The Thicket by Joe R. Lansdale Page A

the case,” he said. “We can hope he does not scatter the bones too far, so that those markings I made will still be of use to the family.”
    He sounded about as sincere as a lawyer whose client was holding a smoking gun.
    By this point I felt as if I had fallen off the face of the earth and right down into hell, where I’d been led by these fellows with their stories—all this shiny business about what they could do and so on. Grandpa once told me that man lusted after silliness, women, shiny things like silver and gold, and all manner of big, bright lies. He warned me that you have to be careful of such things, because a sparkle isn’t always a traveling light or a reward. It can be misleading. He said everything sparkles in hell.
    About that time, Eustace came riding back, his head held down a little more than usual. When he got up to us, he reined in, dismounted, and said, “Here’s what we got. Where the trail splits, well, I think some of them went off in the woods there, maybe cause they thought it was about time to throw anyone might be following off their scent, and one man went down this other trail for his own reasons.”
    “Toward No Enterprise?” Shorty said.
    “That’s the look of it,” Eustace said.
    “Does the man that went toward town have my sister?” I asked.
    “No,” Eustace said. “That man is riding single. She would still be riding double with one of them. They wouldn’t have given her the spare horse. You said the men were also riding double, so it stands to reason one of them would end up with the horse. Which means she’s with them that made their own trail through the woods.”
    “Then that’s the way we should go,” I said.
    Eustace didn’t say anything, but he had a look on his face like a blind man wishing he could see.
    “Ah,” Shorty said, leaning back in his saddle. “I can tell you right now we have a problem.”
    “Here he goes,” Eustace said, kicking the dirt.
    “Eustace has lost their trail in the trees, and the only trail he has is the one that goes right down the center of that little wagon road toward No Enterprise. Am I correct in this assumption, Eustace?”
    “I guess you have assumpted right,” Eustace said.
    “Can’t you find the sign to go after the others?”
    “Maybe,” Eustace said. “The woods break up in there a piece, and there’s flat rock for a long ways, and a few straggling trees. It’s not normal for around here. I’m not used to it.”
    “He means he cannot track over flat rock very well,” Shorty said.
    “Then what use are you?” I said. I think if I had a gun right then I would have used it on one or the other of them. Certainly I would have shot Eustace, and might have at least managed to wing the dwarf.
    “Thing is,” said Eustace, “we know one of them is going down the wagon road, and we can follow that. We find him, we got a good chance of knowing where the others went.”
    “Why would he go off like that?” I said. “Is he setting a trap?”
    “I doubt that is his reasoning,” Shorty said. “We have come too late for them to be on to us, to know we are following. He has broken off just in case someone is in pursuit, but he certainly would have no idea that we are. If I have read between the lines of the newspaper accounts of Cut Throat’s robberies, there is seldom anyone brave enough to follow them for long. If the rabbit is running, the hound pursues, but if the rabbit pauses, and in fact turns out to be a wolf instead of a rabbit, then the pursuers lose interest. Or, to be more precise, townsfolk are brave in a cluster and in their own surroundings, but ultimately they do not want to be led out into deep water, so to speak, and drowned for some bank money, even if part of it is theirs.”
    “While we’re chasing this clown…” and then I paused, remembering Shorty’s previous profession, and looked at him. “No disrespect, but the ones that have Lula are heading into the woods, and will soon have