“What about him?”

“He comin with us?”

“Sure, he’s comin. Gonna try to straighten that balky bitch a his out first.”

“And if she don’t straighten?”

“Well, she knows, and he knows that won’t stand.”

“You reckon that scrub’ll kill his wife? Just like that?”

“I think you might be surprised.”

“I’m still gonna be the one to deal with him for goin rough on ol ’Bart. You ain’t forgot that, have you?”

“Jesus Christ, kinky, cut the boy some—”

“You ain’t got all attached to your pard, have you?”

“No, but Billy done all right today. Ain’t no scissorbill. Boy’s got some sand. Kilt both those men up there like it weren’t nothin, shined, and he’s payin a visit to their wives as we speak.”

“And I give a solitary shit why?”

“Look, we’ll need his help gettin out a town, loadin up everthin at the pass. Drivin the burros down the other side. You can ’dobe-wall him in the tall timber, ’fore we get to Silverton. Don’t you worry those pretty black eyes.”

“Condescend to me one more time.”

“Christ, you’re in a sod-pawin mood.”

“And what if his wife and kid come along?”

“Well, I guess they won’t see Silverton, neither.”

“I want no part a killin that little girl.”

“Then you’ll have no part of it. Pour me another’n. Oh, fuck it, just give me the bottle.” Joss pushed it forward and Oatha thumbed off the cork, swallowed two mouthfuls.

“I gotta say,” Oatha said when he’d finished. “I’m consternated about the future a our association.”

“And why’s that?” Joss took back the bottle and drank.

“You know I love you, so don’t go gettin your underpinnings in a big fuckin knot when I say this.”

“What, goddamn it?”

“You’re a little smoky. Men tend to buck out around you.”

Joss smiled, whiskey running down her chin.

“What you think, I’m gonna make you come, Oath?”

“It’s a reasonable concern, all things considered.”

“Only thing to get you kilt by me is tryin to get me unshucked and in the willows. I see the way you look at me sometimes.”

“Think I want up in the snatch of a mestiza?”

“Right. Was it a hard climb up to the pass?”

“Wasn’t no holiday.”

“Why the fuck didn’t we do this in the summertime?”

“ ’Cause you gonna be doin the strangulation jig down in Arizona. Go on, tell Lana to git.”

“Lana!” Joss yelled over the piano. Lana stopped playing, stared down at her lap. “Lana, honey, I want you to go on home for the day. We gonna be closin up early. You ain’t done nothin wrong. Your playin was real pretty.”

Lana got up from the piano bench, walked to the coatrack, and slipped into her wool-lined cape, pulling the hood over her head.

“Lana,” Joss said. The young woman stopped in the doorway, her back to the bar, head hung low. “You take care now, okay?”

Lana went outside. When the door closed, Joss pulled the bowie out of its sheath, set the knife on the bar.

She and Oatha looked over at the deputy, who was still snoring quietly.

“The key to your shackles is—”

“On that big metal ring on Al’s hip.”

Oatha tilted the bottle, took another long pull. Then he wiped his mouth, picked up the knife, scraped his thumb across the blade.

“I keep it sharp,” Joss warned.

Oatha sucked a whistle through his teeth and licked the blood from the shallow slice. “I’ll say.”

“How you gonna do it?”

“Slip it in between his slabs. Then twisty-twisty.”

Oatha moved soundlessly across the boards. He stopped at the potbellied stove, waited for a moment, letting his fingers warm, then stepped over to the deputy’s left side, positioning himself so he’d have the best angle for a downward thrust.

He opened the bearskin robe, exposing the man’s chest.

Al’s eyes flittered under his lids, and Oatha wondered from what dream he was about to awaken.

His grip tightened on the handle.

As he plunged the blade, he heard something outside, the knife point stopping three inches above the man’s heart.

Oatha glanced back at Joss. “The fuck is that?” he whispered.

He set the knife on the bar, walked to the door, cracked it open.

It was late afternoon, the sky clearing, and though the sun had already dipped below the canyon walls, he could see its long rays coppering the distant bladed rock at the pass, two miles south and two thousand feet above.

Stephen Cole tore down Main Street, hell for leather through waist-deep snow, his horse kicking up clouds of powder, and the Bible-puncher shouting as if the apocalypse were upon them, “They’re coming! They’re coming!”

FORTY-THREE

 G

loria wet the nib of her pen in the inkwell. She sat in a chair built of bent aspen branches and wrote by the light of a shadowgee made from an old can of Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup, cut in half and poked full of holes. It hung from a rafter over the beautiful oak table Bart Packer had given them, the candle inside dispensing just enough light for her to write without straining her eyes.

When she’d finished, she blew the page dry and left the diary open on the table. Gloria walked to the bedroom doorway. She and Ezekiel had been lucky to find a cabin with a plank floor, and they’d spent a weekend last September laying straw and blue denim over the boards. It wasn’t carpet, but it wasn’t dirt, and you could walk over it in socks without freezing your toes.

Bessie and Harriet slept on the iron bedstead, and watching the mother and child hold each other under the quilt, Gloria felt a flare of envy. She looked at the mail-order rocking chair in the corner by the window, at Gus’s crib, which Ezekiel had assembled out of packing crates, some of her dead son’s clothes still laid out on the tiny mattress—a burlap sack stuffed with pine boughs.

The front porch creaked. Zeke. Someone banged on the door.

Gloria hurried back to the living room, grabbed the Schofield from the bookcase, where she’d left it sitting near a few dime novels.

“Mrs. Curtice! Y-you in there?” Gloria edged to the door. “Need to speak to you straight away!”

Her husband’s words echoed in her head: Don’t open it for nobody. Billy or Oatha or some rough-lookin feller come by, you know what to do.

The door shook.

Gloria put her hand on the latch, said, “What is it, Mr. McCabe?”

“I come for Bessie and Harriet. They in there with ye?”

Bessie emerged from the bedroom in her flour-sack underpinnings, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She mouthed “No.”

“They aren’t here, Mr.—”

“N-n-now I don’t know if I believe that. How about you open this door and let me take a look for my own self?”

“Now isn’t the best time, Mr. McCabe. I’m sure you understand.”

“Naw, Mrs. Curtice. I don’t understand. But I’ll give you ten full seconds to open this door ’fore I tear it off the hinges.”

Bessie said, “We ain’t comin home with you, Billy.”

“Oh, y-y-y-you ain’t, huh? Why don’t you open this door so we can have a face-to-face conversation like adult human beins?”

Gloria said, “When Zeke gets home, we’ll all talk this out.”

“W-w-well, we might be waitin here quite a spell.”

Gloria lifted the latch, threw open the door. The barrel of the single-action revolver touched the end of Billy’s nose.

“You wanna elaborate on what the hell that meant?”

Billy smiled, his jagged teeth showing, but his eyes were skittish. His horse stamped in the snow. Even though his vaquero hat kept his face in shadow, Gloria could see that it was flecked with blood, and her heart fluttered.

“Why don’t you go on and, and, and, and put that away. You ain’t never shot nobody. You ain’t about to.”

“You don’t know anything about me. Get your hand away from that gun. Where’s my husband? He went up to the mine, lookin for you.”