Now the four of them looked down into the canyon. Almost at once Pryde said, “That’s him…riding off. Way up the road there.”

“Like he’s going back to camp,” Manring said. He looked at Brazil. “Everybody works but Frank.”

“You dig your hole,” Brazil snapped. “And keep your mouth shut.”

“It’s dug.”

“Then plant the charge!”

That’s it, Bowen thought. Get mad. Get your mind on something else.

When they climbed out of the draw again, a ten-foot length of fuse hung curling to the ground from the hole where the charge was buried. The hole had been dug above the undercut of their test blast of the previous day. It was approximately five feet from the ground.

“When you going to light it?” Brazil asked Bowen.

“I figure sometime this afternoon.”

Brazil’s gaze found the four dynamite sticks with fuses already attached. “You’re doing a damn awful lot of work beforehand.”

“What difference does it make when we do it? Long as it gets done.”

“Maybe I ought to ask you that,” Brazil said.

Bowen shrugged. “Pull the detonators out if you don’t want them there. We’ll walk off about a half mile and watch you.”

Bowen turned from him. He went over to the equipment, sat down next to Pryde and began fitting a fuse end into the fifth detonator, thinking, now watching Brazil wander to the edge of the draw: Don’t push him too far.

Manring stopped next to Bowen. “Are we ready?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be.”

“How much did you plant just now?”

“Twenty pounds.”

“Is that enough?”

“I’d have to set more if it wasn’t.”

“We got to be sure.”

“What do you want to do,” Bowen said, “light it now and find out?”

Manring’s hand scratched nervously at his beard. “We got to be sure, that’s all.”

Pryde got to his feet. They saw him stare off toward the pass that was beyond the end of the canyon. Then Brazil noticed him, hearing the hoof sounds at the same time. “Sit down,” he told Pryde, and swung the Winchester toward the pass.

As he did, Karla Demery appeared in the shadowed opening. She looked up, showing surprise at seeing them, then walked her horse toward them.

Her gaze moved from Bowen and the two men next to him to Brazil. “I didn’t think you’d be here so soon.”

“We’re full of surprises,” Brazil grinned. He saw her move to dismount. “Sit where you are. I got enough to watch without a horse standing by.”

“I wanted to see if these men had any letters,” Karla said. Her hand was behind her on the saddlebag, unfastening the strap.

“Give them to Frank,” Brazil said.

“It’ll only take a minute.” Karla brought out the letters, began going through them, then glanced at Bowen again. “Isn’t your name Bowen?”

Bowen nodded. His eyes moved to Brazil. Brazil was watching Karla.

“I thought I had a letter for you,” Karla said. She came to the last letter, then started through them again. “It seems to me it was from an attorney. The return address, I mean. Lyall Martz? Is that name familiar to you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bowen said.

“But now I don’t see it.”

Brazil moved toward them. “What would you be hearing from a lawyer about?”

“He’s a friend,” Bowen said.

Karla looked up. “I know there was a letter from him. Somehow I must have misplaced it. Tomorrow…I’ll be sure to bring it tomorrow.”

“He can wait,” Brazil said. “Now move out of here.”

“I remember it looked like such an important letter,” Karla said.

Brazil’s hand came down on the horse’s rump and it sidestepped away from him. Karla looked back, then reined toward the draw and Brazil called after her, “When you find Frank, tell him I want to see him!”

Manring leaned toward Bowen. “What’s this lawyer business?”

“You think it concerns you?”

“We were in it together, weren’t we?”

“You don’t fit into it, Earl,” Bowen murmured. He began taking dynamite cartridges from an open case and binding them into bundles of eight sticks.

And you don’t fit into it either, he told himself. You don’t hang on to a thread. Not now. Maybe when there was time, but now it’s a matter of minutes. You understand that? Minutes.

A convict appeared out of the draw and told Manring the charge hole was ready to be dug. He stood with hands on hips looking about idly, to the pass, up into the trees, then his eyes dropped to Bowen who was winding twine about the dynamite sticks and he moved back down the draw. Manring followed him.

Watching him go, Pryde murmured, “We could leave Earl there too.”

“All four of us walk back up here,” Bowen said.

“How’re you going to handle Brazil?”

Bowen glanced over his shoulder-Brazil was still at the edge of the draw-then raised the top from the detonator box which held the revolver. “Like this.”

“Where’d you get that?”

“I’m not saying.”

“I could guess.”

“And you’d be wrong.” Bowen closed the box.

“You going to shoot Brazil?”

Bowen shook his head.

“Let me have it,” Pryde said. “I’ll use it on him.”

“You got enough to do,” Bowen said; then asked, “Have you got it straight?”

“I think so.”

“Tell it.”

Pryde’s eyes raised to Brazil, then lowered again. “When we’re called to set the charge, you’re going first. You carry the case with the bundles in it. Then I follow. I’m carrying another case. There’re a few sticks in it and the knife. You get down to the end of the draw before you notice I’m carrying it. Then you say, ‘I got enough sticks. Leave what you got here and we’ll pick it up on the way back.’ I set the case down where you planted the charge a while ago. Right under where the fuse is hanging. Then we go around on the trail and do what we’re supposed to be doing. You light the charge and we all hurry back up the trail. We’re starting up the draw and I say that I’ve forgot the case. I lag back to get it, take the knife out of the case, cut the fuse so only five feet is hanging out of the wall, light it and come after you.”

“That gives you a minute and a half,” Bowen said, “to climb out of the draw.”

“It doesn’t take half of that,” Pryde said.

“You want to be on the safe side.”

“But why a five-foot fuse?”

“We want this charge to go off as close as possible with the main one,” Bowen said. “If they blow too far apart, somebody down below will start to think about it and come up too soon to find out why. But we couldn’t put on just five feet when we planted the charge, because Brazil would notice it being short and wonder about it.”

“But with the draw caved in,” Pryde said, “nobody could get up here anyway.”

“This way is called not leaving anything to chance,” Bowen said. “Maybe there’s a quick way up out of the canyon we don’t even know about.”

“All right.” Pryde nodded, then asked, “When do you pull the gun?”

“As soon as the draw blows,” Bowen said. “Whether it goes before or after or at the same time the main charge does, Brazil won’t expect it. He’ll be off guard.”

“Then we tie him up,” Pryde said.

“That’s right.” Bowen glanced at the row of long-fused dynamite cartridges next to him. “While Earl cuts the fuses on those.”

“Why don’t we do it now?”

“For the same reason that charge down in the draw has a ten-foot fuse,” Bowen said. “Brazil isn’t that dumb. If he sees six-inch fuses sticking out of these he’ll know damn well what they’re for.”

“And the rest is up to luck,” Pryde said.

Bowen shrugged. “Maybe we’ll make our own.”

The convict who had come for Manring a few minutes before appeared again at the top of the draw.

“Here we go,” Pryde said.

Brazil looked toward them and called, “Ready for the stuff.”

Rising, lifting the case to his shoulder, Bowen said, “Take your time. Cut the fuse right where it touches the ground and you’ll have five feet.”

Pryde nodded. “Don’t worry about it.” As Bowen walked off, he picked up the second wooden case and followed him. Brazil fell in behind going down the draw. No one spoke and there was only the sounds of their steps in the loose gravel. Then, as they reached the shelf, Bowen looked back.