The man in the blue shirt followed. The man in the red shirt was already gone. When Harrison cleared his gun the trail was empty. Quieting the maddened team, he stood and listened to the crashing of the underbrush on the hillside far below.
Turning to the ridge above him, he saw two riders angling down toward him. One was tall and skinny as a scarecrow and rode without a hat. The other was broad and solid in the saddle and wore a hat that made up in bulk for the one the other didn’t wear.
«Ma!» Harrison shouted. «Ma Elden!»
Ma Elden shouted back. «You all right, Johnny?»
«They got my hat,» yelled Harrison.
He got down from the rig and waited for them, hunting up his hat, trying to brush off the dirt with an awkward sleeve, staring ruefully at the ragged hole angling through the crown.
«Ten bucks,» he told himself. «Ten whole cartwheels.»
The horses reached the trail and Ma Elden eased herself out of the saddle, waddled heavily forward, hunting in the pocket of her shirt for makings.
«What did they want?» she asked.
«Wanted me to tell Marshal Haynes to turn somebody loose.»
Ma nodded. «Jim Westman. No account rascal. Shot the town up some the other night. Plugged Jack Collins dead center.»
«Kill him?»
«Bet your boots,» said Ma. «Collins wasn’t much good himself and probably wanted killing, but Sundown kind of likes to dish out its own justice. Don’t appreciate foreigners coming in and doing it for them.»
She poured tobacco into a paper, coaxed it into shape.
Harrison spoke to the skinny man still sitting his horse.
«Howdy, Hatless.»
Hatless Joe chuckled softly, tawny mustaches waggling. «Kind of tickled up that pudgy feller some, didn’t I?»
«If he lives,» said Harrison, «it will be a miracle.»
Ma licked the quirly deftly. «Horse thieves,» she said. «Horse thieves, sure as I was born. County’s plumb infested with them.»
Harrison went back to the man in jail. «How come,» he asked, «if this Westman killed a man he isn’t over in the county jail at Rattlesnake?»
Ma snorted. «Cause they’d turn him loose, that’s why. Get the judge all likkered up and load the jury with his friends. That is, if the sheriff didn’t sort of forget and let him go before he ever got to trial. Westman worked for Dunham at the Bar X for a while, then drifted over to Rattlesnake and since then’s been living without visible means of support, if you don’t look too close.»
«The way it is,» said Hatless, «we figure on giving him a fair trial, then take him out and hang him.»
Ma snapped a match across her thumbnail, lit the quirly.
«Westman one of the horse thieves you spoke about?» asked Harrison.
«Could be,» Ma told him. «Don’t rightly know, of course. He’s got all the earmarks, though. Gang’s got its hideout somewhere in the badlands up near Rattlesnake. Been cleaning out the county.»
«Newest thing in stealing,» explained Hatless. «Lifting cows is downright old fashioned now. Horses move faster and bring better prices.»
Harrison nodded gravely. «Been hearing some about it. Most everyone has lost some horses, seems. But folks are so stirred up with this county splitting business that you don’t hear much of any talk but that.»
«It’s about time we got shut of that courthouse bunch up at Rattlesnake,» Ma said, curtly. «Just a bunch of cutthroats. Me, I been working real hard for setting up a new county, so’s we can get some decent government. Trouble is, folks seem to be afraid of Dunham. Him and the Bar X outfit is plumb set against this two county business. Says we’ve got along all right so far, so what’s the sense of changing.»
Hatless guffawed. «Getting along all right the way Dunham wants it. Him with the biggest ranch in the whole dang country and bringing in a batch of men that he don’t need around each election time just so they can vote.»
Ma moved toward the rear of the wagon. «Got a new horse, I see.»
«Picked him up the other day,» Harrison told her. «Come sort of high, but once I laid eyes on him …»
«Yeah, I know,» said Ma. She eyed him closely. «When you going to quit this peddling and get a business of your own?»
«Pretty soon,» Harrison told her. «Figured maybe I’d do it right away and then …»
«And then you saw this horse.»
Harrison grinned. «I call him Satan. Good name for him, don’t you think? Black as night. Best horse I ever saw.»
«The Smith general store at Sundown is up for sale, I hear,» said Ma. «Cheap, too. Jake is figuring on moving farther west. Got an itchy foot.»
«Haven’t got the money, now. Another year or so.»
«Might loan you some,» said Ma.
Hatless chuckled. «She’d do most anything …»
Ma raged at him. «You keep your trap shut, you old buzzard. Ain’t I got trouble enough without you butting into everything I say?»
Harrison put the damaged hat on his head, reached for the reins.
«Thanks for happening along,» he said.
«Was hunting some cows when we heard the shot,» said Hatless. «Figured we’d better see what was going on.»
«You’re coming out to the ranch for Sunday dinner, ain’t you?» asked Ma.
«Sure,» said Harrison. «Always do when I’m around.»
«Carolyn will be home,» Ma told him. «Coming home tonight.»
«All the way from St. Louis,» said Hatless. «She’s been away to school. Mighty fancy …»
«He knows that as well as you do,» Ma snapped.
She said to Harrison: «Sing Lee will have some of that chicken fixed the way you like it. That is, if he’s sober.»
«He’s taken to making his own, now,» said Hatless. «Beats forty rod all hollow. Got to tie it down before you try to drink it.»
Harrison climbed aboard the wagon.
«See you Sunday,» he said.
He clucked to the team and the wagon rolled, canvas flapping in the wind, faint rattle of pans coming from the rear, the one dry wheel screaming in protest.
Two miles from Sundown he overtook the man walking along the trail and leading a horse.
Harrison pulled up the rig.
«What’s the matter, Doc?»
Doc Falconer grinned lop-sidedly. «You don’t know how glad I am to see you.»
He climbed to the seat beside Harrison, set his medicine kit on the floor, holding onto the reins of the horse.
«You and the horse have an argument?» asked Harrison.
«Horse went lame,» explained Doc. «And I didn’t have the heart to ride him. Take it easy, will you. Don’t want to make it harder on him than I have to.»
«Somebody sick?»
Doc shook his head. «Been out to my gold mine, Johnny.»
«You really got a gold mine, Doc?»
Doc Falconer’s eyes squeezed together, making tiny wrinkles of dry humor at their corners.
«Nope, but folks think I have. Figure I got a lot more cash than I really have. Figure nobody could make that much cash just doctoring.»
He squinted along the dusty trail. «Folks should know how little I have just from the way they pay me,» he declared.
The dry clop-clop of the horses’ hoofs sounded like faint, dull explosions in the dust. An insect sang stridently in the limp air of late afternoon. Fall flowers nodded beside the trail.
«When are you going to quit this roving life and settle down?» asked Doc.
«Someday,» said Harrison casting his eyes down.
«That Carolyn is a darn fine girl,» said Doc.
«She’s coming home tonight,» Harrison told him.
«Knew that,» said Doc. «Figured you’d be along.»
He hummed beneath his breath.
«Wonder if you’d do something for me, Johnny?»