AT DAYBREAK THE small column of men broke out of the biscuit-slot and stopped there, over-looking the head of Coronel Gorge which lay a thousand feet below them.
Marriner said, “All right-split up here, half of you on each side of the rims. Don’t forget to wait for my signal. And for God’s sake, don’t get trigger-happy.”
The columns split away from him, two of them, four men in each. One was led by old Sam Pendleton; the other was led by Josiah, and Seth rode at Josiah’s shoulder. Marriner caught a curious glimpse from Seth, but forgot it quickly in the press of more important things. The miners rode past and were gone.
He sat his horse there on the side of the mountain for the better part of an hour, at the end of which time he judged he had given them enough lead. He put spurs lightly to his horse and aimed it straight down the road toward the gorge.
A low, loose haze of dust lay close along the surface of the strip that was the road. The loneliness of this land just now was quiet and threatening; he paid it little attention. He noticed the gray shadowed streaks of rain falling over a distant mountain range; other than that one dark area, not a cloud showed anywhere in the sky. The air, breathing in listless little gusts, picked up weary handfuls of yellow dust and scattered it like seed. Saddle leather creaked with the horse’s movement and he progressed downslope at a steady gait, leaning back a little in the saddle to ease the horse and glancing at the rising brass sun in the east. The sky was the blue of steel. His pace of travel took him by eight o’clock between the beginnings of the cliff-walls of Coronel Gorge, and in another half hour he was on the floor of it, continuing downward with his hands in plain sight on the saddle horn, well away from his gun. The sun from its present angle did not reach the floor yet; but up high on the west wall the unfriendly yellow-white glare of it beat against his eyes and made it hard to see down here.
He tilted his hat so that it made a careless angle across his view; he assumed a mocking little smile and rode on until presently he reined in, knowing that Cisco Vincent would be around here somewhere, and called out: “Cisco!”
“Over here.” Vincent’s voice came forward from a tangle of rocks near the east wall’s base. “Don’t come too close, Wes.”
Marriner put his horse in that direction and halted within forty feet of the rock cairn. A shelf of rock, part of the cliff, extended out over the top of those boulders so that Vincent’s position was effectively protected from any rifle fire that might come down at him from the rims above.
Marriner spoke out plainly: “I want to talk.”
“Nothing to talk about,” Vincent answered, but he came around a rock into view, remaining under the shelter of the rock shelf, and stood with his long rifle across his elbow in a pose of apparent ease. The rifle, Marriner knew, was ready for instant use. The fact that Vincent had shown himself was a comment on the man’s bravery.
Vincent said, “I hope you didn’t come down to make threats.”
“In a way,” Marriner admitted.
Vincent showed no visible disappointment. He said, “Is that your crowd stumblin’ around up above on the rims?”
“Yeah.” Marriner’s grin widened a little. “That’s my crowd, Cisco.”
“Take ’em twenty years to hit me with a stray ricochet,” Vincent said. “Tell ’em to go on home and quit wasting their time.”
Marriner shook his head. “I’m going to do one of two things, Cisco. Either you’re going to let me ride straight through the gorge, or you’ll turn me back. If you turn me back, when I get up the trail out of range I’ll lift my hat off my head. That’s a signal to the boys up on the rims.”
“They going to throw rocks at me, Wes?”
“They’re going to throw dynamite sticks at you,” Marriner answered quietly. “Capped and fused.”
If it startled Vincent, he didn’t show it. He stood silent a moment, then said, “I see.”
“The choice is up to you, Cisco.”
“No,” Vincent said. “It’s up to you to start it, Wes.”
“I didn’t want to make this a personal fight between us,” Marriner said. “That’s why I’m doing it this way.”
“Then you’re foolin’ yourself,” Vincent said. He looked, Marriner thought, very old and saddened by the wisdom of his experience. “If you ride back up the trail and lift your hat, what’s the difference between that and lightin’ the fuse of the dynamite stick that drops in on me?”
“The difference is,” Marriner answered, “that you’ve got the choice of whether or not the dynamite gets lit.”
“That’s no choice at all,” Vincent said mildly. “I’ve been paid to do a job, just like you, Wes. I can’t back down any more than you can. So don’t throw pious talk at me. We both know better.” Vincent’s skin was colored of old copper; the lines in his face were carved deep and the paleness of his eyes was a tangible depth. He stood in fringed buckskin among gray shadows and lifted his bold glance defiantly.
“Last chance, then,” Marriner murmured.
“You give me no choice at all,” Vincent answered. “I’ve got to make a stand. But I’ll tell you one thing, Wes—you’ll regret this as long as you live. It ain’t clean.”
“When a man picks a fight with you,” Marriner said, “you fight back. I’m sorry it has to be you, Cisco—we’ve been good friends.”
“Yeah,” Vincent said; and, a while later, “So long, then.”
Marriner touched his hat brim and wheeled his horse, walking it northward, toward the top of the gorge. When he got up the trail a way he would stop and lift his hat, sweeping it wide in signal; and it would be all over for Cisco Vincent, who didn’t have it in him to run, For Vincent’s was a breed of integrity rare among men.
A great bitterness washed through Marriner that this had to be done. And in another moment, with the horse jogging patiently under him, he knew he could not do this thing to Cisco Vincent; he could not lift his hat. It would be, as Vincent had told him, not clean. And so Marriner stopped his horse, turned it slowly, and rode back the way he had come, toward Vincent’s position in the rocks. He stopped where he had stopped before, forty feet from the rocks, and said, “Cisco.”
Vincent appeared once more at the edge of a boulder and stood as he had stood before, his rifle across his arms. “Couldn’t do it?”
“That’s right,” Marriner said. “But I’ve got to take this gorge away from you, and there’s only one other way to do it.”
“That’s right,” Vincent said levelly. “But you can’t cut it, Wes. I always had the edge on you.”
“I can try,” Marriner said. “I’ve got to try, don’t I?”
“Why, I reckon you do, Wes.”
Marriner nodded. He was about to lift his reins when Vincent added, “I think you’re about the best man I’ve known in this life, Wes.”
“Shut up,” Marriner said gruffly. He reined the horse around and started it moving south, toward the forbidden mouth of the gorge.
His back was to Vincent; he was leaving it up to Vincent to stop him or let him go. He knew Vincent would not let him go for it was not a part of Vincent’s strict code to allow that. And so he rode forward with his body relaxed, with all his muscles ready for sudden, violent action. The clop of shod hoofs was a crisp, steady rhythm of sound. Dust was in his nostrils but as he progressed between the high yellow walls his vision seemed to become clearer, so that he noticed with heightened awareness the clean, sharp outlines of every twig and rock, the grain of the rocks and of the horse’s hide, the particular fresh greenness of leaves and stalks of occasional grass.
And the rifle fired its shot.
It was a loud, round boom, the discharge of the big plains rifle. He did not allow himself even a split instant of thought while his hand swept up, cocking the revolver, and his body twisted while he fired from under his left arm. The Colt jumped in his fist and his thumb curled over the hammer to cock it again.
The horse jumped under him, and calmed down to become still. He saw the sprawled figure of Cisco Vincent among the rocks and he turned the horse around, riding back and dismounting, holding his gun ready. But there was no treachery in Cisco Vincent and when Marriner came up, Vincent bubbled a single quiet sound and met his death.
Marriner holstered his gun and crouched down slowly beside the dead man; he removed his hat and held it in his hands and then the most frightening of truths came to him: He missed me on purpose.
That had been Vincent’s only way of resolving his own conflict; this way Vincent had kept faith with all his own principles—at the cost of his life. Oh, God, Marriner thought. He said aloud: “Between us, you were the better man, Cisco.”
Deputy Jim Lane had no liking for the mission he rode on today. His fat face was broiled crimson by the sun and by his own frustrated anger. He slapped the butt of his belt gun with ill-concealed rage and rode up through Coronel Gorge on the wide, white road to the Pendleton mine. What kind of world? he wondered. What kind of world would allow McKittrick and his scavenger crew to get away with a thing like, this mission he was on? What kind of justice was it that defended a man like McKittrick against a decent family like the Pendletons? What kind of law was it that demanded penalty of a man like Wes Marriner for doing no more than defending his own?
Presently he dismounted in the Pendleton yard, leaving the reins hanging, and walked to the house. They had known of his approach, probably long ago, and now they stepped out on the porch to meet him—old Sam and young Seth and Wes Marriner. Sam Pendletons expression was one of polite reserve, while Seth’s was one of open implacable malice. Wes Marriner’s face showed no expression at all; he was merely waiting.
Lane stopped at the foot of the porch, looking up at the three. It was, properly, old Sam who broke the silence: “Morning, Deputy.”
“Morning.” Lane’s restrained tone matched Pendleton’s. “I understand Cisco Vincent died yesterday.”
Seth murmured with tightly restrained anger, “News sure gets around fast.”
“Yeah,” Lane agreed, not ruffled by Seth’s attitude. He returned his glance to Marriner. “I think I warned you what would happen if you stepped out of line, my friend. I’m sorry it had to happen.”
“McKittrick’s filed suit,” Marriner ventured, “to the gorge tract as Vincent’s heir, is that right?”
“That’s about it,” Lane said. “Cisco Vincent had a legal claim to that land he was protecting.”
“Nobody disputed his claim. But we owned a right-of-way by right of prior use,” Marriner said. He said it impersonally, as a man stating a fact to clarify an issue; he did not talk as a man trying to defend himself.
“Then,” Lane said, as though by rote, “you should have let the courts decide for you.”
“Sure,” Marriner said dryly.
“Damn it,” Seth said hotly, “you know as well as we do what would’ve happened if we’d taken the time to go through the courts.”
Lane shook his head. “Look, son. I don’t pretend I like what I’m doing today. I’ve got no truck with Mike McKittrick and I’m the last man to defend him. But my job’s to uphold the law and take in them that break it. I know exactly what would have happened to you folks if you’d tried to beat McKittrick through the courts. You’d have been starved out long before the trial. I don’t like this kind of law any better than you do. But I’m sworn to defend it. So don’t argue with me about who’s right and who’s wrong. It ain’t going to help any of us.”
Seth made no answer, he only stood glaring somberly at his boots. Lane felt his own bitterness rise within him and he fought it down. He said to Wes Marriner, “McKittrick’s signed two complaints against you. For trespassing, and for murder.”
He held his head high and met Marriner’s glance, because he knew Marriner was not a man to argue at a time like this. Marriner nodded and Lane said, “I’ve got to take you in.”
“All right,” Marriner said calmly.
Seth’s head whipped around, his mouth dropped open in surprise. Lane heard one murmured word from old Sam Pendleton: “Good.”
Marriner said, “One condition, if you don’t mind.”
“What?”
“I keep my gun until we get to your jail. McKittrick may just have somebody planted along the trail.”
Lane watched him carefully. It struck him as funny, in a distant sort of way, that Marriner could, if he wished, choose not to submit to arrest—and Lane was not fool enough to think he could conquer Wes Marriner if Marriner chose to resist.
In his own way, Jim Lane was a tough man but part of his toughness came from the shrewdness that led him recognize a tougher man than himself.
“All right,” Lane said. “You keep your gun. I’ll feel a little safer myself, if you don’t mind my sayin’ it.” He leaned against a porch post. “Go on and saddle up your horse. I’ll wait here.”
Marriner’s eyes met his, a glance of understanding. Lane was making it plain that if Marriner chose to make a break for it, Lane was giving him a wide-open opportunity.
Lane did this for two reasons. First, he didn’t think that Marriner, having given his word, would try to escape. And second, giving Marriner this opportunity helped soften the guilt that Lane felt, the feeling that he was forced by his official office to help McKittrick’s greed, no matter how unwilling he was.
Marriner stepped off the porch and stopped beside Lane, and Lane saw a curious frown cross the small gunfighter’s lean face. Marriner said, “What would invalidate McKittrick’s complaints?”
“He could withdraw ’em,” Lane answered. “Or he could die. Or he could be convicted of a felony. I don’t know any other ways.”
“He doesn’t expect I’ll be convicted of either one of the charges,” Marriner said, softly and thoughtfully.
“No. I don’t guess he does.”
“Then he’s only got one reason for filing charges against me.”
“That’s right,” Lane answered.
“He wants me locked up long enough for him to finish what he started here. He wants me out of his way. His lawyers will find ways of postponing my trial till hell freezes over.”
“And,” Lane replied evenly, “there’s no bail on a murder charge.”
“Yeah,” Marriner breathed. “Well, it’s easy enough to bust out of jail, but that would be wasting time. If you let me go out to the barn for my horse, I’ll make a break for it.” Marriner’s voice was quite calm. “You’ll have to decide.”
Lane’s face moved; his chins wobbled; his glance locked with Marriner’s over a stretching interval of time. He knew that if he let Marriner go ahead, after Marriner had stated his intent in front of witnesses, it would be bad for him. It might mean his job. He touched the star on his vest; he held Marriner’s glance and he said softly, “I told you to go saddle up your horse, fella.”
“Yeah,” Marriner said. He did a strange thing then: he grasped Lane’s shoulder, squeezed it once and turned away, walking without hurry toward the barn.
Lane did not move but kept his attention on Marriner’s bantam figure walking away. Standing here, he was betraying his trust and he knew it; he did not make apologies for it. He was also fighting an injustice and to him, for the first time in many years, that seemed more important. So he stood quite still for a long time, until finally he heard the soft crunch of hoofs on gravel beyond the barn, and then one quick fading of those hoofbeats into the timber beyond.
Marriner made a circle wide around the yard through the heavy timber and ran at dead gallop down through the biscuit slot. Once below it, he turned west through the broken high country rather than continuing straight down through. This was as rugged a section as he had ever seen, the kind of tortured badlands that made one mile a hard hour’s journey. Spires of yellow rock stood in upthrust agony and the land pitched up and down without relief until, well after noon, he crossed the narrow top of a razor back and found himself at a bubbling spring that rose out of the rocks and fed a narrow stream. The stream went plunging rapidly down into a narrow canyon lined with the first timber Marriner had seen since leaving the Pendleton mine road.
He put his horse down between the walls of timber, riding midstream in the current to cover his tracks, and for the next half-hour followed the creek until presently, two thousand feet below its headwaters, the stream went underground. At that point, Marriner rode out of the water and came to a long meadow of grass surrounded by a circle of timber and on the fringe of these trees he stopped. He left his horse ground-hitched and performed an old maneuver—he walked briskly through the trees, making a half-circuit of the small meadow, and when he was opposite the place where he had left his horse, he stepped out of the trees and walked with clipped strides straight across the high-grass meadow back to his horse. His objective was simple but effective: a man walking through high grass, bent the grass down in the direction of his travel, while a horse walking through the same grass would bend it down opposite to his direction of travel. Therefore, by going around and coming back across the meadow on foot, he left a line of grass bent down which made it look as though he had ridden across the meadow and gone on from its far side.
Having left this false trail, he turned from the meadow and rode back across the dry sand leaving tracks that would only be perceptible to an old and experienced tracker. He suspected that Deputy Jim Lane might be such a man but Lane, he knew, was not going to wear himself out on this chase. Marriner was not thinking of Lane so much as he was of McKittrick’s wolf pack. Now that Marriner was a fugitive from the law, McKittrick would waste no time before getting his crew mounted and throwing search parties into the field. The charge was murder and the Wanted notice, Marriner knew, would be subtitled “Dead or Alive.”
He had had more than one purpose in making his escape at the mine. First, he knew that if he had allowed himself to be jailed, McKittrick would have had a free hand to bring the full strength of his vicious attack on the Pendletons and the other hill miners. And second, by running free through the badlands, Marriner was giving McKittrick something new to worry about, a diversion to draw McKittrick away from the mines.
Also, he hoped to draw McKittrick into the open by this move. McKittrick had declared war and had opened the conflict by posting Cisco Vincent in Coronel Gorge. Marriner now felt free to move, to carry the fight to McKittrick without waiting for sanction from legal authorities, for at one time in Maldonado’s McKittrick had as much as admitted that he had the courts under his thumb.
The only thorn in the situation was Jim Lane. Marriner knew what it had cost Lane to let him ride free; but Lane had made his own choice and must now accept the consequences—that was Lane’s fight, not Marriner’s. He would help Lane only if he could do it without jeopardizing his own freedom to fight McKittrick. Marriner was a product of a free frontier on which justice was measured in terms of each man’s individual ability to protect his own. Law had come only recently to this country and what law there was usually turned out to be a poor brand of law at best; The judges appointed by the federal districts were frequently incompetent jurists who had been unable to hold better posts in the Eastern districts. Many of these circuit judges were easy to buy; they were men endowed with plenty of greed and little self-respect.
In midafternoon, Marriner turned from his westward direction of travel and chose a southerly course, having in mind to make a wide circle around Washington Camp area and come back toward it from the open southern end. His hope was to catch McKittrick unprotected, with his crew riding over the hills on the search. If he could reduce this fight to a personal, face-to-face showdown between himself and McKittrick, he might be able to bring it to a quick and final end.
A warm wind breathed across the foothills; heat across the valley beneath him was a shimmering series of half mirages. Below, a river across the valley was a green stripe of crowded trees snaking across the land. He rode down through a canyon-crease cutting back; dust made a thin yellow mist. The westering sun had the tone of brass. And when twilight ran red over the hills, he was riding east across little round crosshills, keeping the international Border fence at his right. Once, shortly after full dark, he had to pull back into the scrubs and muzzle his horse while, on the far side of the fence, a patrolling Rurale rode past with double-shellbelts crossing his shoulders and a wide sombrero shading his face and a short-barreled carbine across his saddle. Marriner waited until the Rurale was long out of earshot, where upon he put his horse out of cover and resumed his ride.
Grinning a little, he displayed the boldness to light a cigarette and ride along with the smoke fleeing in thin streaks with the cooling breeze. He was confident that none of McKittrick’s men would be looking for him this far south.
His hunger had caused his lighting the smoke; he had not eaten since breakfast and he was a lean and wiry man who used up his energy quickly and needed nourishment at regular intervals. He turned north away from the fence, judging the time to be about eleven o’clock, and had no trouble finding a path in the bright wash of moonlight. Wind hummed a faint monotone through the tops of cottonwoods by a bubbling spring. He watered the horse and rode on, presently striking the Lochiel Road and turning northwest toward Washington Camp. It was now about midnight.
Saddle leather creaked now and then, and he heard the quiet jingle of bit chains and the clop of his horse’s hoofs. Beyond these there were no sounds in the night. He went up the road at a steady clip, removing his hat and letting the wind ruffle his hair. This was the kind of night a man could enjoy, were it not for thoughts of Mike McKittrick and the law both on his trail.
Shortly after two o’clock the road lifted to a summit overlooking Washington Camp, and here he turned out of the traveled ruts into the timber, heading up onto the wooded hillside where sat McKittrick’s house. He threaded the trees slowly and after a while stopped, keening the night. McKittrick’s house was straight ahead some fifty yards. Down below, nearer the Camp, was the bunkhouse of McKittrick’s crew, now dark and silent. That might mean the men were asleep or it might mean, as Marriner suspected, that the men were all out combing the hills for him. He grinned. There was a single lamp blooming out of a window at McKittrick’s house and Marriner lifted his reins to start off in that direction.
That was when the corner of his vision caught the dull gleam of moonlight on metal high in the trees on the slope above. His instinctive reaction, faster than his thinking, was to duck close to the horse’s withers and snatch up his gun. But he was not fast enough.
He felt his body lurch, a movement too quick for pain, and he heard the crackling echoes of the rifle rebounding across the hill. He felt himself slipping sideways and he clamped his legs under the horse, gripping the saddle horn with one hand, wheeling the horse around and flinging a quick succession of shots up the hill toward the ambusher’s rifle. Then it required all his attention to stay on the horse and guide it at a gallop toward the Lochiel Road; he knew he was hit somewhere in his right ribs and he knew the wound was serious because of his sudden dizziness, but the shock was still with him so he felt no pain and he knew that as long as he could hang onto his consciousness he had to run. His hands grasped the saddle horn with numbing tightness and he felt the spreading warmth of blood on his body and then the pain began to come…
During the day, Celia had watched spurts of activity around the yard; early this morning Deputy Lane had ridden in, bone-weary and sitting his saddle with sloppy fatigue. He had looked down at Celia and her father from red eyes and said in a hoarse voice, “I need a fresh mount. Can I make a swap?”
“Go ahead,” Sam had said. “You know you’re not going to find him until he wants you to find him, don’t you?”
“Sure,” Lane had said. His voice had been tired, the voice not of a man who had been twenty-four hours in the saddle but of a man who had seen his own dreams collapse when he had fought with himself and had finally betrayed himself.
Celia had felt a quick stab of pity and she had said, “I’ll make you coffee and breakfast,” and had turned inside the house before Lane’s reply; for some reason she hadn’t wanted to see his gratitude—she felt as if even this little act of kindness was her own betrayal, a betrayal of Wes Marriner.
Lane had slept two hours, then had saddled a fresh horse and had asked Sam Pendleton for men to form a posse. “No,” Sam had said. “I won’t help you in this.”
“If I don’t find him before McKittrick does,” Lane had answered, “you know what will happen.”
“I have an idea of what will happen, Deputy but it will happen to McKittrick. Wes Marriner can stand on his own feet.”
“I reckon he can,” Lane had said wearily, and then had added, “Half McKittrick’s crew is swarmin’ all over this country. If some of ’em show up here, don’t pick a fight with them if you can help it.” And so saying, Lane had ridden from the yard at a trot.
That had been four hours ago. Now it was early afternoon, and Celia was beginning to worry over her brother Seth. Late last night Seth had cursed in disgust and had ridden away from the mountain. She had known his destination; she knew of his fondness for Calla Weatherly in Washington Camp. But now he had been gone overnight and most of the day and she felt troubled for he did not usually remain away this long.
She said as much to Josiah when Josiah came up from the mine, his skin and hair coated with green ore dust.
Josiah said, “Seth’s all right, I reckon.” And went right on into the house with the stolid weariness of a man who worked steadily with his muscles day after day.
But concern for both Seth and Marriner troubled her through the rest of the afternoon until at suppertime Jim Lane rode in, exhausted after a search that clearly had been futile. Lane unsaddled and put his horse into the corral and came up to the house shaking his head.
“Nothing but McKittrick men,” he said. “They’ve got blood in their eyes. Somebody told them it’s legal to kill Wes Marriner on sight and now they’re all aching for a chance at him.” Dust dulled the gleam of the star on his vest. He stood beside Celia at the foot of the porch, batting dust off his clothes, and he muttered, “Olson; Concho; Jacks—Cisco Vincent. Our friend Wes Marriner leaves a bloody trail. But I can’t blame him for a single one of them. No honest man could blame him.”
“I know,” she answered. She was about to turn and precede him up the steps and into the house, but before she moved she heard the sound of a horse approaching and so she stayed where she was, expectant. She was rewarded when Seth appeared at the edge of the yard and trotted forward.
Seth waved vaguely and disappeared into the barn; shortly thereafter he reappeared, lugging his saddle, and took it into the tack shed. Then he came forward to the porch and said, “It’s all over.” His voice held a weariness far beyond desperation; it was hopelessness.
Celia said quickly, “What is over?”
Seth shrugged his thin shoulders. “Marriner’s down.”
“What?” Horror pushed into her soul; her whole attention was clamped on the discouraged hang of her brothers face.
Seth nodded, saying, “Marriner tried to get into Washington Camp last night. Maybe he intended to sneak in on McKittrick—I don’t know. McKittrick had a lookout posted up on the hill above his house and last night about two-thirty there was a flurry of shooting. The lookout swore he’d hit Marriner. This morning when we had a look, we found blood on the ground—a lot of blood. McKittrick’s taken whatever men he still had around and he’s been on Marriner’s trail since daybreak. It shouldn’t be hard to find him. There was too much blood, Celia.” Seth said the last almost as a plea; then he said in a whisper, “I’m sorry, Celia,” and wheeled into the house, as if he were ashamed to face her.
Big Jim Lane was frowning at the ground. “I’d better get down there,” he said. “Maybe there’s still a chance.” He turned away toward the barn.
No, Celia thought, it isn’t true. She stood numbly on the spot, remembering all the things she had not said to him, not knowing how long she stood there, until Jim Lane rode away from the barn and disappeared into the trees. A while after that, Seth reappeared at the door and came down, reaching out to grasp her shoulders, letting her come forward to lean against him, holding her while she sobbed against his chest.
But her strength returned and with it came the will to act. She straightened and pushed herself away from Seth as her brother said, “I see—you’ve decided not to grieve. You’ve decided to do something. But, damn it, Celia, it won’t work. There’s nothing to do.”
“Saddle me a horse,” she replied, and turned toward the house.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he cried.
“I’m going to make a pack of medicine and bandages and food,” she answered.
“If he’s still alive,” Seth said, “it’s because McKittrick can’t find him. If McKittrick can’t find him, how do you expect to find him?”
“I don’t. I expect him to find me.”
She went in through the door and straight back to the kitchen; she filled a small sack with flour and took what was left of a side of bacon. She put these into a burlap bag and remembered to add coffee and a bottle of whisky. She found a sharp knife, for she had dealt with bullet wounds before, and from a shelf in her room took a clean bedsheet and folded it, stuffing it into her pack. A coffeepot, frying pan, matches and a large water canteen which she slung over her shoulder completed her pack and by the time she returned to the yard, Seth was standing by her saddled horse.
“Let me ride along,” Seth said.
“No,” she said. She gathered the reins, strapped her pack on the saddle, and mounted. And left the yard at a lope, her back straight and her glance straight ahead.