When daylight fist started to shift the blackness of the night into grey, we picked up our pace again. By sundown Coledale was far behind, and I was confident enough that we could leave the road and set up camp for the night. The horses were just as glad of the rest as we were, and I rubbed my stiff legs before I sat beside our small fire. After all that riding, I wouldn’t be getting up any time soon if I could help it. Instead I leaned back against my saddle and listened to the crackling of the fire.

“Thanks. Again.” The kid said quietly.

“You’re racking up quite the score.” I said without opening my eyes. I really was getting too old for this. The thought made me smile slightly. I’d always felt older than I actually was, but at the moment I could have fooled myself into thinking I was twice my age. Maybe that came from being around the kid. Then again, it hadn’t been too long ago that I was his age. It seemed like a lifetime.

“Well, if you ever need anything…”

“Yeah sure.” I doubted that after I left we’d ever see each other again. After all I didn’t even know his name.

He didn’t say anything else, and silence settled warmly between us. Then Tip nickered, and it was broken. I sat up.

“What is it?”

I shook my head. Either his followers, mine, or someone else entirely. But whoever it was, it would be better if the kid weren’t around when they showed up. Only a handful of people in Coledale had seen me, but I couldn’t know how many had gotten a look at the kid. I knew from personal experience that arrests attracted a lot of attention. I stood up and threw his saddle on his horse without the blanket, which I tossed over the seat. He didn’t need to run, just hide. I tightened the cinch enough for it to stay on and handed him the reins.

“Get behind those rocks.” I said.

“But…”

“Stop arguing.” I met his mutinous look with a glare. “Chances are I can talk my way out of this, but if I need rescuing and you really feel like trying to pay me back, you can come out with guns blazing.” I gave him a shove and sat back down. Just as he disappeared into the darkness, another shadow formed on the other side of our camp. I narrowed my eyes, and my hand crept toward my gun.

“I know you can see me, Lawson.” A voice called from the scrub brush. “I can see you too, and I’ve got a gun on you.”

“Likewise.” I answered, but inwardly I breathed a sigh of relief. I knew the voice, and I could talk my way past him. “I take it Clancy sent you?”

“That’s right.”

“Well I don’t have his money.”

“Sure. Which explains why you’re going to San Francisco.”

“What makes you think I’m headed there?”

“Is there anywhere else worth going on the other side of this barren stretch?”

I shrugged to acknowledge the point.

“I still don’t have the money. And you know that if you shoot me before I pay up, Clancy will have your hide.”

“Well I still don’t believe you.”

I hadn’t thought he would. “Search me then.”

“Right. And find a bullet once I step out from my cover.” His answer was accompanied by a scornful laugh, and I frowned. Sandy was both an idiot and paranoid. Terrible combination of attributes.

“Alright.” I tossed my gun to the other side of the fire.

“You might have another one.”

“Clancy picked a gem when he hired you, Sandy.” I muttered. “Just get out here for heaven’s sake.”

There was a rustling of brush, and a young man in his mid twenties stepped out. I held my hands out in front of me. “Still alive I see.” He shot me a look that would have been very potent as a bullet.

“Those yours?” he gestured to the saddlebags.

“Do you see anyone else camped here?” I mentally kicked myself as he glanced around, but then he shook his head and began to rummage through them.

“What’s this?” he pulled out my sheriff’s badge.

“Souvenir from my last kill.” I said. “Are you done yet?”

“Not quite.” He reached for my saddle blanket and shook it out. Then he made me take off my boots and stand so he could pat me down. Throughout the entire process I kept a look of amused condescension on my face. It drove him mad.

“Where is it?” he demanded.

“I told you, I don’t have it yet.”

“But Clancy…”

“Clancy either lied or was wrong, both of which are entirely plausible. Now why don’t you head back to San Francisco and tell him I’m behind you with a lead on a way to pay up.” I propelled him out of the campsite, talking in an almost fatherly way. The poor man was still confused as I put him on his horse. It wasn’t until several minutes after he had left that I breathed a sigh of relief and turned around.

“He’s gone.” I called.

“Who was he?” the kid pulled his saddle off and sat back down by the fire.

“No one.” I didn’t want to talk about it.

“What was the name of the man who sent him?”

“Clancy.”

“Clancy.” He turned the name over in his mouth carefully. “I recognize the name.”

I sat up. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Well I don’t know if that’s good or bad.” I reflected.

He shrugged. “Either way, at least now I have a lead.”

“What?”

“This Clancy fellow. I’ll go find him in San Francisco and…”

“You will not!” Clancy wasn’t someone you just went to find. Lawmen had been trying to do that for a while now.

“Why not?” When I didn’t answer, he continued. “Look, I can either go with you, or I can follow behind you. Your choice.”

“As if you could follow me if I didn’t want you to.” I muttered. But I knew it was pointless. Like I said, spit and vinegar. He wasn’t backing down. I’d tried to fool myself into thinking that once we got clear of the area we would go our separate ways, but that didn’t seem any closer to happening than it had when I’d first found him. Somehow I knew that we were stuck together until this whole business got cleared up or one of us got shot, the latter being the most likely. But for some reason I couldn’t be gloomy, and I decided to level with him.

“Isaac Clancy and I were partners a while ago, back when we were both young and trying to make our way in the world. Or rather make the world the way we wanted it to be.” I paused and wondered what he would think of me after this story, what with all his morals. Then I inwardly shrugged. He’d find out sooner or later.

“We sowed our wild oats, stole some horses, bullied some farmers, small things like that. Then we parted ways. I’d never quite gotten the hang of respectable work, so I hired myself out to do bigger men’s dirty work. Still small stuff. Clancy had a little more ambition. Then a couple of months back, we bumped into each other. We were both hard on cash, so we decided to try our luck at the Sacramento bank. Only our luck didn’t seem to want to comply. Things went south, and we bailed. Or at least we tried to. I managed to get away.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I did what anyone who wasn’t an idiot would do. I chucked the money in the first stream I came to and then turned around and made like I was going to town. When I met up with the posse they searched me for the money and then let me go.”

“And Clancy?”

“He got caught and had to wait for his brother to bust him out.”

“So that’s what he’s mad about?”

“Not exactly. You know the saying honor among thieves?” I waited for him to nod. “It’s a big load of horse crap. It’s every man for himself out there. Clancy knew it, so did I. He’s not so much mad about me ditching him as he is about me ditching the money. Hence why he thinks I owe him two thousand dollars.”

He nodded slowly in understanding and I wondered what was going through his head. Out of the two names he’d remembered, one had been murdered and one was a criminal. He probably wasn’t feeling too reassured about his own character at the moment.

“Does any of this ring a bell to you?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, no.” He said. His frustration was like a brand plastered on his face, and I could sympathize with it. In the silence that followed, I tried to think of something to say that could cheer him up, but nothing came to mind. “Don’t worry, once we find this bank robber you know, I’m sure things will clear up.” Not the most encouraging thing.

“So why are you going to San Francisco to see him then if you don’t have the money?” He asked the question suddenly, and I knew it was to distract himself from his own thoughts. That more than anything stopped me from brushing the question off.

“I trust Sandy about as far as I could kick him, which I’ve often been tempted to see. He’s not too bright, but he’d a greedy little bugger. I wouldn’t put it past him to take the money and pay me back with a bullet.”

“So you have the money.”

I nodded, and as I did so, I wondered at the fact that I trusted him so much to tell him the truth. I hoisted my saddle around and showed him where there was a slit in the gullet. I’d hollowed out part of the pommel and then carefully stitched it back together after putting the money inside.

“Genius.” He said.

I nodded proudly. “That it is.” I shifted the saddle back behind me and leaned against it once more.

“So who was Sandy?” he asked.

“Someone Clancy keeps around in case he needs a scapegoat. Sandy was all about being just like the Clancy brothers someday.” I snorted. “Quite a thing to aspire to.” I’d been the same way when I was young. You didn’t realize how stupid you were until you were too far gone to change it. But I didn’t say that out loud. Just because I’d shown him a few pages of my past didn’t mean I wanted him to see the whole book. Instead I let the conversation sink into silence. The moon was just rising, and we still had several hours until daybreak. I banked the fire and settled back to watch my breath rise like smoke toward the sky.

Chapter End Notes:
For those of you who don’t know, the gullet is tha arched part of the saddle in the front under the horn (the part that sticks up).