were holding drawn pistols, and Cantrell was peering through the crack between the dark green window shade and the window.
“Is he goin’ away?” Philbin asked.
“Yeah, he’s ridin’ off,” Cantrell replied.
The outlaw chuckled, then put his pistol away. He looked over at Crocker. “Well, now, you done that just real good, friend,” he said. “Yes, sir, you done it real good. I don’t think he suspects a thing.”
Philbin turned toward Crocker’s wife, who was busy in the kitchen. “How long till supper?”
“It’s ready,” she said.
“It’s about time. I’m near ’bout starved to death here.”
The five men walked into the kitchen where Katie was putting supper on the table.
“What the hell is this?” Philbin asked.
“Potatoes and eggs, cooked together in bacon drippings,” Katie said.
“I ain’t never seen ’em done like this before,” Philbin said. He took a bite. “Oh, my, taters cooked like this is real good. Take my word for it, boys, this is just real tasty.”
“Philbin, they ain’t nothin’ you ever et wasn’t real tasty far as you’re concerned,” Cantrell said, and the others laughed.
Matt waited until after dark before he returned. Leaving his horse hobbled behind a stand of aspens, he slipped up to the side of the house. From inside, a flickering light managed to escape. Also, it wasn’t totally dark outside, because it was a cloudless night and the moon was full and bright so that the house and barn gleamed in a soft, silver light, like white blooms in a meadow.
The still night air was rent with the long, high-pitched trills and low violalike thrums of the frogs. For countermelodies there were crickets, the distant, mournful howl of coyotes, and from the stable, a braying mule and a whickering horse.
With his gun in hand, and staying in the shadows alongside the wall, Matt found a window and looked inside. There, he saw four men with Crocker and his wife. One of the men was pointing a gun at Crocker.
Because he had been on the trail, Matt was unaware of the fact that these four men had attempted a bank robbery earlier in the day. But he had known right away that they were the cause of Crocker’s strange response when he had arrived earlier in the evening.
Katie Crocker was holding, clutched tightly to her chest, a silver candelabrum.
“Please,” he heard Katie’s pleading voice say. “We have given you water, food, and shelter. But you cannot take this. This candelabrum was made by my great-grandfather. He was apprenticed to Paul Revere.”
“Who is Paul Revere?” one of the men asked.
The man holding the gun chuckled, but it was an evil chuckle.
“It don’t matter who Paul Revere was. This here is silver, and I intend to have it.”
“No,” Katie said, clutching it even more tightly. “You can’t have it.”
“Woman, you better think about what you are doin’ here. You are either goin’ to give it to me, or I’m goin’ to kill your man and you and take it. I’m goin’ to have it either way, but if you don’t give it to me, then you’ll both be dead.” He cocked his pistol.
Matt ran around to the back door and, finding it unlocked, pushed it open.
“Drop the gun!” he called.
“What the hell?” One of the men shouted. He was standing by the one flickering candle, and he snuffed it out. The inside of the house was immediately plunged into darkness as the man holding the pistol fired. Matt felt a hammer blow as a bullet slammed into his shoulder. He returned fire, using as his target the flame pattern from the discharge. He heard someone groan, then fall. A moment later, he heard the front door crash open, and he hurried through the house and out the back door to try and stop them, but they had already mounted and were galloping away.
By the time Matt got back inside, Crocker had relit the candle and he and Katie were looking down at the man Matt had shot.
“Damn,” the wounded man said. “My belly hurts.”
“Who are you?” Matt asked.
“Are you the one who shot me?”
“Yeah, I’m the one that shot you.”
“I’m dyin’, ain’t I?”
“More than likely,” Matt replied.
The man nodded. “Yeah, I thought so.”
“Who are you?” Matt asked again.
“My name is Morris. Percy Morris.”
“Who were the others?”
“Don’t know their first names. I only hooked up with them a couple of days ago. We robbed a bank in Bent Canyon. So if you was lookin’ for us, you found us.”
“The only thing I was looking for was water,” Matt said. “I didn’t know you’d robbed a bank.”
