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charred, blackened earth.
    â€œWe only found one body sifting around the jail site,” Sam said, staring in that direction. “We’ll never know who it was—it could’ve been the prospector.”
    â€œCould’ve been that they all blew into pieces and burned in the street,” Schaffer said, looking at the countless black charred spots on the wide dirt thoroughfare.
    â€œCould be . . . ,” Sam replied deftly.
    â€œBut you don’t believe it?” said Schaffer.
    â€œI can’t allow myself to,” Sam said, his thumb hooked in his gun belt. “Not just yet anyway. Besides, even if the Garlets and my prisoners are all dead, there’s still Braxton Kane. Still enough Golden Riders to keep me busy for a while.”
    Sheriff Schaffer stood with his weight steadied on a walking cane, his left arm in a sling, salve covering his red, raw forehead and the back of both hands. His eyebrows and lashes were gone; his head was covered with fresh white gauze. One bootless foot had a thickbandage covering it almost up to his calf, his trouser leg ripped open up the seam to accommodate it.
    â€œTo tell the truth, Ranger, you’re ready to get on the trail, aren’t you?” he said to Sam as if it was confidential between the two of them.
    Sam stared straight ahead, seeing a Mexican lead a reluctant mule loaded with fresh adobe brick on its back.
    â€œTo tell the truth,
yes
, I’m ready to get on the trail,” he said. “But not until the doctor says you’re in shape to get back to work.”
    â€œFact is, I’m as right as a spring peach, Ranger,” the sheriff said, his mustache and goatee gone. He pointed his cane at a large ragged saloon tent standing in a vacant lot. “The saloon’s back in business, but there’s no piano, no billiard table anymore. That’s where most trouble always comes from. Men can’t hear music and not fight. Can’t seem to hold a stick for long without swinging it at one another—it’s born in them,” he confirmed.
    â€œObliged, Sheriff,” Sam said. “But make sure you’re up to it, before I cut out of here.”
    â€œLike I said,” Schaffer reiterated, “I’m right as a spring peach.” He pounded himself lightly on the chest with his bandaged forearm in the sling. “Did you ever get anything out of that Garlet idiot?” He gestured a nod toward the doctor’s clapboard building behind them.
    â€œNo,” Sam said. “Nothing yet. I’ll talk to him again before I leave.”
    â€œAnd if he won’t give up their hideout?” said Schaffer.
    â€œI rode out into the hills and looked around somewhile you were unconscious,” Sam said. “I found some tracks that were riding wide off the trail, headed south.”
    â€œSo, that’s why you’re suspecting some of these men might still be alive?” Schaffer asked.
    â€œBonsell’s horse was wearing store-bought shoes, has a nick in one the size of my thumbnail. I saw that nick while I was looking around.”
    â€œCould be the horse was running away from the fire,” said Schaffer.
    â€œCould be. But whether they’re alive or not, it’s as good a place as any to start looking,” Sam said. “They were headed south when I took up the hunt. They did a change around when I started getting close. I figured they did it to lead me away. From what I hear, Braxton Kane is not a man who’d stand for his riders bringing the law down on him.”
    Schaffer looked him up and down and nodded.
    â€œThat he ain’t,” he said. “Nor is he the kind of man who’ll shy away when somebody’s killed his kin. I can’t say that enough, Ranger,” he added.
    â€œObliged, but you needn’t warn me, Sheriff,” Sam said. “I don’t want him shying away. I want him coming at me full bark-on. Killing Cordy might