After Pritchard washed up and drank some water, Ditch carefully bandaged his head. He placed him against a tree and covered him with the bedroll. As Pritchard rested, he refilled the hole with dirt, doing his best to replace the scattered leaves and branches that were left by Deputy Crittenden to camouflage the grave. He even placed Deputy Gaines’s cigarette butt back on the mound.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Ditch said, shouldering his rifle and bedroll. “We don’t want to be around if any of Shipley’s men come back to inspect their handiwork. Can you move?”

“I’m pretty woozy,” Pritchard said, “but I guess I’ll have to.”

“Only if you want to stay alive,” Ditch said.

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

“It’s nearly nine o’clock,” Dovie said to Shipley. “You promised to take me out to our place at first light. I must attend to Thomas’s body.”

Dovie stood on the hotel steps. Shipley was seated, along with Sheriff Foster, in a pair of rocking chairs on the hotel porch. They were sipping coffee, smoking cigars, and surveying the town. Shipley was still wearing his Union uniform.

“And you will,” Shipley said to her, “as soon as it’s safe to travel. Sheriff Foster sent out a patrol to make sure the roads are free of Confederate raiders. Isn’t that right, Sheriff?”

“That’s true,” Sheriff Foster said. He pushed back his hat and squinted at three riders, coming toward them down the main street. “Speak of the devil. Here comes the patrol now.”

Deputies Gaines, Crittenden, and Boudroy, his neckerchief wrapped under his chin and tied on top of his head to keep his busted jaw in place, rode up.

“Roads are all clear,” Gaines drawled his report to the sheriff. “No sign of reb raiders.”

“What the hell happened to Boudroy?” Foster asked.

“He let himself get kicked,” Gaines chuckled, displaying his decayed teeth, “by a big, angry, horse.” Boudroy scowled back at him. Crittenden looked sheepish.

“Get him over to Doc Mauldin’s,” Foster said. “Then bring yourselves back here. You two are going to escort Mrs. Pritchard out to her place. Find some men to go along with you to bury her husband.”

“But we ain’t had our breakfast yet,” Deputy Crittenden whined.

“Your breakfast can wait,” Foster said. “Get moving. I want you back here, and ready to go, in five minutes.”

“C’mon, Merle,” Gaines said to Crittenden. He spat a gob of tobacco juice at Dovie’s feet. The three deputies rode off toward the offices of Atherton’s only physician.

“Digging two graves in one day,” Crittenden bellyached when they were out of earshot, “and on an empty stomach, to boot. Sheriff Foster sure can be a son of a bitch sometimes.”

“You can bet things’ll be different,” Gaines said, “when I’m sheriff of this county.”

“Counting your chickens before they’re hatched, ain’t ya?” Crittenden chuckled.