Kirk shook his head.
“Nope,” he denied. “I’m just a hired sheepherder.”
“Thasso?”
Skeeter considered Kirk’s humped figure for a space of time, and then—
“You ain’t no hired killer, Kirk; so why take a chance on killin’ or gittin’ killed?”
Kirk coughed softly and got to his feet. The sun was yet an hour high, but the cañons were already blocky with purple shadows. From farther down the hill came the bleating of sheep; the everlasting, meaningless “baa, baa, baa, baa” from hundreds of throats.
Kirk turned and looked at Skeeter.
“No, I am not a killer. I never shot at a man before.”
He pointed down across the brush toward the sheep.
“Do you think I love those things? Sarg, I am not physically fit to do a man’s work, and I can’t live inside a house. Out here in the hills I have a fighting chance to live, and there is nothing I can get to do, that I can do, except herd sheep.”