"I can't read a dern track," Pea Eye said. "Never could. But Deets can read 'em easier than I could read a newspaper. I guess it's Jake. It'd be a pity if it's us that has to hang him," he added, a little later.

"We couldn't," Newt said, startled. It had not dawned on him that Jake could have put himself in that bad a position.

Pea Eye looked at him, an unhappy expression on his face. It was unusual for Pea to change expressions. Usually he just looked puzzled.

"The Captain would hang you, if he caught you with a stolen horse," Pea Eye said. "So would Gus."

A few hours later they came upon the dead settlers, still hanging, shreds of charred clothes clinging to their bodies. A coyote was tug ging at the foot of one of them, trying to pull the body down. It ran when the party approached. Newt wanted to be sick again, but had nothing in his stomach. He had never expected to see anything more awful than the buzzard-torn bodies they had buried that morning, and yet it was still the same day and already there was a worse sight. It seemed the farther they went through the plains, the worse things got.

"Those boys are bad ones, whoever they are," Augustus said. "Hung those poor bastards and burned them too."

Call had ridden in for a closer look. "No," he said. "Shot 'em, then hung 'em, then burned them."

They cut the men down and buried them in one grave.

"Hell, gravediggers could make a fortune in these parts," Augustus said. "Pea, you ought to buy you a bigger spade and go in business."

"No, I'll pass, Gus," Pea Eye said mildly. "I'd rather dig wells."

Call was thinking of Jake-that a man who had ridden with them so long could let such a thing happen. Of course he was outnumbered, but it was no excuse. He could have fought or run, once he saw the caliber of his companions.

Deets had ridden on, to evaluate the trail. They overtook him a few hours later. His face was sad.

"They're close," he said. "Stopped at a creek."

"Probably stopped to baptize one another," Augustus said. "Did you see 'em, or just smell 'em?"

"I seen 'em," Deets said. "Four men."

"What about Jake?" Call asked.

"He's one," Deets said.

"Are they just watering the stock, or have they camped?" Call wanted to know.

"They're camped," Deets said. "They killed somebody in a wagon and he had whiskey."

"More work for the gravediggers," Augustus said, checking his rifle. "We better go challenge them before they wipe out Kansas."

Pea Eye and Newt were left with the horses. Deets led Call and Augustus on foot for a mile. They crept up the crest of a ridge and saw Wilbarger's horses grazing three or four miles away on the rolling prairie. Between them and the horse herd was a steep banked creek. A small wagon was stopped on the near bank, and four men were lounging on their saddle blankets. One of the men was Jake Spoon. The corpse of the man who had been driving the wagon lay some fifty yards away. The men on the blankets were amusing themselves by shooting their pistols at the buzzards that attempted to approach the corpse. One man, annoyed at missing with his pistol, picked up a rifle and knocked over a buzzard.

"They're cocky, I'd say," Call said. "They don't even have a guard."

"Well, they've killed the whole population of this part of the country except us, and we're just wandering through," Augustus said.

"Let's wait awhile," Call said. "When they're good and drunk we'll come along the creek bed and surprise 'em."

Augustus watched for a few minutes. "I hope Jake makes a fight," he said.

"He can't fight, and you know it," Call said.

"The point is, I'd rather shoot him than hang him," Augustus said.

"I wouldn't relish hanging him," Call said. "But there he is."

He walked back and explained the situation to Pea Eye and Newt. There was nothing they need do except bring the horses fast when they heard shooting.

"Jake with them?" Pea Eye asked.

"He's there," Call said. "It's a bad situation, but he put himself in it."

They waited until late afternoon, when the sun was angling down toward the horizon. Then, walking a wide circle to the east, they struck the creek a mile below where the men were camped and walked quietly up the creek bed. The banks were high and made a perfect shelter. They saw three horses watering at the creek, and Call feared the animals would give them away, but the horses were not alarmed.

Soon they heard the faint talk of the men-they were still lounging on their saddle blankets.

Call, in the lead, crept a little closer.

"Let's stay the night," he heard a man say. "I'm too full of liquor to be chousing horses in the dark."

"It'll sober you up," another voice said. "It's cooler traveling at night."

"Why travel?" the first man said. "Some more wagons might come along and we could rob 'em. It's easier than banks."

"Eddie, you're as lazy as Jake," the second voice said. "Neither one of you pulls your weight in this outfit."

"I'd have to be quick to beat you at killing people, Dan," little Eddie said.

Call and Augustus looked at one another. Dan Suggs was the name Wilbarger had mentioned-he had called his killers accurately.

Jake was lying on his saddle blanket feeling drunk and depressed. Dan Suggs had shot the old man driving the wagon at a hundred yards' distance, without even speaking to him. Dan had been hiding in the trees along the creek, so the old man died without even suspecting that he was in danger. He only had about thirty dollars on him, but he had four jugs of whiskey, and they were divided equally, although Dan claimed he ought to have two for doing the shooting. Jake had been drinking steadily, hoping he would get so drunk the Suggses would just go off and leave him. But he knew they wouldn't. For one thing, he had eight hundred dollars on him, won in poker games in Fort Worth, and if Dan Suggs didn't know it, he certainly suspected it. They wouldn't leave him without robbing him, or rob him without killing him, so for the time being his hope was to ride along and not rile Dan.

He had been lying flat down, for he felt very weary, but he raised up on his elbow to take another swig from the jug, and he and little Eddie saw the three men at the same moment: three men with leveled rifles, standing on the riverbank with the sun at a blinding angle right behind them. Jake had taken off his gun belt-he couldn't rest comfortably with it on. Little Eddie had his pistol on and grabbed for it, but a rifle cracked and a bullet took him in the shoulder and kicked him back off the saddle blanket.

Dan and Roy Suggs were sitting with their backs to the creek, each with a jug between their legs. They were caught cold, their rifles propped on their saddles well out of reach.

"Sit still, boys," Call said, as soon as the crack of the shot died. Deets, who had the best angle, had shot little Eddie.

Dan Suggs leaped to his feet and turned to see the bright sun glinting on three rifle barrels.

"Who are you?" he asked. "We're horse traders, so hold your damn fire."

He realized it would be suicide to draw and decided a bluff was his best chance, though the shock, plus the whiskey he had just drunk, made him unsteady for a moment. It was a moment too long, for a black man with a rifle stepped behind him and lifted his pistol. Roy Suggs was sitting where he was, his mouth open, too surprised even to move. Little Eddie lay flat on his back, stunned by his shoulder wound.

Augustus took little Eddie's pistol as he stepped over him, and in a moment had Roy's. Deets got the rifles. Call kept his gun trained right on Dan Suggs, who, because of the sun, still could not see clearly whom he faced.

Deets, with a downcast look, picked up Jake's gun belt.

"Why, Deets, do you think I'd shoot you?" Jake asked, though he knew too well where he stood, and if he had moved quicker would have shot, whatever the cost. A clean bullet was better than a scratchy rope, and his old partners could shoot clean when they wanted to.