"I expect we'll just have to do without the caulking," Call said. "Just load the coffin in the wagon and bring it to the house. I believe it would be best to get this burying done." Then he followed Gus, who was walking slowly. Ahead, a knot of women stood around the back porch of the Coleman house. Call looked for Maggie but didn't see her at first.

When he did spot her she was not with the women on the porch--they were respectable women, of course.

Maggie sat alone on the steps going up to her rooms. She had her face in her hands and her shoulders were shaking.

"Mag's upset," Gus said. "I expect one of these old church biddies ran her off from the mourning." "I expect," Call said. "Maggie's close to Pearl. She took the arrows out of her after the raid, she said. The doctor was busy with the serious wounds." When Call walked over and asked Maggie if one of the ladies had been rude to her, Maggie shook her head. She looked up at him, her face wet with tears.

"It's just so hard, Woodrow," she said.

"It's just so hard." "Well, but there's easy times, too," Call said awkwardly; he immediately felt he had said something wrong. He could never come up with the right ^ws, when Maggie cried. His remark was true enough-- there were easy times--but the day of Long Bill's death was not one of them.

Not for me, Maggie wanted to say, when he mentioned easy times. She wanted to go be with Pearl Coleman, but she couldn't, because of her position.

It was hard, not easy, but there was no point in trying to make Woodrow understand how hard it was for her.

"It's sunny, at least," Call said.

"Bill hung himself on a mighty pretty day." That didn't sound right either, although it was true: the day was brilliant.

To his dismay, Maggie began to cry all the harder. He didn't know whether it was the standoffish women, or Long Bill's death, or his ill-chosen remarks. He had thought to comfort her, but he didn't know how. He stood awkwardly by the steps, feeling that he would have been wiser just to go along with Gus and see that Bill was wrapped up proper and ready for the coffin.

"Hush, Woodrow, you don't have to talk," Maggie said, grateful that he had come to stand beside her. It was the first time he had done such a thing, when there were people watching.

Just then the rangers came around the corner with the coffin in the wagon. Old Ikey Ripple, who had once pestered Maggie endlessly, drove the wagon. The other rangers rode behind the wagon.

All of them saw Call standing by Maggie at the bottom of the steps.

"I best go--w you be coming?" Call asked.

"Yes, I'll follow along," Maggie said, surprised that he asked.

There was green spring grass in the little graveyard when they buried Long Bill Coleman. Trees were leafing out, green on the distant slopes; fine clear sunlight shone on the mourners; mockingbirds sang on after the hymn singing stopped and the mound of red dirt was shovelled back in the grave. Maggie, fearing censure, hadn't followed very close. Pearl Coleman, bereft, heaved her deep cow sobs throughout the brief service.

"I'm a poor talker, you talk over him," Call whispered to Augustus, when the time had come for someone to speak a few ^ws over the departed.

Augustus McCrae stood so long in thought that Call was afraid he wouldn't find it in him to speak. But Gus, hat in hand, finally looked up at the little crowd.

"It's too pretty a day to be dying, but Long Bill's dead and that's that," he said. "I recall that he liked that scripture about the green pastures--it's spring weather and there'll be green grass growing over him soon." He paused a minute, fumbling with his hat.

When he spoke again he had some trouble controlling his voice.

"Billy, he was a fine pard, let's go home," he said finally.

Pearl Coleman had a brother, Joel, who was stout like her. Joel helped his sobbing sister back down the path toward town. The ladies who liked Pearl and had come to support her in her hour of grief followed the brother and sister away. The other townspeople trickled away in twos and threes but the rangers were reluctant to leave. In the heat of battle they had surrendered many comrades to death, often having no opportunity to bury them or take note of their passing at all. But this death had not occurred in battle; it occurred because Long Bill, a man who had been stouthearted through much violent strife, wanted it.

"I wish we'd had time to caulk the coffin," Ikey Ripple said. "I expect it'll be worms and maggots for Billy, pretty soon." The others cast hard glances at him, causing Ikey to conclude that his views were not appreciated. He decided to seek a saloon, and was joined in his search by Lee Hitch and Stove Jones, men disposed to overlook his views of worms and maggots.

"Reckon Bill would change his mind, if he had a chance to?" Gus asked Call. They were the last to leave, although Pea Eye was not far from them on the path.

Call had been asking himself the same question all day. The last conversation he had had with Long Bill Coleman had been a casual one about the relative merits of mares and geldings, as saddle horses. Long Bill argued for geldings, as being more stable; Call argued for mares, for their alertness. Long Bill talked fondly of a horse he had favored in earlier years, a sorrel gelding named Sugar who had carried him safely on many patrols. Call reminded Bill of a time when Sugar had shied at a badger and run away with him. They had a chuckle, remembering the runaway.

It had been an easy conversation about horses, of the sort he had often had with Long Bill over the years. Sugar grew old and had to be put out to pasture, but Long Bill, from time to time, would have another gelding whose virtues he would brag about, just as Call, from time to time, would acquire an exceptional mare. They would often talk about horses, he and Bill--whatever troubles might be elsewhere in their lives never dampened their interest in the pleasure to be had with good horses.

"He can't change his mind, Gus--x's foolish to even think that way," Call said.

"Gone is gone." "I know it," Gus said--yet he could not stop wondering about Long Bill. In the saloon the night before Long Bill had seemed somber, but not more somber than he had been on many a night.

Augustus couldn't get the business of hanging out of his mind. Hanging wasn't simple, like shooting oneself. Shooting he could imagine. A momentary hopelessness, such as he himself had felt several times since Clara's marriage, could cause a man to grab a pistol and send a bullet into his brain. A few seconds, rushing by so fast they gave one no time for second thoughts, would allow a man to end the matter.