Bob rode across the range with Pierce and Newcomb and they came to the dugout in a September rain that fell so hard it dented hats. Doolin, Powers, Broadwell, and I stood under a cottonwood tree with slickers on and water on our faces or wool blankets draped over our heads. Broadwell had his cat Turtle inside his shirt. He blew cigarette smoke in its face. Amos Burton had gone to Dover the week before to dally with some colored ladies and we never saw him again until 1892.

Bob had on the white slicker he wore when he rustled horses in winter. His hat was so heavy with rain the brim was sunk down past his ears and nose and he had to tilt his head back to see us. He smiled. “How about robbing another train?”

We made a canopy with four tree limbs and a blanket and cooked a pot of Doolin’s herbal tea over a smoking fire. As was the habit with sod huts, mine was dissolving in the rain. Water dripped through the grass and earth of the roof and plunked on the bunks and stove like coffee and coffee grounds. So we squatted outside in the rain and discussed the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad, also known as the MK&T and the Katy. The summer cotton crops were being sold and the money carried to banks in Fort Worth and Dallas. A gang of men could take it, he said. Eugenia had already collected the particulars and would report the next afternoon. Doolin listened for a while, then got out kettles to collect rainwater since the river tasted of gypsum and spoilt his cakes and bread loaves.

The rain wore itself out by the next morning and we spent the afternoon inside a dugout that was crossed with a clothesline of drying socks and shirts and long underwear. Newcomb peeled sweet corn and shook the garden dirt from his onions, green peppers, and lettuce, and spread them out on a table for the feast commemorating our return to the train-stopping business.

I squatted naked on the bank of the Canadian River with a razor and leather strop and a spotted piece of mirror while Bob and Doolin and Powers dunked themselves in the brown water and scrubbed pretty hard with soap. Powers was white as alabaster except for his face and hands; Bob was brown all over from swimming naked with Miss Moore. Dick Broadwell slid naked down the bank, his good clothes folded over his arm, a brush and mug in his right hand. He said, “Lookit Doolin out there staring at his pecker.” He shouted, “What’d’ya doin’, Bill, trolling?”

Doolin smiled. “I can always hope for a nibble.”

Broadwell waited until my razor was next to my lathered cheek; then he slapped me on the thigh. “Emmett, my boy! Good to see ya!”

I said, “You can get sort of wearisome, Dick.”