The old church was in ruins and the door stood open to the high walled enclosure. When Glanton and his men rode through the crumbling portal four horses stood riderless in the empty compound among the dead fruit trees and grapevines. Glanton rode with his rifle upright before him, the buttplate on his thigh. His dog heeled to the horse and they approached cautiously the sagging walls of the church. They would have ridden their horses through the door but as they reached it there was a rifleshot from inside and pigeons flapped up and they slipped down from their mounts and crouched behind them with their rifles. Glanton looked back at the others and then walked his horse forward to where he could see into the interior. Part of the upper wall was fallen in and most of the roof and there was a man lying in the floor. Glanton led the horse into the sacristy and stood looking down with the others. The man in the floor was dying and he was dressed altogether in homemade clothes of sheephide even to boots and a strange cap. They turned him over on the cracked clay tiles and his jaw moved and a bloody spittle formed along his lower lip. His eyes were dull and there was fear in them and there was something else. John Prewett stood the butt of his rifle in the floor and swung his horn about to recharge the piece. I seen anothern run, he said. They's two of em. The man in the floor began to move. He had one arm lying in his groin and he moved it slightly and pointed. At them or at the height from which he had fallen or to his destination in eternity they did not know. Then he died. Glanton looked about the ruins. Where did this son of a bitch come from? he said. Prewett nodded toward the crumbling mud parapet. He was up yonder. I didnt know what he was. Still dont. I shot the son of a bitch out of there. Glanton looked at the judge. I think he was an imbecile, the judge said. Glanton led his horse through the church and out by a small door in the nave into the yard. He was sitting there when they brought the other hermit out. Jackson prodded him forward with the barrel of his rifle, a small thin man, not young. The one they'd killed was his brother. They had jumped ship on the coast long ago and made their way to this place. He was terrified and he spoke no english and little Spanish. The judge spoke to him in german. They had been here for years. The brother had his wits stole in this place and the man now before them in his hides and his peculiar bootees was not altogether sane. They left him there. As they rode out he was trotting up and back in the yard calling out. He seemed not to be aware that his brother was dead in the church.