The people coming from the settlement were not an army.
A woman carried a basket. Two men had walked out from the yard with their sleeves rolled up. An older boy rode a mule, and beside him a man Ruth took for his father walked with a stick he had cut from a branch. Two more women followed. Esteban's note had promised food and company at the bend. They had come expecting tired travelers rather than a fight.
Esteban called to them from the first wagon. They hurried.
The woman with the basket reached Carmela first. She put the basket in Luis's hands and caught his mother around the shoulders. Carmela made a sound Ruth had not heard from her, half laugh and half sob, then pushed away to point at Mateo.
People gathered at the wagon, asking what had happened to his leg. Eva leaned over the side to inspect the basket. The older boy on the mule stared at Inés until his father told him to fetch water instead of wearing his eyes out.
Ruth sat in the second wagon with both hands in her lap. Teresa was unwrapping the halter from the injured one. When she found a place where skin had torn, she clicked her tongue and reached for a strip of clean cloth.
“It's dirty,” Ruth said.
“I noticed.”
She poured water over it. Ruth hissed.
“Good. Still alive.”
At the lane Wade had closed the large gate. Ruth could see him riding along the fence while Asa moved the last of the horses away from it. Ellis waited with Harlan on the road outside the gate. The dust began to settle. Ruth found Lark once, lost her behind a bay, found her again. The mare had lowered her head.
Rafael put the brake on the rear wagon. The first had stopped among the receiving group while Mateo's leg was shifted. Ruth's muscles tightened. They couldn't stop. They had to keep going. Then Asa came clear of the lane and urged his horse toward the bend. He had open road now. But the woman with the basket was beside Carmela, the yard men were helping Mateo, and the rear wagon had pulled in among them.
Asa slowed.
Harlan rode around him.
Ruth got down from the wagon. Teresa caught her sleeve, then let go when she saw where Ruth meant to stand: beside the wheels, in full view, not going back to meet him privately. Benito stepped down at the other end. He kept his pistol holstered.
Harlan slowed when he reached the gathering. He looked over the unfamiliar faces as if assessing stock offered at a price he disliked.
“Those are my people,” he said to Esteban.
Esteban had a hand on Mateo's shoulder. He looked at Carmela, not Ruth.
“Are you going with him?”
“No.”
“There's your answer.”
Harlan turned toward Ruth. “You stole from me.”
“I did.”
“You'll answer for it.”
“You have your horses.”
“That doesn't settle it.”
“No,” Ruth said. “If you make a complaint, I'll come to town and answer it.”
“And you'll tell everybody your tale.”
“Mine. Carmela can tell hers.”
His gaze moved to Teresa, then the children. He bent his glove between both hands.
“I'm not putting my ranch business before every idle mouth in town. I've got my stock. Keep clear of my ground.”
She couldn't make the theft disappear by naming what he had done. She had known that when she opened the first gate. His choice not to complain was his to change. It frightened her more now, standing on foot without Lark beneath her. Harlan still had a ranch, money, men who could ride to town and speak for him. All she had accomplished was what she could see: Carmela at the wagon, Teresa beside her, Inés free to stare at an awkward boy instead of Asa's back.
Harlan lifted his hand toward the family.
“We're going home. Get down.”
Nobody did.
Asa rode up behind him. He had dust along one side of his face where a horse had brushed him against a rail.
“Sixty,” he said. “Wade's counted. All sound enough to take back. The red roan's got scratches. Calder's mare's there too.”
Ruth's stomach clenched at her name attached to the mare. She made herself stand still.
“Good,” Harlan said. “Take Benito first.”
Asa looked at the wagon. Benito had not moved, but Teresa came to stand beside him. Inés rose behind the tailboard. The men from the stockyard watched, one with his hands spread against the wagon's side, the other still holding a water jar.
“I've got your stock,” Asa said.
“I heard you.”
“Then I'll take it home.”
Harlan turned in the saddle. “I gave you an order.”
“I know.”
Asa's face had gone the color it went before he hit a man. Ruth braced. He looked at Benito, then past him to the boy with the mule and the woman holding Eva's cup.
“I'm not dragging people off another man's wagon in front of half the road. You want that done, Harlan, you do it.”
He had used Harlan's name. Ruth saw the rancher's eyes shift, a tiny movement toward Wade, who was coming up from the lane. Wade stopped at Asa's shoulder.
“Horses are watered,” he said. “We can get them to the last pond before dark if we go now.”
“You too?” Harlan asked.
Wade looked old. “I'm taking the horses.”
He did not look at Carmela. She didn't thank him.
The man with the water jar set it down. He came beside Esteban, not close enough to crowd Harlan's horse. Others moved nearer the wagons. It wasn't a charge. No one made a speech. But Harlan would have to reach through them now to get at the people he wanted, and his men had turned their own horses toward their paid work.
Ruth could see him making the calculation. He hated that she could see it.
“You think they'll keep you?” he asked her.
She looked toward the wagon. Teresa was checking the cloth around Ruth's palm for blood. It was a kindness small enough to accept without pretending it promised more.
“I haven't asked them to.”
Harlan's mouth twisted. “Your mare will be in her stall.”
The pain was so sharp that for a second she couldn't speak.
“She's mine.”
“Then come home and get her.”
Lark would be there. Harlan would feed her, brush the sweat from her coat, see to the rubbed place Ruth had tended.
She stepped backward to the wagon.
Harlan waited. It took all she had not to look toward the lane again.
“Ruthie.”
She climbed onto the tailboard. Teresa helped her without comment. Rafael released the brake.
For a few yards Harlan rode beside them. Then he stopped. The wagon moved on, the people from the settlement walking with it, talking again in awkward starts. Eva asked whether there were eggs in the basket. Someone told her there were, but not all for her.
Ruth faced forward.
Behind them Asa called to Wade about the gate. A horse struck a board, and another answered. Ruth knew Lark's voice well enough to listen for it.
She heard nothing she could be sure of.