We broke from trot to canter at the limits of the town and our horses threw their nozzles up, clicking the bit with their tongues. Grat was so excited about our intentions that he couldn’t bring himself to slow, so he galloped ahead and backed his horse up to the store and waited, his flop hat wadded in his hand. There wasn’t any cover near there, because it was wheat and grass and bicycle country, but we wore what we had at Leliaetta—black raincoats, black hats, blue bandanas—so we were unseen as we stood our horses stock-still on the main street of town about fifty yards from the trestle: eight strong and violent and unafraid men, the largest bunch we ever were. Doolin and Pierce shared a pouch of Bull Durham tobacco and used the same match on their pipes. Newcomb rolled the long sleeves of his raincoat up. Twenty miles west I could see rain hanging from thunderheads. Lightning was crooked out of the purple clouds; then it flashed in threes, each split like divining rods, and all I could hear was the slightest grumble of noise, as if an old boarder were reading aloud in his room.

At that time in Kingfisher, my brother Bill strolled into a hotel lobby with his hands in his pockets, a green cigar in his mouth. That afternoon a grand jury from the fifth judicial district had questioned sixteen local men regarding the whereabouts of Bob and Emmett Dalton and asked each to confirm or deny the rumor that Grat was back in the territories. The jury got nary a word from those storekeepers and farmers. Bill had a list of every name and he wasn’t shy about knocking on doors and reminding folks of gifts and favors and of how surly and cross we could get. And he’d grin at the witnesses as he was grinning when he plumped himself down on the gold satin couch across from Chris Madsen and the federal judge and the federal prosecutor. He rolled his cigar to a cheek and folded his arms and smiled largely at each man. “Well. It’s nine o’clock and we’ve got nothing to do. Why don’t we play charades?”