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you’re still riding with me.”
    Montana looked at the others, then back at Sam.
    â€œI’m not speaking for anybody but myself,” he said. “I expect if you’re still riding on, I’m still riding with you.” He gave a thin devil-may-care grin. “If this is turning into an adventure, I can’t wait to see what’s next.”

Chapter 4
    In the gray-silver hour of dawn, the five men stood beside their horses overlooking a trail below them that they could plainly see had been knocked out and overcoated with a layer of rock and broken pine twenty feet deep. The long slope of broken and unseated rock lay spread and reseated down the steep hillside beneath a silvery morning mist. The long slide looked as if a sound no larger than a whisper or a cough could loosen the whole hillside and send it plunging downward again.
    â€œThere we have it,” Burke said in disgust. “Who’d ever guessed I’d someday be on a mountain and the damn thing fell out from under me?”
    â€œCall it the luck of the game,” said Montana, leading his horse beside Burke. He gazed down as if in deep reflection.
    Sam had noted that Montana had taken on a better attitude since the quake and the subsequent landslide.
    â€œI remember once when I was a young boy,” Montana said quietly. “For no reason at all, a little boat I was standing on just sank . . . no reason. . . .” He shook his head wistfully. “I mean, for no reason at all.”
    Sam just looked at him.
    On Sam’s other side, Childers stood holding a hand to his wounded shoulder.
    â€œIt sort of makes you wonder, don’t it?” he commented quietly to Montana.
    Burke and Stanley Black sat listening until Burke could take it no more.
    â€œJesus . . . ,” he said, sounding irritated with the two gunmen’s conversation. “Wonder about
what
?”
    Childers shrugged with his good shoulder.
    â€œJust, you know . . . everything, I reckon,” he said.
    Sam shook his head and backed the dun and the spare horse away on the thin trail.
    â€œWhere are you going, Jones?” Burke asked, backing his horse up as well.
    â€œI’m going to find a game path or something,” Sam said. He gestured at the hillside that had risen beside them as they’d traveled down from the higher summit.
    â€œWhat if there’s none?” Burke asked.
    Sam just looked at him.
    â€œI’m just asking,” Burke said.
    As the others turned and led horses in behind him, Sam spoke to them over his shoulder.
    â€œSpread out along this back trail, look for any kind of path not too steep to lead these horses up,” he said. “Anybody finds one that leads up and around the slide, call out . . . only not too loud,” he added. “This whole hillside looks a little like it could take off sliding again any—”
    His words stopped short beneath the long, loud bellow of a monstrous grizzly that suddenly stood up on its hind legs only twenty yards up the rocky hillside.
    â€œHoly Joseph, shut up, you big son of a bitch!”
Burke called up to the bear, trying to keep his voice as quiet as possible.
    But the bear would have none of it. It continued to bawl out long and loud, the sound echoing like cannon fire along the shaky hill line. The horses spooked and whinnied and stamped in place as the men held them firm.
    â€œYou won’t shut it up,” Sam said. “Look at it. It’s beaten something fierce.”
    â€œWhoa, it is,” Burke said. He raised his rifle in his hands and stood with it loosely pressed against his shoulder.
    Sam gave him a warning look.
    â€œJust in case it comes charging at us,” Burke said, regarding the rifle. “I don’t want to be caught short by a wounded griz.”
    The men stood staring at the big bawling brute, noting streaks of blood glistening down its sides, its big head,