The crowd had dissipated, though Santiago still remained there, staring to the little wooden cross he'd buried into the dirt, hammered in place with a rock.
The crude marking did not suit the injustice, did not suit the man who lay beneath it. For all the things the Drygrass Posse had done, the trio from Rattler's Gulch carried the brunt of the sins that their past thrust upon them. He had realized this, now - there was no luck in escape, nothing to barter there; even if Evelyn and himself gathered up, fled north even further, how far would they get?
When would the wolves catch up to their heels again?
There was a price to pay, for the swindling, the lies - in the case of O'Malley, where the crows surely fed on his bones, murder - but it still seemed unjust. The morality lay gray, murky, unclear. The fog gave way to chill drizzling that stuck in tiny droplets to his whiskers, dampened the whips of his hair, that hat in his hand again.
Santiago hoped the sun would come, soon.
He hoped the marigolds would take, that this place would grow with the orange, to bring Calhoun back to them.
It was all he could do.