Marshal Justice Sterling had one witness to a murder, and she would not say a word. He rode into Firestone at dawn to find the man who shot the old marshal dead in the street. Two months buried now, and the trail had gone cold. Sterling wore white from hat to boots, a gold star pinned over his heart. He meant to see the killer stand trial in the town courthouse, not die in an alley. But justice needed a name, and only one person had seen the shooting. He tied his pinto to the rail outside the laundry. The black-and-white horse stood easy, saddle worn smooth from long roads. Inside, a girl no older than twelve stirred a steaming tub. Steam curled up and stuck her hair to her cheeks. She had washed the dead marshal's shirt the morning he was killed. She had watched the whole thing through the window. "I know you saw it," Sterling said. He kept his voice low. "I won't let him near you." The girl gripped her stirring paddle white-knuckled. "He knows my face," she said. "He looked right at me. If I talk, he'll come back." Sterling knelt so their eyes met. He set his star on the wet counter between them. "You see this? A man wore it before me. He tried to bring that same killer in. Now he's in the ground. I aim to finish what he started. But I can't do it blind." She stared at the star. Her lip shook. "They'll say I lied. Grown men lie all the time." "You won't be alone," he said. "I'll stand beside you every step, from that window to the witness chair." A long silence. Water dripped from her paddle. Then she leaned close and whispered a name. Sterling did not move. He knew the name. Half the county knew it. Cole Ransom, a rustler who drank at the far saloon and feared no lawman. "He rode a gray horse with a split ear," she added, faster now. "He dropped a knife. I still have it." She reached under the tub and pulled out a bone-handled blade wrapped in rag. Sterling took the knife and held it to the light. Initials cut in the handle. C.R. A killer's own mark. He stood and pinned his star back on. Now he had a name, a weapon, and a witness. But the girl had spoken the truth of it. Cole Ransom knew her face. The moment word spread that she talked, her life was worth nothing. Sterling looked out the window at the dusty street. He had his lead at last. He also had a child to keep breathing until the trial. He wrapped the knife in the rag and slid it inside his coat. Then he crossed to his pinto and swung up into the saddle. He would find Ransom before Ransom found her.

Sterling sat in the saddle outside the laundry and did not move. The girl watched him through the steamy window. He had a name now, and a knife, and a witness. He also had a problem. The moment he rode out to hunt Ransom, the girl stood alone. Ransom knew her face. One rider sent ahead, one whisper in the wrong saloon, and she would be gone before Sterling found his man. He could not hunt and guard her both. So the killer stayed free while the marshal stood still. He turned the pinto and rode to the courthouse. The stone walls stood square and heavy in the morning heat. Beside the main doors sat the little jail block, low and grim. The deputy swept the front steps, the same steps he had swept as a boy. Sterling swung down. "I need someone I trust to watch a child," he said. "Day and night. I can't ride out until I know she's safe." The deputy leaned on his broom. "I can hold a door. I can't be in two places if Ransom brings friends." A voice cut in from the shade. "Then don't put her behind one door. Put her behind a wall." Ruby MacAllister stepped down from the boardwalk, red hair loose, boots quiet on the stone. She worked the far saloon and knew every drinker in the county by name and by glass. She looked at Sterling the way she always did, like he was a man worth keeping alive. "Ransom drinks at the Silver Spur. He talks when he drinks. I hear things you never will." Sterling frowned. "This isn't your fight." "You rode after three men alone," Ruby said. Her voice dropped. "Two came back. I'm not watching you do that blind again." She nodded at the jail block. "That holding cell has one door and stone on three sides. Lock the girl in there. Feed her, sit with her. I'll send word the second Ransom moves." Sterling looked at the severe little block beside the courthouse. One door. Thick walls. The deputy could hold it. Ruby could hear the town breathing from behind her bar. He had been trying to solve the problem with one man. She had handed him three. He rode back for the girl himself. He walked her into the holding cell and set his star on the cot beside her. "You stay here," he said. "He can't reach you through stone." The deputy took a chair by the door and laid a shotgun across his knees. Sterling mounted the pinto. The horse tossed its head, easy now, ready for road. His witness was walled in and watched. His path was clear at last. He could hunt Cole Ransom. Then Ruby caught his stirrup. "One more thing," she said quietly. "Ransom left town at dawn. Rode north. He already knows she talked."

Ruby's hand stayed on the stirrup. Sterling looked north, where the road climbed into broken hills. He meant to ride out and take Cole Ransom alone. Then a boy ran up from the Silver Spur, breathless, and said the words that changed the plan. Ransom hadn't ridden north by himself. Four men rode with him. All armed. All his own. Sterling sat still. One rider he could take. Five he could not. If he rode up alone, they would bury him like they buried the last marshal. And once Sterling was gone, no one stood between Ransom and the girl in the stone cell. Ruby read his face. "You're doing the arithmetic," she said. "It comes out bad. Don't ride it anyway." Her voice dropped. "Two came back last time. I counted them off the saddles myself." Sterling swung down. He walked to the jail block and pushed open the door. The deputy sat by the cot with the shotgun across his knees. A small gecko clung to the warm stone above the window, still as a stain. "Clyde," Sterling said. "Ransom brought four men. I can't take him alone." The deputy stood. "Then don't." "You're the only man I trust to hold this door." "I know these hills better than any of them." Clyde nodded at the girl. "But she needs a wall and a gun. That's me sitting here." He rubbed his jaw. "Years back I lost a man in country like that north road. Never found him. I don't lose two." Sterling weighed it. He needed the deputy in two places and could put him in only one. He looked at Ruby. "Deputize me," Ruby said. Both men stared. "You tend a bar," Clyde said. "I load a shotgun faster than you clean one." She stepped into the cell. "I'll sit the door. Clyde rides with the Marshal. One man against five is a grave. Two men who know the ground is a chance." Sterling shook his head. "This isn't your fight." "You said that yesterday." Ruby took the shotgun from Clyde's hands. "I heard you the first time." Sterling looked at the girl on the cot. He looked at Ruby's steady hands. He made the call. He pinned no star on her, but he set his own on the cot beside the child, the way he had before. "You hold this door," he told Ruby. "Nobody comes through but me." He turned to Clyde. "Get your horse. You track. I'll take him." Clyde was already moving. Outside, the pinto tossed its head and stamped, smelling the road and the trouble on it. Sterling mounted. Two men now, where there had been one. Not enough, maybe. But no longer a grave with his name in it. He rode north, and the deputy rode beside him.

The road climbed into broken hills, and the pinto stopped short. It threw its head and blew hard through its nose. Sterling reined in and put a hand on its neck. He had learned to trust that warning. Somewhere ahead, Ransom and four men waited. Ride straight in, and five guns would cut them down before Sterling ever said the word arrest. "Horse smells them," Sterling said. "They're close." Clyde swung down without a word. He knelt and read the ground. He touched a boot print, then a smear of horse dung, and pointed up the slope. A tall saguaro stood there, arms spread, a bird tucked safe in a hole near its top. Clyde studied the rock behind it. "They're in that draw past the cactus," he said. "Sitting on the road. Waiting for us to walk into it." He wiped his hands on his pants. "I lost a man in country like this once. Never again. We don't take their road." Sterling looked at the wall of rock. "Then which road?" "There isn't one. That's the point." Clyde nodded at a seam in the cliff, a crack too narrow for horses. "Goat track. Comes out above their draw. They watch the low ground. They don't watch the high." They tied the horses in the brush. Sterling drew his Colt and climbed. Loose stone slid under his white boots. Clyde came behind, breathing hard but quiet, quicker on the rock than his size promised. Near the top a gecko darted off a sun-warmed ledge. Sterling froze, then went on. Below them, five men sat their saddles in the shade, rifles across their laps, eyes fixed on the empty road. Sterling picked out Ransom by the bone handle at his belt, twin to the knife the girl had given him. He steadied his aim and called down loud. "Cole Ransom. Marshal of Firestone. Hands off the iron." Heads snapped up the wrong way, toward the road. By the time they found the high ground, Sterling and Clyde had them cold. One man grabbed for his rifle. Clyde fired and knocked it spinning from his hands. The rest went still. "Five to two down there," Clyde said. "Two to five up here. Funny how rock changes math." Ransom stared up, jaw tight. Then he lifted his hands from the saddle horn. His men, watching him, did the same. Sterling came down the slope with the Colt level and took the pistols one by one. He bound Ransom's wrists and pulled the bone-handled knife from his belt. The trial in Firestone had its man and its blade. Clyde looked at the four others, disarmed and sullen in the dust. "Can't march five men and hold one for trial," he said. "Not two of us. Not this far out." Sterling looked north, then back at the long road home. He had his killer. Now he had four more men, and only two sets of hands to hold them all.