"They’re living off us like coyotes live off a buffalo carcass, you know?”

“Everything eats meat likes a dead buffalo,” Cole said.

We sat at a round table in the saloon at the Boston House Hotel in Appaloosa. Cole sat back, out of the light a little, his face shadowed.

“They buy supplies in Olson’s store and don’t pay for them. They take whatever women they feel like. They use horses from the livery and don’t bring them back. They eat a meal, drink a bottle of whiskey, whatever, and leave without paying.”

The speaker was a white-haired man with bright blue eyes. His name was Abner Raines.

“You in charge?” Cole said, “Three of us,” Raines said, “Board of Aldermen.”

He nodded at the two men with him. “I own this place. Olson runs the store and the livery stable. Earl here owns a couple of saloons.”

Phil Olson was much younger than Raines, and portly, with smooth, pink skin and blond hair. Earl May was bald and heavyset and wore glasses.

“And we got no law officers,” Raines said. “Marshal’s dead with one of the deputies. The other ones run off.”

“These people cattlemen?” I said. “Don’t seem like good cattle country.”

“It ain’t,” Raines said. “Most of the money in Appaloosa comes from the copper mine.”

“So what do they do?” I said.

“Bragg’s got some water up around his place, but they ain’t raising many cows. Mostly they steal them. And pretty much everything else.”

“How many hands,” Cole said.

“With Bragg? Fifteen, maybe twenty.”

“Gun hands?”

“They all carry guns,” May said.

“They any good with them?” Cole said. “Anybody can carry them.”

“Good enough for us,” Raines said. “We’re all miners and shopkeepers.”