Buzzards
‘Waitin fer sumthin to die.” Jimmy squinted up at the three buzzards circling on high thermals. “Whad’ya spose it is anyhow?”
“Probly us?” Ethan, sitting on a large rock, didn’t even look up from the dirt between his feet.
“Yeah—maybe they know something we don’t.”
“Wouldn’ be hard.” Ethan still didn’t look up, just kept poking the dirt with a stick—drawing lines and crisscrossing them.
“Lordy it’s hotter’n the hind wheels of hell.”
“How hot are the hind wheels of hell, Jimmy?”
“Just a little cooler’n this.” Jimmy grinned, pleased with himself. “Why d’ya s’pose the lord made em anyway?”
Ethan looked up to give Jimmy a blank stare.
“Buzzards, I mean. Why do you reckon the lord made em?”
“To keep things cleaned up I guess—keep the smell down.” Ethan went back to poking the dirt.
“Where d’you s’pose Lonzo is anyway?” Jimmy’s neck was stretched so tight from looking up that his mouth was drawn open and his voice sounded strange.
“Beats me, but I doubt if he’s up there.”
“You think he’s gaining on us?”
“Beats me.”
“I hate ‘em. I shot one once. I was out lookin for my dog Trace. When I found ‘im, he was dead and there was a buzzard peckin at his eyes? I shot the bastard standin right there on Trace’s neck. D’you think they know things Ethan—like the way cattle do—Or a dog or somethin like that?”
“They know enough not to talk all the time.” Ethan drew a line down the middle of a rectangle he had drawn.
Jimmy clenched his teeth but didn’t respond. It seemed to him that they were circling a little lower. “I think I’ll shoot one of the bastards.
Slowly, quietly, Ethan said, “Lemme see if I got this straight. We’re out here with no water and no food and one bullet left between us—Lonzo Troxel out there somewhere, mad as hell with whole saddle bags of ammunition, and you wanna use our last bullet to shoot a goddam buzzard?
“I just hate the bastards so much Ethan. Always have. Ever since that time with Trace. Ethan, they start with the eyes! Sweet Jesus! What kinda animal does that?”
Ethan scratched a line across near the top of the up and down line inside the rectangle. “So do crows. You gonna use our last bullet to shoot crows too?”
“That’s differ’nt Ethan. A lot differ’nt. I donno why, it just is.”
The buzzards circled a bit lower.
“Well, we ain’t usin our last bullet to shoot buzzards—not with Lonzo out there.”
“If he was out there, he wouldn’t be alone anyway. One bullet wouldn’t do nothin.”
“You don’t know that Jimmy. Besides, we could shoot something to eat. Who wants to eat a buzzard?”
“We’ll need water a long time ‘fore we need food. Where there’s water, there’ll be food”
“You don’t know that either.” Ethan started a new rectangle, being careful to keep the lines straight.
“You s’pose when a buzzard dies, the other buzzards eat that buzzard?”
“Beats me.” Ethan retraced the rectangle, bearing down harder with the stick, straightening and deepening the lines and then made another line just inside the original lines.
When Jimmy’s rifle spoke, Ethan sat perfectly still, not even looking up. “You dumb son-of-a-bitch.”
Less than a half mile away, Dollar Bill flinched the tiniest bit with the report of the rifle—the skin on his dappled shoulders quivering briefly. Lonzo Troxel let his eyes drop from the buzzards.
“Easy boy, let’s go see what we got.” Lonzo leaned toward the sound and touched the reins against the little Pinto’s neck as he watched the buzzards circle just a little lower.