'We get by,' Karen said. 'The winters can be hard sometimes.'
'And cold,' Frank surmised.
'The cabin stays warm. We get ready for winter with plenty of firewood. This place could use a few more chinks between some of the logs.'
Frank pushed a moth-eaten wool blanket off his chest and struggled to a sitting position, movement that only increased the pain in his left side.
'You shouldn't be movin' around, Frank,' she said, coming over to him.
'I can't stay here. I've got business over in that ... Ghost Valley, they call it.'
'It'll keep for a few days,' Karen assured him.
'Not this,' Frank said darkly. 'I've been looking for those jaspers for weeks. It won't be settled until Ned Pine and Victor Vanbergen are dead.'
'Pa says you're a killer.'
He took the whiskey jug again and drank deeply before he answered her question. 'There was a time when I made a living at it. But not now.'
'You just said...' Karen's voice faded.
' This is different. This is personal.'
'You won't be strong enough,' she warned. 'This cold drains all the strength out of a body.'
'Not mine,' he replied. 'I'm used to the cold ... or the heat.'
She came over to him and sat beside him on the cot, with worry in her eyes. 'Pa says you aim to go up against that bunch of outlaws single-handed.'
He nodded, and drank more whiskey.
'You don't know those men,' Karen said. 'They're all paid killers.'
'I know 'em real well. That part don't scare me one little bit. They shot me, but it was because I got careless and let one of 'em get behind me.'
'But Pa said your son was safe now, down in Trinidad or thereabouts.'
'I aim to make 'em pay for what they did to Conrad. I won't let 'em get away with it.'
'Pa says there's a lot of them hard cases in the valley.'
'I've thinned 'em down by a few.'
'You killed some of them?'
'A handful. Your father gave me some help.'
'Pa said he wasn't gonna kill no more men after the war was over.'
Frank sighed. 'I reckon he made an exception. I owe him for what he did.'
'We came up here to live peaceful,' Karen whispered, staring at a cabin window covered with deer hide.
'I may have pulled him into a fight that wasn't any of his affair,' Frank explained.
'Did you ask him to help you kill those men?'
He wagged his head. 'Nope. He did it on his own and that's a fact.'
Karen was thoughtful a moment. 'We try to live quiet. Even when those Indians come around, Pa gets along with 'em and gives 'em what they want.'
Frank remembered the Indian he'd seen outside the cemetery at Glenwood Springs. 'Do you mean the Old Ones? The Ones Who Came Before?'
'Some call 'em that,' Karen admitted, although she seemed nervous about it.
'Are they Utes? Shoshoni?'
'No one knows. They've lived here for a very long time. I only saw 'em a few times. Pa says they're real careful about showin' themselves to strangers.'
'Who are they?' Frank wanted to know.
'Ask Pa about it.'
'I already did. He didn't tell me much.'
Karen got up off the cot, as though she didn't care to talk about it anymore. 'I'll warm up some more of this soup. It'll help you get your strength back.'
'You didn't answer my question,' he persisted.
'I didn't aim to. Ask my pa about it.'
The pain in Frank's shoulder forced him back down on the bed and he closed his eyes.
The Indian he saw beyond the cemetery fence at Glenwood Springs had seemed real enough.
He tried to recall what Doc Holliday told him about the local Indians. Some folks claimed they were like
