“I saw her. Tall woman. Black hair and eyes and a fair-sized nose. About as tall as you, I’d say.”

He nodded and raised the razor to his cheek again. Mrs. Cletus. Pleased. “She is on the stage now,” Jiggs said. The stage would come in a little after four; Jiggs had ridden through the Bucksaws, instead of going around them as the stage had to do.

“Anybody with her?” he asked casually.

“I guess it is this Cletus she was down as Missus of.”

He contemplated the razor with which he might have removed an ear to hear that, while Jiggs continued. “He is a big feller. Heavy-set with a kind of chewed-up looking face. They was down as Mr. and Mrs. Pat Cletus at the hotel there, Ed said to tell you.”

Morgan sighed, and his mind began to function again. It was no ghost; she had found kin of some kind, a brother maybe. God damn you, Kate, he thought, without anger. He should have known she would not let it alone. In the mirror he saw Jiggs staring up at the painting over the door.

“Handsome woman,” Jiggs said. It was not clear whether he was talking about the nude in the painting, or Kate.

“How many on the stage?”

“There’s four of them. Her and him and a drummer, and the little sawed-off from the bank down here.”

Money in the box then, he thought. He finished shaving, rinsed the lather from his face, and toweled it dry. He slipped his money belt up where he could get to it and drew out a hundred dollars in greenbacks, which he gave to Jiggs.

“Oh, my!” Jiggs said, in awe.

“Forget about the whole thing and tell Ed thanks. Going right back?”

“Well, I—”

“Surely, I guess you might as well. You know Basine’s place, out on the north end of town? Tell him to give you a fresh horse. He’ll be there still if you hurry.”

Jiggs stuffed the money down into his jeans pocket. “Well, thanks, Morgan! Ed said you’d be pleased to hear it.”

“Pleased,” he said. When Jiggs had gone he put on his shirt, whistling softly to himself. He opened the door; the Glass Slipper was empty still, and a barkeep was dispiritedly sweeping Saturday night’s clutter along in front of the bar.

“Go find Murch,” he called, and went back to his desk and poured himself a larger portion of whisky than usual. He raised it before him, squinting up at the painting of the woman over the tilted flat plane of the liquor. “Here’s to you, Kate,” he whispered. “Did you find one after all that had the guts to come after him? You damned bitch,” he said, and drained the glass. Then he remembered that Calhoun and Benner, Friendly and Billy Gannon had been in town last night, and he laughed out loud at this continuing evidence of his luck.

II

Two hours later he was five miles out of Warlock on the Bright’s City road, riding slowly, not hurrying. He was hot and uncomfortable with jeans on beneath his trousers, and a canvas jacket was tied in an inconspicuous bundle behind the saddle. A few torn bits of cloud floated in the sky, and their shadows moved swiftly across the yellowish-red earth and the sparse, bristling patches of brush. His horse flung her head back and danced sideways as a tarantula scurried across the stage tracks, heavy-bodied and tan-furred in the dust.

Now he kept off the stage road on the hard-packed earth, and, fifty yards from the rim, dismounted, ground-tied his horse, and went the rest of the way on foot. He grinned as he watched the column of dust moving east along the valley bottom. He could see the riders, two of them, very small in the distance below him. Crouching on his heels beside a staghorn cactus he watched them threading their way through one of the mesquite thickets that grew in patches over the valley bottom, until they were out of sight. The dust they had been raising also ceased. They had stopped at Road Agent Rock, a stony ridge through which the stage road threaded its way before starting up the long grade from the valley floor.

Presently he saw another plume of dust; horse and rider appeared, gradually enlarging, coming up the slope toward him. It was Murch, whom he’d sent up the valley. He stood up and waved his hat. Murch’s horse was blowing and heaving as he spurred up the last steep piece. Murch dismounted, sweating and dusty in shotgun chaps and a flannel shirt.

“It is Benner and Calhoun,” he said, mouthing the words over a cheekful of tobacco. His left eye studied Morgan’s face, his right roving toward the flanks of the Bucksaws. “Them and the other two went on down toward Pablo a couple of miles in the malapai. Then they split, and Billy and Luke went on down valley, and these two come around up here.”

“Now what do you suppose they are up to?”

“Couldn’t guess,” Murch said.

“Well, if I were you I would get on back to town quick where everybody could see me. In case the Bright’s City stage runs into trouble. You wouldn’t want to get taken for a road agent.”

“No,” Murch said, and spat.

“Let me have the Winchester.”

Murch drew it from the saddle boot and handed it to him, mounted, and started back along the stage road at a fast trot. He looked like a gallon jug in the saddle.

Morgan walked back to his horse, remounted, and, leaving the stage road, headed east to meet the lower slopes of the Bucksaws. He crossed the first ridge and swung downhill in the barren canyon behind it. To his right now was the upper end of the rock outcrop that slanted like the edge of a long, curved knife to the valley floor.

He tied his horse in a mesquite thicket, removed his suit, and in jeans and the canvas jacket, a bandanna tied around his neck and Winchester in hand, scrambled up the ridge. Just on the other side of it, hidden by the crest, he began to work his way down.

Once he stopped to rest, breathing deeply of the clear air, and looked about him. He could see the valley for many miles east from here, with the cloud shadows moving across it. He could make out the cut of the stage road through the low brush for a long distance too. He felt a growing excitement. He accepted it with reluctance at first, cynically, but more and more fully as he made his way on down the ridge. He chuckled to himself from time to time, and paused more often to breath great sucks of the sweet air and gaze out on the colors of the valley. His senses felt alive, as they had not for a long time; he felt unburdened, young, and larking, but still the dark cynicism in himself kept careful watch, nagging and sneering at him. Once, as he edged his way around a steep rock, he whispered, “Well, Clay, I have never crawled on my belly for any other man.”

Finally he heard the sound of voices, and he crawled to the crest of the ridge, where, hidden between two rocks, he could look down to the west side. The stage road cut in close to the ridge below him, swung to the right through a narrow defile, and angled to the left again. He could see the two of them not fifty yards away.

They were sitting on a low ledge just beyond the defile, which was called Road Agent Rock — it was said that so many stages had been stopped there that Buck Slavin had had to send out a crew to fill the rut made by the dropping strongboxes. They were in the full sun and Pony had his hat off and was mopping his face with a blue bandanna. Their horses weren’t in sight.

“Just like the bitching coach to run late today,” one of them said. The words came to him clearly. He edged the Winchester up beside him, and rested his cheek against the warm stock.

From time to time Calhoun would move into the defile to gaze east along the stage road. Then Benner, a head shorter, would go. They muttered back and forth. Once they both went out together. They sat and quarreled in the sun. Then Calhoun went out to look for the stage.

“Here it comes!” he cried, and ran back. They both tied neckerchiefs over their faces and jammed their hats down to their ears. They arranged themselves on either side of the stage road just beyond the cleft in the rock, facing each other tense and motionless like firedogs of unequal size.