Pete was glad to find that the woman had gone into the house. Even with the help of distant lamplight, it was difficult to see the clothes and judge their size. To improve the odds, Pete picked a couple of shirts and two pairs of trousers. They were still damp. He laid them across the pommel in front of him. “Hurry up. Don’t be so damned picky.”

There would be time to change clothes when they were well away from town. “Let’s be movin’,” he said, “and put this town behind us before they take up collection down at the church house.”

The Dawkins farm lay just ahead. Much as he might deny it, Pete had begun looking forward to seeing it again. He had been in his early teens when Old Colonel had built the big house. It was often an unhappy place, but home nevertheless. His father sometimes treated him as if he were a black slave in the fields. His protective mother, on the other hand, had tried to shelter him and ease his wounded pride when she thought the colonel had been too harsh. He learned early how to manipulate her. He was never able to manipulate his father.

Caleb Dawkins had been brought up to believe in supplementing the sermon with the lash. He bore scars from his own boyhood and visited their like upon his son. He believed in bending the twig in the direction he wanted the tree to grow. But Pete had thwarted him. He grew in his own direction.

The nearer they came to the house, the more nervous Scully became. Some of that nervousness was contagious, but Pete would not acknowledge it for a hundred dollars in Yankee silver.

Pete tried to ease Scully’s fears. “Who knows? He may even kill the fatted calf.”

“More likely he’ll meet us with a shotgun. It near tore the heart out of him to admit what you done.”

“What we done. You was mixed up in it as deep as I was.”

“But it was your idea.”

“We’re stayin’ just long enough to get us a fresh outfit and maybe some better horses. And to dig up that can of gold and silver from under the woodpile.”

“He may have dug it up already.”

“He’s too tight. He’d let it lay there and rust before he’d spend it. I’m takin’ it for all the work I done on this place and never got paid for.”

“What if he puts up a fight?”

“He’s an old man, and I’m tougher than when I went into the army. I can whip him.”

“You didn’t talk this brave the last time.”