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as I’d expected, he wandered to the edge of the cemetery. With his spade he scooped up large clumps of grass and carefully placed the sod over the grave. Dousing the light, he strolled to his horse and hooked the lantern over the saddle horn.
    Stars blazed bright against the blackness. Gaslit streetlights from Deadwood’s Main Street provided an amber hue against the black hills. The mysterious stranger stood with his back to us, his silhouette framed against the night sky. I half expected him to light a cigarette and blow smoke rings, pull out a harmonica, and play a melancholy cowboy tune. Instead, he placed his hands on his hips and arched his back, stretching.
    After a few seconds I realized I’d stopped breathing. So had Annie. The sight of him so close and obviously armed with a revolver had turned us into statues.
    At last he gathered the reins and walked his horse under the archway and back toward the trail, his head bobbing side-to-side until he disappeared.
    I exhaled.
    “How long do we wait?”
    I hesitated before answering Annie. I wanted to make certain the man was gone.
    “A while,” I replied.
    “You planning to dig up that body with your hands?”
    “If I have to, yes.”
    “Wouldn’t it be easier if we just went back and told Uncle Walt?”
    “Told him what? That there’s a body buried in Boot Hill? Isn’t that sort of the point of a graveyard? All I need is a pictureof the face. That should be enough to convince your uncle I’m not crazy.”
    “Nick?”
    “He still might not believe me though. Might think I staged it.”
    “Nick!”
    “For all I know that could be your uncle we just saw. Which means if I show him the pictures he’s going to know—”
    “Nick, I think there’s someone …”
    I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, pivoted, and leapt backwards, tumbling into Annie. If I’d jumped a half second later the shovel would have split my skull. The blade whooshed past and clanked against the rocks. I rolled onto my elbow and tried to stand but my attacker pounced, grabbing my jacket and bouncing my head off shale so hard that it felt like he was trying to crack a walnut.
    He’d come at us from my right and slightly behind, slipping through a narrow slot where the base of the cliff joined the rocks. Somehow he’d remained below the brow of the graveyard and crept back and around, apparently moving very quickly.
    He raised his fist to pound my face. As he did, I bucked and swung my legs, clipping him behind and just above his ankles. He fell hard, releasing a loud “harrumph.” Annie yanked away the bandana, gasped, and grabbed my hand, pulling me away just as the killer lunged for my collar. We made no effort to keep quiet, sprinting back across the weeds, jumping over headstones and the iron fence. We went skidding and tripping down the trail, bouncing off a cactus and a bush and making a horrible racket.
    When we reached the dry creek bed, I followed Annie down the gully, coming out on a service road. Her horse stood in the small cluster of pines just where we’d left it.
    “Ride back to town and don’t stop until you reach the stables,” she said, thrusting the reins into my hands. “Put her in the corral. I’ll come by later and bed her down.”
    “Come on, we’ll both ride her. The two of us don’t weigh that much.”
    “She’s nursing a sore tendon, and I don’t want to chance it,” Annie countered. “I’ll follow this road and walk back to town. Hurry, before he catches you.” Before I could stop her, she fed my foot into the stirrup, adding, “Try not to fall off. If I’m lucky, he’ll see you riding away and follow. Now go!”
    “But what about the marshal? We have to tell him what we saw.”
    “My uncle can’t know about this.”
    “What? Why?”
    “Not a word. Not to anyone.”
    “But I have to tell the marshal.”
    “Especially not him. I’ll find you in the morning and explain everything. Now ride!”

CHAPTER SIX
NOT A GHOST