Curly shook his head slowly. Yet he was vaguely reminded of someone he knew. Glancing up, he found instantly the clew to what had puzzled him. The young man in the picture was like Kate Cullison, like her father too for that matter.
“He’s your brother.” The words were out before Flandrau could stop them.
“Yes. You’ve never met him?”
Cullison had been watching the young man steadily. “Never saw him with Soapy Stone?”
“No.”
“Never heard Stone speak of Sam Cullison?”
“No. Soapy doesn’t talk much about who his friends are.”
The ex-sheriff nodded. “I’ve met him.”
Of course he had met him. Curly knew the story of how in one drive he had made a gather of outlaws that had brought fame to him. Soapy had broken through the net, but the sheriff had followed him into the hills alone and run him to earth. What passed between the men nobody ever found out. Stone had repeatedly given it out that he could not be taken alive. But Cullison had brought him down to the valley bound and cowed. In due season the bandits had gone over the road to Yuma. Soapy and the others had sworn to get their revenge some day. Now they were back in the hills at their old tricks. Was it possible that Cullison’s son was with them, caught in a trap during some drunken frolic just as Curly had been? In what way could Stone pay more fully the debt of hate he owed the former sheriff than by making his son a villain?