“I understand,” Hawk assured him. They wished each other good luck and parted ways.

* * *

“I was damn glad to see that store,” Tater Thompson repeated what he had said when they had caught sight of the little trading post owned by Grover Dean on the Teton River. “I was needin’ a drink of likker bad.” It was now several days since they had slaughtered the train of Quakers, then killed Dean and his wife at the trading post, and it appeared that no one was on their trail. Feeling confident he had pulled it off, Booth Corbin thought back to remember the chain of events.

“Maybe we won’t have to keep moving so fast,” his brother, Jesse, had remarked when they had left the scene of the massacre behind them. “Whaddaya think, Booth?” He always asked his brother’s opinion. He was older than Booth by a good two years, but it was his brother who had formed the small gang of outlaws and was unchallenged as the boss. They had operated quite successfully in Wyoming Territory until the law became too hot on their trail. It was Booth’s idea to leave Wyoming and head for Montana with a purpose to simply lie low until the pressure eased up in Wyoming. And it was Booth who stumbled upon a meeting of the Friends one Sunday and came up with the idea of fleecing those innocent folks out of their life savings. “We’ve put a good bit of distance between us and that hill by the Missouri,” Jesse continued. “After all this time, I don’t think there’s anybody comin’ after us, anyway.”

“Yeah, Booth,” Blue Davis had said, “who the hell’s gonna know anything’s happened to those damn Quakers? Most likely nobody even knows they’re missin’. I don’t know why we even worried about it. Who’s gonna come after us? Nobody, that’s who.”