Bryant limped badly, swinging his leg with each step. He already had his mask up over his nose, which would’ve been a giveaway had anybody been up in the town. He noticed Bob staring at his infirmity and said, “I got the whore disease. My balls are swoll up like fists and my fly is caked green in the morning with pus. Brings tears to my eyes when I piss. They tell me you get suppurating sores and cankers like Bing cherries. I’d want my jaw blown off with a ten-gauge rather than worsen.” He glanced at Bob. “Do you see what I’m saying?”

Bob said, “You tell me when you want it finished and we’ll walk behind the barn together. But don’t do anything stupid just so you can exit under fire.”

Bryant didn’t know what to do with his face so he smiled underneath his bandana.

“Don’t kill anyone, understand? If you want to be shot dead, I’ll do it. I don’t need a murder charge tacked onto everything else.”

He stared at Bryant until he turned. Bryant said, “Hell, I wouldn’t want to offend anybody. Not for anything.”

Bitter Creek and I had walked on to the depot. A male passenger with stains on his clothes was asleep on the varnished bench. A boy who was the night station attendant and telegraph operator, whose name has not survived, was buffing his Sunday shoes. Newcomb asked for the ladle Eugenia had used and walked out to the pump, scouting; I looked at the reward posters for three other men and then a yellowed one for the Daltons. I walked over to the counter and folded my arms and leaned against it. “Pretty quiet,” I said.

The boy looked at the shoe his hand was wearing as he buffed it. “You got your ticket?”

I didn’t answer. Newcomb walked back in, wiping water from his red mustache and goatee, and then the two of us left.

Newcomb said, “I think the lawmen must go to bed here at darn near eight o’clock. Walked all the way down the main street and never even heard a bed squeak.”

I looked down at him and said, “How do you suppose he got to be a ticket agent and not even sixteen years old?”

“Maybe it’s easy, Emmett. Maybe there was a ‘Help Wanted’ sign. Should I get you a job application?”

“Seems like a good life to me. He’s got himself a blue suit of clothes at home I bet. Plus a railroad pension. I bet he’s got a black lunch box he carries to work. I don’t believe I’d mind that at all.”