“Aye.” He asked no questions, simply stuffed the firecrackers into his front pocket. She, however, who had never been through the batwing doors of the Travellers’ Rest in her whole life, had another question for him.

“What do they do with their coats and hats and serapes when they come in, Sheemie? They must take em off; drinking’s warm work.”

“Oh, aye. They puts em on a long table just inside the door. Some fights about whose is whose when they’re ready to go home.”

She nodded, thinking hard and fast. He stood before her, still holding his sombrera against his chest, letting her do what he could not... at least not in the conventionally understood way. At last she raised her head again.

“Sheemie, if you help me, you’re done in Hambry... done in Mejis... done in the Outer Arc. You go with us if we get away. You have to understand that. Do you?”

She saw he did; his face fairly shone with the idea. “Aye, Susan! Go with you and Will Dearborn and Richard Stockworth and my best friend, Mr. Arthur Heath! Go to In-World! We’ll see buildings and statues and women in gowns like fairy princesses and—”

“If we’re caught, we’ll be killed.”

He stopped smiling, but his eyes didn’t waver. “Aye, killed we’ll be if ta’en, most like.”

“Will you still help me?”

“Capi’s all saddled,” he repeated. Susan reckoned that was answer enough. She took hold of the hand pressing the sombrera to Sheemie’s chest (the hat’s crown was pretty well crushed, and not for the first time). She bent, holding Sheemie’s fingers with one hand and the horn of her saddle with the other, and kissed his cheek. He smiled up at her.

“We’ll do our best, won’t we?” she asked him.

“Aye, Susan daughter of Pat. We’ll do our best for our friends. Our very best.”

“Yes. Now listen, Sheemie. Very carefully.”

She began to talk, and Sheemie listened.

10

Twenty minutes later, as the bloated orange moon struggled above the buildings of the town like a pregnant woman climbing a steep hill, a lone vaquero led a mule along Hill Street in the direction of the Sheriff’s office. This end of Hill Street was a pit of shadows. There was a little light around Green Heart, but even the park (which would have been thronged, noisy, and brilliantly lit in any other year) was mostly empty. Nearly all the booths were closed, and of those few that remained open, only the fortune-teller was doing any business. Tonight all fortunes were bad, but still they came—don’t they always?