Even American cowboys had little interest in the events of the world around them. They were laborers who took what they could get. They were solitaries who intentionally cut themselves off from the world around them. As long as they could eat, sleep, get drunk, and fuck once in a while, the world held little more interest to them. Mostly they were not antisocial but asocial. Cowboys were their own society. But there were some Mormons among them, and Mormons could never cut themselves entirely free of Mormondom.

But, he figured, searchers would be going together, not out riding alone. Whoever you were, whatever allegiances you might have, you did not want to come up on three armed fugitives alone or even in a pair. You always wanted the advantage of numbers, and that advantage gave Tom the advantage in pursuit.

He came on three cowboys before he found Billy Hendricks. Two of them were Mexicans and simply pointed when he asked, “¿Dónde está señor Billy?” The last was Jedkins or Judkins or something damned closed to that, whom Tom had run into a couple of times before. The Mexicans had stared at Tom's swollen eye. Judkins didn't. Tom figured that meant Judkins knew who he was and what he had done. But Judkins just pointed to a windmill a couple hundred yards away. “See that windmill yonder? That little dot up at the top is Billy.”

“Hell,” Tom said. “Billy's too old to be up top a windmill.”

Judkins smiled. “The way I look at it, I'm too young.”

Tom nodded and headed for the windmill.

“You better come down before you kill yourself, old man,” Tom yelled.

“Hold on there, Tom. It will be a couple more turns up here. I ain't coming down just to go back up.”

Tom sat his horse while Hendricks tightened, pounded, and muttered at the top of the windmill. Finally, Hendricks moved down a step. “Watch below. Tools coming.”

Tom turned his horse and backed off a few paces as a ball peen hammer, pliers, wrenches, screwdrivers, and a small roll of baling wire came sailing down, setting up puffs of dust as they hit the ground.