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file he had been given along with the badge was extensive, listing known criminals in Texas and other Western states and territories, as well as their aliases. Curruthers’s name had been added to the list.
    “You fellas going to come on in and have some of this coffee, or you just going to lay out there on your bellies till the sun rises?”
    Damian’s eyes flew open. Kid wasn’t talking to him, he was sure; in fact, he then heard a chuckle from a distance. He sat up slowly and could vaguely make out the shadows of two men just now standing up, dusting off their clothes, at least twenty feet away.
    Damian glanced next at his host to see his reaction to these visitors. Kid was fully dressed, wearing the same clothes as the night before, with a few extra wrinkles from having slept in them. His hat was dangling halfway down his back from a string around his neck, showing that his black hair wasn’t just straggly, it was matted, filthy, actually looked like it hadn’t seen a comb in months—if ever.
    He was hunkered down by the fire he’d restarted, seemingly relaxed, though his expression was inscrutable. It was impossible to tell if he was wary of these new visitors, glad to havemore company, or indifferent. It gave Damian pause.
    And how the devil he’d known that they were out there, Damian couldn’t imagine. The light from the fire barely reached ten feet away, the outer perimeters of the camp in full shadow, the sun still a good thirty minutes from rising. Damian had had to squint just to see the strangers’ shadows, and that with them standing, yet the boy had somehow spotted them with those golden, catlike eyes.
    He had to wonder, too, why the two men had been more or less hiding as they watched the camp, particularly after Kid had made such a to-do last night about it being customary to give a camp warning before approaching it. Apparently Damian wasn’t the only ignorant one.
    The two men were approaching the fire now. As they became more visible, he noticed the taller man was smiling in a friendly way. The other one was still whacking his crumpled-up hat against his legs and scattering dust. How anyone could treat a hat like that…
    The hatless one stopped in his tracks when he noticed Damian. His eyes widened as if he’d seen a ghost, and in fact, he said to his friend, “I thought you said he was dead. He sure don’t look dead to me.”
    There was a loud groan from the friend. “You gotta be the biggest-mouthed jackass I ever had the misfortune to ride with, Billybob.”
    He’d drawn his weapon as he spoke, pointing it at Damian. Billybob fumbled a bit for his own weapon, but finally got it out and aimed it at Kid, who was slowly standing up, his armsstretched out to his sides to show they’d have no trouble from him. And still without expression. No fear. That alone was beginning to annoy Damian. He was obviously meeting up with the men who’d apparently robbed the stage, yet Kid seemed totally unconcerned.
    Billybob merely complained, “You got no call to cuss at me, Vince, when it were your fault he surprised me like he just did. Next time you say a fella’s dead, make sure they’s dead.”
    “Shuddup, Billybob. You’re just putting your foot in deeper.”
    Billybob actually looked down at the ground to see what he’d put his foot in. His friend, noting where he was looking, rolled his eyes, then nudged the smaller man to remind him where he should be looking, which was at the camp, or rather, at its two occupants. And his smile returned as his eyes lit on Damian.
    “Well, now,” he said agreeably. “We might as well get down to business, seeing as how Billybob’s let the cat out of the bag. We already know you ain’t got nothing left of interest, mister, but what about you, kid?”
    For a moment, Damian thought they were already acquainted with the boy, calling him kid like that. But then he realized that the word just referred to the boy’s youth. Like he’d said, he was so