'I didn't know you were friends with John Wesley Hardin,' Call said.

'I ain't--nobody is,' Roy Bean replied. 'He come down here to see if I had a whore. Joey Garza's ma went to Crow Town and walked off with all the women. Hardin got restless for a whore and came to see me.' 'When?' Call asked.

'Last week,' Bean said. 'He says Crow Town's emptied out, since the women left.' 'Joey Garza's mother went to Crow Town and took the women?' Call said. 'Took them and went where with them? She wasn't home when we came through Ojinaga. Billy Williams was looking after her other children. She has a pretty little girl, but the child is blind.' 'I ain't met the woman, but I expect she's a beauty,' Roy Bean said. 'Billy's been in love with her most of his life, but she won't bend. Olin Roy's partial to her, too, but she won't have Olin, neither.' 'I would have thought Huerta or somebody would have finished Olin by now,' Call said. 'Dabbling in Mexican finance is chancy work.' Call remembered the little blind girl with the quick expresion, standing with Billy Williams. He rarely noticed children, but he not only remembered the blind girl, he could picture her vividly in his mind. He wondered about the mother. Few women would be bold enough to go to Crow Town. This woman had not only gone, she had led the women of the community away. She had produced the blind girl, the idiot boy, and Joey, and if Bean was to be believed, had captured and held the affections of Billy Williams and Olin Roy, two men who had not been noted for the constancy of their attachments. Olin was a smuggler who spoke good Spanish, and Billy Williams was more or less a roving drunk.

Still, some women seemed to be able to get holds on the most unlikely men. Pea Eye, for example, had never seemed to be the marrying kind. He had never sought out women, that Call could remember, when they were in towns. But here was Pea Eye, married, and happily so, it seemed.

'I don't understand the business about the women,' Call said. 'She just rode into town and rode out with them?' 'Nope,' Bean said. 'She rode in on a spotted pony, but Joey stole it and left her afoot. She and the women walked out.' 'I met her on the road when she was almost there,' Famous Shoes remarked. 'She got very cold in the sleet storm, crossing the Pecos.

I built her a fire, but she was angry with me and wouldn't let me stay.' 'Did she know you were working for me?' Call asked.

'Yes, and she don't want you to kill Joey,' Famous Shoes said. 'She don't want me to track him for you.' 'I didn't know you knew her,' Call said.

'Her name is Maria,' Famous Shoes said.

'She saved my life the first time the hard sheriff wanted to hang me.

'She was too angry when I met her this time,' he repeated. 'I built the fire and left her.' 'He's an ungrateful son, if he stole her horse and left her afoot in a place like Crow Town,' Call said. 'Not many women would ride into Crow Town.' 'Or cross the dern Pecos, either,' Pea Eye said. 'Not when it's icy. I'd call that brave.' 'Well, the boy is her son,' Call said.

'Even if he stole her horse, you can't expect her to want him dead.' 'I don't know the woman--she can like it or lump it,' Roy Bean said. 'Her son's a thieving, murdering lawbreaker. You better go catch him, and plow Mox Mox under, too, if you have the time.' 'This is your jurisdiction, Judge,' Call reminded him. 'I was just hired to catch Joey Garza. What I'd like to know is where his mother took the women.' 'Wesley said she took 'em to the railroad,' Roy Bean said. 'He was upset.

He said he would have shot her on sight if he'd known she was going to take away the whores.' 'Where is Hardin, while we're talking about killers?' Call asked.

'No idea--he left,' Roy Bean said.

'I ain't his butler.' The judge had produced one bottle of brandy and asked an inordinate price for it, but Brookshire bought it anyway. He drank it until the edges of the little room became blurred, which didn't take long. Now the Captain was talking about yet another killer, a famous one this time. Even in Brooklyn there were people who had heard of John Wesley Hardin.

Brookshire kept drinking the brandy. He drank until he could hardly see the Captain, who was sitting not two feet from him. Deputy Plunkert was snoring; the warmth of the room had put him right to sleep. It seemed to Brookshire that they were traveling in circles. Every curve took them farther from civilization and produced another killer. The whole thing had started with a train robbery; now it involved three men who, among them, had killed the equivalent of a company of soldiers. Killers were multiplying, whereas Captain Call wasn't. There was still only one of him.

'They say the Garza boy has a cave full of valuables, down in Mexico,' Roy Bean said. 'They say he takes everything he steals and hides it there.' 'I expect that's a rumor,' Call said.

'It's nice to think about, though,' Bean said.

'If I could find myself a cave full of treasure, I could retire from the bench and move to England, and if I was in England, I could watch Miss Lily Langtry perform on the stage every night of the week.' Call paid no more attention to Judge Bean.

The only interesting information he possessed came from John Wesley Hardin, and it concerned Joey Garza's mother. If there was a way to find Joey, it probably involved the mother, not the cave.

Sooner or later, Joey might come home. The fact that he had stolen his mother's horse might not mean much. Mothers had been known to overlook worse behavior than that. Joey might decide to bring the pony back someday. He knew he was being chased, and might want his mother to hide him.

Soon all the company was asleep, except for Pea Eye. Famous Shoes had drunk a second pint of tequila. He curled up under the table and slept soundly.

Brookshire was out, his head fallen into his arms.

Deputy Plunkert was snoring soundly, his head tipped so far to one side that his hat had fallen off. Pea, who'd had only one beer, seemed a little glum, but he was not drunk.

The smelly old judge had taken his buffalo robe and gone back outside.

Call motioned to Pea Eye, and the two of them went out into the cold air.

'I'm going to split off,' Call said. 'I hate to do it, but we've got two different threats to deal with, and I don't think they'll line themselves up like dominoes and wait for us to knock them over.' He'd had a feeling that the Captain might be about to leave. It always made Pea anxious when the Captain left to perform some task alone.

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