“Listen up.” Bennet gestured for them to gather around. “North side is a long drop to the river, so he can’t go that way. Siggy and Otto, you’re the only two who’s armed, so you’re going to come up from opposite sides, ’case he tries to run off into the woods. Goldy, you’re with Siggy, you two come up on the west side. Give a good berth to the bluff so he don’t see you. Go on, now.” Siggy and Goldwin headed off.

Bennet watched them out of sight and continued.

“Finn, you’re with Otto; you two come up on this side here. Otto, you better not use that rifle less’n I say, you hear me? We want to know he did it out of his own mouth. Rest of us going to take the deer path, come in on the south side. Clear? No more talking.”

The men split up. A short while later, as Bennet, Sal, and Magnus approached the bluffs along the deer path, they heard a shot and began to run. When they got to the small plateau, the hobo was squatting beside his campfire, his arms wrapped over his head. Siggy had his pistol out, Goldwin beside him, his hair flopping loose from his bald crown. At this moment, with a rustling of bushes from the west side, Otto and Finn appeared.

“God damn, it’s steep that way,” Otto complained, out of breath.

Finn was laughing, as if they had all been playing King of the Hill. “Almost ended up in the drink, the two of us.”

“What the fuck you shooting at?” Bennet said to Siggy.

Siggy pointed vaguely toward the woods. “His dog came at us.”

“You get it?” Sal said.

“Almost got me.” Goldwin smoothed his hair. “Put that thing away, you’re drunk.”

“Said the showgirl to the vicar,” Finn put in, winking.

“Clyde’s farm’s less than half a mile that way,” Bennet warned. “No more shooting.”

Magnus, who had fallen behind, appeared now, utterly out of breath and grimacing as if he were going to have a heart attack.