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“Is that right?” Timpey said.

Scallen nodded. “Pretty much right.”

“How does he know all about it?”

“He’s got ears and ten fingers to add with.”

“I don’t like it. Why just one man?”

“Every deputy from here down to Bisbee is out trying to scare up the rest of them. Jim here’s the only one we caught,” Scallen explained—then added, “alive.”

Timpey shot a glance at the outlaw. “Is he the one who killed Dick Moons?”

“One of the passengers swears he saw who did it …and he didn’t identify Kidd at the trial.”

Timpey shook his head. “Dick drove for us a long time. You know his brother lives here in Contention. When he heard about it he almost went crazy.” He hesitated, and then said again, “I don’t like it.”

Scallen felt his patience wearing away, but he kept his voice even when he said, “Maybe I don’t either… but what you like and what I like aren’t going to matter a whole lot, with the marshal past Tucson by now. You can grumble about it all you want, Mr. Timpey, as long as you keep it under your breath. Jim’s got friends …andsinceIhavetohaul him clear across the territory, I’d just as soon they didn’t know about it.”

Timpey fidgeted nervously. “I don’t see why I have to get dragged into this. My job’s got nothing to do with law enforcement….”

“You have the room key?”

“In the door. All I’m responsible for is the stage run between here and Tucson—”

Scallen shoved the Winchester at him. “If you’ll take care of this and the horses till I get back, I’ll be obliged to you …and I know I don’t have to ask you not to mention we’re at the hotel.”

He waved the shotgun and nodded and Jim Kidd went ahead of him through the side door into the hotel lobby. Scallen was a stride behind him, holding the stubby shotgun close to his leg. “Up the stairs on the right, Jim.”

Kidd started up, but Scallen paused to glance at the figure in the armchair near the front. He was sitting on his spine with limp hands folded on his stomach and, as Timpey had described, his hat low over the upper part of his face. You’ve seen people sleeping in hotel lobbies before, Scallen told himself, and followed Kidd up the stairs. He couldn’t stand and wonder about it.

Room 207 was narrow and high-ceilinged, with a single window looking down on Commercial Street. An iron bed was placed the long way against one wall and extended to the right side of the window, and along the opposite wall was a dresser with washbasin and pitcher and next to it a rough-board wardrobe. An unpainted table and two straight chairs took up most of the remaining space.

“Lay down on the bed if you want to,” Scallen said.

“Why don’t you sleep?” Kidd asked. “I’ll hold the shotgun.”

The deputy moved one of the straight chairs near to the door and the other to the side of the table opposite the bed. Then he sat down, resting the shotgun on the table so that it pointed directly at Jim Kidd sitting on the edge of the bed near the window.

He gazed vacantly outside. A patch of dismal sky showed above the frame buildings across the way, but he was not sitting close enough to look directly down onto the street. He said, indifferently, “I think it’s going to rain.”

There was a silence, and then Scallen said, “Jim, I don’t have anything against you personally… this is what I get paid for, but I just want it understood that if you start across the seven feet between us, I’m going to pull both triggers at once—without first asking you to stop. That clear?”

Kidd looked at the deputy marshal, then his eyes drifted out the window again. “It’s kinda cold too.” He rubbed his hands together and the three chain links rattled against each other. “The window’s open a crack. Can I close it?”

Scallen’s grip tightened on the shotgun and he brought the barrel up, though he wasn’t aware of it. “If you can reach it from where you’re sitting.”

Kidd looked at the windowsill and said without reaching toward it, “Too far.”

“All right,” Scallen said, rising. “Lay back on the bed.” He worked his gun belt around so that now the Colt was on his left hip.

Kidd went back slowly, smiling. “You don’t take any