Starfall

THE WILD BUNCH They came out of the hills--renegades--stinking, mean, and bone-weary. They were the wild bunch, the ones who'd stayed free and reckless in a land where fences were being thrown up on every range, where wild-horse killers littered the countryside with mutilated carcasses, where the law now hanged a man if he dared steal some mangy cow. Ahead of them lay an amnesty--and a deadline. Civilization. A nice quiet town job for each of them. A new life in a changed place--San Vicente, where men bowed low to the town prostitute, who was now a respectable matron, and tipped their hats to the whoremaster turned banker. It was a new world for these outlaws, a new trap. This way of life would be as stifling as any jail...and the decision they would make--to stay out in the hills and be hunted down by dogs and troops, or give themselves up to law and order--could be as final as any grave.