20
BLACK BEN
“Well, that wasn’t smart,” Lyle said. “Not smart at all. On the one hand, the man you got killed was not all that important in the grand scheme of things. I’ve wanted to kill him many a time as he was a known shirker, and too frequently given to flatulence. Flatulence, Ben, is no substitute for a sense of humor, not in my book anyway. Then again, on the other hand, a group like this is nothing without discipline and shirkers are dealt with only on my say-so, which you didn’t have.”
Ben didn’t say anything. He had his hands tied behind his back and his legs tied under his horse’s belly. John Buffalo had a rope looped around Ben’s neck, which he held in his hands and yanked on whenever Ben did something he didn’t like.
“Today was a bad day. We lost six men and Hort Turner’s
