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looked at me. I nodded. Then she nodded back at both of us. And smiled.

29
    L AUREL’S SO QUIET,” Virgil said. “Folks forget she’s there, and they say things in front of her.”
    “Think she’ll ever talk?” I said to Virgil.
    “Talks to me,” Virgil said.
    “Think she’ll ever talk to anybody else?” I said.
    “Don’t know,” Virgil said.
    We were riding easy down a low slope. The horses had settled in for the ride, and picked their way comfortably through the prairie grass. It was warm. The sun was at our backs. And we had a ways to go before we got to Resolution.
    “Know why she won’t talk to anybody but you?” I said.
    “No more’n you,” Virgil said.
    “Had to do with what happened to her,” I said. “But Pony and me saved her, too. How come she only talks to you.”
    “Knows I’m the smart one,” Virgil said.
    I nodded.
    “Probably it,” I said. “I wonder if we took her back east. Boston. Philadelphia. Someplace like that. Maybe a doctor could fix her, or a school, something.”
    “She don’t want to go,” Virgil said.
    “She said so?”
    “She did,” Virgil said. “I asked her and she said no.”
    “Maybe she oughta go anyway,” I said. “For her own good.”
    Virgil shook his head.
    “Child’s sixteen years old,” I said. “How she gonna meet a husband? Have children? Live a life? She won’t say nothing.”
    “Allie’ll work with her,” Virgil said.
    I didn’t say anything. Ahead of us a sage hen flurried up and canted off with a lot of wing flapping before she resettled maybe a hundred yards from us.
    “We both know Allie got her problems,” Virgil said after a while.
    “We do,” I said.
    “Allie’s had a lot of hard times of her own,” Virgil said.
    “And you and me can’t do it.”
    “No.”
    “That monthly stuff, and all,” Virgil said.
    “We can’t do it,” I said.
    “So, we got to let Allie do it,” Virgil said. “She’s trying.”
    “And we got no one better,” I said.
    “Nope.”
    “Maybe we can find a way to send Allie back east with her.”
    Virgil shrugged.
    “Ain’t gonna make Laurel go,” Virgil said.
    “Maybe we should.”
    “Done too much she don’t want to do,” Virgil said. “She don’t want to talk, she don’t have to.”
    “No,” I said. “I s’pose that’s right.”
    “Make it our business to see to it she don’t have to do what she don’t want to,” Virgil said.
    “Her whole life?”
    “Long as is needed,” Virgil said.
    “Might mean in the end she don’t get to do things she does want to,” I said.
    “I can see to that, too,” Virgil said.
    “Not so sure you can,” I said.
    Virgil shrugged.
    “Hell,” he said. “Talking ain’t worth so much, anyway.”

30
    L AW IN RESOLUTION was still Cato and Rose. Frank Rose was a big, showy guy with a handlebar mustache and two pearl-handled Colts. Cato Tillson was small with droopy eyes and a sharp nose. He carried one Colt, with a dark walnut handle. They were both good with Colts. Cato maybe a little better.
    “Fella we know got a small place outside of town,” Rose said. “Your Indians are sleeping in his hayloft.”
    “Ain’t mine,” Virgil said. “And Pony’s a breed.”
    “Well, they ain’t give us no trouble,” Rose said.
    We were in the Blackfoot Saloon, sitting at a round table in the rear, sipping whiskey. Whatever the conversation, as they sat together, Virgil and Cato Tillson always eyed each other. No hostility, just a kind of professional carefulness.
    “Anybody else know that?” Virgil said.
    “Sure,” Rose said. “You used to be here. Town’s still ’bout the size of a corncrib.”
    “There’s a bounty on them,” I said.
    “Didn’t know that,” Rose said. “You know that, Cato?”
    “Nope.”
    “Make a difference?” Virgil said.
    Rose looked at Cato. Cato shrugged.
    “Not to us,” Rose said. “Might to some folks.”
    “Police chief in Appaloosa probably knows, by now, that they’re here,” I