“But the hit squad won’t take the job unless they’re positive they can do it without getting shot or caught themselves.”

“Right again,” said Leonard.

“And in this case, the hit squad has already killed six out of the twelve of us. So, they’re probably right—they can kill all of us.”

“That’s a worry,” Joe Lambert said.

Lee Wolf went on. “So, the best thing for us is to assume that waiting for them to come and kill each of us isn’t a great idea.” He looked around and saw the others nodding. “Nor is going out after them.”

“What?” Holliman was shocked. “What is a good idea then?”

“Going after the customer who hired them. That’s the enemy, our real problem. Not which group of killers got hired, but the person doing the hiring. The killers don’t give the remotest shit about us. They won’t kill us for nothing. If they don’t think they’ll get paid, they won’t do it at all. We have to go after the employer.”

“But we don’t know who that is,” said McKinney.

“Oh, yeah,” Wolf said. “I think we do.”

“Who?”

“Let’s think about it. What did the twelve of us do? We killed about twenty guards, all of them locals from Weldonville. We took their clothes and their cars and drove into town. We raised as much hell as we could there—stealing, raping, killing. We caused as much harm and confusion as we could, so no cops in town or coming to town would know where to go first or what to do. Then we all got out of there in time to be gone before the inmates on foot could reach the place. They didn’t have any choice. They had to steal and cause trouble, because they didn’t have cars, or civilian clothes, or money, or food, or even water. A lot of people got killed, including some of them.”

“So, you think it’s somebody in Weldonville?”

“When I hear somebody wants to kill me, I think back on my life. I’ve got people all over the country who would love to see me dead. I’m sure you do too. But if I think about who would be willing to pay a first-rate hit squad to get all twelve of us, there’s only those folks in Weldonville, Colorado—those widows, orphans, and childless parents we made that way. And the fact that they hired killers to get us is their recognition that they can’t do it themselves. We have nothing to fear from them. We know we can hurt them, kill them if we want. We’ve done it before.”

Lonny Mann said, “That makes sense.”

“I’ll go for it,” McKinney said. “It’s better than sitting in my house flinching every time I hear a sound in the yard or see a car go by too slow.”