“But I'm an old woman,” she said. “I live alone and mostly mind my business. And I don't like to go out at night. When you get old, the dark isn't your friend anymore. The dark is for young people. You ever think on that? You start out afraid of the dark, and then, when you're young and strong and like to do those things that are best kept hid, you like it. But when you get old enough, you become afraid of it again. It's full of things that surprise you. So I don't go out at night, and I don't guess this night is a good deal different from any other. I don't want to trip over something or fall in a ditch and drown myself. I'll tend to my business when the sun is up.”

“And that's another kindness, ma'am.”

“No. It's just the way of the world. I don't think you should have killed those officers. I know that weren't right. But they ain't coming back, and I ain't quite ready to go where they are. I'll wait for the morning.”

“A kindness,” Tom repeated.

“Have it your way. There is kindness everywhere if you bother to look for it. It's free most of the time. You can afford to spend it because there's more of it left. It don't get used up like lesser things.”

“Yes, ma'am. I suppose I don't always know the right place to look.”

“If there's nothing further to do here, I would like to go to my bed now. You watch yourselves in the dark. There's not much moon up there, and there are irrigation ditches everywhere.”

“So we have provisions, and we have the rest of the night. But they're going to know where we are in the morning,” Tom said.

“Does that mean we're trapped?” John asked. “Wootan and his gang up in the Dragoons, the law coming at us down here?”

“Yes,” Sisson said. “That means we're trapped.”

“Getting trapped ain't staying trapped,” Tom said. “A fox will chew its leg off to get out of a trap.”

“Chew your own leg,” John said.

Tom smiled. “Ain't going to be no leg chewing. A rat can swipe the bait out of a trap a couple of times before he gets caught. And that's what we're going to do.”

CHAPTER SIX

1894