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protested the man called Skidder.
    Laramie stopped. He looked straight into the eyes of the man a few feet across the cabin. Something changed about the young man’s stance. Not that his face—or even his body—gave much away, except that he was ready. Ready for whatever he might face.
    They both knew there was some bad blood between them. The entire gang knew it. Had always felt it, though no one was quite sure what had started it. Now the whole cabin tensed.
    “I don’t think I asked how long he’s been out there,” Laramie said, and his words were coolly controlled. “I jest said thet it’s time he was relieved.”
    He stopped and his eyes sent their own message. The others in the cabin shifted slightly. The young man appeared loose and easy—yet coiled like a snake about to strike. Everyone knew that the few words of question from Skidder had challenged the younger man’s right of leadership.
    Laramie spoke again, suggesting that he was not anxious to start a row—but he was in charge. “It’s cold out there. We’ll take shorter shifts,” he said in explanation. He hesitated, and then drawled slowly, but with meaning, “Unless, of course, yer anxious to have yerself one extry long shift.”
    Skidder shuffled nervously but seemed to feel some relief. Had it been Will he had questioned, his dead body likely would have been cooling off out behind some barn by now. Will, as boss, had never been known to give a gang member a second chance. And Will never stopped to explain an order. “Only one boss in this here outfit,” he said coldly to any new member that might be taken in. “An’ you ain’t it.” The meaning was always clearly understood.
    Skidder, who had been around gunmen for most of his life, had already figured out that the Kid, as all the camp called Laramie, would not shoot to kill. Still, he had no desire to have his shooting arm all messed up.
    Without another look toward Laramie, Skidder reached for his heavy mackinaw and his rifle. The room stirred again. It seemed that bloodshed had been avoided. Shadow pulled out a deck of cards, and James pulled a log stool up to the table to let the man know that he wanted to be dealt in.
    Laramie moved toward the fire and reached for another piece of wood. This one was over—but he’d have to watch his back even more closely in the future.

    In another cabin some distance away, Sam threw another log on the fire and shivered visibly in spite of sparks that shot upward.
    “This here cabin’s got enough cracks to run a bear through,” he grumbled.
    Will paid no attention to his complaining. He sat with a bottle of whiskey at his elbow and every now and then stopped to take a long, bored draught of the liquor.
    “Fella gotta wear his hat to keep his ears from freezin’,” Sam went on. He rubbed his hands together to keep the circulation going.
    “Why don’t ya sit down and quit yer grousin’?” Will said sourly.
    “Gotta go git us some more firewood, thet’s why,” Sam threw back at him. “How many days we gotta keep this fire goin’ anyway?”
    “ ’Til it storms.”
    “An’ when ya bringin’ in this here storm of yers?” Sam’s sarcasm was more felt than heard.
    Will scowled and shifted. Sam wondered if he had pushed too far and was relieved when Will’s right hand reached for the whiskey bottle. The man couldn’t hold a bottle and a gun in the same hand.
    “Soon now,” he answered, almost civil. “I can feel it. It’ll be soon.”
    Sam said no more but picked up the hatchet and went out to look for more firewood.

    Ariana sighed and stacked the day’s marked assignments into a neat little pile on the corner of her desk. She was glad to have the grading completed so she could get home. The sky had darkened and the temperature had dropped. Even though she had recently added more wood to the potbellied cast-iron stove, it was unable to keep the room warm. Her feet cold, she stomped them on the floor once more as she sat at