Looking at it, anyway. Sheriff Barclay stood in the doorway, almost filling it up. He was holding his own lantern. “Come out of there, Jim, and do it with your hands up. I ain’t drawn my pistol and don’t want to.” Trusdale came out. He still had the newspaper in one of his raised hands. He stood there looking at the sheriff with his flat gray eyes. The sheriff looked back. So did the others, four on horseback and two on the seat of an old buckboard with “Hines Mortuary” printed on the side in faded yellow letters. “I notice you ain’t asked why we’re here,” Sheriff Barclay said. “Why are you here, Sheriff?” “Where is your hat, Jim?” Trusdale put the hand not holding the newspaper to his head as if to feel for his hat, which was a brown plainsman and not there. “In your place, is it?” the sheriff asked. A cold breeze kicked up, blowing the horses’ manes and flattening the grass in a wave that ran south. “No,” Trusdale said. “I don’t believe it is.”
