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“You want to shoot my Airweight?”
“I’m an ex-felon. Ex-felons ain’t supposed to mess with handguns.”
“It’s Wyatt, isn’t it?”
“That’s me. From Calgary to Cheyenne to Prescott to the Big Dance in Vegas and every state fair in between. I’m a rodeo man.”
“I’m glad you came by, Wyatt. But I’m tied up today.”
“They’re gonna hang Pepper’s killing on you,” he said.
“Repeat that?”
“They wanted to stick me with it, but I got an alibi. They know Pepper insulted you up by that cave. Maybe they know he done even worse.”
“You need to be a little more explicit.”
“Bill Pepper was meaner than a radiator full of goat piss. He was mean to females in particular. You’re from Florida, right?”
“What about it?”
“In my former life, I heard about you. Or at least about somebody down in Miami who sure fits your description.”
“You heard what?”
“You worked for the Cubans and them New York Italians. You’re flat heck on wheels, woman. If I can put it together, them sheriff’s deputies can, too.”
“I’ll keep all this in mind.”
He took a penknife from his watch pocket and pared one of his fingernails. “You don’t hang out with rodeo people?” She winked at him and didn’t reply. He gazed at the sunlight breaking on the tops of the trees. “Whatever you do, stay away from that cave up yonder.”
“It’s just a cave,” she said.
“Something is loose here’bouts, something that ain’t supposed to be here. I can smell it. That Indian girl that got killed?”
“I heard about it.”
“Her death was over something the cops ain’t figured out yet. She was from the Blackfeet rez, up somewhere east of Marias Pass. I called her Little Britches, ’cause she was such a little-bitty slip of a thing.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“You know the Younger family?”
“Not personally.”
“It’s got to do with them. And with that thing in the cave. I just ain’t ciphered it out yet. I’m working on it.”
“Why?”
“ ’Cause of what got done to that little girl.”
Gretchen flipped open the cylinder of her pistol and dumped the cartridges in her palm and put the cartridges and both guns and the ear protectors back in her canvas shooting bag. “Take care of yourself,” she said.
“If you ever want to mess around with an older man, I’m available,” he said.
“I’m not worth it. Keep your powder dry for the right girl,” she replied.
He laughed under his breath. She walked down the hillside to the cabin, her gun bag looped over one shoulder, the wind scattering her chestnut hair on her cheeks and forehead. Wyatt Dixon stared after her, bareheaded, his features as chiseled as a Roman soldier’s. Then he stared up at the cave, his good humor gone, his eyes containing thoughts that no rational person would ever be able to read or understand.
