A dark figure appeared in the doorway. “Are you awake?” The voice was Webb’s. “Stay where you’re at. What you don’t see, you can’t bear witness to.”

Rusty knew. “James.”

Webb’s silence told him enough.

The autumn night air carried a chill. Rusty pulled the blanket around his shoulders. He had an uneasy feeling. “I ain’t seen them, but I have a notion Caleb Dawkins or his bunch have been watchin’ this place off and on.”

“It’s the dark of the moon, and James is careful.”

“He’d better be gone long before daylight.”

“I’ve already told him that.”

Webb left, and Rusty drifted off into a restless half sleep. He was awakened by a quarrel in the cabin. The voices were loud in disagreement, though he could not hear the words. Later he heard a horse moving. He made it a point not to look, but he assumed the horse was James’s. He felt relieved that James was leaving and Rusty could truthfully say, in the event he was asked, that he had not seen him. Soon, however, he realized the horse was traveling eastward, not to the west, where James should be going. The thought disturbed him. He threw the blankets aside and reached for his clothes.

As he pulled his boots on, an agitated Preacher Webb appeared in the doorway. “I should have known it would happen,” he said.

“What’s happened?”

“James has gone to get Caleb Dawkins.”

“Dawkins has it comin’ to him.”

“Violence begets more violence, ‘I’ll there’s no stoppin’ place. I preached that to you when you wanted to kill Isaac York.”

“Sometimes I still wish I’d done it. Where does Clemmie stand?”

“She didn’t try to talk him out of it. She’d like to spit on Dawkins in his coffin.”

“Can’t say I’d blame her any.”

“But James won’t just be a fugitive from conscription. He’ll be runnin’ from a murder. Sooner or later somebody will kill him. Vince and Geneva did their best, and so did I, but James wouldn’t listen to us.”

Rusty felt an itching along his backside, an urge to be moving. “I should’ve seen James after all. Worst come to worst, I could’ve arrested him.”

“He wouldn’t have let you. You’d have had to shoot him. There wouldn’t have been much point.”

Rusty looked around the dark shed for his hat. “Maybe I can still find some way to stop him. Would you help me saddle my horse?”

“What’ll you do?”

“Try to get to Dawkins before James does.”

“But you wouldn’t know where to find him.”

Vince Purdy shuffled into the shed, shoulders slack, his voice grave. “I know where he’ll be at. I’ll show you the way.”

Any doubts Rusty had about taking the old man along were quickly shunted aside by the fact that he couldn’t find the Dawkins place by himself, certainly not in time to help. He picked up his cane, then pitched it atop the cot. If he could ride a horse he should not need a cane. It might just be in his way.