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wanted to hear.
    There was a tremor of excitement in Mann’s voice as he said: ‘I’ll tell you what I know for certain.’
    The woman turned in her saddle to glower at him and sneered: ‘So just what does that sewer of a mind of yours know for certain?’
    The tall and skinny storekeeper met her scorn with a glare of triumph then said to the impassive man who rode on his right: ‘I been looking at the tracks left by their horses, mister?’
    Edge finished lighting the freshly rolled cigarette and blew out smoke as he responded:
    ‘And you’ve seen that neither one of their mounts has got a shoe with a nick in it?’
    ‘That’s right,’ Mann confirmed.
    Munro blurted eagerly: ‘That sounds to me like it’s important?’
    ‘We can forget about the horseshoe!’ Hooper said coldly. ‘I ain’t blind so I’ve seen the same tracks you have. But if Edge can be wrong about how long the woman’s hair is, he can be just as wrong about the damn horseshoe.’
    Costigan started doubtfully: ‘But we’ve all seen for ourselves when we was riding out this way that – ‘
    ‘I’m not saying there wasn’t somebody through Brogan Falls recently rode a horse with a damaged shoe like that,’ Hooper cut in irritably. ‘But there’s no way to know when it was. So let’s leave it for now. Leave all of it, damnit!’
    Munro seemed about to snarl an angry retort, but abruptly lost the will: shifted his backward look from over one shoulder to the other and fixed Edge with a quizzical gaze, then spared a glance for the scowling Mann.
    The storekeeper looked at Edge, saw he was not going to offer any response to the tacit query and assured Munro: ‘Mister, you can count on me to say in court what I know and what I’ve seen. Even if your lady-friend ain’t been so polite to me. How about you, Edge?’
    ‘To tell the truth, I ain’t too concerned about how a whore like her talks to me, feller.’
    ‘Who said she was a – ‘ Mann started as his fellow citizens peered at Hannah Foster with as much renewed interest as the storekeeper showed.
    The woman wrenched her head around to glower at all of them and snarled directly at Edge: ‘I ain’t ashamed of how I earn my living!’
    ‘ Used to earn your living, Hannie,’ Munro hurriedly corrected with heavy emphasis on the past tense.
    Mann shrugged and growled: ‘Shit, Edge, I wasn’t meaning that. I was talking about you having your say in court.’
    ‘I aim to be long gone from this part of the country by the time a trial’s held,’ Edge replied with more tobacco smoke trickling from the side of his mouth as he hunkered down deeper into the warmth of the sheepskin coat.

    ‘I’ll need to take a deposition from you before you leave, mister,’ Hooper offered sourly. ‘If you honestly do figure we got the wrong pair for killing Wendell.’
    ‘Fat lot of use that’ll be, I’ll bet,’ the woman complained bitterly.
    ‘Sure I can do that, marshal,’ Edge replied to Hooper. ‘Splitting hairs ain’t something I usually do. But I know for certain the woman riding with Quaid’s killer had a head of it and it was shorter than this one has. And she had different coloured eyes, too. I reckon those facts need to be put on record.’
    Hannah Foster hissed: ‘And like I said, a fat lot of use that’ll – ‘
    Edge showed a bleak grin as he broke in: ‘Though I doubt the lady would take the trouble to do the same for me . . . if the shoe was on the other hoof?’
    CHAPTER • 3
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    IT WAS long past suppertime when the posse and the two prisoners rode out of the timber and started down the final stretch of the turnpike toward First Street. When the cold air of the brightly moonlit night was scented faintly with wood smoke that no longer held any trace of cooking aromas. Lamplight gleamed from the scattered farms. Also from the houses of Doc Driscoll and the Reverend Beck opposite the cemetery at