"Headed for Denver, I guess," Call said.

Dan Suggs they left hanging. Augustus took one of the circulars and wrote "Dan Suggs, Man Burner and Horse Thief" on the back of it. He rode over and pinned the sign to Dan Suggs's shirt.

"That way if a lawman comes looking for him he'll know he can quit the search," Augustus said.

They rounded up Wilbarger's horses and unhitched the two mules that had been pulling the little wagon. Augustus wanted to take the white rabbits, but the cage was awkward to carry. Finally Deets put two in his saddlebags, and Augustus took the other two. He also sampled the patent medicines and took several bottles of it.

"What do you think it will cure, Gus?" Pea Eye asked.

"Sobriety, if you guzzle enough of it," Augustus said. "I expect it's just whiskey and syrup."

The wagon itself was in such poor repair that they decided to leave it sit. Call broke up the tailgate and made a little marker for Jake's grave, scratching his name on it with a pocketknife by the light of the old man's lantern. He hammered the marker into the loose-packed dirt with the blunt side of a hatchet they had found in the wagon. Augustus trotted over, bringing Call his mare.

"I'm tired of justice, ain't you?" he asked.

"Well, I wish he hadn't got so careless about his company," Call said. "It was that that cost him."

"Life works out peculiar," Augustus said. "If he hadn't talked you into making this trip, we wouldn't have had to hang him today. He could be sitting down in Lonesome Dove, playing cards with Wanz."

"On the other hand, it was gambling brought him down," Call said. "That's what started it."

Deets and Pea Eye and Newt held the little horse herd. Newt was leading the horse Jake had left him. He didn't know if it was right to get on him so soon after Jake's death.

"You can ride the pacing pony," Deets said. "Mister Jake meant you to have it."

"What will I do with his saddle?" Newt asked. "He didn't say anything about the saddle."

"It's better than that old singletree of yours," Pea Eye said. "Take it-Jake's through with it."

"Don't neither of you want it?" Newt asked. It bothered him to take it, for Jake hadn't mentioned it.

"Oh, no," Deets said. "Saddle goes with the horse, I guess."

Nervous and a little reluctant, Newt got on Jake's horse. The stirrups were too long for him, but Deets got down and quickly adjusted them. As he was finishing the lacing, Call and Augustus rode by. Deets took the bridle off Newt's other horse and turned him, still saddled, into the horse herd. No one seemed to have anything to say.

They started Wilbarger's horses west across the dark prairie in the direction the cattle should be. Captain Call led, Augustus and Deets rode to the sides, and Pea Eye and Newt brought up the rear. Newt had to admit that Jake's horse had a beautiful smooth gait, but even so he wished he hadn't changed horses-not so soon. It seemed wrong to be enjoying Jake's horse, and his fine saddle too, after what had happened. But he was tired, so tired he didn't even feel the sadness for very long. Soon his head dropped and he sat on the pacing gelding, sound asleep. Pea Eye noticed and trotted close beside him so he could catch the weary boy if he started to fall off.

CLARA WAS MILKING A MARE when Sally, her oldest girl, came racing down to the lots.

"Somebody's coming, Ma," Sally said, excitement in her face. Sally was ten years old and sociable-she loved visitors.

The young mare had dropped her foal early and the colt was too weak to stand up, which was why she was milking. The colt would suck milk off a rag, and Clara was determined to save it if she could. When Sally ran up, the mare flinched, causing Clara to squirt a stream of milk along her own arm.

"Haven't I told you to walk up to horses?" Clara said. She stood up and wiped the milk off her dripping arm.

"I'm sorry, Ma," Sally said, more excited than sorry. "See, there's a wagon coming."

Then Betsey, only seven, came flying out of the house, her brown hair streaming, and raced down to the corrals. Betsey liked company as much as her sister.

"Who's coming?" she asked.

The wagon was barely visible coming along the Platte from the west.

"I thought I told you girls to churn," Clara said. "Seems like all you do is hang out the window watching for travelers."

Of course, no one could blame them, for company was rare. They lived twenty miles from town, and a bad town at that-Ogallala. If they went in, it was usually for church, but they seldom made the trip. Their company mostly consisted of men who came to trade horses with Bob, her husband, and now that he was injured, few came. They had just as many horses-more, in fact-and Clara knew more about them than Bob had ever learned, but there were few men disposed to bargain with a woman, and Clara was not disposed to give their horses away. When she named a price she meant it, but usually men got their backs up and wouldn't buy.

"I expect they're just buffalo hunters," Clara said, watching the distant wagon creep over the brown plains. "You girls won't learn much from them, unless you're interested in learning how to spit tobacco."

"I ain't," Betsey said.

"You aren't, you mean," Sally said. "I thought all the buffalo were dead-how come they still hunt them?"

"Because people are slow learners, like your sister," Clara said, grinning at Betsey to mitigate the criticism.

"Are you gonna invite them for the night?" Sally asked. "Want me to kill a hen?"

"Not just yet, they may not be in the mood to stop," Clara said. "Besides, you and I don't agree about hens. You might kill one of the ones I like."

"Mother, they're just to eat," Sally said.

"Nope. I keep those hens to talk to me when I'm lonesome," Clara said. "I'll only eat the ones who can't make good conversation." Betsey wrinkled up her nose, amused by the comment. "Oh, Ma," she said, "hens don't talk."

"They talk," Clara said. "You just don't understand hen talk. I'm an old hen myself and it makes good sense to me."

"You ain't old, Ma," Sally said.

"That wagon won't be here for an hour," Clara said. "Go see about your pa. His fever comes up in the afternoon. Wet a rag and wipe his face."

Both girls stood looking at her silently. They hated to go into the sickroom. Both of them had bright-blue eyes, their legacy from Bob, but their hair was like hers and they were built like her, even to the knobby knees. Bob had been kicked in the head by a mustang he was determined to break, against Clara's advice. She had seen it happen-he had the mare snubbed to a post with a heavy rope and only turned his back on her for a second. But the mare struck with her front feet, quick as a snake. Bob had bent over to pick up another rope and the kick had caught him right back of the ear. The crack had sounded like a shot. The mare pawed him three or four times before Clara could reach him and drag him out of the way, but those blows had been minor. The kick behind the ear had almost killed him. They had been so sure he would die that they even dug the grave, up on the knoll east of the house where their three boys were buried: Jim and Jeff and Johnny, the three deaths Clara felt had turned her heart to stone: she hoped for stone, anyway, for stone wouldn't suffer from such losses.

Bob, though, hadn't died-neither had he recovered. His eyes were open, but he could neither speak nor move. He could swallow soup, if his head was tilted a certain way, and it was chicken broth that had kept him alive the three months since his accident. He simply lay staring up with his large blue eyes, feverish sometimes but mostly as still as if he were dead. He was a large man, over two hundred pounds, and it took all her strength to move him and clean him every day-he had no control over bowels or bladder. Day after day Clara removed the soiled bedclothes, stuffing them in a washtub she filled beforehand from the cistern. She never let the girls see or help her with the operation; she supposed Bob would die in time, and she didn't want his daughters to feel disgust for him, if she could prevent it. She only sent them in once a day to bathe his face, hoping that the sight of them would bring him out of his state.