The man calling himself Mike Jessup slipped into the five-foot gap between the Shiloh Saloon and Olson's Emporium. In the darkness, he quietly picked his way around the unusable stubs of lumber, the empty bottles, the discarded tin cans, the kind of useless debris that accumulates any place humans occupy.

"Jessup" paused at the rear of the buildings, his eyes probing right and left, readying himself to amble over to the community outhouse, just a man feeling the need. Once certain he was unobserved, he stepped quickly to the lean-to constructed against the rear wall of the saloon and knuckled lightly.

Immediately the door swung outward. "Step inside, Mitchell," the big man ordered.

"Jessup," the newcomer insisted as he pulled the door shut behind him. The narrow well-used bunk occupied more than half of the small space under the slanting roof. The big man and his partner barely left enough space for a third, standing nose to chin.

Two years he'd known Ed Quentin, lived with him, smelled his stink at the end of a sweaty day on the Yuma rock pile, part of the price society imposed on a man who chose to "live free," as he had always called it.

"Mitchell," Quentin repeated. "Got a fresh dodger printed up with your name in the big letters. How much is Wells Fargo paying for your scrawny hide?"

"Two fifty," Mitchell acknowledged. "Nothing dead," he added urgently. Quentin needed to know that.

"Already got your ticket back to Yuma punched," Quentin continued. The smirk belonged to the Ed Quentin Mitchell hated. "Seems like maybe a young sprout like you'd be wanting to work with men in the business."

Mitchell tried to change the subject. "We've been here too long, Quentin. Ruby will be bringing her next trick."

"Harve's keeping her company. He won't be coming out for his ride until he knows we're done."

It wasn't just the memory of the rock pile sweat that drove Mitchell to try to end the confab. His own smell had been as bad. It was the older man's arrogant finger pounding his chest that brought back his hatred for Quentin, for others of their kind. He had always worked solo.

"He's right," the other man said. "Can the talk. Let's get our business done."

Mitchell resigned himself to listen.

"Just rode into Willcox today, looking for work," Quentin said. "The stages we been stopping don't seem to have nothing but a few drummers and their money belts. We was thinking of making a bank withdrawal."

"I don't work banks," Mitchell said.

working Quentin ignored him. "Imagine our surprise when Harve and me spotted an old friend waiting to make us welcome. And for Wells Fargo, too. Two-fifty you say, just for telling them your real name?"

"Look—"

"But Harve and Fred and me talked it over. Seems you can put a lot more than two-fifty in our pockets." Mitchell listened. Quentin's demand was clear. They'd exchange their closed mouths for his tip-off of a lucrative shipment. Yuma graduate Dave Mitchell would never turn down such a proposition. But there was a trade to be made.

"I do that, I can't stay here," Mitchell said. "I get a full one-quarter share."

Quentin and Mitchell shook on it and Mitchell eased out into the night.

The two men waited for him to leave. "Him getting a quarter ain't going to sit well with Drew and Sid waiting back in camp."

"Maybe we got more men than Mitchell thinks," Quentin said. "What that boy don't know is going to get him killed."

Back on Railroad Street, Mitchell saw Chet Collins a block away, out in front of the Crystal Palace, Collins, his "partner" so Wells Fargo called him, the man who thought he had a ring through Mitchell's nose, a man whose very presence tugged Mitchell in a way his whole life had rejected, away from the free life he had lived until tangling his spurs outside Bisbee and spending his "vacation" from the business in Yuma. Mitchell turned the other way, always keeping at least one hundred yards between himself and badge stink, at least where eyes could see. He walked the long way around to his dingy rooming house with the stuffy, confining quarters. Not crammed with men like his cell—his cage—at Yuma, but its walls formed a prison just the same.

Freedom, that was what defined a man; freedom and action. Since he turned fifteen and ran out on his Pa's never-ending farm chores, since he learned that stages had money free-for-the-taking, those two words had driven him: action and freedom. Action more pulse-pounding than clattering down a bumpy road, cradling a shotgun on his knees, expecting nothing more exciting than a broken wagon wheel. Freedom of riding where you wanted, camping by a running stream, taking a sage hen for dinner, not doffing your Stetson to any man. Now, each day followed day, each boring wagon ride followed the one before, and Mitchell felt himself losing the vitality of life.

Six weeks had gone by since the judge consigned him to another five years in Yuma Penitentiary this time for the Tombstone robbery; six weeks since Wells Fargo busted or bribed him out because they credited him with the capture of the Runnels gang and saving Collins' life. Now he was working for Wells Fargo, partnered with Chet Collins. So Wells Fargo thought. Himself? He'd bought into the deal for a chance to ride the open range stirrup-to-stirrup with the five foot-six inch Chet Collins, the biggest man he'd ever known. [1] But five weeks now, penned up in town, riding shotgun on stages in the robber-infested Cochise and Willcox Counties, left him bored with town life, with town smells, with town routine, hungry for some real action.

Had Quentin brought what he needed?

Then came word of the gold shipment, to Quentin it was the opportunity to fatten his money belt, to the Wells Fargo "suit" back in San Francisco, the chance for Mitchell to earn his wages by entrapping the robbers, to his own self-interest, a chance to share in the swag from the robbery, turn his back on the sterile responsibility Chet Collins represented and ride free again.

He had made his decision, and it tore at him.

Rattling down the road, his shotgun in his lap, Mitchell's nerves jangled more than in any solo stage robbery of his career. The way he laid it out for Quentin, the plan seemed perfect on paper. Nothing should go wrong. As long as each man did his job.

"What?" Mitchell asked the driver.

"I said, hot today, Jessup," Dyson repeated.

That it was, Mitchell conceded. And it would get hotter once they entered the shadows of the pass.

The freight wagon had pulled out of the Wells, Fargo yard in Willcox on schedule, just after noon. Stacked and loaded carefully were the sacks of potatoes, the boxes of air tights, a heavy motor to replace one whose best days were behind it, and carefully situated under the potatoes, the box labeled peaches that held the monthly payroll. The Lucky Coin Mine was a small operation, there was no reason to expect its supply wagon would attract unwanted attention, but the Willcox Station had lost three stages in the last two months to Ed and Harve Quentin, and paying Mitchell to ride shotgun added extra security.

Or so the station master thought. If he had known his guard's mama called him Davey, not Mikey, he'd have thought different.

Off in the distance a half hour or more, Mitchell could see the rim of low hills emerging from the heat haze. They had turned off the post road an hour ago, still had three hours travel after they emerged from the narrow pass and made the wide swing toward the Lucky Coin Mine, scheduled to arrive in time for supper.

Except they'd have an unscheduled stop in the pass. "The team will be breathing hard from the upslope," he'd explained to Quentin. "Halfway through the pass, the hills close in and the road narrows down to just double ruts. You three ride out there, and there's nothing between you and the box but my shotgun which I'll toss down once I see I'm outnumbered."

Quentin liked the sound of it. "Easy pickings," he said. "That's my kind of work."

"No killing," Mitchell had insisted and Quinton had agreed. One thing about Mitchell that even the Wells Fargo man had known about him back when he'd braced him in the warden's office at Yuma and tried to talk him in to stinking himself up wearing a badge, Mitchell didn't hold with killing.

Wells Fargo had doubts about him, of course they had. He'd made his choice, or appeared to, when they broke him out of jail and paid him off for the role they thought he had played in capturing Runnels. He had signed up on their team. But had he really? Collins must wonder. Mitchell had wondered himself. Money in his pocket from this robbery would restore the freedom that working for wages denied him. A man's life, wasn't that what he wanted? Did he really know what he wanted?

Jogging on a wagon seat, the old ways called to him in a way that drove him to ponder the mysteries of life. Is a man's trail set for him, even before he was born? He'd heard that some preachers held to that. Had his life been predestined from the beginning? Had Ed Quentin been in his future even before his Ma met his Pa? Did a man have a choice?

Since Texas, his trail had taken him where he could hear the owl hoot. Work the Colorado mining district in summer, head south to Arizona when the mountain air turned nippy. Never have to listen to wordy nothings from an empty head like Dyson. Living free. That seemed to suit his nature.

Then he met Collins and got all confused, Collins standing proud in his union suit before the men fixing to kill him, Collins who showed up the smirking outlaws of Runnels' gang up as pale imitations of manhood, Collins the first real man he had known. Whenever he thought of Collins, a different trail called to him. Could his nature be made to fit it?

"Creek's up ahead," Dyson said, as though Mitchell couldn't see the blue ribbon meandering across their path.

"Same place it was last time," Mitchell replied. The wagon began to slow as Dyson prepared to ease across the rickety structure, not a sturdy taxpayer-funded Road District bridge, just a thrown-together mass of boards and nails put up by the Lucky Coin Mine.

In the distance, off to the West, a couple of cowhands came into view over a rise, lazily driving three steers before them in the heat of the day, a typical range scene. "Some sweat-and-dirt cowhands up ahead," Mitchell said, a life he had gladly avoided for the easier life of a man who took what he wanted.

The cowhands and their steers neared the bridge at the same time as the wagon. Suddenly Mitchell's nerves jangled. Cows don't fight against splashing across a shallow creek. Why were the cowhands driving them toward the bridge?

Dyson's lead mules were clumping onto the wooden planks, when the driver pulled rein. "What the . . . ?"

Mitchell came alert. The irony struck him: the scheme he had worked out could be smashed all to hell by two free-lance interlopers here, two miles of short of the planned robbery. It would be a good joke on Quentin; a good joke on them all. He tightened his grip on his shotgun, but the cowhands made no moves toward their holsters.

"Move them," Dyson ordered. "Get them out of my way."

The cowhand with the handlebar mustache raised his hand, his gun hand, in a peace gesture. "Things will be quiet, old man," he said. "'Less you want it the other way."

The other man spoke next. "Harve and Ed are bellied down up on the hogback to your left. Good rifle distance." He looked at Mitchell. "Drop the shotgun, or fall on it."

Mitchell hesitated long enough to make sure Dyson saw his reluctance. "Do it quick, Jessup," Dyson said. "Potatoes and canned tomatoes ain't worth gun smoke."

In five minutes the sacks of potatoes and canned goods had been carelessly tossed aside, no matter that several broke open and spilled their contents on the hard ground, the "peaches" checked and tied on behind Handlebars' saddle, and Dyson and Mitchell mounted bareback on the lead mules to be led away toward the hills.

Sitting cross-legged on the ground shamming a prisoner in front of Dyson as he and Quentin had arranged, Mitchell watched the gang work the cook fire and prepare supper. Now was when the tension of the past month should evaporate. Among this sort of men, he should feel none of the dissonance in his soul he felt around the sturdy Collins. Now, he was among his own kind.

"I say we've been lollygagging here long enough," Drew Alvord said through his handlebars. "We ought to be in the saddle and pounding leather through the night."

"We got plenty of time." Ed Quentin turned to Dyson. "When you due at the Lucky Coin Mine?"

"Around six."

"Three hours before any posse even knows they got a trail they need to follow. We stop here, let the horses graze, do some grazing ourselves and push on rested. We'll be halfway to New Mexico by the time they even get started."

Mitchell conceded that from a slick robber's point of view Quentin's plan had been better than his own. The robbery had gone smoothly. In taking Dyson and him along, they'd assured there'd be no pursuit for hours.

Or so they thought.

Some nights back in his room, tossing in his blankets, the idea of trading the companionship of a real man like Collins for the freedom of the outlaw life seemed too big a price to pay. Other times, he had known that Collins was so far above him that he was only play-acting to think he could be more than an ex-con Collins had to work with.

Be yourself, a voice urged him. He'd heard that voice before. That voice led him to the adventure of the trail herd away from Texas. It led him to the freedom of stage work. "Be yourself," it said again. But what kind of man was he? What kind of man goes back on his word? On what he promised to Wells Fargo—no, not to Wells Fargo, those bankers had never really claimed his allegiance; it was his word to Chet Collins that robbed him of sleep.

The tin plates were filled from the cook pot and passed around. The cook fire burned down, only a few freshly-cut creosote branches still burned slowly. The men had finished eating now, had rolled their smokes. Still they dawdled, secure in the knowledge that Quentin had planned well, that it would be hours before a posse could mount and if the posse ever closed in, the posse would be tired and their own mounts fresh.

Mitchell looked around the camp, at Ed and Harve Quentin, at Drew Alvord and Fred Durning and Sid Abbott. These were his kind of men. He hated himself for that truth. Yet now here he was, squatting in an outlaw camp, a share of money about to come into his pockets, and the only man in his life he had ever looked up to already convinced that he was a liar and a double-crosser.

His future was set, perhaps had always been set. He would live in back canyon hideouts with men like his new partners until his luck ran out. His wanted dodger would be in bright colors now, a rich bounty high enough to draw attention. For Wells, Fargo would never give up, pursuing him wherever he ran, not a robber, not even a killer, but a man wearing the brand "traitor."

Whatever he thought of Quentin and his gang, Mitchell's own security, his survival, rested on them making good their escape.

Yet still he held back from warning Quintin that pursuit was at hand. Unwilling to disclose his uncertain role, was he? Or because his heart was with Chet Collins, and even Wells Fargo, despite the heavy cost their victory would exact on him?

"What's that dust," Durning asked. Fred Durning's outstretched arm pointed to a clump of riders on their back trail. "Can't be no one chasing us, not this quick."

"Don't matter who," Quentin said. "Just four saddles needing to be emptied. Five of us who know the business, and shooting downhill, should have no trouble plunking four horsemen."

Mitchell knew who they were. Not a posse from town, but Collins and his men, fresh from their stake-out in the walls above the canyon where they expected to take down three unsuspecting outlaws in the middle of a robbery, the plan Mitchell had assured Collins would work, Mitchell who had fought between his desire to live a free life again and his admiration for Chet Collins and made his decision. Much good it would do him. But Collins had expected three men, not five; now he would be outgunned. With the posse dead, Mitchell could still ride free.

"Harve, flank them from that knoll up there." Ed Quentin watched as his brother grabbed up his rifle and jogged into position. In open terrain the attackers would have no choice but to advance without cover against defenders waiting and primed. "Let them get within one hundred yards," Ed Quentin ordered. "Then we bring 'em down fast and hard."

"What about—" Alvord asked.

"Get it done," Quentin ordered.

Mitchell watched Alvord stalk toward the fire. Suddenly Mitchell understood. Quentin had never meant to keep his promise to let Dyson live. Mitchell's mind insisted that he didn't care one way or the other about the fat, dull teamster, but he quickly lost the debate. He'd told Quentin about the shipment. That made him responsible.

Alvord stopped three paces away and palmed his revolver. He was unhurried as he extended his arm, ignoring, no, smiling at, Dyson's pleas. Cross-legged, any move Mitchell made would be clumsy, slow, without leverage. Still he dove, sprawled more like it, toward Alvord's legs. He heard the gun discharge, but only after he'd collided with Alvord's knees and toppled the man sideways. Alvord's revolver clattered away.

Behind him he heard Dyson, boots on the ground and running, running away, the fool, not coming to help. He heard another shot, a scream cut short. And then the guns of Collins' posse opened up. Mitchell heard Abbott grunt.

Mitchell held Alvord tight around the thighs as the man tried to kick free. Alvord twisted and rolled on top, the bigger man's weight pinning Mitchell. The fire's heat started to smoke his shirt. He freed a hand, reached out and grasped a smoldering brand. The hot wood scorched his flesh. He gutted through the pain. Swung hard. Connected. Alvord screamed as his hair blazed up and rolled away in agony. Mitchell searched for Alvord's pistol. Saw it. Dove forward.

Durning's shot found Mitchell as his hand closed around the revolver. Pain lanced through his thigh. He rolled. Brought the gun up. On the knoll, he saw Harve Quentin prone, a good firing position. Nearer, Ed Quentin, his rifle braced on a boulder, taking careful aim at the approaching posse. But Durning was his peril, fifteen feet away, killing range, and readying for his second shot.

In a gun fight, with death a trigger pull away, a man has less than a second to get it right. Mitchell raced Durning to squeeze off the first shot, felt the buck of the gun against his palm, saw his shot strike home. Even as Ed Quentin staggered, Mitchell spun toward Durning, knowing he was too late, seeing the muzzle flash, feeling the fist slam into his chest; then he was sprawling backwards, the hot wetness spreading down his side.

As he yielded to the darkness, Mitchell heard a commanding voice, Collins' voice. "Toss down your gun." He saw Durning drop the weapon and raise his hands. Then Mitchell surrendered to burning agony, to weakness, and knew no more.

Mitchell swam upward through pain and fever, fighting for semi-consciousness. He found himself in a bed in a back room that smelled of a doctor's house, his right wrist handcuffed to the bedstead, the expected reward for his perceived treachery and double-dealing.

Yuma didn't matter now. He had tried the other life, the life of a man like Collins. He had tried to do his job for Wells Fargo, to plan a trap for an outlaw gang. But he had been outsmarted. Thinking through the fever haze, some things were clear. He had failed. No one would ever believe his story. Truth didn't matter; not when facts showed that he led Collins to a false stake-out; not with the unarguable evidence that the robbers would have made good their escape had they not loitered to eat.

So Mitchell would go back to Yuma, or maybe not, maybe if Dyson had died, he would hang with the rest of them. Mitchell resolved to face his future like Collins would: without whining.

He surrendered again to the darkness.

The light of full day flooded through the window. Mitchell awoke to find the Sheriff unlocking the handcuff around the bed post.

"Doc says you can limp the two blocks to the jail."

"How's . . . how's Dyson?"

"Dead," Sheriff Talbot replied. "One in the back. Maybe your gun, maybe not, but you're on your way to Yuma either way. You and the rest of your gang."

"Not my—"

The Sheriff wasn't listening. "On your feet. I'm not one for wasting breath on killers."

As Mitchell struggled to sit up, to swing his feet to the floor, he sensed a man stepping into the doorway behind him. "Thought you'd gone on," the sheriff said.

"Wells Fargo's first responsibility was to deliver the payroll," the voice in the doorway said. "I figured the posse could get everyone to town."

"They did. Then they stopped at the saloon and started drinking up the reward Wells Fargo posted for bringing in Mitchell." The sheriff thumbed toward his prisoner.

"Wells Fargo won't pay a penny for this one," Collins said. "That's not Mitchell."

The Sheriff turned to the Wells, Fargo agent. "What you mean? That's what Durning called him."

"Guess I should know Mitchell, Sheriff. I ran him in after the Tombstone robbery. About the same size and coloring, but it's not him."

"Then who is he?"

"Jessup," Mitchell said. "Shotgunner for Wells Fargo Stage Line."

The sheriff stood uncertainly. "You're saying you were just a prisoner like Dyson?"

"More than that, Sheriff," Collins said. "It was him making a ruckus in the outlaw camp that turned the tide, brought down the leader and kept two other men busy fighting him while we closed in. Likely we'd have had some down on our side without him."

Mitchell rode slowly, weak, his shoulder and leg throbbing in pain, but the urgency of putting distance between himself and the suspicious Willcox lawman overrode all else. Finally, twenty miles out of town on the southern edge of Dos Cabezas Mountains where the trail entered Apache Pass he pulled aside, down-saddled and picketed his grulla to graze while he set up camp.

Later, Mitchell thought back to other campfires and took stock of the unexpected direction his life had taken since the Yuma gate closed behind him, roads that left him torn between the life that came naturally to him, the life of the outlaw, and a different life whose appeal he didn't understand, at the war he had felt raging within him even around Quentin's campfire where his destiny had seemed carved in granite.

Did he even know who he was anymore?

Maybe not. But as he looked over the dying embers of the campfire, he knew who he wanted to be.

"Where to next, partner?"

"Mesilla," Collins told him. "We rest you up a bit. Then it's Colorado. The Fowler Gang hangs out in an outlaw haven called Brown's Park."