, making him an awkward burden. Shifting the body back and forth by increments, Ulysses tried to center it before he began walking in short, steady strides.
When he reached the staircase, if Ulysses had stopped to think, he might have rolled the preacher down the steps to preserve his own strength. But he was moving now, and he had the preacher’s weight evenly distributed across his shoulders, and he was worried that if he stopped he might lose his balance or his momentum. And he would need them both. Because from the bottom of the stairs, it was a good two hundred yards to the river.
Duchess
Woolly’s sister came into the kitchen like a ghost. Appearing in the doorway in her long white robe and crossing the unlit room without a sound, it was like her feet didn’t touch the floor. But if she was a ghost, she wasn’t the harrowing sort—one of those that howl and moan and send shivers down your spine. She was the forlorn sort. The kind of ghost who wanders the halls of an empty house for generations, in search of something or someone that no one else can even remember. A visitation, I think they call it.