“Yep, now I’ll have to be careful that this nag don’t fall on me,” he said. “That’s what the Tulip predicted.”

It was a beautiful breezy morning, marred only by the behavior of Rosy, who kept reaching her head around to nip at my toes. One nip almost removed a couple of them, irritating me so that I whacked her several times with my saddlebag.

“You should have stolen a horse,” Billy said. “Then you wouldn’t have to put up with such an ugly mule.”

“I don’t think I want to give Mr. Isinglass any more excuses to hang me than he already has,” I said.

“I hope we run into the old cud,” Billy said. “He’s another one Snow thinks ought to be killed.”

“I’m sure she does think so,” I said. “If you kill Isinglass and her half-brothers, she’ll be about the richest woman in the world. The whole Whiskey Glass ranch will belong to her.”

I just said it casually, not laboring the point. Of course it was obvious to me that that was why Cecily wanted the half-brothers eliminated. Bug-eyed or not, they were Isinglass’s sons and would stand to inherit a portion of the ranch. And Isinglass was eighty-five. With him dead, and his boys, too, Cecily would be an heiress to rank with any Vanderbilt or Astor.

I didn’t really expect Billy to flinch at that consideration, or even to recognize it, and of course he didn’t.

“She already owns a bunch of houses over in England,” he said. “I guess she’s plenty rich already. She said she might take me to India and buy me an elephant. What do you think them shit-asses in Tularosa would think if I came riding in on an elephant?”

“I think a good many of them would leave town immediately,” I said.

Billy’s spirits continued to rise as we loped across the prairies; and as his rose, mine sank. I could not think of what to do—I didn’t want to continue meekly along on a mission of death. Cecily had made her half-brothers sound like helpless morons. I didn’t want Billy to shoot four morons.

For an hour or two I contemplated turning right the next time Billy turned left. Kansas was not so far away. I could probably strike a wagon trail and make it to some settlement before I starved.