up to making sure justice is going to be done.”
“You’re a card, Pickens.” He began crowding me toward the door, and then he opened it. “Long ride for nothing,” he said.
“I got two weeks,” I said. “And I’ll use them.”
I handed him the tumbler and stepped onto his porch. Behind me the door closed quietly.
The bunkhouse was dark. Them cowboys sure didn’t burn any oil. But they were up before dawn, and out with the cattle while there still were stars showing. Chill air was rolling down from the mountains. It sure as hell would be a long ride back, but me and Critter, we’d manage it if I let him rest.
I collected my nag. Critter snarled at me. He was lookin’ for some hay and a good roll after the saddle was off, but here I was getting on him and steering him away from the pens and hay ricks.
We rode out quiet, in starlight, and I let Critter pick the way. Horses can see better than people, and he had no trouble takin’ me down that road. It sure was peaceful. Night is when it’s a joy to be out in the country, with no one nowhere, just walking along and owning the whole universe.
My stomach was tellin’ me it was owed some chow, but I had none, so there was nothing to do but ride them long miles back to Doubtful, so that’s what I set out to do. Wasn’t anyone gonna drop a rib roast and mashed potatoes and gravy into my mitts.
I like my sleep, but this was such a fine spring night I didn’t mind. It’d be maybe one or so when I raised Doubtful, more if I let Critter graze and fart along the way. I always use a single loop rein, so I just let her ride behind the horn, and stretched my arms and cracked my fingers some.
I was dozin’ along, letting Critter find his way back to Doubtful, when I got woke up sudden. I didn’t even know where I was. But a soft voice ripped out of the night.
“Stop,” said this female voice. I don’t rightly know why I thought it was female.
I woke up fast, and debated kicking Critter into a gallop, but instead I reined him in.
“I’ve got you skylined, Sheriff. I can see you but you can’t see me. You’re where the stars are blotted out. There’s a Greener loaded with buckshot aimed at you, and if you mess with me, you’ll be hamburger. That clear?”
“Mighty clear,” I said.
“Then I’ll put this shotgun away. I just want to talk to you, and not get shot at by an itchy lawman.”
“Well, you coulda chose a better way.”
“I’m sorry. It’s dark, and I thought if I called, you’d pump a bullet at me.”
“What do you take me for? I want to know what I’m shootin’ at, especially if it sounds like a woman.”
“You mind if I ride with you a way, and just palaver a bit?”
“I ain’t used to riding with strangers in the night, ma’am.”
There was a long pause, and I wondered whether she would beat a retreat.
“I’m Queen Bragg. Call me Queenie.”
Well, that wasn’t no surprise. “All right, what?” I asked.
“I’m getting my mare and we’ll ride together,” she said.
I wasn’t too pleased with that. This here day started out with a Bragg, and was ending with a Bragg.
I sensed her steer her nag close in. I kept my six-gun in my hand, just in case this was another abduction. I wasn’t gonna let any more Braggs haul me to any more hanging trees.
But she settled in beside, and I could sort of make her out in the dark. Everything I knew about her was gossip, because she’d never given me the time of day. The story was, she was another high-handed Bragg, like her old man, only worse.
I didn’t say nothing, and let her ride beside for a while. We were sort of taking the measure of each other. I knew what would come next. Another demand. Braggs never asked anyone for anything. She’d demand that I stop the hanging.
“I’m sorry my father did that to you,” she said.
I pretty near fell off Critter. I’d never heard a Bragg apologize for anything, not even a fart.
“I don’t ask you to forgive him, or me,” she said. “It’s his way, and it’s what got King into trouble, and why I don’t have friends.”
I just grunted something. I don’t come up with words very good.
“He shouldn’t have shot at you in the outhouse. That was reckless. And it wasn’t necessary.”
I could hardly believe my ears. Here I was, listening to a Bragg actin’ halfway civilized.
“It sure was reckless. What if I’d been standing up and getting my pants up? I’d be dead.”
“I know,” she said. “They laughed about it. They know you usually sit for twenty minutes reading the Montgomery Ward catalog.”
I sure didn’t have any handle about how this was going to play out. Critter, he kept eying the mare like he was going to bite it, which he probably would pretty soon. But I just reined his head away a little, and let the two nags pick their way through the black night.
“You sure you’re Queen Bragg?” I asked, not really believing.
“I’m Queen. And I’m apologizing.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
She laughed. “It doesn’t figure, does it?”
I shook my head, and then realized she couldn’t see it. “Always a first time,” I said.
“And I’m sorry he tried to scare you half to death with that noose and the whole hanging. And I’m sorry he’s pushing you the way he is. You must be angry.”
“All in a day’s work,” I said.
“I don’t think the way my father does. We all want to enlist your help, but he thinks you’ve got to be pushed.”
“I don’t get enlisted,” I said. “I do my job and try to do it right.”
“That’s what I told Admiral. But he just smiled, like I was some simpleton girl, and said, ‘Well, look at him now. He’s got the case wide open and talking to everyone that was caught in it. Scare a man enough to wet his pants, and he’ll do his best for you.’ I don’t agree.”
“Well, in fact he got me running, all right.”
“Yes, you’ve talked to the barman, Upward, and to King in jail, and to Crayfish Ruble this evening. Did you find out anything?”
“Enough to make me itchy is all.”
“You’ve got two weeks to be itchy, and then King dies,” she said.
“How come you’re here? Scaring me in the night?”
“To ask you to keep looking. To thank you for doing what you can do.”
That sure wasn’t the usual Bragg talk. Braggs never asked anything of anyone. And no living person ever heard a Bragg say thanks.
“And to tell you I apologize for all of us.”
I didn’t much like it. I’d like it if all the Braggs were the same type, and I could count on ’em to be ornery.
“All right, you run along now, and don’t point loaded Greeners at lawmen. It ain’t right, and you’re lucky I’m not hauling you in and tossing you in with your brother.”
“Why are you itchy?” she asked, gently ignoring me.
“Some things don’t match up with the trial. Like King saying he don’t remember