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fair?”
    “Hey Zar,” one woman called, “can’t you wait till we’ve been in a place five minutes? I swear you’d trade with a cactus if you met up with one.”
    “Hey Zar,” another called, “that little old boy yonder looks more able than the feller you talkin’ to.”
    The Chinawoman giggled and Zar raised his fist and shouted: “Shod up!”
    But I almost laughed myself. Here I was with nothing between me and the Fates but the clothes on my back, I was hard put just to stay alive, and this fellow had come in off the flats to offer me luxuries. I shook my head. I told him I would rather take vittles and maybe some of his alcohol when his camp was made.
    “As you weesh,” he shrugged. He was disappointed, the ladies were his stock in trade. He walked over tothem, did some shouting, cuffed the Chinese girl on the ear, and before long the women were putting up their tent nearby.
    Well I went about my business. Together with Jimmy I toted our property inside the dugout. I got one lamp going, I put up the stove and built a fire. We tamped the floor and spread the two blankets which belonged to the Major. All the while I was thinking of the provender to be had from this Russian. I hadn’t figured past the few peas and dried apples and tins of milk we’d salvaged; and I didn’t relish the idea of hunting prairie dogs. These traveling people—the more I thought about them the better I liked them.
    There was a commotion just as we had things about settled. Jimmy stuck his head out of the door: “It’s over by the Indian’s!” he called.
    I looked out. It was already dark. There were lights in front of Bear’s shack, and a lot of yelling. “Stay here Jimmy,” I said and I ran over. The Russian’s women were standing in the door waving their lamps and jabbering away. Inside, John Bear was lying face down on the ground. This Zar was trying to lift Molly under the arms and she was screaming and tearing at his face with her fingers.
    “Here, let her be, mister!” I said. I pulled my gun out and trained it on him. He put Molly down readily enough and turned to me, but he didn’t seem to notice I was covering him.
    “Ah frand,” he said, “you tell me what this is? My girls come to say hollo and what do they find but this savage?”
    “That’s right,” the woman Adah said. “Sittin’ on hishaunches starin’ at her behind. I never seen the likes!”
    “Oh you sons of bitches,” Molly moaned.
    “That don’t go where I come from,” one of the women said. “No damn Indian—”
    “This lady is burned,” I said.
    “Well alright if that’s so, we can fix her up fine in the tent, we can take care of her.”
    “Don’t you touch me!” Molly screamed. “Whores! Keep away from me!”
    “Well I like that for being grateful,” Adah said.
    I said: “The Indian’s a good doctor.”
    The Russian raised his bushy eyebrows: “He doctors?”
    “He’s been taking care of Molly.”
    “Wal I have killed him with my fist. On his neck I hit him.”
    I kneeled down for a look at Bear. He wasn’t dead, he was stunned. I helped him sit up in a corner.
    Molly was saying, “Blue get these whores away from me, oh Christ get them away from me!”
    “Honey,” one of the women said to her, “look at you all covered with dirty redskin medicine, no wonder you’re complainin’. Now you come on with us and Adah’ll fix you up proper.”
    I thought Molly would have a fit. She was crying and beating her fists on the ground: “For Godsake I’ll die if they touch me, oh God, keep them away …” But what was worse, she suddenly left off and crawled around in the dirt until she found her little cross. She clutched it in her hands and began to mumble to herself, her lips moved fast and her eyes began to roll upwards.
    “Ay, poor woman,” Zar said fingering the scratches on his face, “she has sharp nails for a believer.”
    “It’s a cryin’ shame,” said Adah, “lyin’ in the mud that way.”
    I looked