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I saved your hide.”
    â€œSome . . .” James tried to remember. “An apple. Can of peaches. Some jerky.”
    The cigarette glowed for a long time and then the glow died.
    â€œI’ll have the apple. And jerky. Peaches hurt my teeth. They’s rotted, most of ’em. My teeth.”
    Again, the cigarette shown orange, revealing just a shadow of the man.
    â€œI said,” the voice returned after the glow died, “I ain’t et in three days.”
    â€œOh.” James moved in the darkness. “Let me find my bag.” He fumbled in the darkness, feeling like an idiot, feeling petrified. For a moment, he wished he had not run off from home. His hand touched the cold barrel of the Winchester, and he froze.
    â€œFind it?”
    â€œNo,” James said, and moved over the rifle, remembering where it was. “I stepped in something else. Well, my hand did.”
    Sniggering, the man drew on the smoke. “Reckon they dumped a load of horses up north, right afore I gots on this train.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    He found the bag and opened the sack, reaching in, but the man’s voice stopped him.
    â€œYou tossed something else in here, boy. Somethin’ heavy. Like maybe a—”
    â€œWalking stick,” James sang out. “It’s gotta be somewhere around here.”
    â€œA stick?”
    â€œWalking stick. You know . . .” Something about the stranger James didn’t like. He didn’t trust the man, even if he had pulled him aboard the boxcar.
    â€œYou a cripple?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    The man laughed. The cigarette flared again. “Run like one. Iffen I hadn’t been headin’ fer that door to take a leak, you’d never be ridin’ with me. Might have even gotten a bath of my pee.”
    The thought soured James’s stomach, but he said, “Yes, sir,” and found the apple, then two pieces of jerky. He figured he would leave the third for himself, not quite certain how long it took to travel to Fort Worth. He saw the glow again, and realized his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. He could see a bit better as he weaved across the rocking floor of the car, getting his bearings from the cigarette. He stopped, knelt, and held out his offerings. “Here you go. Name’s Mann.”
    He smelled tobacco smoke. A rough hand snatched the jerky, disappeared, then came back and took the apple. The man did not say his name, and James knew it would be rude to ask.
    â€œThat all you got?” the man asked.
    â€œIn the bag?” James fell back on his haunches. Cigarette wasn’t all he smelled on the stranger. Months must have passed since the guy had felt soap and water. “Just some extra socks.”
    â€œWhere’s yer hat?”
    He reached to his head and realized his slouch hat was gone. Probably had fallen off as he had scrambled to make the train. He smiled, although he doubted if the man could have seen it. “Lost it.”
    â€œGet sunburnt in this country, kid.”
    â€œI’ll get another.”
    â€œWith what?”
    That caused James Mann to stop and let out a long breath. He was an imbecile. He had left home with an apple, some jerky, an empty rifle, and a tin star. He hadn’t thought about money. Rarely did he have any and he could never have brought himself to borrow—no, steal was the word—some of the cash and coin his ma and pa had stashed away in the coffee can.
    The stranger, however, thought the silence meant something else.
    The smoke turned orange again and then went straight into James’s cheek, burning just underneath his right eye as a wicked left fist that felt like a hammer slammed into his jaw.
    Down went James, blinking back pain and surprise, feeling the breath explode from his lungs as the stinking man leaped onto his gut. Giant hands fell to his throat, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing.
    James couldn’t breath. Couldn’t move. The man had