Now he could see all the bullet marks in the door and the clean inner wood where the door was splintered. Two people in that little bake-oven of a place. He saw the door move.

He saw the rag doll on the ground. It was a strange thing, the woman having a doll. Valdez hardly glanced at it but was aware of the button eyes looking up and the discomforted twist of the red wool mouth. Then, just past the doll, when he was wondering if he would go right up to the door and knock on it and wouldn’t that be a crazy thing, like visiting somebody, the door opened and the Negro was in the doorway filling it, standing there in pants and boots but without a shirt in that hot place, and holding a long-barreled dragoon that was already cocked.

They stood twelve feet apart looking at each other, close enough so that no one could fire from the slope.

“I can kill you first,” the Negro said, “if you raise it.”

With his free hand, the left one, Bob Valdez motioned back over his shoulder. “There’s a man there said you killed somebody a year ago.”

“What man?”

“Said his name is Tanner.”

The Negro shook his head, once each way.

“Said your name is Johnson.”

“You know my name.”

“I’m telling you what he said.”

“Where’d I kill this man?”

“Huachuca.”

The Negro hesitated. “That was some time ago I was in the Tenth. More than a year.”

“You a deserter?”

“I served it out.”

“Then you got something that says so.”

“In the wagon, there’s a bag there my things are in.”

“Will you talk to this man Tanner?”

“If I can hold from busting him.”

“Listen, why did you run this morning?”

“They come chasing. I don’t know what they want.” He lowered the gun a little, his brown-stained tired-looking eyes staring intently at Bob Valdez. “What would you do? They come on the run. Next thing I know they firing at us.”