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fist landing on any exposed portion of his body. His mouth filled with hot scarlet blood behind loosened teeth. He heard the grunting of the sheriff accompanying every blow as he savaged Cameron’s body with asking the same questions with each pile-driver strike.
    â€˜Where is it? Do I have to kill you, Harte?’
    It was only over when Cameron lost consciousness and couldn’t even attempt an answer. He woke sometime around midnight, by rough reckoning, and dragged himself toward his bunk. Conceding that his bunk was no softer than the stone floor of the prison, unable to drag himself upright on battered limbs, he sagged back to the floor, not sleeping but mewling the night away in despair.
    They did not come to roust him out to his work in the boot shop the next morning. The door opened only once as he lay curled against the floor and a bowl of the thin gruel was placed near him by one of the guards. Cameron thought he saw a faint flicker of sympathy in the man’s eyes, but that was little consolation.
    My life has ended, he thought as he clawed nearer the gruel. They’ll never let me out of here unless I tell them, but I can’t tell them what I don’t know! The spoon in his hand seemed too heavy and slippery to lift and he fell down, rolling over onto his back to stare at the colorless stone ceiling, cursing the soul of the treacherous Stony Harte.
    It was daylight again when the door opened next and Cameron cowered in a corner like a beaten hound, his arms across his face. But no hand was placed upon him. The heavy door opened and then clanged shut again. He heard shuffling steps in the cell and finally opened an eye to watch the lean, long-jawed, mustached man in prison gray lowering the other bunk on its chains. The new prisoner sat on it, testing the chains with his weight and studied Cameron.
    â€˜They giving you a rough time of it?’ the new prisoner asked.
    â€˜That’s not the half of it,’ Cam answered past battered ribs and bruised lips.
    â€˜It’s a rough hole we’re in, brother,’ the mustached man said. He didn’t move, but continued to watch Cameron Black. The newcomer stretched his arms once and then clasped his hands together between his knees. ‘Want some help up?’
    Ashamed, Cameron nodded heavily and the stranger got to his feet, hooking his hands under Cameron’s armpits, lifting him to wobbly legs and guiding him toward his bunk where Cameron settled with a moan. He sat there, his head hanging as if weighted by an anvil.
    â€˜What’d you do to get them so mad at you?’ the new prisoner asked.
    â€˜Trusted the wrong man,’ Cam answered. True to the prisoner’s code, the new man did not ask him what his crime had been, but only nodded.
    â€˜They just brought me up from Phoenix. I’ve got another trial coming Monday,’ Cameron’s cell mate said despondently. ‘I’m pretty sure they’re going to hang me. Me, I trusted the wrong woman, and now, brother, I am going to pay for that.’
    Cameron remained in a seated position, his back against the wall behind his plank bunk. He was afraid that if he lay down he might never get up again. He could not sleep, nor did he want to. It would take more than a few more hours of unconsciousness to revive his battered body.
    â€˜My name’s Elliott Hogan,’ the new man said, reaching out a hand toward Cameron. Cam took it weakly and nodded a bare inch in acknowledgement.
    â€˜Cameron Black.’
    â€˜Glad to meet you. Sorry it had to be in here,’ Hogan said.
    â€˜Is there any place left but here?’ Cameron murmured through his puffed lips.
    â€˜Feel like talking? It seems you probably don’t.’
    â€˜It makes no difference,’ Cam answered, with a one-shouldered shrug.
    â€˜It can all be told another time,’ Hogan said indifferently. ‘You know how it is – a wronged man feels like talking about his