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these horses and tack when I get into New Mexico, catch a train for Santa Fe.”
    â€œWrite me often. So I know where to reach you when it’s safe to come home.”
    â€œI will, Ma. I promise.” He leaned down to buss her cheek. That set her tears flowing again. “I won’t rest in jail again, either.”
    â€œCouldn’t bear to lose you, Gillom. Not after Ray. I’d grow old. Alone.”
    â€œYear or two at the most, Ma. When this all blows over, I’ll come back.”
    She clutched his arm. “Promise you’ll stop this pistol-fighting. Please! Don’t shoot anybody else!”
    He jerked the black horse’s head sideways, turning the gelding out from behind the house toward their front yard, led the smaller bay filly along behind by its mecate reins. He’d buried his choice revolvers in his saddlebags until he got out of town or she’d be trying to grab those, too.
    She was crying, semihysterical. “Gillom! Please! No more killings! It’s not right ! It’s not our way!”
    He didn’t favor his distraught mother with a wave, or even a look back.
    *   *   *
    Gillom surprised Mose Tarrant in his stable so early, feeding his paying guests. Mose asked where he’d found these two nags, if the kid had gotten a good deal? Gillom lied and resisted the horse wrangler’s entreaties to buy Books’s overpriced horse, Dollar, instead. But he did swap the worst of the Mexicans’ saddles for Books’s custom saddle and open reins, a snaffle bit with a high port and several ornate cheek pieces on a split-ear, leather headstall, plus one hundred and fifty dollars. Books’s saddle was a Myres double rig with a low wooden horn, bow fork, and a square leather skirt. Mose had found a brown leather breast collar that sort of matched, which he’d tied onto the front of the saddle to prevent slippage. Double cinches made the big saddle more secure, with less movement on the horse’s back during jarring movements like sudden stops. Gillom wanted something more comfortable to ride on, for he was going a long ways, and it was why he’d decided to trail two horses instead of one. Old Mose wet-thumbed his money, hiding it in his leather snap-top purse, pleased to get monetarily even with this snaky kid, as Gillom rode away. Neither bid the other farewell.
    *   *   *
    He avoided the downtown’s center around San Jacinto Plaza, the scene of last night’s hellish confrontation. God knows what body parts might have floated up today, he mused. But Gillom did stop at his favorite haunt, the Acme Saloon, Wes Hardin’s infamous headquarters. A bleary bartender didn’t blink at selling a pint of whiskey to a minor, since there were no Laws about that early to catch him doin’ it.
    â€œLong as you don’t drink it in here, kid.”
    Gillom was stuffing the bottle into a saddlebag when Dan Dobkins spotted him as he strolled out of a nearby breakfast parlor. Dobkins had on another loud, checked suit that didn’t match the yellow-and-black shoes he danced across the street in.
    â€œYoung Rogers!”
    Gillom winced as the newspaper reporter sped over.
    â€œA packhorse? Going somewheres distant?”
    â€œVisiting some relatives. You made it too hot for me here, Dan, writing that stuff in the Herald .”
    Dobkins cleaned what was left of breakfast from his teeth with a matchstick.
    â€œPower of the press. Promised I’d make you famous.”
    â€œNotorious is more like it. Now I can’t find a job here, can’t go back to Central School. And Thibido’s tryin’ to steal J. B.’s guns, even after Mister Books promised ’em to me.”
    The newsman shook his head, feigning empathy. “Price of infamy, kid. You get collared as a killer, it’ll haunt you.”
    â€œYou done?” Gillom mounted up. “What did John Wesley Hardin say?