CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Buttons Muldoon had already turned in, but Red Ryan wasn’t yet ready for sleep and stood outside the door of their room at the east wing of the bunkhouse. The moon rode high, silvering the night, and out in the badlands hungry coyotes yammered. He built another cigarette, thumbed a match into flame and then let it drop to the ground as the plodding sound of a tired horse reached him out of the darkness.
His eyes already accustomed to the gloom, Red stepped into shadow and saw a woman ride to the barn, dismount, and lead her paint horse inside. She emerged a few minutes later, looked around, and then ran across the yard to the bunkhouse. He heard a door quietly open and close . . . and then silence.
He frowned in thought. Why was the young woman riding so late? Had she met a lover out there in the desert? That was highly unlikely. There were few men around that part of Texas. Few anybody. Perhaps her horse could tell him something. Red crossed to the barn and stepped inside. The lathered paint stood in a stall nearest the door. He’d come a fair way at a run and judging by the blood on his flanks, the woman had put the spurs to him. Red shook his head.
He searched around, found a piece of sacking and a brush, and worked on the pony for a solid twenty minutes before he was satisfied. A further search revealed a bag of oats, and he gave the animal a generous scoop.
Red patted the paint’s neck and said, “That’s the best I can do for you, little feller. Eat, and then sleep well.”
He was about to step out of the stall when the four clicks of a cocking Colt froze him in place.
“Step out of the shadow where I can see you.” Luna Talbot’s voice. “I can drill you from here any time of the day.”
“Don’t shoot. It’s me. Red Ryan.”
“What the hell are you doing here this late, shotgun man?” the woman said.
“I was taking care of an abused horse,” he said. “One of your ladies doesn’t know how to care for her mount after she’s ridden him into the ground. You ought to have taught her better, Mrs. Talbot.” He heard Luna lower the Colt’s hammer and then slide it back into the holster.
She stepped to the stall and ran her hand over the paint’s back and shoulder. “He’s still hot. How long has he been here?”
“About twenty minutes or so. He’ll be all right. I brushed him down real good.”
“Who rode in on him?” Luna said.
“I don’t know who it was. A woman. One of your’n, I guess. Unsaddled the paint and then she fogged it for the bunkhouse.”
“Crystal Casey rides this horse,” Luna said. “Was it her you saw?”
“I don’t know who I saw. Just a woman running in the dark.”
“It had to be Crystal.”
“Seems like.”
“She had visited someone.”
“Seems like,” he said again.
“Who?”
“Beats me.”
Luna bit her bottom lip, deep in thought, and then said, “Red, can I trust you?”
“Hell, no.”
“Is Muldoon to be trusted?”
“Hell, no.”
“No matter. I have to put my trust in someone. I think the word has gotten around.”
“What word?” Red said.
“I can’t tell you . . . not now. Maybe later after I talk with Crystal.”
“It’s something to do with the coffin from Cottondale, isn’t it?”
“It’s everything to do with the coffin from Cottondale,” Luna said.
Red smiled. “All right, so there was money in it, and outlaws can smell greenbacks from two hundred miles away.”
“Not money . . . something else, something even more valuable,” Luna said.
“Now I’m interested. Suppose I tell you I can be trusted to keep my mouth shut? Is that enough?”
“Enough for the present. All right. I want to talk with you and Buttons Muldoon,” Luna said. “Tomorrow morning after breakfast.”
“Then make it early,” he said. “We’re pulling out at first light, headed up Fort Concho way.”
“I’ll tell Bessie to have breakfast ready early,” Luna said.
“Yeah, and tell her it was Buttons Muldoon’s idea, not mine.”
The woman smiled, stepped to the door, and then looked back. “Red, thank you kindly for taking care of the paint.”
“Glad I could help. He couldn’t do it for himself.” He watched Luna walk into the moonlight, a fine-looking woman becoming one with the night.