He pressed Road Runner with his knees and leaned toward the Espinosa.
Road Runner struck into a gallop, with tossing head and snorting
nostrils, as if he were fresh from a month in pasture.

Pearson rode twenty yards and heard the unmistakable sound of a
Winchester lever throwing a cartridge into the barrel. He dropped
flat along his horse's back before the crack of the rifle reached
his ears.

It is possible that Burrows intended only to disable the horse--
he was a good enough shot to do that without endangering his rider.
But as Pearson stooped the ball went through his shoulder and then
through Road Runner's neck. The horse fell and the cowman pitched
over his head into the hard road, and neither of them tried to move.

Burrows rode on without stopping.

In two hours Pearson opened his eyes and took inventory. He managed
to get to his feet and staggered back to where Road Runner was
lying.

Road Runner was lying there, but he appeared to be comfortable.
Pearson examined him and found that the bullet had "creased" him.
He had been knocked out temporarily, but not seriously hurt. But he
was tired, and he lay there on Miss Tonia's hat and ate leaves from
a mesquite branch that obligingly hung over the road.

Pearson made the horse get up. The Easter hat, loosed from the
saddle-thongs, lay there in its calico wrappings, a shapeless thing
from its sojourn beneath the solid carcass of Road Runner. Then