“The little one was Pony, all right,” Foss said to Schroeder.

“Two of them,” little Pusey broke in. “They got the strongbox.”

“More than two,” Foss said. “Couple up on top the ridge. It was one of them killed that big feller.”

“I only saw two,” the drummer said.

“There were three,” the woman said. She looked at Schroeder’s star, and up into his face with her hard black eyes. Her face was stiff with shock. “There was one on top of the ridge.”

“Shot what big feller?” Schroeder said to Foss.

“Passenger that was with this lady here,” Foss said. “We had to leave him lay, for the team took out wild when he got shot. He was dead, miss,” he said, apologetically. “You going after them, Carl?”

“Surely am,” Schroeder said.

“Went down valley. We could see them raising dust coming up the grade to town.”

John Gannon forced his way in through the crowd. There was a lull in the excited talk around them.

“Stage got run, Johnny,” Schroeder said. “Hutch shot and a passenger killed and still out there at Road Agent Rock.”

“Pony and Calhoun and Friendly and Billy Gannon,” someone in the crowd said. “Headed out of here like they was going back to Pablo, and went up valley to agent the coach instead.”

“By God if it wasn’t!”

Gannon licked his lips. He looked from Foss to Schroeder with his deep-set eyes in his bone-thin face. “Are we going after them, Carl?”

“Well, I thought maybe I’d ask you to ride out after that passenger.” Gannon flushed, and Schroeder went on quickly, his voice loud in the hush. “What was his name? Anybody know?”

Everyone looked at the woman, who said, “I think it was Cletus.”

“Thought I heard you calling him Pat, ma’am,” the drummer said politely. The woman did not reply.

“What’d they kill him for?” someone asked.

“He drawed, looked like,” Foss said.

“Fool thing to do,” Schroeder said.

The woman said, “He didn’t draw till he’d been shot.”

Tim French and Chick Hasty, mounted, came into Main Street. Then Peter Bacon appeared, leading an extra horse, and, a moment later, Pike Skinner, Buchanan, and Phlater. Each of them had a rifle in his saddle boot, and Pike Skinner had belts of rifle and shotgun cartridges slung over his saddlehorn, and a shotgun hanging from a saddle strap. Old Owen Parsons came after them in a hurry, on a rat-tailed bay, his hat brim blown back flat against the crown.

“Come on, Carl!” Skinner shouted.

“You go bring the dead one in, Johnny,” Schroeder said. “And watch things here.” He clapped Gannon on the shoulder. Buck Slavin came through the crowd crying, “Foss! God damn it, Foss!”

“Out of my way fellows,” Schroeder said. The crowd parted before him as he hurried out into the street to mount the extra horse.

“Looks like one we’re after’s Billy,” Tim French said.

“Maybe,” Schroeder said. “Chick, you ride out with Johnny and track back down valley after them. So we’ll have that squarer in court this time. Watch for them shedding the strongbox, too.”

Hasty nodded, and Schroeder surveyed the others. He grinned suddenly. “Well, boys,” he said. “We will ride to hit the river low down, and try to head them.”

They all nodded. Schroeder set his spurs and his horse leaped forward. The posse fell in behind him and went out of Warlock at a fast trot. There were cheers from the crowd standing around the dusty coach in Main Street.

12. GANNON MEETS KATE DOLLAR

IT WAS after dark when Gannon brought back the body of the big man whose name seemed to be Pat Cletus, and left it, covered with a tarpaulin, at the carpintería, where old Eladio would make a coffin for it in the morning.

He went home to Birch’s roominghouse to wash, and stopped at the jail to sit at the table in the dark for a while; then he went up to the Western Star for dinner, carefully oblivious under the silent stares of the men he passed upon the way.

But his eyes felt hot and gritty as he listened to them whispering behind him. They were sure that Billy had been one of the road agents, and probably they were right.

In the lobby of the hotel Ben Gough, Pugh’s clerk, nodded distantly to him from behind the counter. It was late and the dining room was deserted except for the woman who had come in on the Bright’s City stage. She sat at a table near the window, and he moved uncertainly over toward her.

He took off his hat. “Mind if I sit here, ma’am?”

She looked up at him through long lashes that were very black against her white skin. She glanced around at the empty tables, then at the star pinned to his shirt. She said nothing, and he sat down opposite her. Obsidian eyes watched him over her cup as she drank coffee.

“Catch them?” she said finally, setting her cup down in its saucer with a small clatter.

“No, ma’am. At least the posse’s not back yet.”

“Do they catch them here?”

“I expect they might this time. They got off fast.”

She nodded, uninterested. She was a handsome woman, except that her nose was too big. The black cherries on her hat shone overripe with red tints in them in the lamplight.

The waiter wandered over, switching a cloth at the flies and crumbs on the tables he passed.

“Supper,” Gannon said. When the waiter had gone switching away again, he said, “Maybe you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions?”

“All right.”

“Well, I’ll ask your name to start off with.”

“It’s Kate Dollar.”

Her eyes regarded him hostilely, and he hesitated. He had hardly talked to a woman before he had gone to Rincon, and very few there except in the course of his duties. He didn’t know whether to call her Mrs. Dollar or Miss. You said Mrs. to a sporting woman, if you wanted to be polite, but he was uncertain whether this one was or not. It was not that she was better dressed than a whore, for some of them wore finery to put your eye out, but her dress was expensive looking without being flashy and eye-catching, and there was a certain dignity about her. She was young, but her face was wary and there were bitter lines at the corners of her eyes.

“And yours?” she said.

“Gannon,” he said, and added, “John Gannon.”

“Oh,” she said. “One of them was supposed to be your brother.”

He felt his face burn painfully. He looked down quickly and nodded.

“What was it you wanted to ask, besides my name?”

“Why, there seems to be some mix-up, miss. About how many road agents there was. The driver—”

“I saw three of them,” she said. “But there might’ve been four.”

“There was one up on top of the ridge there, you mean? You are sure? I mean—” He stopped.

“I saw a rifle barrel up there clear enough,” she said. “And gun-smoke.” She raised a finger and pressed it to the beauty mark at the corner of her mouth. “When I heard the shot I didn’t know who had fired, because I could see the other two road agents, and it wasn’t either of them. Then I happened to look up at the top of the ridge and saw the smoke. And I saw the rifle barrel pull back out of sight.”

“You didn’t see the man?”

“No.”

The waiter brought a plate of steak, fried potatoes, and beans. He pushed at the potatoes with his fork. His eyes were burning again. Kate Dollar patted at the corners of her mouth with her handkerchief.

“The driver said you got on with this Cletus at Bright’s City.”

“So did that little bank clerk, and the drummer.”

“I heard the drummer say you called him Pat.”

“Maybe I did.”

“You wouldn’t want to say, then?”

“Say what?”

“Whether you’d been coming out here with this Pat Cletus, or what for. Or who he was.”

“What difference does it make?”

“I don’t know,” he said, hopelessly. He forked a mouthful of potatoes, chewed, and tried to swallow; they were at the same time greasy and dry as dust.