Free Blood Money and Other Stories (1953) by Elmore Leonard

He'd been sitting at the window, asleep, the clerk thought, wearing off a drunk. He was used to having riders do that.
    When the rooms were filled up he didn't care. But Rich Miller suddenly came alive and swung onto a mount the Mexican was leading. So all that time he must have been watching the front to see no one sneaked up on them.
    McKelway said a boy ought to be allowed one big mistake before he was called hard on something he'd done. Besides, Rich Miller's name didn't bring any reward money.
    Tuesday morning, the twenty man posse was deep in the Kofas. Gray rock towering on all sides, wild country, and now, no trail. Freehouser decided they would split up, climb to higher ground, and wait. Just look around. He sent a man back to Four Tanks to wire Yuma and Aztec in case the outlaws got through the Kofas. But Freehouser was sure they were still in the mountains, somewhere.
    Wednesday morning his hunch paid off. One of McKelway's men spotted a rider, and the posse closed in by means of a mirror flash system they'd planned beforehand. The rider turned out to be Ford Harlan.
    Wednesday afternoon Ford Harlan was dead.
    He had led them a chase most of the morning, slipping through the man net, but near noon he turned into a dead end canyon, a deserted mine site that once had been Sweet Mary No. 1. Ford Harlan had been urging his mount up a slope above the mine works, toward an adobe hut perched on a ledge about three hundred yards up, when Freehouser cupped his hands and called for him to halt. He kept on. A moment later Jim Mission, McKelway's deputy, knocked him out of the saddle with a single shot from his Remington.
    Then McKelway and Mission volunteered to bring Ford Harlan down. McKelway tied a white neckerchief to the end of his Sharps for a truce flag and they went up. Freehouser had said if you want to get Ford, you might as well go a few more steps and ask the rest if they want to give up. They were almost to the body when the pistol fire broke from above. They scrambled down fast and when they reached the posse, Freehouser was smiling.
    They were all up there, Eugene and Deke and the Mexican and Rich Miller. One of them had lost his nerve and opened up. You could see it on Freehouser's face. The self satisfaction. They were trapped in an old assay shack with a sheer sandstone wall towering behind it thin shadow lines of crevices reaching to slender pinnacles and only one way to come down. The original mine opening was on the same shelf; probably they'd hid their horses there.
    Freehouser was a contented man; he had all the time in the world to figure how to pry them out of the 'dobe. He even listened to McKelway and admitted that maybe the kid, Rich Miller, shouldn't be hung with the others if he didn't get shot first.
    Some of the posse went back home, because they had jobs to hold down, but the next day, others came out from Asuncion and Four Tanks to see the fun.
    It seemed natural that Deke should take over as boss. There was no discussing it; no one gave it a thought. Ford was dead. Eugene was indifferent.
    Sonny Navarez was Mexican, and Rich Miller was a kid.
    The boy had wondered why Deke wasn't the boss even before. Maybe Deke didn't have Ford's nerve, but he had it over him in age and learning.
    Still, a man gets old and he thinks of too many what ifs. And sometimes Deke was scary the way he talked about fate and God pulling little strings to steer men around where they didn't want to go.
    He was at the window on the right side of the doorway, which was open because there was no door. Eugene and Deke were at the left front window. He could hear Sonny Navarez behind him moving gear around, but the boy did not take his eyes from the slope.
    Deke lounged against the wall, his face close to the window frame, his carbine balanced on the sill.
    Eugene was a step behind him. He was a heavyboned man, shoulders stretching his shirt tight, and tall, though Deke was taller when he wasn't lounging. Eugene pulled at