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and anybody who says I did is a damn liar,” Raven said.
    â€œI say it, Raven,” Frank said.
    â€œBig talk, Cobb,” Raven said. “If Poke Hylle was here, he’d make you sing a different tune.”
    â€œBoss, Poke is dead,” Standish said. “And so are Dave Brisk and Verne McCoy.” He nodded in Frank’s direction. “He killed all three of them in Tobias Briggs’s place. Briggs is dead, as well.”
    That news hit Ezra Raven hard and he gasped as though he’d just been punched in the gut. “No, that ain’t true. Not Poke.”
    Misery written large on his face, Standish said, “But it is true, boss. Poke drew down on Cobb an’ got shot. Cobb shot Dave and then Verne. And Briggs got shot. Hell, everybody got shot excepting me.”
    Raven stared at Frank, his mouth slack. “Poke drew first, but you had time to haul iron and gun him?”
    â€œYeah, that’s how it happened, Raven,” Frank said. “Poke Hylle was good with the Colt, real fast on the draw and shoot. And he had sand. But I was more than a shade faster and I got sand of my own.”
    The conversation cut off there as two of Raven’s punchers rode in from the range, dusty, dirty, and on the hunt for coffee. The clack-clack of levered Winchesters from Kate’s party welcomed them.
    After looking from Raven to Kate Kerrigan and back again, one of the riders summed things up in his mind then said, “Is there trouble here, boss?”
    â€œNo trouble,” Kate said. “If Mr. Raven agrees to my terms.”
    The rancher was almost apoplectic with rage. “Terms! What are you talking about, lady? Terms? You don’t give Ezra Raven terms.”
    â€œIt’s quite simple, really,” Kate said. “You will use your men to help me round up my herd—the one you scattered, Mr. Raven. Remember? Only after that job is completed will you carry out your own gather.”
    â€œDamned if I will!” the big rancher said.
    â€œKate, do you want me to hang Raven as a rustler and murderer now or later?” Frank said.
    â€œNot yet. Let’s hope we won’t need that unpleasantness. Mr. Raven, you willfully scattered my cows all over the range. It’s only right that you gather them up again.”
    â€œI’m no rustler,” Raven said. “And where do you get this murderer nonsense, Cobb?”
    â€œYour segundo Poke Hylle and four of your hands, including Standish here, killed and robbed three Mexicans just south of the Briggs place,” Frank said. “They may have been acting on your orders, Raven, but even if they were not, they were your men and that makes you responsible and just as guilty.”
    â€œLou, is he telling the truth?” Raven said.
    â€œI had no hand in the killing, boss,” Standish said. “It was all Poke’s idea. You know how he hated Mexicans . . . and everybody else who wasn’t white, come to that.”
    â€œI gave no such order,” Raven said.
    â€œYou’re guilty nonetheless,” Frank said. “You deserve to hang, Raven. Anybody ever tell you that you got a neck made for a rope?”
    One of the Raven punchers, a kid with a round face as freckled as a robin’s egg, lowered his hand toward his holstered gun.
    â€œEsau, leave the iron be. Cobb will kill you.” After the cowboy pulled his hand away, the rancher said, “The last thing I need is another dead drover.” He glared at Kate Kerrigan. “And if I don’t round up your herd?”
    â€œThen I’ll hang you, Raven,” Frank said. “Today or another day, it doesn’t make any difference to me, but depend on it. You’ll swing and soon.”
    â€œYou gonna let your hired man talk to me like that, Mrs. Kerrigan?” Raven said.
    It could have been a statement of defiance but wasn’t. Coming from a man who normally cut a wide path and had a history of riding