reason.”
“I’ve been watching you two fellows,” Zak said. “Had my eye on you since late afternoon. If ever I saw a couple of dunces, you two were they. I doubt if either of you could hit the broadside of a barn at five paces. But if words were bullets, you two would be champion shots. I haven’t heard such arguing since I stayed with a married man and his wife up on the Judith.”
“You been listenin’ to us?” Tolliver said, gape-mouthed.
“Voices carry out here,” Zak said. “A long way.”
“Well, what you sneakin’ around for?” Grubb said. “Spyin’ on people like that. Ask me, you’re the one ain’t got good sense.”
“I’ll tell you why I stopped by, mister.” Zak looked at Grubb. “Danny.”
Danny recoiled in shock that the stranger knew his name. “Yeah? How come?” he said.
“There was a wagon come through here with a kidnapped soldier in it. I want you boys to tell me where it’s going to wind up. I’ll give you five seconds, Danny, and I’m counting real fast.”
“Ain’t none of your business,” Tolliver said.
“Three,” Zak said.
“What you gonna do if we don’t tell you?” Danny asked.
“One of you I’m going to blow straight to hell,” Zak said.
“Which one?” Danny asked.
“One second left.”
“Jesus,” Tolliver said, and he wasn’t praying.
Danny, rattled, spoke first.
“Ferguson,” he said.
Tolliver chimed in on the heels of Danny’s one word statement.
“Edge of Tucson. You find Cantina Escobar, you’ll see the freight company a stone’s throw away.”
“Either of you know a man named Ben Trask?”
The two men looked at each other, their expressions showing their bewilderment.
“Naw,” they said, like a chorus of jackdaws.
“You know the soldier’s name? The one that was in the wagon?”
“They called him O’Hara,” Danny said. “Young feller. Still wet behind the ears.”
“Tied up,” Tolliver said.
“Where’s the next station?”
“Huh?” Danny said.
“Is there another one of these ’dobes where that wagon was headed?”
“Two more,” Tolliver said.
“You boys are out of business,” Zak said. “As of right now. I’ll leave you two horses. The rest I’m running off.”
“You can’t do that,” Tolliver said. “They hang horse thieves in this country.”
“I’m not stealing them. I’m just turning them loose. You got any apples inside that ’dobe?”
“Apples?” Danny said.
“Yeah, my horse likes apples.”
Both men shook their heads.
“Does this look like a damned orchard?” Tolliver said, suddenly belligerent.
“I don’t see no horse,” Danny said.
Zak turned his head, gave a low whistle. Then he called, “Nox.”
The black horse, his coat shining like dark water, came around the corner of the adobe, reins trailing. He ambled up to Zak, who rubbed the hollows over the horse’s eyes, worried his topknot with massaging knuckles.
“I ought to burn you out,” Zak said. “But I’m just going to turn those horses out and ride on.”
He grabbed his reins, separated them, and draped the ends over the horse’s neck, just in front of the saddle.
“Mister, you ain’t running none of our horses off,” Tolliver said. “I’m callin’ you out.”
Zak turned toward Tolliver and stared him straight in the eyes. He let his right hand slide easily down his horse’s neck until it was parallel to the butt of his pistol.
Tolliver sat there, blinking. Under the brim of his grease-stained hat, his eyes glittered with lantern light and shadow. He screwed up his lips as if chewing on something distasteful. Seconds ticked by as the silence deepened into a great ocean tossing with soundless seas. Grubb swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed, a sharp pointed
