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I tried to land another blow.
    Something hard slammed into the back of my head and I saw the ground cartwheel up to meet me.
    Then I saw nothing at all.

CHAPTER SEVEN
A Pathetic Creature
    I woke facedown in the street, my mouth full of dirt and clots of blood in my nose. How long I’d lain there I had no way of telling.
    The business of Longview proceeded around me. People stepped past me on the street and wagons and horses detoured around my prostrate body.
    I felt something wet at the back of my head and explored it with my fingers. They came away bloody and stained with manure. At one point, a horse must have crapped on my head as I lay unconscious. No doubt it had occasioned considerable mirth in the passersby.
    I attempted to rise but my head spun and I sank slowly back into the dust and dry manure of the street. To add to my misery, a cur dog, as mangy a brute as ever cocked a leg, decided to bark at me and tug at my clothes . . . as though they weren’t ragged enough already.
    â€œGit the hell off’n him!” The man’s voice came from above me.
    I turned my head and beheld Jas. Glee, prop. aim a kick at the dog’s ribs. The wily canine dodged expertly and lit a shuck.
    â€œLet’s get you on your feet, young feller,” Glee said.
    â€œJohn Wesley has been taken,” I said.
    â€œYeah, I know. There’s nothing you can do for him now, boy.”
    The man helped me to rise and his nose wrinkled. “Lordy, but you smell bad. You got hoss crap in your hair.”
    â€œAnd blood,” I said.
    â€œYeah, that too. I’ll take you back to the livery and get you cleaned up.”
    â€œThey got Wes,” I said again.
    Glee nodded. “You told me that already.”
    â€œThey plan to hang him.”
    Glee nodded. “Seems like. Pick up your hat.”
    I did as he said and he half-carried, half-dragged me to the stable.
    A rain barrel stood at one corner. Glee took off my hat, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, and plunged my head into the green, scummy water. He dunked me again and again until I thought I must surely drown.
    Then he raised my head for the last time and, my hair dripping, guided me into the livery where he tossed me a scrap of towel. “Dry yourself good, boy, then let me take a look at your head. I think you’ve got a bad cut back there.”
    â€œSomebody hit me with something, maybe a shotgun butt,” I said, rubbing my thin hair with the towel.
    â€œSeems like.” Glee shook his head. “You’re a pathetic-looking creature for sure.”

    The cobwebbed clock in Glee’s office claimed it was two in the afternoon as I sat eating his stew, my head wrapped in a fat, fairly clean, white and blue striped bandage torn from one of his old shirts. Around a mouthful of beef and onions I said, “I reckon I’ll go visit with Wes.”
    â€œIf they’ll let you,” Glee said. “Them state lawmen are hard characters.”
    The wind had picked up and outside sand was blowing. The sky was the color of mustard and the sun a hazy, orange ball. In their stalls, the two mustangs we’d brought in were restless.
    Glee walked to the door of the livery and stared down the street. “Custer is leaving, getting into the stage, him and his wife. I reckon she’s a right pretty gal, at least from this distance.”
    â€œI hope the savages do for him,” I said. “Scalp them yellow ringlets from right off’n his head.”
    Glee turned to me and smiled. “No use in hoping fer something that ain’t got a chance of happening, boy. Custer is an Injun-killer from way back. The Sioux, Cheyenne, all them raggedy-assed tribes are terrified of him. One look at the general on his white hoss and they’ll cut and run.”
    â€œBefore the Indians, he was a Reb-killer.”
    Glee nodded. “Yup, he was real good at it, an’ no mistake. That’s why they made him a general and