By the end of the day, the stab in her side would not let her swing her leg over the horse's back. Her head sagged as she let herself slide from the saddle to the ground, catching the fall on the roll of her shoulder.

She lay in the grit of the street in front of the sheriff's office, breath hissing through her teeth, blood seeping from a wound in her side.

She shooed away Sheriff Bates when he bent down to see. Needed bother she told him, then reached inside a vest pocket, tossed a flash of gold at his feet- her husband' s chain-watch, the one picked off his body. He had been unloading grain sacks behind Danner's Mercantile and when he reached into the wagon, Jack Bannon crushed his skull with a brickbat.

He took the watch, three dollars from the man's pocket, tried to cut off the swollen ring finger for the wedding band but was interrupted by Mr. Danner. The sheriff wouldn't spare one man to send after him, not with so many roughnecks driving cattle into town. He was, he told her, obliged to uphold the town's best interest. Those rowdy boys let bullets fly as fast as their money.

She tells the sheriff, that son of a bitch won't be needing the watch either, and let go of the grief she had lashed tight against her chest and the creases of her brow smoothed.

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