“It’s gone too far,” he said. “I apologize for what I did at the tree to you.”

“Won’t get on my knees,” he said. “This is the last time I’ll say it.”

“I said you’d see reason,” he said. “Come around.”

A rock was stabbing her back. She shifted.

“This ball has to stop rolling,” he said. “Only you can stop it now.”

“Arrogant,” he said. “People have said that about you.”

“From here on,” he said. “this is your fault.”

He javelined the umbrella off the ridge.

Bowman called up to him. “Leave that dog with her!”

Finishing in the meadow was a lengthy procedure. They left the man in the tent. They spoke freely. They wore headlamps again. The devices protruded from their foreheads eclipsed in glow.

“Better get back.”

“Drag him.”

They cleared the man’s camp with care, poured a hat of water on the coals, kicked away the scorched stones. A good rain would wash the camp down into the water table. Snow was always possible. Hail. The site was flattened and bloody. Other travelers would think of hunters, a small elk butchered here. They dragged the tent behind the man’s horses, a great imposition on the tired animals.

She watched it all then walked back along the ridge to the cob. The red dog followed, jumping up at her hands, and she swatted his jowls, then forgot to.

The Damsel: She did not know this man, his private matters, his business.

No one stepped in for her.

The Long Trail of the Chicago Kid (cont’d). Episode 6: “Humans as Beasts” or “To the Cabin with the Cob,” or maybe “Revelation.” As you’ll remember, our last episode (“The Ambush” or “The Horse-Theft-Gone-Wrong”) ended with our hero seeing a pair of dirty horse thieves about their fiendish work. And yet, and yet, those thieves were disappointments to the Kid. Bunglers. Peace seekers.

Our hero is deep in thought as he drops down behind their clean-up in the meadow, takes a few items from their saddlebags, a canteen of liquor, a Tupperware container of leftover noodles, Milk Duds in a baggie, a pair of perfect socks, a sewing kit Bowman took from Ella during the privacy of Second Watch. Yeah, our hero saw him do it. He crosses the meadow near the mouth of the Narrows. No chance they see him in their preoccupation with the current episode of their own long-running serial, “Out-of-the-Frying-Pan.”

The Kid doesn’t eat a thing yet.