Orson walked over to the two women and spoke to them. He looked them over as if they were cattle in an auction barn.
“You gals want to work?” he asked.
Renata and Bonnie nodded.
“Go on down to the boardinghouse and ask for Mrs. Hobbs. Tell her I sent you. She’ll get you rooms and assign you to your duties. She cooks a fair meal, so you’ll do all right in her care.”
Slocum noticed that Canby adopted a different tone of voice with the women. He sounded almost avuncular and kindly.
The women carried their carpetbags down the street to Mrs. Hobbs’s boardinghouse.
Canby walked over to the horses, where Slocum was standing with the lead rope in his hands.
“These are trotters,” Slocum said. “From Missouri.”
“That’s what I ordered. They look sound.”
Canby opened one horse’s mouth and examined his teeth. He felt the chest. He walked around looking at the gelding’s legs. He lifted a hind hoof and saw that the horse was recently shod.
“What do I owe you, Slocum?” Canby asked.
“Three hundred.”
“I thought two.”
“You thought wrong,” Slocum said. “It’s three. You paid me three and there’s three hundred more that’s due.”
Canby snorted.
He reached into the right front pocket of his trousers and pulled out a money clip made of silver and turquoise. He slipped off the clip and counted out three hundred-dollar bills. He handed them to Slocum.
“Would you mind taking them to my stables a block or so down the street?”
“Not at all,” Slocum said.
The two men in front of the hotel watched all this without any expression on their faces.
“I’ll show the man where the stables are,” one of them said.
“You do that, Hack,” Canby said. “Boze, you go with him.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Canby,” Walt Bozeman said.
“I think I can find the livery,” Slocum said.
“No trouble at all,” Rufus Hackberry said. “Just foller us.”
Slocum walked down the street leading the four horses and his own, Ferro. Rufus and Walt flanked him, matched his stride step by step. Slocum felt as if he was all but a prisoner of the two men. He saw no reason why they should accompany him to the livery, but apparently it was with Canby’s tacit understanding. He was being watched and he didn’t like it much.
The two men did not speak nor did Slocum try to engage them in conversation. The silence was so thick he felt he could cut it with a knife and it would fall to the ground like a lump of soft coal.
Walt turned into the stables and Slocum followed him, with Hack right behind him.
There was an old moth-eaten horse tied to a hitchring in front of the stables. It was sway-backed with rheumy eyes, its head drooping, and it stood hipshot as if left there to die.
“Whose horse is that?” Slocum asked Walt.
“It belongs to Mr. Canby,” Walt said. “That’s the horse what was stolen.”
Slocum masked his surprise.
“Why would a man steal such a sorry horse?” Slocum asked Hack.
“You ask too many questions, mister,” Hack said.
“Well, that horse isn’t worth stealing,” Slocum said as they entered the darkened stable.
“Feller,” Hack said, “just put up those horses and don’t worry none about that stolen horse.”
Shafts of sunlight beamed through the walls and the roof of the stable. Dust motes spun and danced in the glowing light like ghostly fireflies. Slocum led the horses to stall doors that were open and put each one inside. There was water and grain in each stall. Ferro pawed the dirt floor as he waited for Slocum to lead him to a feed trough.
Hack and Walt closed the stall doors. Slocum found another empty stall, where he led Ferro. He unsaddled the horse and slipped off his bridle after hefting his saddlebags over his shoulder and slipping his Winchester from its sheath. Ferro began to nibble at the grain as Slocum walked back out and closed the stall door.
He saw movement at the far end of the stable and looked toward the doors.
A tall slender woman was standing there with a sleek gelding that had four white stockings and a star blaze on its forehead. She held a curry comb in her hand and held the horse steady with a halter rope. Sunlight spun radiance through her dark hair, and when she turned to look at Slocum, he saw her breasts taut against her checkered blouse.
He stood there, transfixed by the beauty and grace of both the horse and the woman.
“You finished here, pilgrim?” Hack said to Slocum.
Slocum fixed both men with a hard stare.
“You boys run along,” Slocum said. “I’ll be around for a time.”
“You got your money,” Walt said. “No need to stay in town long.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Slocum said, and the two men twitched under the glare of his withering glance.
But they turned around and walked out of the stables. At the front doors they turned and looked back, but Slocum was already walking toward the woman at the far end of the livery.
“I was wondering if you were one of Canby’s boys,” she said, a slightly mocking tone in her voice.
“My escort,” he said.
“I saw the horses you brought in,” she said. “Canby pay you for them?”
“Yes, he did.”
“You’re lucky. He pays for very little in this town. And when he does pay, it’s not usually in coin of the realm.”
“What do you mean?” he said. He looked into her eyes. They were brown and shiny like polished kernels of fine dark wood. They flickered with sunlight when she lifted her chin.
“He usually pays off in lead,” she said. “He’s a snake.”
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
She looked at the man in the black clothing, her gaze frank and noncommittal, as if she were studying the lines and carriage of a fine horse.
“My brother has a mine here. I help him sometimes. But mostly, I mind my own business and ride my horse outside of this valley. I love this country. It’s wild and untamed and you can feel the tug of ancient hands at your shirttails when the wind is up.”
“It is beautiful country, but there are Apaches out there, even if you don’t see them.”
“The Apaches just want to be left alone,” she said. “They want nothing from me. I see them every so often and I wave to them.”
“Do they wave back?”
She laughed, and her laughter was pleasant and musical.
“Yes, they do, sometimes,” she said.
She began to stroke the horse’s rump with the curry comb.
“I’m John Slocum,” he said.
“My name’s Laura. My friends call me Laurie. Laurie Taylor. My brother’s name is Harvey. I call him Harve for short.”
“Pleased to meet you, Laurie,” Slocum said.
“Are you a gunfighter?” she asked. “You look like one.”
“It’s sometimes wrong to put a brand on a man because of how he looks.”
“True. But you still look like a gunfighter. It’s also obvious you know good horseflesh when you see it.”
“I trade horses,” he said.
“No gunfights?”
“Only when necessary,” he said.
She stopped combing her horse and looked at him again. This time her eyes searched the chiseled features of his face and her lips curled in a smile that was as fleeting as a spring rain on dry prairie.
“I just came back from an early morning ride,” she said. “That’s a fine horse you have there in the stall. Would you be staying in town long enough to ride with me tomorrow morning?”
He was surprised at her boldness.
“I would make a special point of it,” he said.
“Meanwhile, maybe you’d like to walk me home. I have coffee and whiskey. My brother’s working his claim and I could use some company.”
“It would be my pleasure,” he said. “I was going to the saloon to rinse the dust out of my throat with some Kentucky bourbon.”
“Harvey keeps Old Taylor in the cupboard. Would that suit you?”
“Coffee would be fine,” he said. “The sun hasn’t even reached the rimrock yet.”
“Fine. I’ll put Lancer in his stall and we’ll go to my house.”
“You’re very kind,” he said as she turned her horse in to the stall and hung the curry comb on a nail.
“Let’s say I’m interested in you, John Slocum. I want to know more about you.”
“I’m at your disposal,” he said, and bowed slightly as she latched the door to her horse’s stall.
A stable boy appeared from the back lot, a pitchfork in his hands.
“Mornin’, Miss Taylor,” he said. “I didn’t know you was back.”
“Johnny,” she said, “this is John Slocum. That tall black horse is his. Make sure he has plenty of grain and you might rub him down.”
“Yes’m, I sure will. Howdy, Mr. Slocum. I’m Johnny Crowell. I take care of the stables here.”
Slocum followed Laurie out of the livery and onto the street. She turned to wait for him and then she took his arm and patted the back of his hand.
“This should set the town folk to talking,” she said as they passed by log buildings.
People in the stores were staring at them. Laurie flashed her enigmatic smile at them and Slocum smelled the scent of her perfume as they passed the gawkers.
The town was still half asleep, but the shadows on the bluffs and the canyon walls were slowly inching down the red and yellow rocks. The air was fresh and clean, and there was a lightness to Slocum’s step that he had not felt in many days.