With Cato and Rose at the Excelsior, and me and Virgil at the Blackfoot, things got so peaceful that I stopped sitting in the lookout chair and sat with Virgil at a table near the bar.

“Quiet,” I said to Virgil.

“It is,” he said.

“Makes you wonder if they need us here,” I said.

“They’d need us if we wasn’t here,” Virgil said.

“Same at the Excelsior,” I said.

“Should be,” Virgil said.

“Cute,” I said. “They don’t need us unless we ain’t here; then they do need us.”

“Called keepin’ the peace,” Virgil said.

“That’d be us,” I said.

Two farmers came into the Blackfoot, and looked around, and came to our table.

One of them, a short, chunky guy wearing a pink shirt, said, “Cole and Hitch?”

“He’s Cole,” I said. “I’m Hitch.”

“We got a problem,” the farmer in the pink shirt said.

The man with him was taller and rounder. He was wearing a blue shirt.

“He’s got a problem,” the man in blue said. “Sonovabitch sold me a lame horse.”

“He had a chance to try the horse,” Pink Shirt said. “He didn’t say nothing about her bein’ lame when he bought her.”

“How lame,” Virgil said.

“Lame,” Blue Shirt said, “right front leg’s all swole.”

“Why?”

They both looked at him blankly.

“Why’s it swole?” Virgil said.

“’Cause she’s lame,” Blue Shirt said.

“Wasn’t swole when I sold her,” Pink Shirt said.

Virgil took a long breath through his nose.

“Where’s the horse,” Virgil said.

“Out front,” Blue Shirt said.

“Lemme see her,” Virgil said.

He and I stood, and all of us went outside.

The horse was a sorrel mare and pretty long in the tooth. Virgil sat on his haunches beside her, and looked at her swollen right foreleg without touching it. He nodded to himself.

“Everett,” he said. “Get me a bottle of good whiskey and a clean cloth.”

I went in and got what he ordered and came out with it.

“Gashed her leg on something,” Virgil said. “It’s infected.”

I handed him the cloth and the whiskey.

“Take her head,” Virgil said. “I’m gonna clean her wound.”

I held the horse by the bridle straps. Virgil carefully picked up her foreleg and held it between his legs, his back to the horse.

“Hang on,” Virgil said.

I put my weight on the head straps.

“Easy, darlin’,” Virgil said to the horse. Virgil poured about half the whiskey into a gash on her foreleg. The horse lunged back. I held her head. Virgil rode her foreleg comfortably, murmuring to the horse all the time, and in a moment she stopped lunging. He studied the gash.

“Again,” he said.

I clamped on the harness, and he clamped the foreleg tight between his legs and poured the rest of the whiskey over her wound. She struggled long this time, but we rode it out and she calmed down again. Virgil tore the cloth into strips and bandaged the wound. He continued to murmur to the horse as he had since he started. The horse stayed docile. Virgil stood.

“Whiskey ought to kill the infection,” he said. “Change the bandage every day. Week or so she’ll be fine.”

“I don’t want no damaged horse,” Blue Shirt said.

“Well, you bought her,” Pink Shirt said.

Virgil was standing next to the horse, patting her absently on the shoulder.

“Either she had the gash when you bought her,” Virgil said, “and you were too stupid to see it, or you caused the gash after you bought her and were too stupid to treat it.”

“You’re saying it’s my fault.”

“I’m saying you take care of the horse, and in a couple weeks she’ll be fine.”

“I’m not taking care of this damn horse,” Blue Shirt said.

“You are,” Virgil said.

Blue Shirt stared at him. Virgil looked at him steadily.

“What if I don’t?” Blue Shirt said.

“I’ll kill you,” Virgil said.

“Kill me?”

“Yep.”

“Over this fleabag of a fucking horse?” Blue Shirt said.

“Yep.”

“So,” Pink Shirt said. “It’s settled then.”

Virgil turned his head slowly and looked at Pink Shirt.

“Put her in the livery stable,” Virgil said. “You pay.”

“That’s not fair.”

“It’s how it is,” Virgil said. “Me and Everett will be checking. Anything happens to the horse, you answer to us.”

Blue Shirt took the lead from the hitching post and began to walk the horse slowly down the main street toward the livery stable.

“How ’bout we split the cost of the livery?” Pink Shirt said.

“Fuck you,” Blue Shirt said.

They kept walking and they didn’t look back. Virgil and I went back into the Blackfoot.

“Sheriff, judge, and jury,” I said.

Virgil grinned at me and said, “Got nothing else to do.”

We rented Mrs. Redmond a buggy at the livery stable and rode out with her to her husband’s ranch. A hundred yards or so upslope from the ranch we stopped.

“You go on down,” Virgil said.

She didn’t say anything, but her face was tight and there was no color in it.

“Go ahead,” Virgil said. “We’ll be right here.”

She chucked to the horse and slapped the reins and the buggy went on down the easy slope to the ranch. As she got there the kids came out of the house and stood on the front porch. When the buggy stopped, the kids stared at their mother without moving. She said something to them, and after a moment they climbed into the buggy. The four of us sat our horses in a row on the hillside and watched. Rose on the left, Cato next to him, me, and Virgil on the right. Redmond never showed himself.

Mrs. Redmond sat in the buggy with her children for maybe an hour. The four of us sat our horses on the slope and watched. Then the kids climbed down and went to stand on the porch. The buggy turned slowly and started back up the slope. The kids watched as it went. When it reached us, she was crying.

“They want to know when I’m coming home,” she said. “They want to know when I’m going to stop being bad. They want to know if I’m mad at them. They want to know if Daddy is mad at me.”

Nobody said anything. We wheeled our horses in behind the buggy and rode in silence back to town.

“How’s that mare doing,” Virgil said to the stableman while he helped Mrs. Redmond down from the carriage.

“Good, Mr. Cole. Swelling’s way down.”

“Keep an eye on her,” Virgil said.

“You bet, Mr. Cole.”

We delivered Mrs. Redmond to her hotel room and then went into the saloon. Wolfson was waiting for us.

“Well, here it is,” Wolfson said. “The fucking pistolero benevolent society. I hire you to take care of beat-up women and old nags, for crissake?”

“You hire us to keep the peace for you,” Rose said.

He spread his hands to encompass the saloon and the street in front of it.

“Look how peaceful,” he said.

Wolfson nodded.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I know. But sometimes I’m not so sure whether you work for me or I work for you.”

“We’re in this together, Amos,” Virgil said. “We all got collaborative goals.”

“’Less I don’t pay you,” Wolfson said.

“That might change things,” Rose said. “Right, Cato?”

“Sure,” Cato said.

“Well if you ain’t too busy with your fucking charity work,” Wolfson said, “maybe you’ll be good enough to ride out with me in the morning and foreclose on a bean wrangler.”

“Can’t pay his bill?” Virgil said.

“That’s right, so I’m taking his ranch in lieu.”

“Anybody we know?” I said.

“It ain’t Redmond, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That’s what I was asking,” I said.