Tom is on assignment for Hendrich. Tom successfully completed three prior assignments locating and recruiting other albas for the society without any violence. This time is different. He is playing poker with Louis and Joe, two slow agers like Tom. Tom carefully introduces the topic: “I have been many people. Just like you” (186). Both men draw their guns, demanding that Tom place his pistol on the table. Tom does so and launches into his sales pitch. They grow tired of Tom’s talk of the society and threaten to shoot him. No law can touch them. They have a deal with the sheriff. Tom grows more nervous.

They take Tom out into the desert and make him dig a grave. He doesn’t want to die; he has to live for Marion. He crawls out of the hole at their command. When they demand he empty his pockets, he distracts them by looking at the horses. While their eyes are diverted, he smacks Joe in the face with the shovel. Joe falls to the ground, dropping his gun. Louis shoots Tom in the back. Tom grasps Joe’s gun and shoots both men. He rolls them into the grave and buries them. He frees one horse and takes the other back to Tucson, where he finds Agnes at the Arizona Inn.