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The black speck grew into a horse and rider, and as they moved up the slope toward the pines the horse and rider became Gosh Hall on his roan. Emmett walked over to meet him, but didn’t say anything. The question was on his broad, red face and he didn’t have to ask it.

Gosh Hall swung down from the saddle and put his hands on the small of his back, arching against the stiffness. “They just rode in,” he said, and walked past the big man to the dead fire. “Who’s got all the coffee?”

Emmett followed him with his eyes and the question was still there. It was something to see that big, plain face with the eyes open wide and staring when before they’d always been half-closed from squinting against the glare of twenty-odd years in open country. Now his face looked too big and loose for the small nose and slit of an Irish mouth. You could see the indecision and maybe a little fear in the wide-open eyes, something that had never been there before.

We’d catch ourselves looking at that face and have to look at something else, quick, or Em would see somebody’s jaw hanging open and wonder what the hell was wrong with him. We felt sorry for Em—I know I did—and it was a funny feeling to all of a sudden see the big TX ramrod that way.

Gosh looked like he had an apron on, standing over the dead fire with his hip cocked and the worn hide chaps covering his short legs. He held the cup halfway to his face, watching Em, waiting for him to ask the question. I thought Gosh was making it a little extra tough on Em; he could have come right out with it. Both of them just stared at each other.

Finally Emmett said, “Jack with them?”

Gosh took a sip of coffee first. “Him and Joe Anthony rode in together, and another man. Anthony and the other man went into the Senate House and Jack took the horses to the livery and then followed them over to the hotel.”

“They see you?”

“Naw, I was down the street under a ramada. All they’d see’d be shadow.”

“You sure it was them, Gosh?” I asked him.

“Charlie,” Gosh said, “I got a picture in my head, and it’s stuck there ’cause I never expected to see one like it. It’s a picture of Jack and Joe Anthony riding into Magenta the same way a month ago. When you see something that’s different or hadn’t ought to be, it sticks in your head. And they was on the same mounts, Charlie.”

Emmett went over to his dun mare and tightened the cinch like he wanted to keep busy and show us everything was going the same. But he was just fumbling with the strap, you could see that. His head swung around a few inches. “Jack look all right?”

Gosh turned his cup upside down and a few drops of coffee trickled down to the ashes at his feet. “I don’t know, Em. How is a man who’s just stole a hundred head of beef supposed to look?”

Emmett jerked his body around and the face was closed again for the first time in a week, tight and redder than usual. Then his jaw eased and his big hands hanging at his sides opened and closed and then went loose. Emmett didn’t have anything to grab. Some of the others were looking at Gosh Hall and probably wondering why the little rider was making it so hard for Em.

Emmett asked him, “Did you see Butzy?”

“He didn’t ride in. I ’magine he’s out with the herd.” Gosh looked around. “Neal still out, huh?”

Neal Whaley had gone in earlier with Gosh, then split off over to where they were holding the herd, just north of Anton Chico. Neal was to watch and tell us if they moved them. Emmett figured they were holding the herd until a buyer came along. There were a lot of buyers in New Mexico who didn’t particularly care what the brand read, but Emmett said they were waiting for a top bid or they would have sold all the stock before this.

Ned Bristol and Lloyd Cohane got up and stretched and then just stood there awkwardly looking at the dead fire, their boots, and each other. Lloyd pulled a blue bandanna from his coat pocket and wiped his face with it, then folded it and straightened it out thin between his fingers before tilting his chin up to tie it around his neck. Ned pushed