“Shot the boy off a fence he was sitting on,” they
were told. The man who told them, a cattleman in a
big soft hat, said it was probably a case of mistaken
identity, that due to the territory filling up with
rustlers it was not unusual for some cattlemen such as
himself to hire stock detectives to take care of the
rustlers. Though, he said, he had not personally so far
hired such men. The cattleman said a reward had been
taken up by the community to track down the killers.
“And exactly how much would that reward be?”
Zeb asked.
“Two hundred and fifty dollars for each, five hun-
dred for the pair, and we don’t care if you bring them
back to stand trial or not. Just bring proof they won’t
be causing anymore heartache to any others—a news-
paper clipping of their demise would do.”
“Hell, we’ll see her done, their demise.”
They found Fancher in Idaho because Fancher was a
loose talker who told everyone everywhere he stopped
to drink a beer and take a piss who he was, calling
himself a “stock detective” and bragging about how
when he got hired to clean out rustlers, he by god
cleaned them out guaranteed and was anyone looking
to hire a stock detective?
Fancher, they were told, was easy to spot, he had a
white streak running down through the center of his
black hair: “Like he was wearing a skunk on his head.”
The found the skunk-headed man sitting in a
whiskey den in Soda Springs. He was drinking but-
termilk laced with rum and eating a plate of boiled
potatoes.
The brothers came in casual as though just travel-
ers passing through, had their handguns tucked away
in their coat pockets. They stood at the bar watching
the skunk-headed man by way of the back bar mirror.
They talked among themselves how they were going
to do it.
Zeb said, “I don’t feel like wasting no guddamn time
here, boys. We still got that other’n to catch as well.”
His brothers nodded. By now they were practiced
at the art of killing.
“Zack, you drift over toward the piana. Zane, you
sidle in best you can behind him. I’ll approach him
head on, get his attention. Soon as he makes his move
blow out his brains.”
It seemed simple enough. But Fancher was wary of
strangers and had been keeping an eye on the three
fellows at the bar because they looked like they could
be trouble, possibly federal marshals, whereas the
others in the place looked like simple miners, loggers,
and ranchers. But these three were rough trade; any-
body could see that.
He continued to fork potatoes into his mouth, but
he slipped his free hand down under the table to reach
the Deane Adams inside his waistband, took it out,
and held it in his lap.
What was it old Bill Sunday used to say: Sooner or
later they’ll come for you—men you don’t know and
who don’t know you except by reputation, and they’ll
want to kill you not because they dislike you or be-
cause you killed their kin or robbed them or some
other injustice. They’ll kill you because there is money
on your head and they are bold enough to think they
can.
Well, come on you sons a bitches if that’s what its
going to be, he thought. Let’s get this fucken show
started.
He saw them move away from the bar, fanning out
to his left and right and he cocked the hammer of the
Deane Adams about as slow as he ever cocked it be-
fore hoping the sound got muffled by the locals chat-
tering about the weather and this that and the other
thing and kept forking the potatoes into his mouth
because they tasted good and warm and if it was by
god going to be the last meal he ate, he was going to
eat it all because he’d paid a dollar for it.
He waited and waited as they moved cautious in a
circle around him. Then just as he was about to kick
over the table and see which of them was the best
shootist in the bunch, a kid came running in carrying
an empty beer pail and calling to the bartender he was
there to get his pa a bucket of beer. He walked right
between the three and Fancher.
That was all she wrote, enough to distract, and he
came up fast firing the Deane Adams at the lanky son
of bitch coming up on him from his right, only he
missed and the man shot him through the rib meat and
knocked him ass backward over the chair he’d been
sitting on. He scrambled to try and get to his feet but
another of them shot him somewhere high up be-
tween his shoulder blades and knocked him to the
dirty floor again. He pulled and pulled the trigger on
that Deane Adams, shooting any goddamn thing he
could see, but hell, before he knew it, they’d shot him
to pieces.
The Stone brothers moved in quick, shot him like
he was one big fish in a barrel and they kept shooting
him until he stopped moving. Zack kicked the Deane
Adams out of his hand and waited for him to reach
