Josephine took the little memorandum book out of her skirt pocket.
"Amos knew," she said. "He didn't know about the nail. But he knew the rest." And she opened it and read aloud, standing by the fence in the noon sun, in a voice that she kept as level as she could, the entries of July and August: the counts on the upper springs, a hundred and thirty-one, a hundred and twenty-six, the foreman who had never wanted the upper range before. She read the last one slowly. Seven of my cows in Crane's pen in the box canyon. P run into a B with a running iron. Fresh. She read the earmarks. She read the part where he said he would get Truesdale for a witness, and then ride on to Rawlins to the Association, and had told L.B. he was going to the bank. She read God forgive me if I'm wrong about him. I have known him six years.
When she looked up, Silas Crane had turned his chestnut and was walking it, without any hurry at all, toward the road.
"Mr. Crane," said Kansas Jack Tillery pleasantly, "I'd sit still a minute, if I was you." He had not drawn the pistol on his hip. He had only put his hand on it. Dutch Keller, slow and pink and enormous, had stepped out into the road in front of the chestnut and taken hold of the silver-mounted bridle, and was looking up at Crane with an expression of mild and terrible disappointment.
"Deputy," said Josephine. "I'd like my horse let alone now. I'd like you to tear up your paper. And I believe you'll want to go and look in a box canyon by Whiskey Gap."
Pratt looked at Crane. He looked at Bannock. He looked at the dozen men from Ferris Crossing, who were looking back at him, and she saw him do the sum of it, which side the weight was on, and come out where a man like him always comes out.
"I think," said Pratt, and cleared his throat, "I think Mr. Bannock had best come along with me to Ferris while this gets sorted out."
"No," said Bannock.
* * *
She would not afterward remember the order of it clearly. She remembered the rifle. It had been leaning against the corral post all along, the Winchester, where he had stood it on the first day; she had walked past it with the saddle in her arms and never thought of it. He had it before anyone else moved. He did not point it at Pratt or at Tillery or at Eli. He took one long step and caught Toby Rusk around the neck with his left arm and pulled the boy back against his chest, and put the muzzle under the boy's jaw.
"Get back," he said. "All of you."