Bren Early, leaning against the wall by his window, looked from the girl to Loco. “You must be worth plenty, all these people coming to see you.”

“Make 'em bid high,” the McKean girl said, “and look at the scrip before you hand him over, or that son of a bitch Sundeen will try and cheat you.”

The men in the room had to look at that girl again.

Moon saw the waiting expression in Loco's eye and said, “He ain't going with them, he's going home.”

“I know he's going home,” Bren Early said. “I didn't come six days for the ride.”

“If it means an argument, what difference does it make who takes him?” the McKean girl asked. She was serious.

Bren Early said, “Because he belongs to me, that's why.”

And Moon said to her, going over to his horse, “I'll try and explain it to you sometime.”

Bren Early was watching the riders, two hundred yards now, still coming spread out. “We got blind sides in here,” he said. “Let's get out to the wall.”

Moon was bringing a spare revolver out of his saddle bag, a Smith & Wesson .38 double-action model. He said, “You don't mean everybody.”

Bren Early looked at him. “I'm referring to you and me only. Shouldn't that do the job?”

Moon pulled his sawed-off Greener from inside his blanket roll. Coming back to the window he handed the .38 to the McKean girl, saying, “You don't have to cock it, just keep pulling on the trigger's the way it works. But let me tell you something.” Moon paused, looking at the Apache only a few feet away. “He's with us, you understand? He's ours. Nobody else's.” Moon looked at Bo Catlett then and said, “Bo, give him his gun. Soon as it's over, take it back.”

Walking out to the adobe wall, carrying their firearms, they watched the riders coming on, the riders looking this way but cutting an angle toward the stock tank.