“It’s the same thing. I back your play, no matter what.”

“When you put it that way,” Pritchard said, “I guess it is about right or wrong. Just seemed wrong to me, a man keeping a little girl on a tether, like a dog.”

“Are we still good men, Samuel?”

“What’s a good man these days, Ditch? My pa was a good man. He was the best man I ever knew. He was honest, and fair, and he never tried to take undue advantage of anyone.”

“He was a damned honorable man,” Ditch agreed, “and then some.”

“You know what his noble intentions got him?” Pritchard said. “Beaten, shot, and strung up like gutted venison. His wife was made to take up with the man who killed him, his daughter has to grow up watching it, and his only son was skull-shot and buried like a fevered hog.”

“I know,” Ditch said. “I’m sorry for what befell your family.” He took a slug, winced, and handed the bottle to Pritchard.

“The difference between me and Pa,” Pritchard went on, “is he saw folks as he wanted them to be. He always looked for the good in them. I used to be like that, too. Now I see folks as they are. I don’t try to look into their hearts. I watch their hands, instead. It’s a man’s hands, not his heart, that’ll kill you.”

“Speaking of hands,” Ditch said, “you sure are gettin’ fast with those pistols.”

“I aim to get a lot faster,” Pritchard said.

“Just don’t let your guns get ahead of you,” Ditch said. “Don’t let ’em change who you are.”

“I ain’t sure I know anymore,” Pritchard said. He took a drink of whiskey. “I was dead, buried, and resurrected, remember? Hell, you’re the fella who dug me up.”

“I remember,” Ditch said, thinking of the shadow Pritchard brought out of the grave with him. He took another swig.

* * *

At sunrise, Pritchard and Ditch fed the girl breakfast and gave her a ten-dollar gold coin. They mounted up and rode into Mount Ida. They stopped at the church, which was the tallest building in town.

When they reached the church, Ditch helped the girl off her horse while Pritchard knocked at the pastor’s cottage. A middle-aged woman in an apron answered the door with flour on her hands.

“Good morning, ma’am,” Pritchard said. “My name’s Joe Atherton. Me and my friend found this young lady on the road, in a terrible state. I believe, on account of she doesn’t speak, that she’s suffered greatly. We were afraid worse men than us might find her alone and take advantage, so we brought her here. We didn’t know what else to do.”