Young Bill drew out his watch again. In an hour it would be day. He looked at Charlie.
“I’m goin’ after Munson,” he said.
Charlie nodded. There was no use trying to dissuade a man with that look in his eyes, no use to speak of the law and county officers. But he did. And young Bill only shook his head, as Charlie suspected he would.
“The law,” he said slowly, “is a long way off. An’ I’m here. There’s a woman in this, too.”
There generally was, Charlie reflected, a woman somewhere in the background of things like this.
“I should never have left here,” young Mather said again. “Munson was afraid of me. I thought he was afraid of Jed. Seems like he wasn’t. I got to make it good. I expect we better feed ourselves. It’s a long way back to the Wineglass on an empty stomach.”
“I’m not hungry,” Charlie replied. “But a cup of coffee wouldn’t do no harm.”
They had that. There was food, cold meat and bread. But coffee seemed to satisfy them. They resaddled their mounts. The cloud bank of the night had become scattered wraiths, fleeing across a luminous sky. Touches of color streaked the east.
“I forgot,” Mather said from his saddle. “I was goin’ to send a horse back for the old man to ride home. You could take him.”
“It’ll be three or four days before we move a wheel, maybe longer,” Charlie answered. “Can’t work cattle in snowbanks. Your old man can stay at the wagon, or, if he wants to ride home, there’s plenty of extra horses there. Somebody ought to send word to Benton about this killin’. Listen, kid. Your business is your own. I’m askin’ you friendly. What are you aimin’ to do?”