Finally, Lujack said, “’Fore you boys go, I’d be interested in your plans.”

“Got no plans,” I said.

Virgil continued looking at Swann, as if Swann was an odd specimen of something.

“You, Cole?” Lujack said.

“None,” Virgil said.

Then I realized what Virgil was doing. He was pretty sure he’d have to go against Swann one day, and he was getting to know him as well as he could in preparation for that.

“Well,” Lujack said. “That’ll be fine for a few days, while you get your affairs in order. But in a week or so, I’ll be asking you all to move on.”

“We’ll keep it in mind,” I said.

Swann continued to meet Virgil’s stare. But it was a waste of his time. Virgil was probably unlike anyone Swann had ever seen. Virgil didn’t care if you met his stare or not. He didn’t care if he intimidated you or not. He was just gathering information.

“You got any plans, Cole?” Lujack said.

Without taking his eyes off Swann, Virgil said, “I’m formulatin’. ”

“And you heard me,” Lujack said, “about not hanging around too long.”

“I did,” Virgil said.

“Hope you’ll keep it in mind,” Lujack said.

“Surely will,” Virgil said.

He continued to look at Swann.

“Would,” Swann said to Virgil, “I was you.”

“One of the things I’m real happy about,” Virgil said, “is you ain’t me.”

They looked at each other for another minute. Then Virgil nodded to himself as if he’d learned something and turned and walked out. I went with him.

Virgil and I were sitting out front of the Excelsior, formulatin’ with Cato and Rose, when the new marshal and his deputies rode out of town in a neat column of twos, heading south. Virgil stood as they went by.

“Think I’ll go along behind them,” he said, “for observatory purposes.”

“Might as well go along,” I said. “Being as how I got no job.”

“None of us got a job,” Rose said. “Me and Cato may as well tag along.”

Twenty horses, riding in a column on a dry dirt road, kicked up enough dust so we had no trouble keeping track. We rode together at an easy pace far enough behind them so’s not to cause a stir.

The trail ran out through the settlements in a series of small, low hills that stepped down to the level ground. As we came to the top of one of them, we could see a homestead below us. There was a lumber wagon, and several men were unloading lumber beside a half-built house frame. Lujack and his men rode on down to the property. The four of us stopped on the top of the small rise and watched.

The two columns peeled left and right as they reached the property. Nine men in either direction, with Lujack and Swann in the center. The horsemen stopped and sat their mounts. Lujack spoke to the men building the house, and one of them stopped work and came forward. He talked with Lujack. As the conversation proceeded, the man got more and more excited, waving his arms, pointing at the half-built house. Finally, the man stopped speaking and folded his arms and stood. Lujack said something to Swann.

With a fluid motion, Swann drew his gun and shot the man. The sound of the shot rolled past us at the top of the hill. You could tell the man was dead by the way he went down. And afterward, the clenched void of silence.

Below us, everyone seemed painted on a backdrop until Lujack spoke to the workmen. They listened. Then Lujack made a hand gesture and the company wheeled and he led them out, once again in a column of twos, raising dust as they came back up the rise, and past us, where we sat on our horses.

No one said anything, and the column passed with no sound but the horses’ hooves on the dusty trail, and the jingle of spurs and bridle trim. Neither Lujack nor Swann paid us any attention.

As the column disappeared over the next rise, the men below gathered around the man whom Swann had shot. After a time they put him in the bed of the near-empty lumber wagon and laid him out as best they could. Then the teamster and another man climbed up and turned the wagon, and the horses plodded up the hill, kicking up some dust of their own, as they trailed the marshal and his deputies back into town.

“Major Lujack don’t appear to take criticism well,” Rose said.

“You want to pull out of here?” I said to Virgil. “And go find Allie?”

“Not yet,” Virgil said.

“You boys got anyplace to go?” I said to Cato and Rose.

“Nope,” Rose said.

“There’s twenty of them,” I said, “and four of us.”

“Not if we pick off a few,” Cato said.

Virgil looked down at the half-built house. The rest of the workers had scattered, and nothing moved. He turned his horse then, and rode slowly after the wagon. The rest of us followed.

“We’ll think on it,” he said.

Virgil decided that it was time to try out the old sorrel mare, see if her gashed leg had healed and she was sound. I went with him because I had nowhere else to go, and we rode easily up the hill north of town and sat the horses in the shade just inside the tree line.

Virgil got off the mare and picked up her foreleg. He looked at it and squeezed it gently and put it down and remounted. The mare cropped a little grass. Virgil patted her neck.

“Good as new,” he said.

“Which ain’t all that good,” I said.

“Nope,” Virgil said, “she ain’t much. But what there is of her is working fine.”

We looked down at the town below us. It wasn’t much, either. They were building a town marshal’s office next to the Blackfoot, on the north side. While we watched, a squad of new deputy marshals rode down Main Street and south out of town.

“You remember,” Virgil said as we watched them ride out, “how we got to be the law in Appaloosa?”

“Them three fellas, owned businesses in town, they hired us,” I said.

“Town council.”

“So they said.”

“Anybody elect them?” Virgil asked.

“Not that I know of,” I said.

The squad of deputies disappeared over the crest of the first hill south of town and reappeared at the crest of the next one.

“We had a set of laws,” Virgil said, “written out clear.”

“And we wrote them,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“So this collection of vermin,” he said, “is as much the law here as we was in Appaloosa.”

“I guess so,” I said.

The squad went over the next hill, where the road curved, following the creek.

“We done the right thing,” Virgil said, “best we could, in Appaloosa.”

“Yep.”

The deputies were out of sight now.

“These people won’t do the right thing,” Virgil said.

“Not likely,” I said.

“Already done the wrong thing, shooting that sodbuster,” Virgil said.

“I’d say so.”

“And they’re the law.”

“’Fraid so,” I said.

Virgil nodded his head slowly, gazing downhill at the ugly little town.

“Not much of a place,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“Getting worse,” Virgil said. “Mine’s dried up. Lumber company’s out of business, at least for now. Homesteaders been run off the land.”

“Yep.”

“There’s no money to be spent,” Virgil said. “Nobody to borrow from the bank. Nobody to buy feed at the emporium. No beef to broker. Whiskey sales are almost nothing in the saloons.”

“Hard to make a profit,” I said, “by eliminatin’ your customers. ”

“Whole fucking town is going under,” Virgil said.

“Seems so,” I said.

“And Wolfson wants it,” Virgil said.

“Yep.”

“Why?” Virgil said.

“He probably don’t know, either,” I said.

“Don’t seem worth killing folks over.”

“Hell, Virgil,” I said. “You know better’n I do that people kill folks for nothing at all.”

Virgil nodded again.

“They do,” he said.

Then he clucked to the mare and we rode on back down the hill.