"Sure, I'm afraid of you, Tolan. I'm not used to being around men who'd do to a woman what you did to poor Cassie. I'll do anything I need to in order to make sure you're still here in the morning."
Tolan grinned again. "I knew you was scared. You always try to act so cool. But you're scared. You know what we'll do to you if you give us half a chance."
Rooney said, "Sometimes, Tolan here likes to hear himself talk. I'm afraid I'm guilty of that myself. Sometimes."
"Go to sleep," Prine said.
"God, those feet of yours stink, Tolan," Rooney said. "I can smell them way over here."
"Don't start on me, Rooney. I could still smash your face in even with these cuffs on."
"Both of you shut up," Prine said.
He went over and poured more coffee into the tin cup. He sat staring into the fire, thinking of so many things and yet nothing at all.
"Who gets first watch?" Neville said as the clouds sprawled golden and gray and wine-colored behind the snowy mountain peaks.
"I do," Prine said. "I also get the second."
"What the hell're you talking about?"
"What I'm talking about is no way am I leaving you alone with those two."
"You don't want to make an enemy of me, Prine. You've got to live in Claybank when this is all over."
"So do you," Prine said. "I'm sorry about your sister, and I'd just as soon return the favor and cut those two up same as they cut Cassie up. But I take my job serious, Neville. I'm bringing them in alive. So you might as well take advantage of it and get yourself some sleep."
Prine went over and checked the prisoners out. They still didn't talk much, not even to each other.
They just watched him as he checked their handcuffs.
"You don't let him at us," Rooney said.
"That sonofabitch is crazy," Tolan said.
"Yeah?" Prine said. "Well, if he is crazy, I wonder who made him that way? Most regular gents do go a little crazy when two pieces of shit like you murder their sister."
"I want to see Daly," Rooney said.
"He won't go any easier on you," Prine said. "He'll probably even hang you two personally. He liked Cassie. Everybody did. Now, shut up and go to sleep. We'll be rollin' out of here just after five."
Neville made his peace with his bedroll and the ground, which was still damp from last night's rain.
Prine sat nearby on a rock. He kept the fire going. He also kept swigging coffee. Staying up all night was never easy.
"Thanks for that, Prine."
"For what?"
"For calling them pieces of shit like that. I was afraid you were forgetting about Cassie."
"All I was doing was remembering that I have to bring them in alive unless they do something."
"Well, thanks. I appreciate it anyway."
Full night came, inking the sky, darkening the shapes of trees and foothills and the land itself. After a time, the world around him seemed unreal. Only the fire and the three men lying around it existed.
The rest of the world was darkness, full of life noises and sometimes death noises, those odd quick struggles of night creatures.
The fire wasn't up to keeping him warm. Most of the wood had been burned up. He kept telling himself he needed to get up and find some more wood. But he couldn't escape his thoughts, a sort of reverie. He needed to talk to Daly and set it all straight. If there was prison time ahead, so be it. Then he wanted to talk to Lucy and see if she'd take him back.
He had just started to lean in for some more coffee when the rock hit him. There was just time enough to see the impossible—Tolan on his feet, one handcuff dangling free from his wrist, a fist-sized rock in his hand. And then the rock being thrown with great speed and efficiency right at him.
Pain registered, and then a confusion of pain, momentary blindness, and a desperate attempt to find his Colt and fire.
Nothingness was the last to come. Cold shooting through his body. Shivering, teeth-chattering cold, a damned good approximation of death. And then a distant sense of himself toppling over, hitting the ground hard enough to jar his teeth.
And then—
Nightbirds. Their cries. Wind. Its creeping coldness. Constriction. Steel on his wrists.
Prine forced his eyes open.
He lay on his side. The fire was out, ash.
Despite the enormous headache that kept pressing him down, he managed to sit up high enough to see Neville's body on the other side of the dead fire. Neville lay flat on his face. Prine couldn't get much detail from here. Was Neville even alive? Was he handcuffed?
Tolan and Rooney. Where the hell were they? What the hell had happened?
The rock. The pain. The blackness.
How Tolan had managed to slip out of his handcuffs was a question for another time. Now the important thing was to go after them.
After he gained his wobbly legs, he found out just how difficult finding them would be. They'd either swatted away Prine and Neville's horses or they'd taken them with them. The horses were gone.
He stumbled across the edge of the ash that had been the fire and dropped to his haunches next to Neville.
"Neville. Wake up, Neville."
Neville had also been handcuffed. A wound showed itself on the side of his forehead. A rock had no doubt hit him, too.
Neville didn't respond. Prine leaned closer, listened for Neville's breathing.
Faint. Ragged. But steady. That was one good sign, anyway.
Prine staggered to his feet and went in search of the coffeepot. He needed some, and so did Neville. He'd drink it cold if he had to.
He staggered toward the coffeepot, scrounged around for the tin cup, found it, and then stumbled back to Neville.
"Neville, Neville, wake up."
He shook him a little with his cuffed hands. He had to be careful. Neville might have had some kind of concussion.
Eventually, Neville turned a mud-streaked profile to Prine. The damned ground really was muddy. "What happened?"
"They had a key."
Neville's rage shed some of his fuzziness. Holding his head miserably, he sat up and said, "That sonofabitch Valdez sold it to him."
"Probably."
"When this is all over, that's the bastard I'm going after. Valdez."
"We're sitting out here in the middle of nowhere, Neville. Your threats sound sort of pathetic since we don't have guns or horses."
"They took our horses?"
"Afraid so."
"What the hell're we going to do?" Neville asked.
"We're not that far away from the Lattimore spread. About a morning's walk."
"That's a hell of a long walk."
Prine shrugged. "You think of a better way of getting there?"
Chapter Seventeen
Prine had either underestimated the length of the walk or overestimated their strength. They moved sluggishly through grazing land, their time not even improving that much when they reached the stage road. They'd had a hard thirty-six hours and it had cost them energy and resolve.
"The only thing that's keeping me going," Neville said several times, "is knowing that they're going to hang soon."
All Prine did was nod. If hatred was the fuel that kept Neville going, so be it. Prine had his own fuel. He wanted to admit what he'd done and try to put his life back together.
At midpoint in their trek, Prine saw a wagon in the distance. He put all his strength into chasing after it, shouting, waving his arms. For nothing. He never came close to reaching it.
For his part, Neville took to standing on large boulders and gazing off into the distance. He looked like a fake Indian in a Wild West show, his hand covering his brow so he could see better, his posture rigid as a pointer's when it spots its prey. It looked dramatic as hell but didn't get them anywhere.