There were five of them, heading west, maybe 250 rods, maybe a whole mile to the north. They were moving slow now, and John figured they were picking up tracks, though it was a traveled area with grazing horses and cows, and John's, Tom's, and Sisson's horses still had the blanket coverings on their hooves. Any tracks they left would be indistinct, but there would be tracks.

Then the group stopped, and someone, John couldn't tell if it was Wootan or one of the others, pointed down toward them and their grazing horses. He pressed himself harder in the basalt of the little ridgeline and kept the glass low and covered it with his left hand so it wouldn't shine out like a spotlight for the riders. They were having a confab, maybe an outright argument. The pointing one wanted to come down and take a look at the horses. John was sure of that. But the cowboy was getting an argument. It was like Sisson said. No one would think them stupid enough to camp out smack in the middle of the valley. The men argued a bit more, then John froze as they wheeled south toward him and the camp.

He scrambled down the ridge and into the flat, crabbing it on all fours, keeping his head and butt as close to the ground as he could. The binoculars bounced along the ground as he went. Tom was asleep, but Sisson was awake and sitting up. John pushed Tom's legs with his hand as he crawled over him to where Sisson was. “Five of them, coming this way.”

Tom was awake now, his gun already in his hands. “Where are they?”

“Just north. Not a mile, I don't think. Coming this way. Not riding hard, maybe tracking as they come.”

“Is it law?”

“Worse. It's Braz Wootan.”

“Fuck me,” Tom said. “Just fuck me.”

John came upright then, sitting on his heels, waiting on Tom and Sisson, who were looking at each other, then back out over the landscape around them. John waited. He had done his job, and now Tom would have to give him another. There was only to wait.

“All right,” Tom said. “Sisson, you and John crawl back up to that ridge where John was. I'm going to try to snake around the back over here and get to the other side of the horses. What I'm going to do is to pick off one of them, Wootan, if I can. That will spin them around toward me. You ought to be able to get at least a couple of them right off the break of it. I can move then and try to work for one or two more. If they're caught between us, we ought to take them.”

“That will be some good shooting,” Sisson said.