wanted in Sonora by the rurales; in Arizona, by the marshal's office. He, like the others, had served time in the territorial prison at Yuma.
As far as Freehouser was concerned, they weren't going back to Yuma if he caught them. Not with Elton Goss dying and his dad yelling for blood.
The fifth outlaw was identified as Rich Miller, a rider from down by Four Tanks. Those who knew of him said he was weathered good for his age, though not as tough as he thought he was. A boy going on eighteen and getting funny ideas in his brain because of the changing chemistry in his body. The bartender at the Centralia said Rich had been in and out all day, looking like he was mad at somebody. So they judged Rich had gotten drunk and was talked into something that was way over his head.
A hand from FT Connected, which was out of Four Tanks, said Rich Miller'd been let go the day before, when the old man caught him drunk up at a line shack and not tending his fences. So what the Centralia bartender said was probably true. Freehouser said it was just too damn bad for him, that's all.
Monday afternoon the marshal's posse was in Four Tanks, then heading east toward the jagged andesite peaks of the Kofas. McKelway, the law at Four Tanks, had joined the posse, bringing five men with him, and offering a neighborly hand. But he became hard to hold eager when he found out who they were after. The Fords, Deke, and Navarez had dead or alive money on them. McKelway knew Rich Miller and said he just ought to have his nose wiped and run off home. But Freehouser looked at it differently.
This was armed robbery. Goss, the bank manager, and his son Elton, who clerked for him, were hauled out of bed by two men they turned out to be Eugene Harlan and Deke. Ford Harlan and Sonny Navarez were waiting at the rear door of the bank. The robbery would have come off without incident if Elton hadn't gone for a gun in a desk drawer. The elder Goss wasn't sure which one shot him. Then they were gone, with twelve thousand dollars.
They rode around front and Rich Miller came out of the Centralia to join them. He'd been sitting at the window, asleep, the clerk thought, wearing off a drunk. He was used to having riders do that.
When the rooms were filled up he didn't care. But Rich Miller suddenly came alive and swung onto a mount the Mexican was leading. So all that time he must have been watching the front to see no one sneaked up on them.
McKelway said a boy ought to be allowed one big mistake before he was called hard on something he'd done. Besides, Rich Miller's name didn't bring any reward money.
Tuesday morning, the twenty man posse was deep in the Kofas. Gray rock towering on all sides, wild country, and now, no trail. Freehouser decided they would split up, climb to higher ground, and wait. Just look around. He sent a man back to Four Tanks to wire Yuma and Aztec in case the outlaws got through the Kofas. But Freehouser was sure they were still in the mountains, somewhere.
Wednesday morning his hunch paid off. One of McKelway's men spotted a rider, and the posse closed in by means of a mirror flash system they'd planned beforehand. The rider turned out to be Ford Harlan.
Wednesday afternoon Ford Harlan was dead.
He had led them a chase most of the morning, slipping through the man net, but near noon he turned into a dead end canyon, a deserted mine site that once had been Sweet Mary No. 1. Ford Harlan had been urging his mount up a slope above the mine works, toward an adobe hut perched on a ledge about three hundred yards up, when Freehouser cupped his hands and called for him to halt. He kept on. A moment later Jim Mission, McKelway's deputy, knocked him out of the saddle with a single shot from his Remington.
Then McKelway and Mission volunteered to bring Ford Harlan down. McKelway tied a white neckerchief to the end of his Sharps for a truce flag and they went up. Freehouser had said if you want to get Ford, you might as well go a few more steps and ask the rest if they want to give up. They were almost to the body when the pistol fire broke from above. They scrambled down fast and when they reached the posse, Freehouser was smiling.
They were all up there, Eugene and Deke and the Mexican and Rich Miller. One of them had lost his nerve and opened up. You could see it on Freehouser's face. The self satisfaction. They were trapped in an old assay shack with a sheer sandstone wall towering behind it thin shadow lines of crevices reaching to slender pinnacles and only one way to come down. The original mine opening was on the same shelf; probably they'd hid their horses there.
Freehouser was a contented man; he had all the time in the world to figure how to pry them out of the 'dobe. He even listened to McKelway and admitted that maybe the kid, Rich Miller, shouldn't be hung with the others if he didn't get shot first.
Some of the posse went back home, because they had jobs to hold down, but the next day, others came out from Asuncion and Four Tanks to see the fun.
It seemed natural that Deke should take over as boss. There was no discussing it; no one gave it a thought. Ford was dead. Eugene was indifferent.
Sonny Navarez was Mexican, and Rich Miller was a kid.
The boy had wondered why Deke wasn't the boss even before. Maybe Deke didn't have Ford's nerve, but he had it over him in age and learning.
Still, a man gets old and he thinks of too many what ifs. And sometimes Deke was scary the way he talked about fate and God pulling little strings to steer men around where they didn't want to go.
He was at the window on the right side of the doorway, which was open because there was no door. Eugene and Deke were at the left front window. He could hear Sonny Navarez behind him moving gear around, but the boy did not take his eyes from the slope.
Deke lounged against the wall, his face close to the window frame, his carbine balanced on the sill.
Eugene was a step behind him. He was a heavyboned man, shoulders stretching his shirt tight, and tall, though Deke was taller when he wasn't lounging. Eugene pulled at his shirt, sticking to his body with perspiration. The sun was straight overhead and the heat pushed into the canyon without first being deflected by the rimrock.
The Mexican drew his carbine from his bedroll and moved up next to Rich Miller, and now the four of them were looking down the slope, all thinking pretty much the same thing, though in different ways.
Eugene Harlan broke the silence. 'I shouldn't of fired at them.'
It could have gone unsaid. Deke shrugged.
'That's under the bridge.'
'I wasn't thinking.'
Deke did not bother to look at him. 'Well, you better start.'
'It wasn't my fault. Ford led 'em here!'
'Nobody's blaming you for anything. They'd a got us anyway, sooner or later. It was on the wall.'
Eugene was silent, and then he said, 'What happens if we give ourselves up?'
Deke glanced at him now. 'What do you think?'
Sonny Navarez grinned. 'I think they would invite us to the rope dance.'
'Ford's the one shot that boy in the bank,' Eugene protested. 'They already got him.'
'How would they know he's the one?' Deke said.
'We'll tell them.'
Deke shook his head. 'Get a drink and you'll be doing your nerves a favor.'
Sonny Navarez and Rich Miller looked at Deke and both of them grinned, but they said nothing and after a moment they looked away again, down the slope, which fell smooth and steep. Slightly to the left, beyond an ore tailing, rose the weathered gray scaffolding over the main shaft; below it, the rickety structure of the crushing mill and, past that, six rusted tanks cradled in a framework of decaying timber. These were roughly three hundred yards down the slope.
There was another hundred to the clapboard company buildings straggled along the base of the far slope.
A sign hanging from the veranda of the largest building said sweet mary no. 1 el tesorero mining co. four tanks, arizona terr. Most of the possemen now sat in the shade of this building.
Deke raised his hat again and passed a hand over his bald head, then down over his face, weathered and beard stubbled, contrasting with the delicate whiteness of his skull. Rich Miller's eyes came back up the slope, hesitating on Ford Harlan's facedown body. Then he removed his hat, passed a sleeve across his forehead, and replaced the curled brim low over his eyes.
He heard Eugene say, 'You can't tell what they'll do.'
