Larrabee sat very still in the saddle.
"Here."
"He rode in a little before eleven, sir. Alone. On his own horse, no orderly. He'd come all the way at a hard gallop, by the look of the animal. He asked for you, and I told him you'd gone back to the post for the repeat, the way you said to tell Kimbrough. And he looked at me, sir, the way a man looks at you when he knows you're lying and he's glad of it, and he said, then I'll wait, Sergeant. And he's been waiting. By the fire at the troop end, sir. I put Corporal Lusby with him." Donnellan hesitated. "For his comfort, sir."
"Where's Kimbrough?"
"Rolled up under the fifth wagon, sir. Him and the two teamsters that came with him from Miles City, Gorman and the one they call Swede, though he's from Missouri. The other three teamsters are by the mules. Old Purdom and the Ryan boys. They're all right, sir. I'd lay money. Purdom asked me at supper why the pork was riding so light." Donnellan's face did not change. "I've had a man on the third wagon all night, sir. Shea. He's lying under it now with his carbine."
"Good," Larrabee said. "Take Lusby's place with Lieutenant Gaskell. Send Lusby to watch Kimbrough. I'll be there directly."
Philo Gaskell was sitting on a saddle by a fire no bigger than a hat, in a scrape in the ground at the far side of the corral from the wagons, with his cape around him and his stiff leg out straight toward the coals. He did not get up when Larrabee came. He looked up, and in the small red light his face was ten years older than it had been on the porch at retreat.
"Kessel's gone," he said. "If you're wondering. I was in the office a little after nine when your mending came through. I heard the sounder start up from the Keogh side, and I watched him listen to it, and I watched his face. He went out the back while I was still reading the tape. I expect he took a horse from the trader's corral. I expect he's halfway to the Yellowstone." He looked down at the fire. "I didn't stop him. I sat there and listened to your message go through, every word of it, contractor intends destruction of the train, false report of Indian depredation, and I thought, well, there it is, Philo. There it is in Morse. And then I went and saddled my horse."