Trip turned to give him a hard look. “I didn’t shoot at him. If I’da shot at him, he’d be dead.” Not wanting to discuss it with him, he turned abruptly and started back toward the store. Before reaching the porch again, he stopped in the front yard and yelled out as loud as he could, “Hawk! If you’re snoopin’ around out there, why don’t you come on and face me, man-to-man, fair and square!”

When he went back inside, Reuben Pressley walked over from his forge to talk to Tom. “What’s wrong with that feller?” he asked Tom. “He acts like he’s plum loco. He took a shot at Mose.” He looked over toward the store, where Mose was still standing, apparently uncertain if it was safe to move. Reuben waved and called out, “Come on over, Mose.”

Back to Pressley’s remarks about Trip, Tom said, “I asked him why he shot at Mose and he claimed he wasn’t shootin’ at him—said it was a warnin’ shot.”

“My ass,” Reuben scoffed. “He just flat-out missed.” They both turned to welcome Mose as he led his horse over to them.

“I surely didn’t mean to rile that feller up like that,” the timid little man started to explain. “He liked to scared me half to death.”

“He’s got a burr up his behind about some feller that shot one of that bunch that rode in here the other day,” Tom said. “He’s wantin’ to shoot somebody, and that’s a fact.”

“I was thinkin’ about gettin’ me a little drink of likker while I had you take a look at the right-front hoof of my horse,” Mose said. “But I ain’t so sure I wanna go in the saloon now.”

“Come on,” Pressley said to him, “and I’ll take a look at that hoof for you.” He turned back to Tom when he walked toward his shop and declared, “Matter of fact, I plan to stay away from all three of them jaspers.”

* * *

About two miles upstream from Bodine’s trading post, Hawk paused when he heard the report of a pistol. At two miles, it was faint, but he thought it sounded like that made by a Colt .44. He continued to listen for a while, but decided it was nothing meaningful, so he went back to work disguising his camp. The crossing was shallow enough, so he could keep Rascal in the water and ride parallel to the bank for close to seventy-five yards before coming out downstream from the crossing. By doing that, he left no tracks from the road when coming from or going to his camp.