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“Dammit, Em! You’re going to wait for the deputy!” I knew I was talking, but it didn’t sound like me. “You’re going to wait for the deputy whether you like it or not!”

Emmett just stared back and I felt like running for the door. Emmett stood there alone like a rock you couldn’t budge and then Ben Templin was beside him with his hand on Em’s arm, but not just resting it there, holding the forearm hard. His other hand was on his pistol butt.

“Charlie’s right, Em,” Ben said. “I’m not sure how you got us this far, or why, but ain’t you or God Almighty going to hang those boys by yourself.”

They stood there, those two big men, their faces not a foot apart, not telling a thing by their faces, but you got the feeling if one of them moved the livery would collapse like a twister hit it.

Finally Emmett blinked his eyes, and moved his arm to make Ben let go.

“All right, Ben.” It was just above a whisper and sounded tired. “We’ve all worked together a long time and have always agreed—if it was a case of letting you in on the agreeing. We won’t change it now.”

Gosh came out from behind the horses. Disappointed and mad. He moved right up close to Emmett. “You going to let this woman—”

That was all he got a chance to say. Emmett swung his fist against that bony tobacco bulge and Gosh flattened against the board wall before sliding down into a heap.

Emmett started to walk out the front and then he turned around. “We’re waiting on the deputy until tomorrow morning. If he don’t show by then, this party takes up where it left off.”

He angled out the door toward the Senate House, still the boss. The hardheaded Irishman’s pride had to get the last word in whether he meant it or not.

THE DEPUTY got back late that night. You could see by his face that he hadn’t gotten what he’d gone for. Emmett stayed in his room at the Senate House, but Ben Templin and I were waiting at the jail when the deputy returned—though I don’t know what we would have done if he hadn’t—with two bottles of the yellowest mescal you ever saw to ease his saddle sores and dusty throat.

We told him how we’d put three of our boys in his jail—just a scare, you understand—when they’d got drunk and thought it’d be fun to run off with a few head of stock. Just a joke on the owner, you understand. And Emmett Ryan, the ramrod, being one of them’s brother, he had to act tougher than usual, else the boys’d think he was playing favorites. Like him always giving poor Jack the wildest broncs and making him ride drag on the trail drives.

Em was always a little too serious, anyway. Of course, he was a good man, but he was a big, red-faced Irishman who thought his pride was a stone god to burn incense in front of. And hell, he had enough troubles bossing the TX crew without getting all worked up over his brother getting drunk and playing a little joke on the owners—you been drunk like that, haven’t you, Sheriff? Hell, everybody has. A sheriff with guts enough to work in Bill Bonney’s country had more to do than chase after drunk cowpokes who wouldn’t harm a fly. And even if they were serious, what’s a few cows to an outfit that owns a quarter million?

And along about halfway down the second bottle—So why don’t we turn the joke around on old Em and let the boys out tonight? We done you a turn by getting rid of Joe Anthony. Old Em’ll wake up in the morning and be madder than hell when he finds out, and that will be some sight to see.

The deputy could hardly wait.

In the morning it was Ben who had to tell Em what happened. I was there in body only, with my head pounding like a pulverizer. The deputy didn’t show up at all.

We waited for Emmett to fly into somebody, but he just looked at us, from one to the next. Finally he turned toward the livery.

“Let’s go take the cows home,” was all he said.

Not an hour later we were looking down at the flats along the Pecos where the herd was. Neal Whaley was riding toward us.

Emmett had been riding next to me all the way out from Anton Chico. When he saw Neal, he broke into a gallop