At Red Rock, Bob dismounted and gave me the bridle reins, worked the lock on the depot door, and walked around to the side porch. He leaned into the window glass, cupping his eyes, then walked to the rear of the depot and looked hard through that window. He saw an uneven table with a kerosene lamp and four yellowing newspapers, also an oak fence and gate and the telegraph key, another cold lamp, a grilled ticket counter, and the edge of an oak desk. He had a feeling the depot wasn’t vacant, that a station attendant was crouched down behind the grill or in the cubbyhole of the desk. He pressed his ear to the glass and closed his eyes and walked down the road to me and his horse. He forked his saddle and gingered his horse into backing up to the dark of a cottonwood tree. “Let’s be a little secret why don’t we, and not get illuminated.”

I looked over my shoulder and danced my mare back; the others did the same; and Grat jogged back from his walk along the railroad tracks, scratching the knuckles of his hand. “I think I heard the train.”

Bob smiled. “That right? Then it’s early.”

Pierce said, “I think you’re speculatin’, Grat.”

I asked, “Nobody home, Bob?”

“I haven’t figured out just what the peculiarity is. Maybe the attendant is having supper.”

Bitter Creek took out a tin of tobacco and pinched some under his lip, while left of him Grat took every bullet out of his pistol chamber and pressed them back in again.

Bob said, “Don’t be too disappointed if we let this opportunity go by.”

Broadwell questioned Powers in whispers about that, but Powers didn’t react. Doolin bit his pipe and leaned over his saddle horn to glower at Bob but he didn’t say a word. Grat let some brown soup of tobacco cud drop out of his cheek to the dirt. It sounded like marbles hitting the road.

In Kingfisher, the federal judge had already retired in disgust to his room. The fifth district’s prosecutor swirled Madeira in a snifter and listened to my brother Bill entertain. (Whenever I tune the radio to NBC and hear Jack Haley joke on the Maxwell House Show Boat, I think of Bill and smile. He had real zest with people.) After some stories for Madsen and the lawyer, Bill began rather loudly noticing women: “Wow, what about the galloons on that one!” or “I bet her legs go all the way up to her playground. How about it, prosecutor?”

The attorney banged his snifter down on the coffee table and pulled himself up from the sofa. “Marshal, it’s nine-thirty.” He bowed toward Madsen, glanced some disdain at my brother, and walked across the green carpet of the lobby.

“He’s free to disagree,” said Bill. “He didn’t have to go off and pout.”