“He didn’t have enough goods to sell. He didn’t have regular money coming in. He worried, not knowing what was going to happen to his business.” Janroe’s gaze lowered to Cable again. “He even worried about Luz and Vern Kidston. They were keeping company and, I’m told, the old man didn’t see eye to eye with Vern. Because of different politics, you might say. So it was a combination of things that killed him. Worries along with old age. And if you think it was anything else, you’re going on pure imagination.”

“Let’s go back to Vern Kidston,” Cable said. “I never heard of him; so what you’re saying doesn’t mean a whole lot.”

Janroe’s faint smile appeared. “Vern came along about two years ago, I’m told. He makes his living supplying the Union cavalry with remounts. Delivers them up to Fort Buchanan.”

“He lives near here?”

“In the old Toyopa place. How far’s that from you?”

“About six miles.”

“They say Vern’s fixed it up.”

“It’d take a lot of fixing. The house was half burned down.”

“Vern’s got the men.”

“I’ll have to meet him.”

“You will. You’ll meet him all right.”

Cable’s eyes held on Janroe. “It sounds like you can hardly wait.”

“There’s your suspicious mind again.” Janroe straightened and stepped into the next room. “Come on. It’s time I poured you a drink.”

Cable followed, his gaze going from left to right around the well-remembered room: from the door that led to the kitchen to the roll-top desk to the Hatch & Hodges calendar to the corner fireplace and the leather-bottomed chairs, to the pictures of the Holy Family and the Sierra Madre landscapes on the wall, to the stairway leading to the second floor (four rooms up, Cable remembered), and finally to the round dining table between the front windows. He watched Janroe go into the kitchen and come out with a bottle of mescal and two glasses, holding the glasses in his fingers and the bottle pressed between his arm and his body.