Tom started down the way they had come up. Their food supplies were holding out all right, but they needed water. About two-thirds of the way down, the creek flattened out and formed a nice pool where he could fill the canteens and bags. He would go on down and check on the horses to make sure none of them had become entangled in the brush or got stuck in the mud. With water and some decent grazing through the light snow, the horses should be ready to go as well. All in all, things were going better than expected.

The first sound of a voice froze Tom. He wasn't sure that it was a voice, just a sound, but a sound that didn't belong with the other sounds he was hearing. He stopped, instinctively reaching down to keep the canteens from banging into one another. He bent his knees and slowly lowered to a crouch.

“Shut him up,” someone said. “He's louder than a brass band.”

They weren't far away. Probably at the same pool he was headed for. Slowly, he lifted the straps of the canteens from his shoulders and placed them carefully on the rocks next to him. Then the water bags. When he was free from the containers, he slipped the Colt automatic from his belt. He tried to remember if he had chambered a round before he left. He didn't think he had. He didn't trust automatics the way he did revolvers. He liked things simple. He liked being able to tell what was what just by looking. You couldn't do that with an automatic. But it was a big gun, and it put people down the way a revolver couldn't. No one would run through a bullet fired from this big .45 Colt. He pulled the slide back, just slightly, an eighth of an inch, no more, and saw brass. There was a bullet in the chamber. He eased the slide back into position.

“You think they're up there?” This was another, different voice.

“Maybe. Probably. I don't know.” This was the first voice again, the one that had told the other to shut up. “Three horses. It would seem likely.”

“We're going on up after them, ain't we?”

“Look up there. You want to climb up there, over all those rocks, with three armed desperados waiting for you? You do, you go right ahead.”

“It ain't what I want, it's what Braz Wootan wants. He's the one deciding. It's his brother that's dead.”

“I ain't sure how much Wootan decides for me. Everyone's got to die someday. I understand that. I don't particularly want to die today. How about you?”

“Of course I don't want to die. Still, I'd like to know if it's them up there. I'd like to know if we got them.”