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said, looking him up and down.
    Coyle let his thumb fall over his rifle hammer as he looked back and forth between the women and Willie Tash.
    â€œI’m North . . . Joe North,” he said, seeing a weathered sign pointing north toward the main street of New Delmar. Oddly, he had used the name Joe North before. The fact that the sign had brought the alias back in his mind struck him as a good omen.
    â€œWell, Mr. North,” said Tash. “I want you to tell the bartender at the Number Five to stand you a bottle of rye and see me for its value.”
    â€œObliged, Willie Tash,” said Coyle.
    A light giggle came from the women in the buggy.
    â€œTell him to send you up for a tight go-round with Utah Della, and see me for the value,
cowboy
,”
said a willowy brunette with a lewd grin and a smeared black beauty dot above her lip.
    â€œOh, or with Lila too,” said another woman, this one a hefty middle-aged blonde with lips the color of calf liver, lipstick mixed with red silt from riding eighteen miles along a string of red-layered buttes through a hard-pushing wind.
    Beside the voluptuous blonde, a young woman giggled and batted her eyes.
    â€œOr, don’t forget Betty, cowboy,” she said. “You can ride tailgate for me any time.”
    â€œLadies, I am nothing but,
nothing
but
, obliged,” Coyle said, sweeping his hat from his head in a grand gesture and holding it to his chest as he made a slight bow. Then he pointed at each woman in turn. “Let’s see . . . that’s Della, Lila and Betty, and . . . ?” His finger moved toward the fourth woman, a small, fine-featured redhead who sat staring at him with a coy smile.
    â€œDon’t be wagging that finger ’less it’s the best thing you’ve got, cowboy,” she said. “I’ll whisper my name in your ear when you come see me.” Her eyes played up and down his dust-caked clothing, his face and hat. “Once you get some of this countryside scrubbed off yourself, that is.”
    â€œI can’t wait.” Coyle smiled.
    â€œWell, gals,” Willie Tash said almost sullenly, “you sure know how to pale a bottle of rye, I reckon.” To Coyle he said, “But the bottle is there for you when you want it. It’s no small thing, guarding a stagecoach when you got outlaws like we’ve got up here.”
    â€œReal killers, I hear,” said Coyle, touching his hat brim again and looking off toward five bands of dust following his men down the last few hundred yards of trail into the old Delmar depot.
    â€œSomething awful,” said Tash, shaking his head.
    â€œDon’t forget us, cowboy,” said Lila from the buggy. “We’re getting tired of humping these rock crackers.”
    â€œI’d have to be a straight-out fool to forget you, ma’am,” Coyle said, turning away as he spoke.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    At the head of the five riders, Dave Coyle slowed his horse down to a trot, then down to a walk the last few yards. When he reined the horse to a halt and turned it sidelong to his brother, Oldham stood up from leaning against a corral fence. The rest of the men sidled their horses in around Dave Coyle.
    â€œWell . . . ?” Dave asked. “How did it go?”
    â€œIt went dry and dusty,” said Oldham, his face still coated red-blue. “How else could it go?”
    â€œI mean how’d it
all go
?” said Dave. “Did they believe your story, that your horse died on you?”
    Oldham grinned as he walked forward, spread a frayed saddle blanket on the buckskin and pitched his saddle up over the horse’s back.
    â€œThey believed it enough it got me on the stage,” he said. “They’re so skittish about outlaws, or
road agents
as they called them, I even rode guard on their tailgate most of the way here.”
    â€œDid they stop at the